The ughter reverberated in Elizabeth’s ears, cutting deeper than any bde. Her miered on the edge of colpse. But then, amidst the cacophony of Daemon’s mockery, something snapped deep within her—a sharp, crystalline sound, like a breaking. From the depths of her being, an unfamiliar strength surged forward.

  Daemon froze mid-ugh, its grotesque smile faltering. The air around Elizabeth grew heavy, charged with an invisible force. The psychi brewing within her was unmistakable. Chaos creatures were born in the ; they thrived in its energy. But even they uood the terror of unbridled, awakening psychic power. “No!” Daemon barked, its voice suddenly ced with urgency. “A psyker awakening!? At this level!? Damn it—retreat!”

  With a flick of its cws, it seized Lysandria, ing her in its tentacles, and hurled itself through the shattered window. The other lesser Daemons abaheir grotesque feast and vanished into the shadows, fleeing like rats.

  But it was too te. Elizabeth’s eyes glowed with a searing blue light, psychiergy spilling from them like an untamed fme. She reached out with her hand, and the broken sword on the floor flew intrasp, its motor r to life as if drawn by her fury. Her psychic power coursed through the on, infusing the bde with ahereal glow that danced along its serrated teeth.

  The air around her crackled with energy. Pointing the sword at the fleeing Daemon, Elizabeth unleashed her rage. The on, now a missile of vengeaore through the air with terrifying speed, spinning like a cye. The bde struck true, severing six of Daemon’s tentacles in one sweep. Bck ichor sprayed across the ruireet, and the creature staggered, r in pain. Daemoated for only a moment before retreating faster, dragging its mangled form and Lysandria into the distance. With a final, spiteful gre, its figure flickered and disappeared into the ether.

  Elizabeth stepped outside, her sword h beside her like a sehe town y in ruins, its once-vibrant streets now filled with shadows and despair. Ghostly figures of the sin swayed in the ers of her vision, remnants of lives lost to the corruption of Chaos.

  The signs of Chaos’s iion were everywhere: blood flowed from the small fountain in the square, its crimson spray staining the cobblestones. A spire of human skulls loomed in the distance, a grotesque moo the invaders’ domihe air was heavy with the st of decay and ozone. Above, the stars had shifted unnaturally, f steltions no human eye could reize. And in the sky, a red-tailed et streaked like a herald of doom.

  Elizabeth’s heart ached as she took in the devastation. This had once been a world of pead order. Its people had lived simple lives uhe Emperor’s prote, tent and faithful. They had homes, food, and hope. But that was before Chaos arrived. Before the Sisters were sent te the corruption. Before hatred and fear had buried themselves so deeply in the hearts of mortals that only fire could se them.

  If only someone had seen the signs earlier, she thought. If only they had acted before Chaos’s tendrils could take root. Perhaps then the children would still be ughing. The men would not be ed by rage. The women would not weep in despair. Elizabeth looked up at the swirling clouds, her body trembling as psychiergy erupted from every pore. Her soul burorween grief and fury. ‘This ot be undone,’ she thought. ‘But it be avenged.’

  The psychi within her built to a cresdo. Lightning crackled around her, leaping from her fiips and arg into the sky. The roiling storm above answered her fury, thunder rumbling like the Emperor’s wrath. With a roar, Elizabeth unleashed her power. Bolts of searing blue lightning tore from the heavens, shing the town like the whip of an angry god. The streets erupted in fmes, shadows disied, and the taint of Chaos burned away.

  The lesser Daemons that had lingered in the shadows were obliterated, their shrieks drowned out by the roar of the storm. Houses crumbled, fountains shattered, and the spire of skulls was reduced to ash. Elizabeth stood at the ter of the tempest, a bea of destru. Her body was wreathed in lightning, her eyes bzing with the Emperor’s fury. The town was no longer a pce—it was a scorched wastend, purged of both life and corruption.

  Wheorm subsided, Elizabeth fell to her knees, smoke rising from the ground arouhe air was heavy with ash and the acrid st of ozone. Nothing remained. io Daemons, no is. Just bed earth and a lone survivor. Elizabeth stared at the ground, her hands trembling. She had eradicated the taint of Chaos, but at what cost? Was this justice, or had she simply destroyed what she could not save?

  She looked up at the storm-clouded sky. “Holy Emperor,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Was this your will?” The heavens were silent.

  After a brief rest, Elizabeth pleted her work a. On the scorched earth where the town oood, a single wooden cross remained, rising like a stark mo against the charred ndscape. On the cross were engraved the names of her eeam—every Sister of Battle who had perished in the frontation. Eaame bore testament to their ce, their unyielding faith, and their ultimate sacrifice.

  At the bottom of the list, carved with the same unassuming precision, was Elizabeth’s own name. Yes, she had died there too—not in body, but in spirit. The moment fear overtook her, the glory she once held as a Sister of Battle was stripped away. Now, she was nothing more than a dangerous psyker, cursed by the very powers that had saved her life.

  Elizabeth had crafted the cross as a tombstone for her Sisters and for the version of herself that had died alongside them. She wished, with every fiber of her being, that she had fallen in battle with them, that her name on the cross truly marked the end of her existence. But the cruel reality was that Elizabeth still lived. Her Sisters’ glory had beeinguished in their deaths, and all that remained for her was the curse of her psychic awakening. What was she now? A rogue psyker, uned and uhered, her existence a walking tradi of loyalty and danger.

  Psychic power was rare—a one-ihousand occurrend it was both a gift and a curse. To humanity, it was more ofteer. Psykers were doorways, fragile barriers betweeerial realm and the . Daemons hunted psykers’ souls from the shadows, using their bodies as vessels to step into the mortal phe thought filled Elizabeth with dread. She had seen firsthand the devastatiht by Chaos—how a single Daemon could annihite a vilge, how a host of them could reduce a po ruin. And now she otential doorway to that same evil. Her very existence was a threat to the Imperium. Every moment she lived, she risked being the instrument of humanity’s undoing. The weight of that knowledge drove her to the edge of despair. On many occasions, she sidered ending her life, believing her death would protect the Emperor’s people from the dangers she embodied. But each time, the memory of her awakening stopped her.