"You may call me Adam."
Adam copied her gesture and, following local custom, gave the aquila salute."
Sticking to the principle of "if the code runs, don't touch it," and seeing Lucia's cooperative attitude, he refrained from adding an unnecessary explanation of his origins.
After all, a traveller from another universe is a premise only a kitchen-sink setting like the SCP Foundation can swallow without choking; in this galaxy it would be taken as a daemon straight out of the Warp, and once she heard that she'd probably leap in for a decapitating strike—hardly ideal.
"Forgive me, Lord Adam, but this isn't over."
Clearly Lucia didn't care about his background.
"These fallen heretics aren't the only foes; another group headed for the bridge, and we were too embattled to stop them."
"Right now those heretics may be close to achieving their hidden goal. As loyal servants of the God-Emperor we must stop them at once!"
"Exactly what I was hoping for."
Adam nodded briskly.
Yet he glanced around at the Battle Sisters' bodies on the deck, fell silent for a moment, and suggested, "Still, shouldn't we gather the sisters' remains?"
Lucia hesitated.
Space Marines devoted to Slaanesh are, to put it mildly, predictable; during the fierce fight some of the Chaos Astartes had disobeyed orders and left the main battle to seek their own pleasures elsewhere in the ship.
The thought of a roaming Slaaneshi Marine stumbling onto this chamber—and the desecration the sisters' corpses would suffer—filled Lucia with revulsion and fury.
"Then please help us collect the sisters and commit them to the flames together."
After weighing the choice, Lucia finally said, "May their souls return to the Throne."
"No problem."
With a wave of Adam's hand every fallen sister rose into the air, borne by invisible telekinetic force toward a clear spot on the deck.
The next instant a Promethium Flamer flew up on its own, aimed at the pile, and unleashed a roaring jet of fire that wrapped the slain women in crackling flame.
Lucia's resolute face turned grief-stricken; her hand clenched the ever-hotter Relic Cross as she murmured the prayers of the Ecclesiarchy.
Adam's own expression sobered while he watched in silence.
The Imperium is rotten, declining, tottering, mired in ignorance—yet amid despair bright sparks still flare, and it is the sacrifice of such heroes that lets humanity endure millennium after dark millennium.
In the hush broken only by the crackle of dying flames, sudden change erupted.
Without warning the crimson fire threaded itself with gold, turning into blazing auric brilliance; the already fierce heat redoubled, and scorching billows swept the chamber.
Within the molten blaze the sisters' bodies mostly vanished, leaving only skeletons of pearly white that arranged themselves in postures of prayer, a holy aura filling the air.
At the sight Lucia could no longer hold back; the grief she had suppressed surged out.
Tears streamed down her face as she sank to her knees, her litany rising louder.
'No mistake—definitely the Emperor meddler at work.'
Watching the obviously supernatural display, Adam slipped a shield around himself against the heat and gave a relieved grin.
But a second thought crossed his mind.
The Emperor might be human, but the odds He's merely human are slim.
Knowing the Emperor's habit of never lifting a finger without profit, Adam—fresh from a previous lesson—doubted this was mere divine fireworks; there had to be a purpose… wait.
He looked toward Canoness Lucia praying before the pyre.
Unnoticed by anyone, she too was bathed in the golden flames; the auric heat melted her armour and blackened her skin until she resembled a burnt corpse.
Yet even under such torment she kept her prayer stance, her hymn swelling ever louder.
Holy—she's becoming a Living Saint!
Adam's eyes twitched.
A Living Saint—also jokingly called Big E's Daemon Prince—outranks nearly everyone in the Imperium and stands as living proof of the Emperor's power.
They are vanishingly rare, immune to Warp corruption, and can work miracles under the Emperor's protection to annihilate mankind's foes.
But Saints don't just pop into existence—especially now, before the Great Rift has even opened, while the stubborn figure on the Golden Throne still finds it hard to intervene directly in reality.
Watching Lucia endure within the sacred fire, Adam regretfully shook his head.
Ecclesiarchy propaganda claims a Living Saint embodies every human virtue: compassion, sinlessness, purity, incorruptibility, mercy, vigilance, kindness to the weak, ruthless justice to the guilty, and so on.
In Adam's view those qualities matter, yet none compare to the single decisive factor:
—she must possess enough psychic resonance with the Emperor.
Clearly, Lucia wasn't that lucky.
Unless Adam stepped in, she would be reduced to ash—like the Perfect City, Calth, or the Thousand Sons' Rubric Marines—by the rampant psychic storm.
After a moment's thought he reached a decision.
Saving her was worth it; a Living Saint would be a powerful safeguard, and since he had arrived in this universe without a legitimate identity, her vouching for him would solve that problem.
"But I'm only Level Two; the reality distortion I can generate won't last long against this tempest of psychic energy…"
'Wait—I've got it.'
Mind made up, Adam stretched out his hand, letting it pass through the flames to rest on Lucia's shoulder.
His eyes glazed as sound, scent, touch and colour drained away, leaving only emptiness.
Yet within that void, from a Reality Warper's perspective, he could sense layer upon layer of fields—each of different intensity—blanketing every span of space he could perceive.
Or, to use Foundation terminology for greater precision:
—Reality Intensity.