Saint Celestine
SAINT CELESTINE, THE LIVING SAINT OF THE ADEPTA SORORITAS' ORDER OF OUR MARTYRED LADY, WALKS THE LINE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, WREATHED IN MYSTERY AND DIVINE FIRE. SAID TO HAVE PERISHED IN BATTLE AGAINST THE RENEGADE WARMASTER OF FORRAX, HER DEATH WAS NOT THE END. TIME AND AGAIN, SHE HAS RETURNED WHEN THE IMPERIUM TEETERED ON THE EDGE OF RUIN, DESCENDING AMIDST THE CHAOS TO TURN THE TIDE. WITH WINGS UNFURLED AND A BLAZING HALO CASTING DIVINE LIGHT ACROSS THE BATTLEFIELD, SHE MOVES LIKE A VISION OF THE EMPEROR'S WILL. THE ARDENT BLADE GRIPPED TIGHTLY IN HER HAND, SHE STRIKES WITH THE FURY OF THE RIGHTEOUS, A SHINING ECHO OF THE GOD-EMPEROR'S ETERNAL WRATH.
Opening
Welcome back, lore-lovers, to Liandrug, where the stories of legends, saints, and shadows come alive. Today, we delve into the divine path and fiery trials of Saint Celestine, the Living Saint whose blade shines through the darkest voids of the galaxy. Prepare yourselves for a tale of faith, fire, and miracles, let's begin.
The Chronicle
Little is known of Celestine's early life, save that she once walked the path of a Sister Repentia in the Order of Our Martyred Lady. During the brutal conflict of the Palatine Schism, she fought at the forefront, ultimately falling in battle before the capital city of Eurytion alongside every Repentia sister. Yet even in death, she left behind a mountain of slain heretics--over a hundred by some counts.
When her sisters recovered her body, they found her alive, a faint divine light flickering in her eyes. Her flesh, once torn by war, now lay untouched and perfect. By the next day, Celestine rose and led the renewed assault. Within hours, the heretics fell, and her name spread as the sacred banner of the crusade. The Palatine Sector was cleansed in her wake. Though the crusade's leader, Lord Militant Ansgar, planned to end the campaign at the capital world, Celestine diverted their course to Sanctus Lys, a forgotten world hiding the shrine of Saint Katherine. There, among broken ruins, she unearthed a sealed crypt. Alone, she descended into its depths.
When the sun rose, Celestine emerged in golden power armour, attended by doves and cherubs, wielding a radiant blade none could bear to gaze upon: the Ardent Blade. Declared a Living Saint by Ansgar and a conclave of Thorian priests, she became known as the Hieromartyr of the Palatine Crusade. Her presence ignited holy fury in the faithful. Heretics perished by the thousands, and her aura inspired awe and dread alike. To the Adepta Sororitas, she became a figure of absolute devotion, one they would follow even into the Eye of Terror.
In the war against the Renegade Warmaster of Forrax, Celestine vanished. The Warmaster's final act, the detonation of an ancient atomic core, obliterated everything for kilometres. No witnesses remained. Terra's Tower of Heroes tolled once, mourning her fall. Billions paused in silence, while the sisters of the Convent Prioris, in their prayer, believed her spirit now sat beside the Emperor, eternal and undying.
There are many among the faithful who believe Saint Celestine never truly died on Forrax, for sightings of her have echoed through the centuries. One such account came during the Promethean War in 980.M41. As the Order of the Ebon Chalice joined the Salamanders Space Marines in the war-scarred cities of Heletine, they faced the fury of the Black Legion and their Daemon Prince, Lord Gralastyx. Possessed warriors tore through Imperial lines, until a blinding light split the skies, Saint Celestine had returned. With divine fury, she carved a path through the horde and struck down Gralastyx. In the moment of victory, she vanished as suddenly as she had come.
She returned once more at the Fall of Cadia during Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade in 999.M41. Appearing in a blaze above Kasr Kraf, she brought with her five companies of Sisters of Battle once lost in the Warp for over a millennium. Her radiance had guided them back to realspace. With her arrival, hope surged. Alongside two canonesses she had returned to life, Genevieve and Eleanor, now her Geminae Superia, Celestine slew the Daemon Prince Urkanthos and hurled his broken form from the fortress walls, shaking the morale of the enemy.
This victory granted the Imperials a moment's respite. It was then that Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl revealed the true stakes of the battle: Abaddon aimed to destroy Cadia's ancient xenos pylons. These devices held the Warp at bay, anchoring the Cadian Gate, the Imperium's only stable route into the Eye of Terror. Their destruction would open the floodgates of the Warp and unleash an unstoppable Chaos tide.
Lord Castellan Ursarkar E. Creed ordered the catacombs beneath the Elysion Fields fortified as a last redoubt. As Cawl studied the pylons, aided in secret by the Necron Lord Trazyn the Infinite, he discovered how to sever the Warp's grip on Cadia. When the Chaos assault finally came, Creed and Celestine led the desperate defence. Abaddon himself led the final charge. But as the battle reached its crescendo, Cawl activated the pylons. The Necron technology cut Cadia off from the Warp, banished the Daemons, and shrunk the Eye of Terror, granting the defenders a chance at one last, improbable victory.
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When the pylons severed Cadia from the Immaterium, the effect rippled not only through the Warp but through Saint Celestine herself. Deprived of her divine connection, her powers faltered. Weakened, she faced Abaddon the Despoiler in battle and fell before him. Even as she lay at his feet, she vowed that Humanity would one day cast off the chains of Chaos. His only reply was cold: "There is no freedom."
At the brink of defeat, Celestine was saved by Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax, recently freed from Trazyn the Infinite's Tesseract Labyrinth. Greyfax struck at Abaddon with a psychic assault, halting his killing blow. As the pylons intensified their severing of the Warp, Daemons were cast out and the Despoiler's forces began to falter.
Lord Castellan Creed led a final charge, but it was broken. He was wounded, his arm torn away. As Abaddon moved to finish him, Celestine, her strength flickering like a dying flame, struck once more. She drove the Ardent Blade into the Warmaster's back, forcing him to retreat.
Abaddon stared at her, wounded and seething. The Warp was slipping away, and his time had run out. With no choice left, he ordered his forces to withdraw, his eyes never leaving Celestine. Cadia had not fallen as he had intended. It resisted to the very end.
But Abaddon would not be denied his victory. As a final act, he hurled the crippled Blackstone Fortress Will of Eternity down upon Cadia. The impact shattered the planet, broke its defenses, and unleashed the Eye of Terror upon its ruins. Yet in that destruction, Celestine's power was restored, her bond with the Warp renewed.
Creed, grievously wounded, ordered an evacuation. Led by Cawl, Celestine, Greyfax, and Marshal Amalrich of the Black Templars, the survivors formed the Celestinian Crusade. Over three million souls fled aboard whatever voidships remained, with Cawl's mighty Ark Mechanicus, the Iron Revenant, at their heart.
Unable to use the Warp, the fleet fled at sub-light speed, pursued by Abaddon's Black Fleet. In a final act of sacrifice, the Iron Revenant engaged the Vengeful Spirit, buying time for the Crusade to escape to Klaisus, a frozen moon nearby.
It was Celestine who guided them there, drawn by a vision of salvation hidden in the ice. Her prophecy was fulfilled when the Ynnari arrived through Klaisus' secret Webway gate, rescuing the survivors from both Chaos and the merciless cold. And though Cawl's flagship was lost, its greatest treasure endured, the Armour of Fate, destined to restore Roboute Guilliman to life.
The Reborn Aeldari led the Celestinian Crusade through the Webway to the Eastern Fringes, where the Realm of Ultramar was besieged by Chaos. After initial suspicion, the Ultramarines welcomed the Celestinians to Macragge. Within the Fortress of Hera, Belisarius Cawl revealed his purpose: to awaken Roboute Guilliman from the ten-thousand-year stasis that had held him since his mortal wounding. Amid the chaos of battle in the Temple of Correction, Cawl and Yvraine, priestess of Ynnead, combined Imperial science and Aeldari sorcery to restore the Primarch. As Guilliman rose, Celestine's unwavering faith was vindicated. Even Inquisitor Greyfax, once her greatest skeptic, now recognized her as a true instrument of the Emperor's will.
Guilliman rallied his forces, driving Chaos from Ultramar. He then declared a new crusade to reach Terra, navigating the unstable Warp storms that had engulfed the galaxy. Celestine marched with him, her presence a shield and sword for the faithful as the Terran Crusade crossed the nightmarish Maelstrom. In that accursed realm, they faced Daemonic warships, Traitor ambushes, and swarms of plague flies the size of Imperial frigates. When the beasts threatened to overwhelm the fleet, Celestine ascended to the observation dome of Macragge's Honour. From there, she unleashed a wave of blinding psychic light, purging the horrors from the void.
Eventually, the battered Crusade arrived at Luna via the Webway after escaping imprisonment within another Blackstone Fortress. Their release came through the unexpected aid of the Harlequins and the mysterious Cypher. On Luna, Celestine helped repel Magnus the Red and the Thousand Sons before being taken to Terra itself. Before the Ultimate Gate of the Sanctum Imperialis, Celestine tended to the desperate pilgrims gathered outside the Emperor's Palace, a living symbol of hope. When Guilliman emerged from his audience with the Emperor a day later, newly appointed as Lord Commander, there was no doubt: as he turned to face the storm gathering across the stars, Saint Celestine would be there--burning with faith, blade in hand.
Some time after the Terran Crusade, Saint Celestine manifested once more, this time on the Hive-Ocean World of Tsadrekha, now shrouded in the darkness of the Noctis Aeterna. Despite the absence of the Astronomican's light, a powerful psyker had risen there, his mind bright enough to act as a beacon, keeping Tsadrekha linked to the wider Imperium.
But that same light drew predators. The Alpha Legion warband known as the Unsung, led by Captain Kassar, arrived in secret. They had spent nearly ten millennia trapped on the Daemon World of Bloodforge, locked in endless battle against rival servants of Chaos. For them, only a few years had passed, and they emerged largely untouched by corruption, unaware of what had become of the Imperium. Freed from Bloodforge by the Slaaneshi Champion Excrucias, they were sent to Tsadrekha with a mission: conquer its defenders, claim the psyker, and corrupt the beacon. Yet they were not alone in their ambitions. Khrn the Betrayer had come as well, leading the World Eaters in a final, brutal assault to claim the beacon's life in the name of Khorne.
As the world burned and loyalist forces struggled to hold the line, a force of Imperial Fists arrived. Then, from the Warp, Saint Celestine descended once more. In the face of ruin, she made a fateful choice, entrusting the beacon-psyker to Captain Kassar, believing it the only way to prevent Tsadrekha from falling to Chaos.But the wrath of Khrn could not be denied. The Betrayer met Celestine in combat, and in the heat of battle, the Living Saint fell beneath his unrelenting fury.
Closing Words
And so concludes the tale of Saint Celestine, her miracles, her martyrdom, and her undying flame. If this story stirred your soul, be sure to like, share, and subscribe. And don't forget to join our Discord, I am trying to build a cozy haven where lore-lovers like you gather to discuss, debate, and dive even deeper into the worlds we love. Until next time, this is Liandrug, signing off.
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