Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The orange-red flames in the passageway, like the breath of a dragon, burned away the filthy plague spores and secondary sources of infection, and the cloying stench in the air was finally replaced by the pungent smell of charcoal and promethium.

Suicide squads were on the front lines, killing everyone. The PDF was being cleaned up from the rear.

The combination is seamless.

The black tsunami of Nurgle cultists, after crashing into this war machine that spanned three hive cities, finally began to recede at a visible rate.

What truly cemented this defensive battle's place in the history of planet Obulus was neither the steely will of the suicide squads nor the sheer firepower of the PDF.

Rather, they are those tiny moments that occur on the brink of life and death, moments that are enough to change a person's beliefs for life.

Nest No. 1, the border area between the middle and lower nests, the forty-fourth civilian elevator platform.

This is one of the last passageways for the lower nest dwellers to escape to the middle nest.

Tens of thousands of civilians, workers, the elderly, children, and the wounded crowded onto the platform.

The lifting capacity of the elevator has far exceeded its design limits.

Each train can only take away 300 people, while there are still 40,000 people waiting on the platform.

Panic is spreading.

People in the crowd had already started pushing and trampling each other.

Several burly gang members even brandished knives, attempting to seize the elevator's location by force.

The guardrails at the edge of the platform have been squeezed out of shape.

Someone was pushed down a lift shaft that was hundreds of meters deep, and their screams echoed for a long time in the metal pipes.

Just as the chaos was about to spiral completely out of control.

"boom!"

A deafening roar from a heavy bomb gun echoed beneath the platform's dome.

Everyone fell silent instantly.

At the platform entrance stood three assassins dressed in black bulletproof armor.

All 40,000 eyes were on him at the same time.

The officer in charge of the suicide squad remained expressionless.

He put away the explosive gun and drew a chainsaw sword from his waist.

The hum of the spinning chain teeth was particularly jarring in the silence.

He pointed his chainsaw sword at the gang members who had brandished their knives.

"Put your weapon down. Or I'll help you put it down."

The sound of the knife hitting the ground was crisp and pleasant.

"Listen up, everyone. Women, children, and the wounded have priority. Adults, form four lines. Anyone who cuts in line, pushes, or uses violence will be punished."

His gaze swept across the crowd.

I have nothing more to say.

Order was restored within thirty seconds.

The elevator started operating at maximum frequency.

Women carrying children entered first. Elderly people were helped onto the elevator platform. Injured workers were carried in on stretchers.

Adult men lined up in silence.

In their previous life in the hive capital, these lower-class commoners had only ever seen two ways of exercising power: the whip of the nobles and the fists of gangs.

But the authority of these three black-armored soldiers comes from something entirely different: an absolute, unquestionable order.

An elderly worker with gray hair suddenly stopped as he passed by the suicide soldier.

He turned around and bowed deeply to the expressionless officer.

"Thank you, sir."

The old man's voice trembled: "I've lived in this nest for sixty-three years. No one has ever cared about the lives of us at the bottom."

The assassin officer glanced at him.

"Keep going."

The old man turned and walked into the elevator.

Before his figure disappeared through the gap of the closing door, all the civilians waiting in line saw the tears on his face.

front.

The battle has entered its fourth hour.

The impact of the Nurgle cultists has clearly diminished, with the 1200 million mutant base reduced by nearly a third in four hours of continuous strangulation.

The remaining believers lost their frenzied momentum and began to show signs of retreat and disintegration.

But Lawson's attention was not on the front lines.

He closed his eyes, monitoring a set of data on the system panel.

The value of [Subspace Energy] fluctuates in minute increments of "+1".

All three nests are engaged in high-intensity, synchronized operations, with an extremely high frequency of movement.

He retrieved the battle records from the previous battle at the Cathedral of the Martyrs.

At that time, twenty-three Chaos Cultists were killed, but the system did not provide any subspace energy.

"Check the bee colony."

Swarm intelligence provides the following analysis:

[The current target is a deeply infected mutant. Their body and soul have been deeply corrupted by Nurgle, resulting in mutation. After system purification and attrition, approximately 30 deeply infected believers can be combined to produce 1 point of subspace energy.]

[The previous target was an ordinary human cult member. Since the number of victims did not undergo a subspace-level transformation and was less than 30, no settlement will be made.]

It takes 30 to get 1 point.

Cheaper than the Little Devil.

"Inferior and defective products," Lawson defined these mutants.

Then he glanced at the sea of ​​red data on the holographic battlefield projection.

The meager individual profits, when faced with a huge base, undergo a quantitative change.

30:1. 1200 million.

Potential gain: 400,000 points of subspace energy.

"These masterminds have given me a great gift."

Lawson's gaze darkened.

"When I catch you, I'll make sure you die a quick death."

After half an hour.

Four battle nuns have arrived.

They had already donned their tattered power armor, their weapon catches were unlocked, and their explosive guns were loaded.

The public warning system broadcast abnormal data from the underlying infrastructure, indicating that all three hives simultaneously experienced Nurgle riots, numbering in the tens of millions.

This is an intrusive attack.

The underlying doctrine of the Battle Sisters requires them to be at the forefront of purifying impurities.

"grown ups."

Katarina gripped her sword hilt and said urgently, "The Nurgle heretics have emerged in the lower levels. The uprising has reached the level of a hive city-level threat. We request permission to join the war."

Lawson's gaze swept over the four nuns.

"Come with me."

The Governor's Palace Hall.

Grand Marshal Thorne of the Ministry of Justice and Governor Cassius are both here.

Lawson nodded to the Tech Priest, and the giant holographic projector hummed.

The 3D structure diagram unfolds and is divided into three independent real-time monitoring blocks, each corresponding to the lower defense line of the three main hive cities.

Katarina turned her gaze to the projection.

The anticipated scenes of civilians being massacred and the defense line collapsing did not occur.

The entrance to the three hive cities.

Nine hundred thousand PDFs have completed their tactical deployment. Laser arrays form a dense blockade. Bulldozer blades clear away the wreckage. Promethium-fueled vehicles spew out high-temperature flames.

The situation is absolutely static and stable.

Katarina's gaze swept past the PDF's second line of defense and locked onto the front.

The force blocking the way for the millions of mutants was not a heavily armored unit.

There were fewer than 20,000 soldiers wearing black bulletproof armor.

The data link scrolls along the edge of the projection.

The timestamps show that, before the main PDF force arrived, these fewer than 20,000 soldiers alone withstood the first wave of attacks from 12 million Nurgle followers.

Every defensive node remained unmoved.

Katarina stared at the soldiers in the screen, kneeling on one knee, their shields locked, their gun barrels glowing dark red.

They fought in silence, facing mountains of mutated corpses and demonic entities torn from rotting flesh.

According to the doctrines of the State Religion, even the most devout veterans of the Astronautical Army need the commissar's explosive gun to maintain the front line when faced with the stench and despair of the Nurgle's entity.

But this army doesn't even need a political commissar.

"By the Emperor..." Sena murmured softly.

She noticed a detail in the footage: a suicide soldier's left arm had been cleaved in two by the Plague Demon's bone-chopping knife, and the cut was emitting blue smoke from the acidic corrosion.