Author Note: Sorry for the late update. This chapter draft was longer than expected. I managed to shorten it. Enjoy.
…
Saint Celestine
…
Divine Essence: Daemon Memory
The daemon remembered the first world that had begged it for mercy.
It remembered seas boiling beneath its fire, continents splitting beneath its weight, and the voices of an entire species rising together before falling silent. It remembered kings opening their cities in exchange for another day of life, only to watch those cities burn before the promised day had ended. Their terror had pleased it, because terror proved that every living thing understood its place beneath the strong.
For an age, nothing had stood above the daemon.
Its body filled a valley in Hell. Had the greatest Imperial Titan stood beneath it, the war engine would scarcely have reached the first joint of its leg. Horns like mountain ridges curved from its skull, vast wings stretched across the burning sky, and layers of black armour had grown over flesh dense enough to endure the pressure of collapsing worlds. Every breath pushed storms of ash across the surrounding plains.
Armies served it upon the slopes below. Lesser daemons crowded between rivers of molten stone, fighting one another for the right to stand nearest their master, while greater creatures watched from citadels raised along the distant peaks. None dared challenge the being that ruled the dominion.
Then a figure in green armour entered the valley.
He came through no portal. No wound opened in the sky, and no sorcery announced his arrival. One moment, the plain before the daemon was empty; the next, an armoured warrior stood upon the black glass with a double-barrelled weapon lowered at his side.
The daemon knew him, and so did every creature in the valley.
The reaction began at the edge of the host. Daemons turned from the warrior and fled toward the mountains, trampling those too slow to follow. Winged creatures climbed into the smoke, while sorcerers tore openings into other dominions and threw themselves through before the passages had fully formed.
The daemon watched its servants abandon the valley, and it felt disgust before it felt concern.
The warrior walked toward it without hurry. His pace did not change as the host broke around him, and he did not raise the weapon in his hands. He looked only at the mountainous creature waiting beyond them.
The daemon opened its jaws.
Fire gathered inside a throat large enough to swallow a fortress. The glow spread down its neck and through the plates covering its chest until the entire valley shone red beneath it. Then the daemon released the inferno.
The blast swallowed the plain from one mountain wall to the other. Lesser daemons vanished before they could scream. Towers softened, folded, and disappeared into the ground, while rivers of molten stone burst from their channels and became vapour. The advancing fire continued beyond the valley and burned through the first line of mountains.
For several moments, nothing existed below except white heat.
The daemon closed its jaws and waited for the plain to cool.
Footsteps sounded beneath the fire.
The warrior emerged without a mark upon him. His armour remained pristine as the flames divided around it and closed behind him, leaving the black glass glowing beneath his boots. He had raised no shield and made no attempt to avoid the attack. He had simply continued walking through it.
The daemon attacked again, forcing more power through its throat until cracks opened between its armour plates. The second firestorm burned hotter than the first and drove the surrounding mountains into the earth.
The warrior kept coming.
Concern entered the daemon then, small enough to be mistaken for anger.
It reached into the valley with its mind.
Telekinetic force seized everything that remained. Broken towers tore free from their foundations. Lakes of molten stone rose into the air as burning spheres, while slabs of black glass hundreds of metres thick ripped from the plain. The daemon gathered the wreckage above the warrior until the mass darkened the sky, then brought it down upon him.
The impact drove through the valley floor. Stone folded inward, fire and dust climbed beyond the daemon's head, and the shock passed through Hell strongly enough to shake citadels in neighbouring dominions. A crater opened where the warrior had stood, its bottom hidden beneath the collapse.
The daemon searched the ruin with every sense it possessed.
Nothing moved.
Its satisfaction lasted until a metal hook burst from the dust and buried itself beneath an armour plate upon its chest.
A chain snapped tight.
The warrior rose from the crater, pulled upward by the weapon in his hands. He crossed kilometres in seconds, struck the daemon's chest, and fired both barrels into the seam beneath the plate. The blast opened flesh that had survived the weapons of dead gods.
Pain moved through the daemon, a sensation it had almost forgotten.
The creature struck its own chest with one hand, crushing armour and flesh together in an attempt to kill the warrior beneath its palm. When it pulled the hand away, the green figure was no longer there.
He stood upon its wrist, and a blade extended from his gauntlet.
The daemon closed its fingers, but the warrior crossed its arm before the hand could reach him. The blade entered the joint of its elbow, cut once, and emerged from the opposite side. The limb separated beneath its own weight and fell into the valley, breaking what remained of the plain.
The daemon roared.
New flesh grew across the wound at once. Bone extended from the ruined joint, muscle gathered over it, and armour formed in layers above the muscle. The daemon had rebuilt the limb a thousand times after a thousand wars.
The warrior waited upon its shoulder until the arm had almost returned.
Then he fired a weapon that sent a blade of blue energy through the new elbow and removed the limb again.
The daemon felt the second loss more clearly than the first.
It teleported.
Space folded around its body, carrying it beyond the valley and across the boundaries separating the dominions of Hell. The daemon reappeared upon a dead world suspended over an abyss, where broken moons circled beneath the land and gravity pulled in six directions at once.
The warrior stood upon its shoulder.
The daemon had carried him with it.
Fear entered the creature's thoughts, and this time anger could no longer conceal it.
The daemon tore at him with its remaining hand. The warrior moved across its body, passing between claws large enough to shear battleships apart. Explosive rounds opened the tendons beneath the daemon's fingers, a burning blade cut through its wrist, and when the creature tried to crush him against its neck, he leapt onto its face and drove the blade through one eye.
The dead world shook beneath the daemon's scream.
It spread its wings and seized the landscape with its mind. Mountains ripped from the horizon, trailing roots of molten rock. Islands rose from the underside of the world, passed around its edge, and joined the mass gathering above the creature. Ruined fortresses, dead cities, and the remains of ancient war machines followed until half the world hung in the sky.
The daemon brought everything down upon its own head.
Continents collided.
The blow shattered one horn, broke the daemon's jaw, and buried its upper body beneath enough stone to form a new mountain range. The world tilted under the impact, throwing pieces of its surface into the abyss.
The daemon dragged itself free. Its broken jaw repaired itself, a new eye opened beneath the blood covering its face, and the missing horn began pushing through the ruined armour of its skull.
The warrior stood upon the growing horn, uninjured and unshaken.
The daemon understood that it could not escape him, but the greater understanding came after that. The warrior had reached its skull more than once. He had stood beside the core of fire within its chest, and he had opened wounds through which he could have destroyed the heart beneath.
Each time, he had turned aside.
He had taken an arm, waited for it to return, and taken it again. He had blinded the daemon, allowed the eye to regrow, and destroyed the new one before it had fully opened. Every escape had been permitted long enough to become hope before the warrior appeared beside it.
The battle had never been a battle.
It was a sentence.
The daemon remembered the worlds beneath its feet, the armies burning in its shadow, and the children carried toward its altars. Those memories had once been trophies, but now they returned with another meaning. Every wound the warrior inflicted answered a wound the daemon had given to someone weaker, and every moment of fear repaid a fraction of the terror it had spread across creation.
The warrior was not trying to discover whether he could kill it, because he had known from the beginning.
The daemon tried to bargain. It offered dominions, armies, secrets taken from the first wars of Hell, and paths into realities the warrior had never seen. It promised service, worship, and every soul still imprisoned within its fortresses.
The dark visor gave no answer.
The warrior broke its second wing.
The daemon begged the powers ruling beyond its dominion to intervene. It called to every throne in Hell and every ancient presence that had once accepted its offerings.
Nothing came.
They had felt the warrior enter the dominion, and they had fled with the rest.
Time lost meaning. The daemon regenerated because its nature allowed nothing else, and the warrior destroyed whatever returned. He dismantled the creature without permitting death, reducing the ruler of worlds to something that could only endure and remember.
At last, the daemon lay across the broken world with neither wings nor arms. One eye remained, fixed upon the figure walking along its face. Fire, stone, and blood had failed to leave so much as a stain upon the warrior's armour.
Golden light appeared behind his visor.
The daemon felt the change pass through Hell.
Every creature within hundreds of thousand of kilometers recognised the power and ran. Portals opened across the dead world. Greater daemons abandoned citadels they had ruled for ages, while lesser creatures threw themselves into the abyss rather than remain near the light.
The mountainous daemon could not follow them.
The warrior placed one hand against its skull.
For the first time, the creature sensed what waited beyond the next moment. There would be no retreat into the Warp, no reconstruction within the fires of Hell, and no new body shaped from the hatred of mortals. The power entering it did not banish the daemon. It reached beneath flesh, soul, and memory to find the corruption holding them together.
The daemon felt that corruption come apart.
Its final emotion was not pain, but the knowledge that the warrior had chosen exactly how long the pain would last.
Then the daemon ceased to exist.
With its death, Celestine finally awakens from unconsciousness.
…
The Mountain Wasteland of Cadia
Celestine awoke beneath an overhanging wall of stone.
For a moment, she remained trapped inside a body vast enough to cover mountains. She felt the loss of wings she had never possessed, the pain of arms severed a hundred times, and the last touch of golden light passing through a skull larger than a cathedral.
Her own heart beat beneath those memories, too fast and too small, while the daemon's final terror clung to her thoughts.
Then Cadia returned around her.
Cold stone pressed against her back. Dust covered her armour, and the ceiling of the hollow hung less than two metres above her. Violet light entered through the open side facing the valley. The air smelled of shattered earth, blood, and metal burned during the fall from orbit.
The Ardent Blade rested beside her.
Its golden fire had dimmed, but it had not gone out. The Slayer had placed the weapon close enough for her to reach without moving, then carried the battle away from the hollow while she lay unconscious.
Celestine remembered Drach'nyen entering beneath her breastplate.
The daemon sword had pierced her during their descent through Cadia's atmosphere and emerged through her back. One wing had gone dark at once. She remembered the Slayer catching her before the light around them failed, his arm holding her against his chest as mountains rose through the clouds beneath them.
Then nothing.
Celestine placed one hand over the wound.
Her breastplate remained crushed around the opening. Its metal was blackened where Drach'nyen had entered, and dried blood covered the armour beneath it. The flesh below was unmarked. The ribs broken during the impact had returned to place, both lungs filled without pain, and the corruption that had spread toward her heart was gone.
Celestine pushed herself upright.
Her shoulder struck the stone overhead. A section of the overhang broke free and shattered beside her, sending fragments across the hollow. Celestine stared at the damage, certain she had used no more strength than she would have needed to rise from prayer.
Something had changed within her.
Power filled every part of her body. It did not descend upon her through faith or flow from the Immaterium. It rested inside her as naturally as breath. She had known the Emperor's light in life and death. She had carried it across battlefields, felt it answer the prayers of the faithful, and returned from darkness because His will had not released her.
This was not that light.
It asked for no prayer. It simply existed within her.
Celestine opened her wings. Both spread cleanly behind her, every golden-white feather restored, including those Drach'nyen had extinguished. No pain moved through the joints, and no weakness remained from the wound or the fall.
Her senses passed through the hollow and into the mountain around it. She felt every fracture in the stone, the buried ruins beneath the valley, and the pressure holding the damaged ridge together.
She reached toward the Ardent Blade.
The weapon entered her hand before her fingers touched it. Its familiar fire rose along the edge, and beneath that flame moved the same quiet power waiting inside her.
Celestine stepped from the hollow.
The wasteland had been devastated while she slept. The mountain they had struck was split from summit to base, its upper slope spread across the valley in broken layers. Farther away, ridges had collapsed around fresh craters. Trenches crossed the black earth where bodies had been driven through it, and golden light still glowed faintly within cracks opened by the final battle.
The Doom Slayer walked toward her through the settling dust.
Nothing of Abaddon followed him.
The Praetor suit remained pristine. No crack, scorch, bloodstain, or layer of dust marked its surface, as though the Slayer had not fallen from orbit and fought the Warmaster across the mountains. Thin traces of golden light remained beneath the armour's joints and behind its dark visor.
Celestine could no longer feel the pressure that had followed Abaddon from the fortress and through Cadia's atmosphere. The four vast presences gathered around him were gone as well, their attention torn away from the valley so completely that the silence they left seemed unnatural.
She knew the answer, but she needed to hear it.
"What is the fate of Abaddon?" Celestine asked softly, searching the ruined valley behind the Slayer.
"He is dead," the Slayer answered, standing motionless behind his dark visor.
"Can the Chaos Gods bring him back?" Celestine asked, watching him for any sign of uncertainty.
"No," the Slayer replied without hesitation, his voice flat and absolute.
Celestine extended her senses across the wasteland. She found no body, soul, armour, or weapon belonging to the Warmaster. The Talon of Horus had disappeared with him. Drach'nyen had left no fragment, corruption, or presence behind. Abaddon and the daemon sword had vanished together.
"Nothing remains, then?" Celestine asked.
"Nothing at all," the Slayer confirmed, his voice as final as the destruction he had delivered.
Ten thousand years of war had ended with those three words.
Celestine lowered her head, not in mourning for the enemy, but beneath the weight of what his destruction meant. Primarchs, saints, Chapter Masters, Lord Generals, and entire armies had fought to hold Abaddon back, yet the Long War had endured through every victory claimed against him. Now the Despoiler was gone, denied even the immortality promised by the gods he had served.
"Then I owe you more than my life. Every world he would have burned owes you the same," Celestine said, lowering her head with solemn gratitude.
The Slayer gave no answer.
He did not look like a conqueror waiting to be praised. He looked beyond her toward Cadia's burning horizon, as though Abaddon's death had only cleared the way to the next enemy.
Celestine understood why the daemon's memory had changed her. She had admired the Slayer's strength before, and she had trusted him in battle, but admiration now felt too distant a word. She had shared the terror of a creature that had murdered worlds and felt the certainty with which he punished it.
His judgement had been merciless, perhaps more merciless than she would have chosen, yet no corruption had turned that judgement from its purpose. He had carried his hatred for ages without surrendering it to the things he hated.
The unfamiliar power stirred beneath her skin.
"What did you place inside me?" Celestine asked, studying the light moving beneath her flesh.
"My essence," the Slayer answered, his visor resting upon the faint glow along her wrist.
Celestine watched the thin line of gold fade. "It destroyed Drach'nyen's corruption," she said, tracing the healed flesh beneath her broken breastplate.
"And healed you," the Slayer added, glancing toward the place where the daemon sword had struck.
"How much did you give me?" Celestine asked, reaching inward for the limits of the power.
"A fragment," the Slayer replied, giving the answer without emphasis.
She searched within herself, following the power past flesh and bone until her awareness reached a depth she could not measure. It did not weaken or reveal any boundary. The attempt left her with the sense of standing beside an ocean whose far shore did not exist.
"What you call a fragment feels limitless," Celestine said, wonder entering her voice as her awareness failed to find its end.
"To you, it does," the Slayer answered, placing her new strength within a far greater scale.
Celestine raised her eyes to his visor. "Then what I carry is only a fraction of your complete strength," she said, unable to hide her awe.
The Slayer nodded once.
The answer should have frightened her. Instead, the daemon's memory returned, along with the knowledge that all its mountains, fire, and ancient power had never forced the Slayer to reveal the full measure of his own strength.
"The dream came through this connection," Celestine said, remembering the daemon's terror as though it still belonged to her.
"An echo of a dead daemon," the Slayer replied, remaining still beneath the falling dust.
"From a battle you fought ages ago, do remember who it was?" Celestine said, studying him more carefully.
"I cannot tell which daemon it was. I have killed countless," the Slayer answered, his voice carrying no pride in the admission.
Celestine remembered the dead world through senses that had never been human. She remembered the terrible certainty that had entered the daemon when it understood why its death had been delayed.
"Why did I see the memory through the creature?" Celestine asked, unsettled by how clearly she remembered its pain.
"I do not know," the Slayer answered, turning his visor toward the ruined mountains.
He slowly closed one gauntleted hand. "I know only that when I kill daemons, I take their essence," the Slayer continued, his voice low and reserved.
Celestine considered his words.
"The corruption dies, only the power remains," the Slayer finished, his tone cold and certain.
The memory remained as well, Celestine realised, though only as the echo of something that no longer existed.
…
Hundreds of Kilometers from Kasr Kraf
They left the valley where Abaddon and Drach'nyen had vanished together and crossed the surrounding mountain range.
Celestine carried the Slayer above the broken ridges, testing her restored wings as they travelled west of Kasr Kraf. The fragment answered every intention before effort could follow. One beat carried them across a valley. The next sent them beyond a line of peaks. The Slayer's weight placed no strain upon her arm.
Celestine chose a valley without roads or fortifications. Her new senses passed beneath the stone, searched the abandoned mining galleries, and continued for hundreds of kilometres in every direction. She found no soldiers, no civilians, and no life larger than the carrion birds circling far to the south.
As they descended toward a ridge, Celestine released the Slayer.
He struck the ground beside her with enough weight to crush the surface, while Celestine landed so lightly that the dust beneath her boots did not move.
That difference had once seemed impossible.
Now it came without thought.
Celestine looked toward a solitary mountain rising from the opposite side of the valley. Its summit stood above the clouds, its lower slopes lay buried beneath ancient landslides, and no structure marked its surface.
"I need to know what this power can do before I carry it into battle. I will not risk harming our allies," Celestine said, planting her feet upon the ridge as she studied the distant peak.
"Then test it," the Slayer replied, resting the Super Shotgun against one shoulder.
Celestine lifted the Ardent Blade and allowed the fragment to spread through her body.
The change was immediate.
She heard dust moving over stone on the far side of the valley, felt the pressure within buried veins of metal, and saw the warmth left by sunlight upon the mountain's highest face. Time did not slow, yet every movement within it became clear. Her body waited ahead of her thoughts, ready to cross the valley before she could decide upon the first step.
She drew the power into the sword.
Golden fire rose along its edge, brighter than it had ever burned before. A second energy gathered beneath the flame, colourless at first, then white where it pressed against reality. The air bent toward the blade. Stones lifted from the ridge, and the clouds above the mountain began turning around a point that had not existed moments before.
Celestine intended to cut away the summit.
She released the power.
Light crossed the valley without seeming to travel. It touched the mountain from its base to its peak, and for one suspended moment, every ridge and fracture stood outlined in white.
The mountain disappeared.
There was no collapse. No shattered summit fell into the valley, and no boulders rolled across the slopes. The entire mass became a column of glowing particles that spread upon the wind, leaving open sky where millions of tonnes of stone had stood.
The sound arrived later.
Pressure struck the ridge, divided around Celestine and the Slayer, then rolled into the valleys behind them. Clouds tore apart overhead. Smaller peaks shed avalanches, and cracks crossed the stone beneath Celestine's boots, but she felt no strain from the power she had released.
She had used only a tenth of what waited within her.
The Ardent Blade remained raised in her hand. Its fire settled to gold while the last white traces faded from its edge.
"That was meant to remove the summit. I used only a tenth of the essence," Celestine admitted, staring at the empty space where the mountain had stood.
"A tenth too much," the Slayer said, surveying the destruction without surprise.
"Far too much," Celestine agreed, lowering the Ardent Blade as unease tightened her grip.
The Slayer said nothing.
The fragment inside her had erased an entire mountain when she had meant to remove only its summit, yet its source was the same contained power the Slayer had carried through every battle she had witnessed without revealing its full measure.
"Why do you keep this strength contained? You could end most battles before they begin," Celestine asked, turning toward him with open disbelief.
"It's because Daemons could feel it from far away," the Slayer replied, keeping his visor upon the vanished mountain.
"From how far?" Celestine asked, narrowing her eyes.
"The weak sense it across millions of kilometres. The strong can sense it across billions of kilometres," the Slayer answered, his voice flat beneath the helmet.
Even the shorter distance reached far beyond the width of most worlds. The greater distance could cross entire planetary systems.
"And when they feel you?" Celestine asked, remembering the armies fleeing through Hell.
"They run," the Slayer said, turning his gaze toward the eastern horizon.
Celestine remembered Hell emptying around the mountainous daemon. "So you keep the power contained to prevent their escape," she said, understanding settling across her face.
"Yes," the Slayer confirmed with a single nod.
"You allow them to believe they can fight you. Then you use that belief to destroy them," Celestine said, studying him with a mixture of admiration and unease.
"Yes," the Slayer replied, his hands remaining loose at his sides.
The answer carried no pride. It was a hunter's calculation, reduced to the fewest words required.
"And when you catch them, you do not always kill them as quickly as you can," Celestine said, recalling every wound from the daemon's memory.
"A quick death is mercy," the Slayer answered, facing the place where the mountain had disappeared.
"A mercy you refuse to give them, why?" Celestine said, watching him with quiet concern.
"They gave none to the countless innocents they slaughtered," the Slayer replied, his voice hardening beneath the helmet.
The daemon's pain returned through Celestine's memory. Each destroyed limb had been followed by the false hope of regeneration. Every escape had been permitted only so that it could fail.
She understood the hatred behind the method. She had seen what daemons left of worlds and crossed battlefields where their victims still screamed after death. Part of her had felt the same satisfaction when the ancient creature finally understood that no god would save it.
Another part remembered that, while one daemon suffered, others remained free to kill.
"You said you release the essence only when nothing else is enough. Is preventing their escape your only reason for restraining it?" Celestine asked, lowering her sword as she waited for an honest answer.
The Slayer looked down at one gauntlet. For an instant, a line of gold appeared beneath its joints, then vanished.
"Daemons and their gods used power like this. Men worshipped it. They offered sacrifices to feed it," the Slayer said, staring at the fading light with restrained disgust.
Celestine waited.
"It is a weapon. Nothing more," the Slayer continued, closing his fist until the light disappeared.
Celestine understood what he left unsaid. To embrace the power as proof of divinity would place him beside the beings he had spent ages destroying. He would wield it when required, but he would not build an identity around it, accept worship for it, or allow its scale to decide what he became.
"The stronger the creature, the longer you punish it. Why?" Celestine asked, her expression tightening as the daemon's agony returned to her memory.
"The stronger it is, the more worlds it has destroyed," the Slayer replied, meeting her gaze through the visor.
"That is not always the same as necessity," Celestine said, stepping closer rather than allowing the warning in his silence to stop her.
The Slayer turned his visor toward her.
"If this power could end a battle in moments, soldiers and civilians who would otherwise die might live. Their lives must matter more than how long a daemon suffers before you destroy it," Celestine said, conviction strengthening her voice.
"They do matter," the Slayer replied, his voice low but absolute.
"Then why not use it whenever they are in danger?" Celestine asked, refusing to look away.
"Because the others escape to Hell," the Slayer answered, turning one gauntlet toward the open wasteland.
"You could pursue them," Celestine argued, opening one hand toward Cadia's burning horizon.
"They scatter. They hide. They cross into other worlds and kill there," the Slayer said, each clipped sentence carrying the certainty of experience.
Celestine looked across the mountains. His reasoning was not born of cruelty alone. A daemon driven from one battlefield did not cease to exist, and terror of the Slayer could send it toward a weaker world.
Yet the cost of his restraint would be paid by those standing within the present battle, people who might never know that their deaths had kept other daemons within his reach.
"No choice protects every life, but those before us should not die because an enemy somewhere else might escape," Celestine said, sadness tempering the challenge in her voice.
"If this power is needed, I will use it," the Slayer replied, lowering his gauntleted arm.
"Who decides when it is needed?" Celestine asked, already knowing his answer.
"I do," the Slayer said, standing immovable before her.
The certainty in his voice ended one part of the question, but not the disagreement beneath it.
Celestine glanced down at the repaired opening in her breastplate. "You used it for me," she said, gratitude softening her expression.
"Nothing else would have saved you," the Slayer replied, his visor settling upon her healed wound.
She held his gaze through the dark visor. "For that, I will always be grateful. I only ask that you consider how many others it might save," Celestine said, her tone gentle despite their disagreement.
The Slayer's hands tightened once, then eased.
"I will consider it," the Slayer said, turning away to end the argument.
Celestine allowed the silence to remain. She had not expected to change a judgement forged through ages of war, and he had given her more of an answer than he offered most.
…
Outskirts of Kasr Kraf
Kasr Kraf appeared upon the horizon, rising behind layers of smoke. Entire districts had been reduced to fire, but the surviving towers still carried the violet banners of Cadia.
Imperial guns fired from the walls while aircraft crossed above them and artillery shells descended into the plains surrounding the fortress-city.
The ground beyond those walls appeared to move. Celestine focused her sight and saw daemons covering the outskirts in numbers in the hundreds of thousands.
Bloodletters formed the largest part of the host. Their red bodies filled every approach to the city, gathering around banners made from skin and bone while Flesh Hounds ran between them and Bloodcrushers forced paths through the lesser creatures. Above them flew Bloodthirsters whose wings cast entire formations into shadow.
The servants of Khorne were not alone. Plaguebearers advanced within clouds of flies, and Great Unclean Ones dragged their swollen bodies across ground that died beneath them.
Daemonettes moved in pale masses around chariots covered by curved blades, while Horrors gathered upon the broken ridges and hurled blue and pink fire toward Imperial positions.
Lords of Change watched from behind them, directing the sorcery of Tzeentch into the city's defences.
Abaddon's death had shattered whatever command once held the host together. Bloodletters cut down Plaguebearers blocking their advance, Daemonettes hunted isolated Horrors, and Greater Daemons roared orders that lesser creatures obeyed only until another voice promised more violence.
Their disorder had not made them harmless.
Thousands still pressed against every surviving Imperial position outside Kasr Kraf while Cadian guns fired until their barrels glowed. Tanks withdrew between barricades beneath the protection of exhausted infantry. Each Imperial shell opened a space within the horde, and each space vanished beneath fresh bodies.
Celestine felt the defenders dying. She also felt the power within her waiting to be released.
The Slayer looked down at the army. "Release me over the centre of the host. Keep the daemons away from the city while I kill the Greater Daemons."
Celestine tightened her grip upon his arm. "Imperial positions still hold three sides of the battlefield. If your descent scatters the horde into those lines, the defenders will die with the daemons."
"Then contain the host and protect the defenders," the Slayer replied.
He released her arm.
The Doom Slayer fell.
He descended toward the centre of the daemonic army with both boots beneath him. The air broke around his armour, and daemons looked upward as his shadow crossed them.
When he struck the ground among the Bloodletters, the impact opened a crater and hurled hundreds of creatures into the air. Bodies broke against one another, Bloodcrushers overturned, and a ring of dust spread through the host, briefly concealing the warrior at its centre.
Green light appeared inside the cloud.
The BFG fired.
The sphere crossed the battlefield slowly enough for every daemon to see it coming. Emerald energy reached from the projectile and entered the creatures around it. Bloodletters burst apart, Plaguebearers collapsed into burning masses, and Horrors divided only for their lesser forms to perish before they could escape.
The sphere continued across the plain, dragging thousands of branching beams behind it until it struck a Greater Daemon and detonated.
Green light covered the outskirts of Kasr Kraf. The first minute had not ended, and thousands of daemons were already dead.
Celestine folded her wings and descended as the divine fragment spread throughout her body. The battlefield slowed around her. She saw every raised hellblade, every bolt of Warp-fire crossing toward the Imperial lines, and every wound upon a group of Cadians attempting to drag one another behind a shattered Chimera while Flesh Hounds closed around them.
Celestine moved.
The Flesh Hounds died before reaching the soldiers. Celestine did not remember crossing the distance; one moment she had been descending from the clouds, and the next she stood between the wounded Cadians and a line of daemonic bodies collapsing into ash.
"Gather your wounded and withdraw toward the city," she ordered. "Do not stop until every survivor is behind the inner guns."
The nearest Cadian stared at the host between them and the walls. "Saint, there are still thousands between us and the gate."
Celestine turned toward the horde. "There will not be by the time you reach it."
She raised the Ardent Blade, and golden-white fire crossed the plain. The attack did not spread like ordinary flame. It moved wherever Celestine intended, dividing around Imperial soldiers, vehicles, and fortifications while erasing every daemon within its path. By the time the fire faded, it had cut a corridor from the wounded Cadians to the nearest gate of Kasr Kraf.
Celestine raised her voice above the battle. "Move now. Keep the wounded together and do not look back. I will keep the road open."
The soldiers obeyed, and Celestine launched herself into the horde before the daemons could close the path behind them. Bloodletters surrounded her, their hellblades descending together, but one turn of the Ardent Blade carried its edge through the first rank.
Divine energy continued beyond the reach of the sword, separating hundreds of daemons at the waist before golden fire entered their wounds and destroyed them.
Daemonettes attacked from behind. Celestine felt their movement without turning and closed one hand. Telekinetic force caught the entire formation, lifting pale bodies from the battlefield and folding them inward. She compressed them into a single mass and released a burst of light through its centre.
Nothing remained.
Blue fire descended from the ridges. Celestine looked upward, and hundreds of bolts stopped above the battlefield. A turn of her palm sent the Warp-fire back toward the Horrors that had created it. The ridge vanished behind blue and pink explosions while its inhabitants divided, screamed, and burned through every form they possessed.
At the centre of the army, the Doom Slayer fired three locked missiles from his Rocket Launcher into the wings of a Bloodthirster. The first opened its left membrane, the second broke the supporting bone, and the third entered the joint before detonating. The Greater Daemon fell, and the Slayer met it with the Super Shotgun.
The Meathook buried itself in the Bloodthirster's chest and pulled him through the air. He fired both barrels beneath its jaw, passed over its shoulder before the body struck the ground, and extended the Doomblade. One sweep severed a wing at its root. When the creature tried to rise, he broke its knee with a kick.
The Bloodthirster swung an axe large enough to destroy a tank. The Slayer caught the haft, tore the weapon from its hands, and drove its blade through the creature's other leg. He did not attack its head when it roared. Instead, he moved toward the next limb.
Celestine remembered the creature from her dream. Lesser daemons received death as quickly as the Slayer could reach them; a Greater Daemon received his undivided attention.
He had told her the truth. The stronger the daemon, the longer its death.
Another formation attacked the withdrawing Cadians, forcing Celestine to turn away. She crossed two kilometres in less than a heartbeat and passed the Ardent Blade through a Bloodcrusher and its rider. The Juggernaut's brass body opened beneath the sword. Celestine seized both halves with her mind and hurled them through the daemons behind it, turning the broken machine into a projectile that killed everything in its path before burying itself in the chest of an advancing Daemon Prince.
Celestine followed.
The Daemon Prince tore the wreckage from its body and spread four arms around itself, each carrying a different weapon. Armour covered in the symbols of all four gods shifted across its flesh.
"The corpse-saint carries fire stolen from another god," it said. "I will tear open your soul and learn whose hand has marked you."
Celestine struck before it could raise its weapons. Her first blow removed two arms, and the second opened its armour from chest to waist.
The Daemon Prince moved faster than a creature of its size should have been capable of moving, however, and one of its remaining blades passed beneath her guard and entered her side.
Pain followed the metal through armour and flesh, but the divine fragment moved into the wound as heat. Celestine caught the daemon's wrist before it could withdraw the weapon and looked down to see her flesh already closing around the blade. Golden light travelled along the metal and entered the Daemon Prince's hand, setting its fingers alight.
"This power answers to no god you serve," Celestine said. "You will die before you learn its source."
She pulled the weapon free. The wound closed before its blade cleared her armour. Celestine drove the stolen sword into the daemon's chest and released the power within her, destroying the creature from the inside. Empty plates of armour fell around her.
Nine minutes had passed.
Celestine and the Slayer had created an empty region several kilometres wide through the centre of the army, and the host no longer pressed against the southern Imperial positions. Ash moved across the ground in dunes while craters burned where heavy weapons had struck. The surviving daemons spread around the destruction and attempted to surround them.
Celestine rose above the battlefield and surveyed the host. More than ninety thousand remained, still numerous enough to cover the plains.
She opened both hands. Telekinetic force spread from her in every direction, and the first ten thousand daemons left the ground together. Bloodletters, Plaguebearers, Daemonettes, and Horrors rose into the air. Greater creatures fought against the pressure while lesser ones clawed at the bodies around them, but Celestine carried the entire mass away from the Imperial lines and closed her hands.
The formation collapsed upon itself.
A sphere of divine fire entered its centre, and the sky became gold. Ash fell across the plain as the survivors realized they were not fighting the Celestine who had descended upon Cadia before. Some charged with renewed fury. Others began to flee.
The Doom Slayer saw them turn. The Ballista appeared in his hands, and its Destroyer Blade passed through an entire line of escaping creatures before dissipating. He replaced it with the Heavy Cannon and sent Precision Bolts into the heads of winged daemons attempting to reach the clouds. Flesh Hounds ran toward the eastern mountains, only for the Chaingun to open in Mobile Turret form. Its three rotating barrels followed them until none remained alive to reach the rocks.
A Lord of Change opened a portal above the horde. Before the Greater Daemon could cross the threshold, the Slayer fired the Meathook into its wing and began pulling it back. The creature twisted reality around him. The distance between them expanded, gravity reversed, and the ground rose behind the Slayer while the sky folded beneath him. Still, the chain shortened.
The Lord of Change was torn from the portal. The Slayer reached its back, ripped one wing from its body, and hurled the creature into the daemons below. The portal closed without it.
Celestine landed beside the crater and held the struggling daemon against the ground with her mind. The Slayer approached its head, and she sensed his intention before the Doomblade touched it.
"The host still numbers in the tens of thousands," she warned. "We cannot sacrifice time to punish one fleeing daemon."
"It tried to escape," the Slayer replied. "It will learn that no path leads away from me."
The Doomblade entered the base of the daemon's remaining wing. Celestine left him to his work. She did not approve, but neither did she attempt to stop him.
Twenty-two minutes had passed, and half the daemonic host was gone.
The Imperial guns upon the walls of Kasr Kraf had fallen silent. Their crews no longer possessed targets they could engage without risking Celestine or the Slayer. Soldiers gathered along the surviving battlements and watched two warriors dismantle a vast daemon army.
Celestine moved faster with every minute as she learned to control the fragment through battle. At first, every strike had released enough power to destroy hundreds of creatures. Soon she could select individual targets inside a formation and leave everything around them untouched.
She caught shells fired by corrupted artillery, turned them in the air, and sent them back into the daemonic lines. Without leaving the centre of the horde, she moved wounded Cadians to safety behind the outer defences.
The power never weakened, her body never tired, and every injury disappeared.
The Doom Slayer did not slow either. He emptied weapons and replaced them before the last shot struck. The Plasma Rifle burned through lines of Plaguebearers. The Microwave Beam caught a Great Unclean One and forced energy through its swollen body until it exploded among its followers. The Chainsaw opened a path through a formation of Bloodcrushers and covered his armour in burning blood.
He used no golden light. He did not need it.
Thirty-eight minutes had passed. Fewer than twenty thousand daemons remained.
The survivors gathered around the last Greater Daemons still capable of fighting: three Bloodthirsters, two Great Unclean Ones, a Keeper of Secrets, and the wounded Lord of Change. They had stopped fighting one another. Survival had created the unity Abaddon's command no longer could.
Celestine descended opposite the Slayer, and the daemons attacked them together. The Keeper of Secrets reached her first, sending four blades toward her from different directions. Celestine stopped three with the Ardent Blade and caught the fourth in one hand. Its edge cut into her palm, only for the wound to close around the metal.
She broke the blade. When the Keeper recoiled, Celestine seized all four of its arms with her mind and pulled them away from its body. The daemon screamed as its shoulders opened, and the Ardent Blade entered its chest. Golden fire consumed it from within.
The three Bloodthirsters surrounded the Slayer. One attacked from above, another charged across the ground, and the third remained behind them, winding a burning whip around his legs. The Slayer allowed the weapon to close before seizing it and pulling its wielder into the path of the charging daemon. As they collided, he fired the Super Shotgun into both.
The creature above descended with its axe raised. The Slayer drove one fist through its chest, landed beneath its falling body, and tore its heart free before it struck the ground. The other Bloodthirsters tried to separate, but Celestine appeared between them and struck both with her wings. Divine energy passed through their bodies and hurled them in opposite directions, driving each so deeply into the ground that they disappeared.
The Slayer went after one. Celestine pursued the other.
Both Bloodthirsters clawed their way out of the shattered earth, but neither survived for long. Celestine split one from shoulder to hip with a white-gold arc from the Ardent Blade. The Slayer tore the axe from the other and drove it through the creature's skull.
The two Great Unclean Ones attempted to force a path toward Kasr Kraf. Celestine lifted the first above its followers and burned it from within. The Slayer climbed the second, drove the Doomblade through the crown of its skull, and tore downward until the bloated body opened beneath him.
Forty-nine minutes had passed. The army had become scattered groups fleeing across a plain covered in ash.
Celestine rose above them. She possessed enough power to release another mountain-destroying blast, but Kasr Kraf stood too close and Imperial soldiers still moved among the outer positions. The power to destroy everything was useless without the control to preserve what mattered.
She extended both wings, and thousands of separate points of golden light appeared above the battlefield. Each selected a daemon. When Celestine lowered the Ardent Blade, the lights descended and found their targets.
The plain disappeared beneath silent flashes. No Imperial position was touched and no ruined tank moved. Only the daemons burned.
The Slayer hunted those that survived, crossing the battlefield too quickly for Celestine to follow with her eyes. A fleeing Bloodletter died beneath the Doomblade, a Plaguebearer disappeared beneath the Combat Shotgun, and a winged daemon reached the clouds before a Precision Bolt entered the back of its skull.
The final Greater Daemon was the Lord of Change. It had crawled from the crater while they fought the others. One wing remained, both legs had been broken, and it dragged itself toward the remains of the portal it had tried to use earlier.
The Slayer walked behind it. The daemon looked back and saw him, yet continued crawling. He allowed it to reach the place where the portal had been before seizing its remaining wing and pulling it away from the dead threshold.
Celestine landed nearby. "The army is destroyed. It has learned that escape is impossible. End this."
The Slayer looked at the daemon. "It knows now. That was the purpose."
His Doomblade entered the creature's skull, and the Lord of Change became ash.
Fifty-seven minutes had passed since the Slayer struck the centre of the host. More than one hundred thousand daemons had surrounded Kasr Kraf.
None remained upon its outskirts.
The wind carried their ashes across the silent battlefield. For several seconds, no one upon the walls of Kasr Kraf moved. Then the Cadians began to cheer.
The sound spread through the outer fortifications and every position that could still see the plain. Soldiers raised weapons above their heads, tank crews climbed from damaged vehicles, and wounded men and women pulled themselves high enough to look across ground that had been filled by daemons less than an hour before. Celestine heard her own name among the voices, followed by another.
Slayer.
The Doom Slayer ignored both. He stood among the ash and looked toward Kasr Kraf while Celestine landed beside him. Daemonic blood covered her broken armour, but no wound remained upon the flesh beneath it. The Ardent Blade still burned in her hand without any sign of weakening. She should have felt exhausted after destroying an army; instead, she felt capable of beginning again. The fragment of essence remained as deep and immeasurable as it had been when she awoke.
An engine approached from the west. Celestine turned to see a Valkyrie crossing above the surviving outer wall. One engine trailed smoke, and sections of its hull had been repaired with armour plates taken from another aircraft, yet the Imperial aquila remained visible beneath the damage.
The Valkyrie circled the battlefield once. Its pilot had expected to find an army; instead, the aircraft passed above kilometres of daemonic ash and two figures standing at its centre. It descended onto the broken plain, and the rear ramp opened before the engines had fully slowed.
Four Cadian soldiers emerged with their weapons ready, followed by a vox-operator carrying a long-range set across his back. The soldiers stopped when they saw the Slayer. The vox-operator continued toward Celestine and raised one hand in salute.
"Saint Celestine. Vox-Sergeant Dorran, Eighth Cadian," he reported. "Our Valkyrie detected the battle while we were searching the outer approaches. During our descent, we intercepted a second emergency transmission from the nodal cavern beneath the Elysion Fields."
Celestine looked at him. "Creed sent a relief column in answer to the first transmission. Why has Cawl sent another?"
"The column reached the cavern," Dorran replied. "Cawl reports that it has not stopped Doombreed."
The Doom Slayer approached. Dorran looked at the blood covering his armour and took one involuntary step backward, but recovered before the Slayer reached them.
"Play the transmission from the beginning," Celestine ordered. "I want every word the signal preserved."
Dorran lowered the vox-set from his back and placed it upon the ground. One side had been crushed and repaired with wire wrapped around a metal plate. He adjusted three controls, and static escaped from the speakers before giving way to the sound of battle.
The fighting was not distant. Weapons fired close enough to overload the transmitter, and men shouted orders beneath the roar of heavy guns. Something struck stone with enough force to distort the signal. A scream ended when an explosion swallowed it.
Cawl's voice emerged through the noise. He was shouting.
"This is Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, broadcasting a second emergency transmission from the central pylon complex beneath the Elysion Fields. The nodal cavern remains under sustained daemonic assault. All Imperial forces within range are ordered to respond!"
Another impact crossed the signal, followed by the sound of metal tearing apart near the transmitter. Cawl continued before the noise ended.
"Creed's relief column has reached the nodal cavern. The Geminae Superia, Eleanor and Genevieve, arrived with Cadian regiments, Adepta Sororitas, Astartes, heavy weapons, and every armoured vehicle that survived the underground route."
For one moment, hope entered the transmission. Cawl's next words destroyed it.
"Their arrival extended our projected survival. It has not stopped Doombreed."
A roar moved through the vox. The damaged speakers shook against the ground, and one of the Cadian soldiers covered his ears. Celestine felt the pressure of the sound through her armour even though it had travelled across kilometres of tunnels and layers of electronic distortion.
Cawl shouted over it. "Concentrated artillery, lascannon, plasma, melta, and gauss fire has repeatedly wounded the Daemon Prince. No weapon has halted his advance. Every death within the cavern strengthens his manifestation, and he regenerates faster than the combined defenders can damage him."
Gunfire burst across the channel. Someone shouted for the Geminae to withdraw from a collapsing position. A tank cannon fired, and the roar answered.
"Seven prepared defensive lines have fallen," Cawl continued. "Trazyn's Necron subordinates and the Imperial forces released from his vaults have suffered catastrophic losses. Every surviving unit, including Creed's relief column, is withdrawing toward the final approaches to the central node."
Static consumed the transmission. Dorran struck the side of the vox-set, and Cawl's voice returned in the middle of a sentence.
"...less than two hours remain!" the Archmagos yelled. "At the current rate of attrition, every warrior defending this cavern will be dead within that window. Once the final line collapses, no effective force will remain between Doombreed and the central pylon."
Celestine looked toward the ground beneath Kasr Kraf. Somewhere below the fortress-city, warriors from across ten thousand years were dying together.
"The network is approaching full synchronisation," Cawl said. "If we complete the overcharge, the resulting null field will temporarily force the warp storms away from Cadia and collapse the breaches sustaining the daemonic host. If Doombreed destroys the central node before synchronisation is complete, every linked pylon will fall out of sequence and the network-wide activation will fail."
Another explosion interrupted him. When Cawl spoke again, he no longer sounded as though he were broadcasting a request. He sounded as though he were delivering the final calculation for every life still within the cavern.
"We cannot disconnect from the interface without collapsing the activation sequence. We cannot restart the process before the remaining defenders are destroyed. We cannot stop Doombreed with the forces available. Any force receiving this transmission must reach the central node before the final line falls."
The channel dissolved into static. Dorran reached for the controls, but Celestine stopped him.
"Can your vox answer through the same channel?" she asked.
"The connection remained open when we landed," Dorran replied. "I cannot guarantee that the signal will reach the cavern, but this set can make the attempt."
"Open the channel and give me the receiver," Celestine ordered.
Dorran adjusted the controls and passed her the receiver. "The channel is yours, Saint Celestine."
"Archmagos Cawl, this is Saint Celestine at the outskirts of Kasr Kraf," she said. "I received your second emergency transmission. Confirm that you can hear me."
Static answered. Celestine waited while the Doom Slayer stood beside her, looking toward the city. At last, the vox cracked.
"Repeat your name and position," Cawl demanded over the weapons firing behind him. "Signal degradation has produced a result with an unacceptable probability of error."
"Saint Celestine, alive upon Cadia and standing outside Kasr Kraf," she repeated. "Abaddon has been permanently destroyed. More than one hundred thousand daemons surrounding the fortress-city have also been eliminated."
Silence followed, but it lasted less than a second.
"You were last confirmed aboard the Will of Eternity," Cawl said. "Creed received no response from you after the insertion."
"The mission continued after we left the fortress," Celestine replied. "Abaddon fell to Cadia and was erased upon its surface. Nothing of him remains for the gods to restore."
"Your survival alters several projections," Cawl said. "It does not alter Doombreed's current rate of advance."
Celestine looked toward the warrior beside her. "The Doom Slayer stands beside me."
The weapons behind Cawl continued firing. The Archmagos did not answer immediately, but when he did, his voice had regained some of its earlier precision.
"That information alters considerably more projections," Cawl replied. "Reach the nodal cavern as quickly as possible. Doombreed is one of Khorne's oldest Daemon Princes. Abaddon's destruction has not made the creature a lesser threat."
"We will reach you before the final line collapses," Celestine said. "Continue the activation. Tell every defender beneath the Elysion Fields that help is coming."
"I will transmit the message," Cawl replied. "Whether the remaining defenders will believe it lies outside reliable calculation."
The connection ended, and Dorran took the receiver from Celestine. "This Valkyrie can carry you to the nearest surviving entrance. The passages beneath the eastern districts have collapsed, but one access shaft remains open inside Kasr Kraf. Creed's relief column used it before the lower route failed."
"How near can you land?" Celestine asked.
"Within two hundred metres," Dorran answered. "The ground surrounding the shaft is too fractured to support the Valkyrie."
The Slayer walked toward the aircraft. No one needed to ask whether he intended to come.
Celestine followed. The Cadian soldiers moved aside as the Slayer entered the troop compartment. Dorran gathered the vox-set and climbed aboard behind him, and Celestine entered last, folding her wings enough to clear the ramp.
The Valkyrie rose from the plain. Below them, the ashes of more than one hundred thousand daemons covered the approaches to Kasr Kraf.
The flight lasted less than four minutes.
…
Kasr Kraf: Inner Districts
The aircraft crossed the surviving outer wall and passed above districts damaged beyond recognition. Fires moved through hab-blocks, Cadian soldiers dragged ammunition along streets crowded with wounded civilians, and priests stood upon ruined vehicles preaching while medicae teams worked around them. Some looked up as the Valkyrie passed and saw Celestine through the open ramp.
Hope followed the aircraft through the city.
The Valkyrie descended into a plaza surrounded by collapsed buildings. An enormous opening had been cut into the ground at its centre, where reinforced steps passed beneath blast doors hanging from broken hinges. Bodies covered the entrance, most belonging to daemons and cultists killed when Creed's relief column forced its way underground. Cadian soldiers guarding the remaining barricades turned their weapons toward the approaching aircraft before recognizing its markings.
The Valkyrie landed, and Celestine stepped from the ramp with the Doom Slayer close behind. An officer approached them, blood covering one side of his greatcoat.
"Show us the fastest route to the nodal cavern," Celestine said.
"The primary passage descends for almost a kilometre before joining the old tunnel network," the officer reported. "Creed's relief column marked its route, but daemons breached the adjoining galleries after the column passed. I cannot guarantee that any section remains secure."
"We require a path, not a secure passage," Celestine replied. "Point us toward the cavern."
The officer looked past her at the Slayer. "You will find no shortage of enemies between here and there."
Celestine drew the Ardent Blade. "Then those following us will inherit a secure road."
Golden-white fire illuminated the steps and the darkness waiting beneath them.
Celestine entered first, with the Doom Slayer following close behind. She led him into the underground network and toward the battle waiting below.
Doom Guy Kill Count this chapter: 147,892
Saint Celestine Kill Count this chapter: 44,726