Warhammer: Empire Reboot

A sickening metallic scraping sound rang out.

The heavy gate was pulled upwards by this gaunt old worker, using only his muscle strength, creating a 30-centimeter-wide gap.

A faint beam of emergency light shone from the adjacent backup corridor, which was still partially powered off.

It pierced through the absolute darkness inside the workshop.

"Here! Get out from here!" M-2209 shouted.

The workers nearby, who were in despair, saw that faint sliver of light, like drowning people seeing a lifebuoy in the deep sea.

The movement vector of the crowd changed direction instantly.

The death pressure that was being pushed towards the center was released by this thirty-centimeter gap.

Beside M-2209, three other non-combatant assassins who had been lurking in the same workshop also squeezed to the gate.

Without uttering a word, the four assassins simultaneously stuffed their hands into the bottom of the door crack.

The four of them worked together, their muscles bulging.

"boom!"

The gate was forcibly pushed upwards by one meter, wide enough for a person to pass sideways.

The crowd began to pour out of the exits, and the deadly pressure inside the workshop rapidly decreased.

Similar scenes played out simultaneously at hundreds of blockade points across the three nest capitals within a very short period of time.

Of the 80,000 non-combat suicide soldiers, more than 30,000 were assigned to breaching missions by the swarm intelligence.

Using superhuman strength and a precise understanding of mechanical structures, they manually released thousands of isolation gates in the dark.

at the same time.

The other 20,000 non-combat soldiers were tasked with maintaining stability and providing reassurance.

They shout out instructions from the darkness, from high places or in crowds.

"Don't run! Crouch down! Keep breathing! There's still enough oxygen!"

"Stop pushing! The gate is open!"

This is 20,000 voices resounding simultaneously in every corner of the nest.

The terrifying computing power of swarm intelligence was clearly revealed at this moment.

It precisely calculated the timing, volume, and frequency of each suicide soldier's shout, and even the acoustic reflection angle of the surrounding factory equipment.

The 20,000 sounds formed a huge sonic net that covered the entire nest.

The sound waves produced perfect constructive interference in space, not only drowning out the screams of the crowd, but also suppressing the panic impulses in the human brain caused by the crystal dust through the low frequencies of specific frequencies.

The stampede was forcefully suppressed using sound waves.

The final link.

Two thousand non-combatant assassins, positioned at key points in the crowd, began to move silently.

Their target was the fifty agents Vespera had planted on the periphery to spread rumors.

Swarm intelligence has used full-domain monitoring, voiceprint comparison, and reverse tracking of crowd flow to pinpoint the coordinates of these fifty individuals.

Amid the still chaotic crowd.

No one noticed that a non-combatant, dressed in an ordinary worker's uniform, walked like a ghost behind a rumor-monger who was shouting at the top of his lungs.

The assassin precisely clamped the opponent's carotid sinus, cutting off blood supply to the brain.

The rumor-monger didn't even utter a sound before collapsing into unconsciousness.

The assassin dragged him into a dark corner of the equipment room.

Their mouths were tightly gagged with shoe insoles, and their limbs were bound backwards with high-strength industrial cable ties.

Fifty sources of contamination information were all cut off within three minutes.

Imperial Standard Time, 0359:17.

That is, 4 minutes and 17 seconds after Vespera pulled up the lever.

The situation in Zhongchao has begun to show visible improvement.

The gates were opened, and the crowd began to disperse in an orderly manner.

The stampede stopped, and the rumors disappeared.

The panic index curve, after soaring to its peak, was abruptly shattered into a precipitous drop by the micro-management of swarm intelligence.

And all of this happened.

Unbeknownst to Vespera, his supposedly perfect web of deception was being torn to shreds piece by piece by an unseen, enormous hand in an irrational manner.

In her computational model, the game is already locked.

The Naguru riots at the bottom nest tied down all military forces, while the infrastructure disruptions at the middle nest created an absolute blind spot.

No matter what choice that mysterious Astartes makes, she wins.

This is an absolute conclusion drawn from the operational rules of the imperial bureaucratic system.

However, her logical framework has three fatal cognitive blind spots.

First: She was unaware of the existence of those 80,000 ordinary workers.

Second: She was unaware of the existence of the "static field access regardless of distance" function.

Third: She didn't know that swarm intelligence had already locked onto her.

The moment she struck the wall with her brass resonator, sending out a vibration signal, the vibration wave was acoustically transmitted along the hive's adamant steel skeleton.

Near each of the main load-bearing walls of the hive within the hive, there stood non-combatant assassins.

They are stethoscopes.

Swarm intelligence cannot directly decipher the "tap-tap-tap" encoded content because it is Vespera's private encrypted frequency.

But swarm intelligence doesn't require deciphering content.

The computing power performed a very simple triangulation reverse calculation based on the time difference of the vibration waves captured by tens of thousands of receiving points spread across the three nest cities.

The coordinates of the vibration source are locked:

[Number 3, Spire District, 17th Floor, High Priest's Private Suite of the Purifying Water Guild, East Wing Secret Chamber.]

The target has been found.

However, Lawson was too busy to break her neck himself at the moment.

He is leading a race against time in a system-wide disaster relief operation.

However, on the swarm intelligence's tactical panel, Vespera's coordinates have been marked with a red highest priority.

"I will deal with this person personally after Zhongchao has stabilized."

At 4 minutes and 50 seconds after the attack was launched.

Lawson selected the final delivery coordinates.

45 of the most critical core nodes.

Each node is assigned one White Tiger power armor and 20 to 25 company commander-level suicide soldiers.

"Delivery".

1045 super soldiers appeared at 45 different coordinates at the same instant.

Inside one of the factories.

8000 workers remain trapped inside the sealed workshop.

The oxygen content in the workshop has dropped to 16%.

boom!

A two-ton alloy isolation gate was torn off the outside of the corridor by a huge metal hand.

A hydraulic line ruptured, causing oil to spray out.

Jia Si stood in the corridor.

In the dim emergency lights of the corridor, the metallic surface of the White Tiger Power Armor gleamed with a cold, silvery light.

Fresh air rushed into the sealed workshop through the huge opening.

The worker closest to the gate looked up.

They saw this towering, god-like steel giant.

And behind the giant, there were more than 20 black-armored assassins, armed with explosive guns, advancing in formation.

There was a two-second silence in the workshop.

Then, the first person knelt on the ground.

"The Emperor's angel! The Emperor's angel has arrived!"

Extreme fear instantly transformed into extreme fanaticism.

Cries, shouts, and prayers erupted from the crowd like a tsunami.

Thousands of conscious workers knelt on the ground, kowtowing to the steel giant.

With a blank expression, Jia turned on the external loudspeaker of his power armor.

"Stay calm. Evacuate in an orderly manner. Everything is under control."

Twenty company commander-level suicide soldiers were dispersed to various parts of the workshop.

Swarm optimization precisely calculates the throughput capacity and crowd flow fluid dynamics model for each exit.

"First row, turn left; second row, go straight; third row, wait 30 seconds before following."

The stampede stopped, and the panic subsided.

Order, in a mechanical way, returned to this hellish, sealed workshop.

Nest No. 2, the core server room of the atmospheric circulation processor #2.