Black Hole

Death! Can't block! Dodge now!

These three thoughts flashed through Miriael's mind in succession.

Relying on the keen perception and reflexes blessed by the Chaos Gods' Lord of Pleasure, elevated to a terrifying degree, Miriael sensed something was wrong the moment Rowan plunged his hand into the plasma.

But she never expected his attack to come so fast, and so... vast.

The raging plasma truly formed a towering wave surging toward her. Wherever it passed, the once-hard ceramite floor was instantly vaporized, merging with the air.

Countless plasma spheres scattered, each with the power of an artillery shell, splintering like shrapnel in every direction. The attack's range had already engulfed most of the bridge space.

How to dodge?

With such coverage, normal evasion was impossible. She would absolutely suffer catastrophic damage, enough to shatter her bones.

She had to jump!

Miriael made her decision instantly, stomping one foot on the ground without hesitation.

In that moment, her figure vanished from its spot like an illusion, shooting upward like a rocket aimed at the sky, rising higher and higher, forcibly evading the torrent-like strike.

Of course, this was only a temporary fix.

Midair, Miriael stared blankly downward.

What met her eyes was the increasingly violent plasma tide, consuming everything into nothingness—except for one thing.

Her legs.

Just as the Slaaneshi Daemon Prince leaped, Rowan moved with a thought, manipulating a portion of the plasma to shift trajectory, striking toward the soaring Miriael.

Though it didn't land fully, it still melted and shattered most of her twisted, alien thighs, covered by the Ecstasy Armor, into charred slag.

It's over.

This was the thought surging in Miriael's mind, an answer given by an indescribable, inexplicable instinct.

She sensed something utterly foreign, something she hadn't felt since her ascension to daemonhood:

The scent of death.

Somehow, her consciousness seemed shrouded in a haze. Under such severe injury, her thoughts began to spiral into chaos.

Am I going to die?

Not like before, when after taking massive damage, her body would shatter, her consciousness would return to the Warp, awaiting the next descent into reality and the next wave of pleasure.

Earlier, Miriael had sensed that the Lifeless Ones of the Warp and the Chaos Astartes bound by her contracts—their souls all vanished into nothingness, never returning to the Lord of Pleasure's Six Rings.

Miriael had thought the Living Saint was responsible for all this.

Now she suddenly realized it was this... "person" before her.

This being, whether a Warp Minor God or some special existence!

No, she had to save herself.

In less than 0.01 seconds, Miriael made her decision.

Before she could be caught by the artificial gravity and plunge into the sea of plasma below, she immediately swung the Blade of Agony in her hand.

But this time, the blade's edge pointed not at any enemy the Lord of Pleasure despised, but at her own head.

Yes, Miriael was going to kill herself.

Talk of experiencing the sensation of death, of obtaining pleasure never felt before—it was all empty words.

The moment she realized her consciousness might vanish into nothingness, her eternal life ending here, Miriael, the Slaaneshi Daemon Prince, instantly chickened out.

I can't die!

I want to return to Slaanesh's Six Rings!

Yes, that's right, I need to tell them that a new powerful enemy has appeared in the real world, to let the other Warp Demons know that the Accursed has gained another ally!

Yet, even so, she still failed.

The blade suddenly halted, as if sealed in some kind of amber, or locked tight by an invisible force.

Who?

Following the source of the psychic fluctuation, Miriael slowly turned her head to see a figure, appearing behind Rowan at some unknown moment.

It was Sibyl, who had just finished dealing with that Chaos Lord and rushed back through Warp teleportation to support the battlefield.

The moment she appeared, she received Rowan's telepathic message, understood immediately, and abruptly unleashed her psychic power.

Sibyl fully released her Alpha-level psychic might. An invisible hand of telekinetic force clamped down on the Blade of Agony, holding it fast so it couldn't advance for a short time.

Of course, given the Slaaneshi Daemon Prince's psychic resistance, this power shouldn't have been able to stop her for long—but merely delaying her for a moment was more than enough.

"Nice work."

Rowan praised, then immediately raised his hand, his finger pointing lightly toward Miriael.

And then, for the first time, he fully activated his newly elevated Reality Warping Ability.

"What was that?"

Miriael's pupils abruptly dilated. A sudden blooming of profound darkness appeared before her eyes, as if a bottomless black hole had split open on the canvas called the universe, or like the eye of some demon god opening, tyrannically devouring all matter and color.

Including, naturally, her own body!

Within the Bridge, the violent air currents no longer expanded outward but instead surged inward, rapidly withdrawing. Plasma and everything else also crazily rushed into that darkness, ultimately devoured to the last.

Then, that miniature Black Hole began to oscillate, as if about to spew out all the highly compressed matter restrained within the powerful Gravity Field.

Rowan casually snapped his fingers.

Together with the matter within, and the Black Hole on the verge of losing control, it all silently annihilated the instant the snap fell.

"What... was that?"

The Adeptus Custodes Leonardo's body had already been eroded by the terrifying poison of Slaanesh. He was now kneeling on the ground, swaying, but he propped himself up with unwavering will, forcibly refusing to fall, his voice trembling as he asked.

"Oh, that was just a little trick. You could understand it as a black hole from my imagination."

Rowan said offhandedly.

With the Adeptus Custodes' all-discipline-level knowledge, Leonardo clearly had a belly full of questions he wanted to ask, but in the end, he forcibly held back.

He only asked one question that seemed obvious.

"Is that daemon dead?"

"Of course it's dead."

Rowan glanced at the Custodes with slight surprise, as if he hadn't expected him to ask such a question.

"This is only the beginning. For the millions of blood debts that degenerate has committed, and the shame she brought upon the Battle Sisters, we will continue the hunt next and make her pay more."

The Living Saint's condition was clearly much better than Leonardo's. She straightened her body, her gaze fixed on the direction where Miriael had vanished, and spoke in a low voice.

"No, you might think she was banished back to the Warp, but that's not the case."

Rowan, as if sensing that Lucia might have misunderstood something, calmly repeated:

"That Daemon Prince is dead, permanently ended. And you're right, this is only the beginning."

"Those Lifeless Ones of the Warp who treat reality as their playground, their days of rampaging unchecked will soon be gone for good."