Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Katarina flew into a rage, her chainsaw sword pointed straight at Vespera's throat: "Shut up, heretic!"

Vespera completely ignored the nun.

Her gaze remained fixed solely on Lawson from beginning to end.

The swarm intelligence is analyzing Vespera's words at breakneck speed.

Cross-referenced the water source crystal dust data collected by non-combat suicide soldiers, the physiological abnormality reports of the inhabitants of the nest, and the known models of subspace energy.

The analysis results were available after 1.2 seconds:

"The curse mechanism triggered by the shattering of the soul imprint described by Vespera is plausible within the subspace theoretical model. Once the source of the imprint shatters abnormally on the material universe side, the fragments of the imprint scattered within the host's body will lose their stable anchor points, resulting in spontaneous, uncontrolled psionic resonance, similar to a psionic landmine detonating automatically without a control signal. Scope of impact: All organisms containing more than a critical concentration of crystalline dust within their bodies. Estimated affected population: 18-22 billion."

Vespera's body is becoming increasingly transparent.

Blue light emanated from every pore of her body.

Her soul was leaving her body, in the final stages of natural death.

Lawson gripped the Fang of Katachon in his right hand, the blade tracing a clean, crisp arc through the air.

The blade sliced ​​across Vespera's neck from left to right.

The knife severed her cervical spine, trachea, and carotid artery.

From the perspective of the soul, Lawson sees a different picture:

Vespera's soul gushed out of his body at the moment of death.

It was a distorted blue flame, with countless Tzeentch microscopic runes entangled within it.

It tried to spread, like a dandelion bursting open in the wind.

But at the same moment it spread, the system activated the interception protocol.

A force like the gravity of a black hole surged from Lawson's soul core, engulfing the exploding blue soul flames.

Vespella's soul let out a piercing scream that seemed to shatter the warp, which only Lawson "heard" through his warp-like perception.

That scream contained the fear of utter annihilation.

She had made a deal with the Great Demon for 160 years, and her soul was already imprinted with the mark of the Lord of Change.

According to the contract, her soul should return to Tzeentch's domain after her death, gaining eternal existence on the Great Demon's chessboard.

But the system is now purifying her.

Tzeentch's mark was peeled away layer by layer.

The blue runes turned to ashes in the golden purifying fire.

All the subspace energy, all the knowledge codes, and all the soul codes that Vespera has accumulated over the past 160 years are being irreversibly purified into the most basic pure energy.

"No...no...my deal...my game..." The soul's scream grew weaker and weaker.

The last wisp of blue flame went out.

Vespera's soul was utterly annihilated.

[Subspace Energy +676].

Silence returned to the secret room.

Vespera's body has completely lost its translucent characteristics.

He lay on the marble floor like an ordinary corpse.

The head rolled a meter away, its gray-blue eyes still open, but no longer held any light.

Beyond dimensions that the material universe cannot reach.

The ever-changing realm of subspace, the blue crystal labyrinth.

In a palace deep within the labyrinth, constructed from living equations, a colossal being formed from pure psionic energy opened its third eye.

High-ranking Tzeentch Archmage, Thrall Corax the Weaver of Fates.

Its shape resembles a giant woven from blue and gold flames.

Nine eyes are distributed across a constantly changing face, each eye gazing at a different timeline and possibility.

Behind it unfold two pairs of wings formed from pure knowledge, each feather a thread of destiny stolen or woven by it.

Sal Corax sensed that Vespera's soul signal had been permanently lost.

Khorne's devouring of souls leaves behind a bloody residual vibration, Nurgle's devouring leaves behind a putrid psionic aftertaste, and Slaanesh's devouring leaves behind a slightly sweet aftertaste.

Vespera's soul had completely vanished, as if it had never existed at all.

All nine eyes blinked at the same time.

"It seems her information was accurate."

Countless mirrored walls reflected images from different angles.

In the image, a tiny, black hole-like bright spot is faintly flickering on the psionic map of Obolos-III.

"A mortal who can make the soul disappear completely. Not to the Four Gods, not to the Star Torch, not to reincarnation, but to be directly erased from existence."

The great demon slowly leaned forward on its throne.

Four of the nine eyes focused in the same direction.

"Interesting...very...interesting..."

Thrall Corax is Tzeentch's archdatr, the creation of the Shapeshifter, whose anger over "loss of souls" is far less than his fascination with "unknown phenomena."

While Vespera's soul had value, it was a negligible loss compared to "discovering a completely new mechanism for soul annihilation."

The Great Demon raised a giant hand made of blue flames and wove an extremely complex tracking array in the void.

"It's worth studying in depth."

Chapter 107 Receiving the Flame from the Emperor

Before Vespera's head had even cooled down completely, Lawson received an orange alert from the swarm mind.

The danger comes not from external attacks, but from within.

The 8 non-combatant suicide soldiers in Zhongchao simultaneously reported a strange phenomenon.

The civilians closest to them, those who had been rescued from trampling and suffocation just hours earlier, began to exhibit abnormal physiological reactions.

The initial symptoms are mild: thirst.

A persistent, unsatisfied thirst.

A non-combatant suicide soldier, number M-1102, reports:

He saw a female worker in her early twenties take a whole jug of water from the relief station and gulp it down. Then she put down the empty jug, paused for three seconds, and went back to queue for a second jug. After finishing the second jug, her hands began to tremble, and her lips, instead of becoming moist, visibly cracked.

Within 5 minutes, similar reports flooded in simultaneously from the middle and lower nests of all three nests.

It grows exponentially.

Ten minutes later, the swarm intelligence system compiled observation data from 60,000 non-combatant suicide soldiers.

The conclusion is alarming:

The number of people affected, including civilians in the middle and lower nests of all three nests, is initially estimated to be over 18 billion.

Symptoms include: extreme thirst → drinking water not only fails to quench thirst but also exacerbates the thirst → the skin dehydrates and dries out at an extremely slow rate → a blue fluorescence appears in the throat → the patient falls into increasingly deeper pain and panic.

Progression rate: extremely slow. At the current rate, it takes about 7-10 days for symptoms to go from initial appearance to death, but the level of suffering increases exponentially over time.

This is the residual effect of the curse of the soul imprint that Vespera spoke of before his death.

But even weakened, the remaining curse is still deadly.

After reading the report, Lawson slowly put the Fang of Katachon into his waistband.

Vespera won the final hand.

After hearing Lawson's brief report, Sister Katarina, the head nun, showed a rare hint of wavering.

"how many people?"

“Eighteen billion.” Lawson’s voice was flat. “Maybe more.”

Katarina gritted her teeth.

Eighteen billion—this number was beyond her comprehension as a battle nun.

She could fearlessly charge into an enemy force a hundred times her size on the battlefield, but the slow, agonizing death of 1.8 billion people was not a problem she could solve with her chainsaw sword.

“Let’s go take a look,” Lawson said.

The group flew directly to Nest No. 1 in the middle of the city aboard a requisitioned Valkyrie transport plane.

When Lawson stepped into the temporary settlement in the E-7 factory area, he saw a scene that would be etched into the history of this planet.

Thousands of civilians have been housed in temporary shelters converted from factory workshops.

Most of them had just been rescued from the stampede, and still had bruises and abrasions on their bodies.

But at this moment, external injuries were no longer their most painful experience.

A middle-aged man squatted next to the water pipe, his mouth pressed against the faucet, desperately swallowing the water in an almost frantic manner.

Water overflowed from the corners of his mouth, nose, and chin, soaking his entire clothes.

He had been drinking for at least two minutes. A normal person would have vomited long ago after drinking that much water, but his body was like a dryer that could never be filled.

What's even stranger is his skin.

Lawson's enhanced vision allowed him to clearly see that the man's facial skin was withering away at an extremely slow but visibly rapid pace.

It's not the uniform drying of dehydration, but a shrinkage that's being dried out from the inside.

It was as if something inside him was converting all the water into fuel.

The man finally turned off the tap.

His eyes were empty and filled with fear.

Then he opened his mouth.