The Fallen Sister

As Sibyl released her psychic spell, her gaze pierced straight through the thick Ceramite door, revealing the scene inside the Bridge.

She ignored the meaningless profane artwork covering the walls and scattered throughout the space. Her attention went straight to a ritual altar at the center of the Bridge.

The stone ritual altar was made up of ring after ring. Counting outward from the center, there were six rings in total, each lined with six stone pillars.

A human was bound in thick iron chains atop each of the thirty-six pillars.

They varied in height, build, age, and appearance. All had their heads bowed, unconscious, their bodies covered in blood-red profane markings.

What made Sibyl's breath catch was the faint radiance surrounding every captive. It meant that each and every one of them was a Psyker.

"Damn it, we have to stop this ritual!"

The extensive experience of a veteran Inquisitor immediately told Sibyl what was happening.

There was no need to waste time figuring out the ritual's purpose. If a Chaos ritual required the powerful souls of Psykers, then its destructive potential could only be immense. It had to be stopped at once!

Realizing there was no time to alert her teammates, Sibyl acted immediately. Invisible Psychic Power gathered in the air and slammed toward the ritual altar!

Nothing happened.

"It was blocked?!"

Sibyl's eyes narrowed.

The Chaos Lord standing above, looking down at the altar, wore a faint smile. Suddenly, he turned his head and met her gaze.

"Damn it, I'm too late!"

Sibyl's heart sank.

Just as she had expected, every Psyker bound to the pillars let out a scream of unimaginable agony at the same instant. Vast amounts of psychic energy poured out of them as their souls were torn free.

The ritual drew all thirty-six souls together at the center of the altar, condensing them into a single point. Violent white Psy-lightning began to lash out.

As a Psyker with keen senses, Sibyl began to hear things that weren't there. It seemed as though the Veil between reality and the Warp were both cracking with a "creak, creak."

"Not good!"

With the ritual complete, psychic energy erupted and sent violent waves surging through the Warp. The area of effect continued to expand, spreading across a vast region.

What was going on?

Even Rowan, who had no connection to the Warp and cast no reflection within it, sensed that the atmosphere had quietly changed.

Some extraordinarily active force drifted through the air. The temperature plunged, and faint ice crystals even appeared on the ground beneath their feet.

"Ugh!"

A pained groan came from behind him. Rowan whirled around to see the other three kneeling helplessly on the ground, their faces contorted. They were clearly struggling to resist something with their minds.

Rowan immediately raised both hands and activated his Reality Warping Ability. He spread it over their minds, trying to ease their pain and strengthen their resistance.

"It won't work..."

But soon, he frowned and reached a conclusion.

Reality Warping could indeed ease their pain, but the Warp's influence continued unabated, and the small Warp storm was still growing stronger.

As soon as he withdrew his power, they would have to keep resisting the Warp's waves. It was pointless. They would only be able to move once the small Warp storm had passed.

Briefly regaining clarity, Sibyl summoned her willpower and struggled to raise her head. Her eyes bloodshot, she mouthed a few words to Rowan.

"Don't... help..."

Understood.

Through the connection between a Reality Warper and those he had converted, Rowan instantly read her thoughts.

She was right. There was something more important to do.

Having made up his mind, he turned without hesitation and fixed his gaze on the Ceramite door. At a thought, his Reality Warping Ability immediately bored a huge hole through it.

Beside him, the Executioner's main cannon shed its optical camouflage. Its treads rumbled as it accelerated toward the door, its massive barrel thrusting straight through the hole.

The Machine Spirit began to surge with fervor, and blinding Plasma energy gradually brightened.

"Blast them to kingdom come!"

That should do it.

Almost at the same moment, the Chaos Lord thought so, naturally enough.

After the violent psychic shockwave, the ritual altar had been blasted to pieces. Stone fragments and human flesh lay jumbled together in a field of rubble.

Standing atop the wreckage was a monster with grotesquely deformed limbs.

She was extremely tall, her body twisted and mutated. She had four arms and crablike claws, and held four swords of different shapes. She looked nothing like a human.

She was the Slaaneshi Daemon Prince, Miriael Sabathiel.

As the first Battle Sister to fall, she was Slaanesh's favored one, lavishly blessed by the Lord of Pleasure.

She was therefore the ultimate predator in the entire Galaxy. Nothing could stop her from offering her prey's soul to the Lord of Pleasure.

Beneath the influence of her terrifying aura of seduction, even a warrior of unshakable resolve would suffer horrific corruption of the soul if he looked directly at this monster, becoming a useless, drooling wreck.

The Chaos Lord's ritual was nothing particularly sophisticated. It simply used a special method to blast a hole in the Veil between reality and the Warp.

At that point, beings from Slaanesh's realm could answer the summons and pass through the breach into the Real Universe.

The method had a major drawback. In just a few days, the closing Veil might "starve" these beings to death in the Real Universe, eventually banishing them back to the Warp.

But as far as the Chaos Lord was concerned, that was more than enough.

Even a Living Saint of the Corpse Emperor couldn't defeat her!

But just as he was thinking this—

A pitch-black cannon barrel thrust through the hole in the door. The next instant, a thick, dazzling blue beam of Plasma blasted straight toward her.

The Slaaneshi Daemon Prince, who had only just entered realspace, never expected a surprise attack. She instinctively dodged to the side, but was a fraction of a second too slow.

Hiss—!

Blinding blue light swallowed half her body in an instant, reducing two of her arms to nothingness.

"AAAAAAAH!"

Miriael had clearly never expected to be hit by such a powerful attack.

The searing Plasma brought excruciating pain, drawing a howl from her. But it soon turned into a soft, melodious moan, as if she were savoring the lingering sensation of pain.

The Executioner's main cannon fired again and again, sending Plasma shells flying toward her one after another.

Without hesitation, the Daemon Prince began a graceful, nimble dance. She dodged one blast after another at a speed the Machine Spirit couldn't begin to match.

In the end, she seemed to tire of the game and tossed the swords in her hands with casual ease.

The blades turned into streaks of light, moving so fast that even the air couldn't escape. It compressed in layer upon layer along their edges.

Boom!

The blades struck the cannon barrel, instantly blowing it apart in a shower of fragments. The violent shockwave also tore through the thick Ceramite door, which crashed down and broke into several pieces.

Light poured in from outside. Rowan stood in its glow, his gaze meeting Miriael's.