Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"Breach of contract".

"Your soul has already been marked on my chessboard, its coordinates set for harvest. What bargaining chips do you have to request renegotiation?"

“Knowledge,” Vespera uttered.

She stared directly at the burning, giant blue eye.

"Information about the Astartes that can intercept souls. Shapeshifter, don't you want to know what kind of being exists in this star field isolated by the warp storm, that can cause the souls of millions of mutants to neither return to the abyss of the Chaos Gods nor rise into the light of the Star Torch, but instead be completely intercepted and utterly disappeared from this universe after death?"

The giant eye, formed of blue flames, stopped changing its pupil frequency for a moment.

The flames flickered violently.

The secret room fell into absolute silence.

Three seconds.

For a high-level subspace entity whose thought speed surpasses that of ordinary humans by a million times, a three-second pause in computation is equivalent to extreme, incomprehensible shock.

"……explain."

The synthesized voice of the Great Demon now contains a very noticeable tremor.

Vespera wasted no time on embellishment.

She presented all the underlying data she had observed in the most efficient and logical way:

First, the phenomenon of souls being intercepted and completely dissipated by an unknown gravitational singularity. Second, the ability to instantly deploy troops over long distances regardless of spatial distance. Third, a covert surveillance and perception network covering a hive city with a population of tens of billions and penetrating to every lower-level grid. Fourth, a terrifying response speed that, within 22 minutes, traverses three main hive cities and perfectly suppresses the paralysis of five major infrastructure systems with a zero-latency command chain.

With each objective statistic presented, the blue flame in the giant eye shone a little brighter.

Tzeentch is the god of knowledge, the god of deception, and the god of change.

For the followers of the Lord of Change and high-ranking demons, an unknown piece of information that is enough to overturn the underlying logic of the existing universe and the warp is far more valuable than the souls of tens of millions of ordinary mortals who have no impact on the world.

"Interesting...extremely interesting..."

The condescending coldness in the giant eye's voice vanished, replaced by an extreme greed for the unknown.

"Your intelligence certainly qualifies for an equivalent exchange. It has shown me variables beyond the chessboard. But..."

The giant eye stared at Vespera: "These unverified figures alone are insufficient to repay all your debts to your soul."

"I still have twenty core pieces."

Vespera revealed his new bargaining chip: "These are all high-quality souls deeply marked by the Tzeentch Mark over the past decade. They are the great nobles, high-ranking scholars, and technocrats of this planet. Each soul has been immersed and fermented on the chessboard of the Changer for more than ten years, and I can deliver them all at once."

In the eyes of those who make deals with the Great Demon, nothing in the world is not a bargaining chip.

Vespera never cared about her allies; they were merely tools to maintain her rule and currencies that could be used to balance the books at any time, including herself.

"Twenty high-quality corrupted souls... plus variable intelligence..."

The Great Demon was calculating the value of the subspace dimension: "It can repay ninety percent of your debt."

"The remaining ten percent?" Vespera asked.

"Your soul, pay in installments. I will keep your life to verify this information. In the meantime, I will give you a gift."

From the center of the blue giant eye's pupil, a wisp of high-density subspace energy separated and injected into the blue gemstone brooch in Vespella's hand.

"The authority to perform a micro-warp is enough for you to open a brief warp rift on a physical level, teleporting yourself to the nearest chaotic safe node to this planet and disappearing from this chessboard."

Vespera nodded slightly and pinned the gemstone brooch back onto his dark blue velvet robe.

"make a deal."

The giant eye, having lost its energy source, turned into blue sparks in the air and dissipated.

The temperature in the sealed room returned to normal.

Vespera walked to the corner of the secret room and picked up a brass resonator.

She attached the resonator to the steel frame of the main load-bearing wall.

Metal is struck, and the vibration is transmitted.

"Emergency meeting, all core members, immediately."

She typed out the highest priority vibration code.

In different regions of the three nest cities.

Vespera's twenty core associates sensed this specific resonance through their personal receivers.

Anxiety and panic are spreading through the nervous systems of these twenty people.

The failure of Plan B would be devastating. Once the Ministry of Justice and that terrifying Astartes uncovered the truth, they would face the inquest, the stake, and the torture of being skinned alive.

However, Vespera's signal was for an emergency meeting, not for everyone to flee for their lives.

In the past decade of underground cooperation, Vespera's calculations have never been off by a single level.

Her exceptionally high intelligence and absolute control over the situation led everyone, including the governor's deputy and guild directors who were more powerful than her in administrative rank, to have an almost blind, logical trust in her.

In the next forty minutes.

The twenty core members arrived one after another at Vespera's private suite in the Spire District of Nest City No. 3, through various hidden private passages and unregistered elevators.

These twenty people form the backbone of the corrupt network on Planet Obulus.

This includes the Executive Vice Governor of City 3, two executive directors of the Planetary Military-Industrial Consortium, a senior inspector of the Security Mobile Brigade under the Ministry of Justice, and more than a dozen key personnel with authority distributed across the water, energy, communications, and internal administration systems.

Everyone was a traitor who betrayed their moral principles under the temptation of cunning and cunning.

Their current lifespan, political power, and wealth in their underground vaults all come from the so-called grace of the ever-changing Lord.

Vespera stood in the secret room, smiling as he looked at each of his accomplices who wore expressions of fear.

"The situation has changed."

Her voice had a strong psychological calming effect: "But I have devised a new hedging strategy. Please take your seats."

Twenty people sat around a long table in the secret room.

"Click".

The golden door to the secret chamber closed silently behind them.

The built-in mechanical latch has become misaligned and locked.

This is a mechanical structure that Vespera modified himself three years ago, eliminating the possibility of opening it from the inside.

Vespera walked to the center of the secret room floor.

She bent down, gripped the edge of a seemingly ordinary floor tile with her fingers, and exerted force.

The floor tiles were lifted up.

Beneath the floor tiles, an extremely intricate geometric array was exposed.

The array was cast from high-purity silver, with the gaps filled with shimmering blue psionic ink.

This is a nine-ring nested magic array.

The pattern violates the normal principles of symmetry and is filled with the underlying logic guided by subspace energy.

This is Vespera's final trump card, hidden here for the reckoning.

The No. 3 Deputy Governor of Nest City has the keenest political sense.

When he saw the blue psionic ink, the capillaries on his face instantly constricted, and his face turned deathly pale.

He suddenly stood up from his chair.

"Vespera... what is this structure? What are you trying to do?"

"Sacrifice Formation"

Vespera straightened up and dusted off his hands.

He reassured the crowd, "The Ones of Change need your souls to settle accounts. Don't panic unnecessarily. The detachment process will be completed in a fraction of a second; the pain signals won't even have time to reach the cerebral cortex. This is much more comfortable than being skinned alive by the instruments of torture in the Inquisition."

Extreme panic erupted instantly in the confined room.

The instinct for survival overwhelmed reason.

Three officials near the gate jumped up and rushed to the door, frantically turning the handle, but the gate wouldn't budge.

The senior inspector from the Public Security Department reacted the fastest, immediately drawing a miniature high-explosive pistol hidden in his sleeve.

He pointed the gun at Vespera and pulled the trigger.

boom!

The miniature bomb was launched from the barrel at an initial velocity of 400 meters per second.

At coordinates three centimeters from Vespera's forehead.

The air undergoes microscopic refraction, and a translucent blue force field appears out of thin air.

The miniature bombs impacted the force field.

The kinetic energy is absorbed and deflected instantly, the warhead deforms on the force field surface, and then falls to the ground.

This is temporary refuge provided by Tzeentch Archdeacon during the period of the contract.

Vespera ignored the bullet that had fallen to her feet. She placed one hand on the core of the silver magic circle on the ground.

Biostatic introduction.

The silver thread and the blue psionic ink simultaneously erupted with a dazzling high-frequency blue light.

The magic circle is activated.

The twenty mortals in the secret chamber had their cerebral cortex, nerve center, and the depths of their souls deeply marked by Tzeentch's imprint over the past decade.

At the same microsecond that the magic circle is activated.

Twenty marked souls, like iron filings attracted by an invisible, powerful electromagnet, were instantly and forcibly extracted from their physical containers under extremely high subspace gravity.

Death was extremely swift.

When a body loses the support of its soul, the mitochondria within its cells instantly cease functioning, and water evaporates at an abnormal rate.

Within two seconds, the twenty bodies rapidly shriveled and withered, their skin clinging to their bones, turning into dehydrated corpses that lost their balance and collapsed haphazardly onto the floor.

Twenty blue soul rays converged in mid-air and shot into the focal point of the magic circle.