The Emperor’s Angel of Death

King Valentino Ravich of the Lynae Kingdom leaned out from the saddle of his albino carnisaurs mount, swinging his power-infused blade, the weapon cleanly severing the neck of a human soldier. He then thrust his spear at a Hellhound tank spewing flames nearby, its armor erupting in green light before shattering into pieces.

The carnisaurs roared ferociously, its claws piercing the green-armored soldiers attempting to attack with bayonets. It then shook its head, tearing the screaming figures into shreds.

Behind him stood a towering stone wall, composed of massive, moss-covered rocks. Beyond the wall, an immense tree radiating white light soared into the sky, seemingly thousands of meters tall, its vast branches engulfing the heavens.

But with each thunderous boom from above, white fragments and even large chunks of bark fell from the branches.

"Lynae Dragon Knights! Assemble around me!"

Valentino Ravich shouted, his voice cutting through the mindless screeching of the ape-like soldiers. Clad in emerald green armor and a long-crested, pointed helmet, he stood out like a beacon on the chaotic battlefield.

Over a hundred Dragon Knights answered his call, guided by the shimmering energy of the world spirit. Wild and clad in ancient spiritbone armor, their skin etched with tattoos, they were lithe, beautiful, and possessed a cruel focus on battle.

The knights quickly gathered around their king, reining in their mounts and forming a shield wall around their monarch.

The scales of their mounts shimmered, deflecting laser fire.

These carnisaurs, bred and trained by the barbaric spiritkin over countless years, had become highly adaptable weapons of war. Their scales could change with the battlefield environment, becoming hard and smooth to resist energy weapons, or tough and thick to withstand kinetic weapons. They could even absorb spirit energy to rapidly grow or become more durable.

Second most noticeable in the group was Prince Ivroye Iia, also clad in emerald spiritbone armor, but wearing a stag helmet with long, crimson crests. The crackling energy lance in his hand had already slain hundreds of enemies.

But there were still many enemies, so many.

Looking around, the battle surrounding the ancient woodland was spiraling into irreversible despair. The waystones symbolizing Isha's path were overturned, the white maple trees were broken and set ablaze. The once verdant grasslands were now a mire of blood and mud, and the thorn bushes that once bore delicious fruit were now withered branches lying on the ground.

Woodland guardians in green cloaks and simple armor desperately tried to stem the tide. They wielded energy laser rifles, star shuriken, spears and blades, but they were too few. Many civilians in short robes also fired at the enemy with laser rifles and even bows. Even primitive weapons were deadly in the hands of those trained to use them.

Princess Cordelia, clad in light armor and a white cloak, led the White Doe Guard, a special unit of Lynae Kingdom maidens, fighting for their home. They wielded white longbows shaped like withered branches, firing volley after volley of arrows. Each shot was incredibly precise. The arrows were not physical projectiles but shards of bark imbued with spirit energy, capable of piercing the bodies of soldiers and even the hulls of vehicles.

With each arrow fired, the Aeldari maidens murmured their thanks to the White Doe King. The world spirit generously granted them strength in their desperate hour.

Their weapons came from the World Tree, home of the world spirit, crafted from its branches and precious resins. They were usually maintained by soaking them in the White Doe Pool, imbuing them with the world spirit's wrath, capable of firing powerful, tracking spirit energy arrows, though requiring the user to focus intently on their target.

The Aeldari's resistance had yielded results, as evidenced by the piles of human soldiers' corpses and the burning wreckage. Some Sentry mechs had no visible damage, but their cockpits were pierced, leaving them paralyzed on the ground.

However, there were too many, too many enemies.

Astra Militarum and Planetary Defence Force soldiers, driven by commissars' whips, surged forward in waves, while artillery fire from the rear pulverized any Aeldari who failed to evade in time, shattering even their spirit stones.

Fortunately, this was within the world spirit's protective domain, and all fallen Aeldari souls would be sheltered.

But only if they could defend their last sanctuary, or a most desperate fate awaited them all.

"Woodwarden Avana is still holding our left flank! But he urgently needs reinforcements, he is surrounded!"

"We have no reinforcements."

Hearing his son's words, the Lynae King waved his hand helplessly. He, who had not seemed old, now had wrinkles on his face and streaks of gray in his hair. To save his kingdom, his people, and the world spirit, he had even sacrificed half of his power, but it was still not enough.

What pained him even more was the death of each of his people.

In his eyes, each of his people was worth a hundred human lives, but by now too many Lynae had fallen.

Hundreds of Aeldari bodies or body parts lay on the battlefield, and even the mighty ancient armored Triceratons [Whispering Horns] had fallen to human firepower. This ancient warbeast, which had lived for two thousand years, had always been the guardian of the ancestral woodland, even older than Valentino Ravich, and had always been regarded as an elder equal to the Aeldari, but now it lay lifeless on a pile of broken metal wreckage. Before its death, it had destroyed a Leman Russ Annihilator, but its once tough scale shield had been eroded and pierced, and the prism cannon turret on its back had become a charred, burning wreck, still hanging with the dead dragon tamer. A huge, festering, charred pit marked its broad face where a Leman Russ Annihilator's plasma main gun had fired at close range. One of its golden horns was broken off. That was the fatal wound.

"The cost is too high..."

The despairing king whispered, unable to believe that he might be the witness to the end of the Lynae Kingdom. When the image of the kingdom's destruction, the bodies of his people piled around the burning World Tree, appeared in his mind, a tear streaked down his gaunt face.