That metal claw, flickering with ghostly green psychic energy, stabbed silently toward Valerius's heart from behind.
A deadly chill shot straight up his spine to the top of his skull; it did not stem from fear, but from a warrior's instinctive warning of death.
He did not even have time to turn around.
In this split second, time seemed to be stretched, becoming incredibly slow and viscous.
His cold, precise brain, armed with the imperial codex, was operating frantically in the final moment before shutdown, conducting one last self-examination.
His life flashed before his consciousness like a lantern show.
The dull afternoons in the Commissar academy during his childhood, reciting legal codes.
The solemn oath taken the first time he put on his peaked cap.
The warm blood spattered on his face the first time he executed a coward on the battlefield.
For forty years, day after day, he had forged himself into a hammer of the imperial codex, hard, cold, and unyielding.
He was worthy of the Empire.
He was worthy of the Emperor.
He was worthy of the skull and eagle emblem on his chest, which represented supreme authority.
The only regret...
Valerius's consciousness involuntarily turned toward that black-haired figure.
Failing to ascertain the truth about this heretic, failing to record her threat level and the nature of her power, failing to provide first-hand intelligence for the Inquisition's final verdict...
"Unworthy of... duty."
This was his final thought.
He closed his eyes, preparing to welcome the logical end that would pierce his chest.
However, the excruciating pain he expected did not arrive.
The world fell into an eerie, deathly silence.
Only a slight "crack," like snapping a dry branch, clearly reached his ears.
Valerius opened his eyes abruptly and turned his head with all his might.
He saw the most incomprehensible and cognitively shattering scene of his life.
That black-haired woman, whom he had defined as an "A-Class threat psychic entity," had somehow appeared silently behind him.
Her black robe remained spotless in this filthy underground cavity, as if isolated from the surrounding filth in another world.
She had merely extended one hand.
A hand that was fair, slender, and as beautiful as the most perfect creation of a god.
It was this hand that was now, with an understated ease, gripping that hideous, terrifying demonic claw capable of tearing apart a tank.
For the first time, a pure, almost childlike confusion and fear appeared in the demonic host's ghostly green, flaming pupils.
The chaotic energy on its claw, capable of corroding steel and twisting reality, was completely and cleanly annihilated the moment it touched Leticia's fair palm, like waste paper thrown into a furnace, without even a wisp of smoke rising.
"Crack—"
The crisp sound of bone cracking rang out again.
Leticia's wrist just twisted slightly inward, casually.
That indestructible arm, composed of demonic bone and cold alloy, was snapped off just like a twist of dough.
She let go, as if disgusted by touching something dirty, and waved her hand forward casually.
That massive body, over two meters tall and fused with machinery and flesh, was tossed away lightly by her like a discarded trash bag, tracing a weak parabola in the air before landing with a "thud" on the altar in the distance, kicking up a cloud of bones and dust.
The entire underground cavity fell into an absolute, suffocating silence.
All the surviving creatures capable of thought, whether they were the groaning Astra Militarum Soldiers or the Cultists lurking in the shadows, stared blankly at this scene, forgetting to fight, forgetting to breathe.
Valerius knelt there, his body as stiff as stone.
He opened his mouth, emitting a "ho-ho" sound from his throat like a broken bellows, but could not utter a single word.
His carapace armor, which he prided himself on, pressed coldly against his back.
He could clearly feel the lingering warmth of that woman's palm on that layer of armor.
It was a... temperature of protection.
A "heretic" had protected an Imperial Commissar.
This fact, like an invisible, red-hot iron hammer, smashed fiercely into everything he had built with his faith for forty years, creating a bottomless crack in that indestructible barrier.
His brain had completely crashed.
Leticia turned around, her pure black pupils, which seemed capable of swallowing all light, gazing calmly at the devastated man before her.
She did not show any disdain or arrogance.
That gaze was as calm as if she were stating the simplest of facts.
She spoke slowly; her voice was not loud, yet it struck clearly upon Valerius's collapsing soul.
"Commissar."
"Does your life also belong to the imperial codex?"
This sentence, without any tone of doubt or mockery, was harder for him to bear than the most vicious curse.
Did it belong?
His duty was to execute the codex.
His power was to adjudicate life and death.
Countless times, he had used that heavy codex to sentence others to death, to maintain the order of the Empire.
But now, his own life had been forcibly snatched back from a death that even the codex could not prevent, by a "heretic" who existed completely outside of the codex.
This was a kind of... indebtedness.
An emotion he had never experienced, one that felt incredibly alien and so heavy it made him unable to breathe.
All his life, he had demanded others sacrifice for the Empire, and he himself was always ready to sacrifice for the Empire. He had never thought that one day, he would "owe" someone a life.
Especially, owing the life to a "heretic."
Valerius's lips moved; he wanted to refute, to roar, to use the harshest wording to defend the purity of his faith.
"Any act of a heretic, no matter how benevolent it may appear, is essentially for the purpose of temptation and corruption!"
This was the iron rule in the Commissar appendix of the "Imperial Infantry Tactics Manual."
He should stand up immediately, raise his gun again, and draw a line between himself and this dangerous existence.
But...
His body, however, would not obey.
That warm current from his back, named "survival," was violently washing over every one of his cold nerves.
His throat was dry; he could not utter a single syllable.
The battle had not ended because of this.
The demonic host that had been thrown away struggled to crawl up from the ruins of the altar.
Although its arm bone was fractured, the mechanical heart in its chest, composed of flesh and cables, was beating even more frantically.
Its ghostly green pupils stared fixedly at Leticia; greed and fear intertwined, ultimately transforming into the purest, most desperate desire for destruction.
The chaotic runes on the altar began to flash at an alarming speed, pouring all remaining energy into its body.
Leticia did not look at Valerius again.
It was as if she had just done a trivial thing.
She turned, the hem of her black robe tracing an elegant arc in the air, facing the final enemy that was gathering power once more.
However, the moment she was about to take a step, she stopped.
She did not turn back, but in a tone so calm it was almost indifferent, she said another sentence to the Imperial Commissar who was still kneeling on the ground behind her.
A sentence that made his soul tremble.
"Now, answer me one question, Commissar."
"What is your loyalty, exactly?"
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