What she saw would haunt her forever. A massive, red-skinned Daemon crouched at the far side of the room, its grotesque form shrouded in shadows. In one cwed hand, it held the limp body of a Battle Sister, her wisted at an unnatural angle. Her lifeless eyes stared directly at Elizabeth, wide with terror.

  Daemon’s jaws cmped down on the Sister’s slender leg, sharp teeth sinking deep. With a siing pull, Daemon tore the limb free, flesh and bone ripping apart with wet, squelg sounds. It chewed noisily, sav the meal. Blood dripped from its maw, pooling on the floor in crimson rivulets. ‘Stand up!’ her mind roared. ‘Get up and sing praises to the Emperor as you charge! Stand up, you coward!’ But Elizabeth couldn’t move. She y paralyzed, her body betraying her.

  She woke with a start, heart rag, drenched in cold sweat. The nightmare receded, but the memories it dredged up lingered. She was ba the Abel system, on Abellum III. It had been her first mission as a novice Battle Sister—a baptism of fire, though one marred by failure. The p was under siege, not by xenos or traitors but by a far more insidious threat: corruption. Evil thoughts had spread like a pgue among the popuce, rotting their minds and igniting rebellion. These heretics, drunk owisted notion of “freedom,” destroyed churches, butchered priests, and desecrated the Emperor’s hey called it liberation, but it was treachery of the highest order.

  The local Crusaders, few in number, had been overwhelmed. Worse still, the garriso to protect the p had joihe heretics. They threw open the arsenals, arming the mob and plunging the world into chaos. Elizabeth remembered the deployment vividly. Her squad had beee the rebellion aore order. But what awaited them was a nightmare. The corruption ran deeper than anyone had anticipated. By the time they realized the extent of the iion, it was too te.

  This was a carefully orchestrated rebellion, and the mission of Elizabeth’s Sororitas unit was clear: Daemonstrate the Emperor’s might and utterly crush the heresy that had taken root on this forsake. When the Sisters of Battle arrived, it became apparent that the scale of the rebellion had been grossly uimated. By the time they realized the true scope of the threat, they were already surrounded by the rebellious mob. Yet the Sisters didn’t falter. faith and bolstered by the Emperor’s blessing, they prayed, sang hymns, and unched a ferocious assault.

  The rebels, though armed, were no warriors. Before taking up ons, they had been ordinary people—white-colr workers, factory borers, housewives, and even school custodians. Many had never fired a gun before. The ons in their hands, looted sguns and poorly maintained rifles, gave them a false sense of power. They mistook the cold weight of a firearm for trol, the feel of a wooden stock for authority. Holding the trigger gave them an intoxig rush—a perverse illusion of being gods, wielding the power to grant or end life with a flick of their fingers. It was an experience far removed from their mundaence, and it filled them with a reckless fidence.

  That fidence shattered the moment the Sisters charged. The nuns were uing. They ighe mob’s numbers, their ons, and their desperate pleas fotiation. The Sisters carried the Emperor’s will, and there was no promise in His name. What followed was less a battle and more a massacre. Bolt rounds tore through flesh, ripping bodies into grotesque shreds. The roar of swords drowned out screams as the bdes cleaved through limbs and torsos. Promethium-fueled fmers reduced heretics to ash, purging their sins in holy fire.

  The mob’s overfidence was like a balloon—bloated and fragile. The Sisters burst it with ease, leaving a field of broken, burned, and bloodied bodies in their wake. Victory, as always, was iable uhe Emperor’s watchful gaze. But for the Sisters of Battle, victory otlefield was he end—it was merely the beginning.

  Ielr travel, even in the 41st Millennium, was no small uaking. The Imperium hadn’t dispatched the Sororitas across tens of thousands of light-years just to win a single skirmish. They were here to solve the problem at its root, to ehis rebellion would never rise again. The enemy’s defeat didn’t elimihe heresy; it merely forced it underground. Those who survived the purge—those who had harbored treacherous thoughts—would now bury their beliefs deeper. They would seethe in sileheir hatred sm, waiting for another opportunity to strike.

  The retives and friends of the fallen rebels wouldn’t refle their sins. Instead, they would bme the Imperium, nursing their grief ament like a festering wound. To the Sisters, it was obvious: unless every trace of rebellion was eradicated, another uprising was iable. The Sisters of Battle excelled at solving such problems.

  Their mission wasn’t just to win battles but to destroy the seeds of rebellion and the soil in which they grew. If heresy had corrupted minds, then those minds needed purging. If hatred lihen its bearers had to be silehe i and guilty alike were swept up in the Emperor’s sing fire because distinguishiweewo was a luxury the Sisters couldn’t afford. Rebellion was a disease, and like any disease, it spread invisibly. Rumors were its vectors, whispers its carriers. Even if you cracked open a heretic’s skull with a sword, you couldn’t see the heresy lurking within.

  The purge begahis time, the battlefield was the homes of the p’s inhabitants. The Sisters kicked down doors, st into houses and rooting out anyone who bore even a hint of heretical thought. Women begged, children screamed, and old men prayed for fiveness, but the nuns had no time for mercy. Promethium fmes and bolt rounds spoke the Emperor’s will. Not everyone was guilty. Some had bee up by the fervor, afraid to dissent openly. Others had resisted silently, saying nothing but refusing to act. Yet it didn’t matter. Doubt, hesitation, and disobedience were uable risks. The Sisters weren’t here to judge individuals—they were here to purify the entire popution.

  As the purge tihe heretics grew desperate. Those who had hidden among the crowds, pretending to be i, were eventually exposed. Backed into a er, they revealed their true nature. At first, the rebellion had been fueled by cries of “freedom” and “liberation.” Now, the heretics screamed “reveurning to darker forces to enact it. With the lives of women and children as sacrifices, they performed vile rituals, summoning Daemons to their aid.

  Elizabeth’s team had been tasked with purging a small town. The order was simple: se the settlement of heresy. It was supposed to be a standard operation for the Sisters of Battle, yet when they broke through the door of a nondescript house, the horrors they faced were anything but routine.