Leticia walked calmly toward the broken giant, who had completely abandoned all resistance.
The psychic storm at the top of the pyramid had completely subsided under the command of Terrania—a command that was childish yet contained supreme will.
Yet, the air remained thick with a profound sorrow and despair, potent enough to corrode even steel.
Magnus slowly raised his massive, crag-like head.
From his single remaining eye, hot, salty tears continued to stream—the tears of a son who had been lost for ten thousand years.
Interwoven within them was a childlike reliance born from seeing Terrania, alongside a lingering, bone-deep wariness and confusion when he looked at Leticia.
His pride had been crushed by Leticia in the most brutal manner, while his soul had been soothed by Terrania in the gentlest of ways.
These two extreme, diametrically opposed experiences had repeatedly battered his already shattered heart within mere minutes, leaving him completely plunged into chaos.
"You..." Magnus spoke hoarsely, his voice sounding like an old pair of bellows scorched by centuries of war.
"What trick are you trying to play now?"
He still could not fully trust the woman in the black robe before him.
His soul, having been toyed with countless times by Chaos God Tzeentch, instinctively caused him to view any incomprehensible kindness as a deeper, more malicious conspiracy.
Yet, he could not harbor any hostility toward the small, golden figure who had given him the warmth of a "father."
This contradiction left him in agony.
Leticia did not answer his question.
She only watched him quietly, her pure black eyes so deep they seemed to reflect the birth and end of the universe.
Then, she slowly extended a fair finger.
At its tip, no violent energy gathered; instead, there were only wisps and strands of pure, brilliant radiance—the Authority of [Knowledge]—quietly flowing.
Hum—!
Before Magnus could react, Leticia's pure black eyes transformed once again into two brilliant nebulae, containing the birth and death of billions of stars.
[Eye of Truth], activated once more!
This time, it was not for "deconstruction," but for "demonstration."
Magnus's mind shook violently!
Two irrefutable, vivid phantoms of the future, constructed from absolute truth, unfolded directly within the depths of his soul, one after another.
The first vision.
He saw himself.
He saw himself kneeling before the phantom of Chaos God Tzeentch, accepting that "blessing" filled with lies and malice.
His body became larger, more twisted, and from his back sprouted vulture-like wings composed of countless shifting colors.
In his single eye, all reason and emotion were completely lost, leaving only a cold, pure madness that served his master.
He saw that his home, Prospero, was never rebuilt.
Instead, it had become a daemonic realm belonging to Chaos God Tzeentch, constructed from impossible geometries and wailing flesh.
He saw his descendants, those Thousand Sons warriors.
Their souls had been completely extracted and imprisoned within their own power armor, turning them into silent puppets that only knew how to execute orders.
They had become the most powerful sorcerer legion in Chaos God Tzeentch's hands, bringing endless conspiracy and destruction to the entire galaxy under the will of the Lord of Change.
And he himself had become the "warden" of it all.
He had become the most pathetic Daemon Prince, eternally imprisoned in the hell he had created with his own hands.
His pain, his regret, and the silent wails that arose every time he looked into the hollow eyes of his descendants, all turned into the sweetest vintage to please his new master.
This was an endless, eternal hell of self-torture.
The second vision followed immediately.
He saw himself, at the final moment, relying on the lingering, ridiculous loyalty to his father, refusing Chaos God Tzeentch's temptation.
He used his last ounce of strength to close the rift in the Subspace.
Then, alone, he faced the Space Wolves, who surged forward like a gray flood.
He saw his brother, the blonde, wild Wolf King, Leman Russ.
He saw the unmasked, primal desire for slaughter in Russ's eyes, and a trace of... sadness, hidden beneath the killing intent, which even Russ himself had not realized.
He and Russ engaged in an earth-shattering duel.
In the end, he was defeated.
His spine was ruthlessly broken by Russ with that cold Chainsword, "Frostmourne."
His massive body fell upon the ruins of the golden pyramid he had spent his life protecting.
In the final moment of his life, he saw the warriors of the Space Wolves charge into the last remaining library in the city of Tizca.
With flamethrowers, they turned those unique books and scrolls, which carried ten thousand years of wisdom, into dancing ashes, one by one.
He heard the barbaric warriors' wild laughter, filled with glee as they burned the knowledge.
And he could only watch helplessly as everything he had spent his life protecting was completely and meaninglessly reduced to ashes.
His soul dissipated completely in endless regret and unwillingness.
Two futures.
One is eternal enslavement.
The other is total destruction.
There is no third path.
This is his... destiny, determined by his pride and innocence, and unchangeable.
"Enough!!"
Magnus clutched his head and let out a roar more painful and desperate than any before.
"Don't make me look!!"
"I beg you... don't make me look!!"
These two futures were like two red-hot, poison-quenched branding irons, searing his shattered soul, making him feel a pain ten thousand times more intense than having his body destroyed ten thousand times over.
This was more damaging than any malicious words.
It drove him into a true, inescapable, absolute dead end of despair.
Leticia withdrew the radiance from her fingertips.
The nebulae in her eyes slowly faded, returning to that deep, pure black.
She looked at the giant before her, whose spirit had been completely broken, curled up on the ground and wailing like a child. Her voice was cold and clear, yet carried an unprecedented majesty.
"You do not want either of these choices."
"Then, I will give you a third."
This calm statement, like a thunderclap tearing through the eternal night, brought Magnus's earth-shaking roars to an abrupt halt.
He jerked his head up, staring intently and incredulously at Leticia with his tear-filled, bloodshot single eye.
Leticia met his gaze, speaking word by word, as if proclaiming a brand-new destiny that had never appeared in any prophecy.
"Is it to continue embracing that god of lies, who only treats you as a pawn, turns your descendants into puppets, and treats your pain as fine wine?"
"Or, to follow me."
"To explore the true ultimate truth of this universe—one that transcends Chaos, transcends the Empire, and even transcends what your pathetic father could ever understand?"
"Your knowledge should not become firewood for destroying your home, nor should it become a plaything to please an evil god."
Leticia's voice paused, containing a grand vision belonging to a creator goddess, one capable of moving the very stars.
"It should, and must, become the cornerstone that lights up a brand-new era."
An unprecedented third choice!
A brand-new possibility that transcended all his cognition and all his logic!
Magnus was completely stunned by these words.
He stared blankly at Leticia, at her calm and sacred face, and at the depth in her eyes that seemed to contain infinite mysteries.
Deep in his soul, for the first time, a stone named "Hope" was cast into the dead sea of despair, stirring up violent, unstoppable, monstrous waves!
Just at the moment when his entire soul was shaken violently by this, and he was about to respond.
Boom—!!!
The entire sky above the pyramid, the clear sky that had just been purified by Terrania's will, was suddenly and without warning torn apart by an evil will filled with endless mockery, tyranny, and a frantic desire for possession!
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