Warhammer: Empire Reboot

In the dim light, Lawson saw a faint blue fluorescence shimmering deep in his throat.

The light was like a small flame slowly burning; with each flicker, the man would convulse in pain.

This is Tzeentch Psylocke's signature color.

After the mark of the crystal dust on the host's soul shattered, it began to spontaneously combust, using the soul itself as fuel. The dehydration was merely a physical side effect; what was truly burning was his soul.

This burning is extremely slow and extremely painful.

It won't burn you to death instantly.

It will make you feel the extreme fear and despair of your soul being gradually eroded over seven to ten days.

This is exactly what Tzeentch wanted.

The master of all changes tastes the despair that living people experience amidst dramatic shifts in their fate.

The psionic fluctuations generated by 18 billion people simultaneously falling into a long and irreversible state of despair would be enough for Tzeentch to enjoy an extremely lavish feast in the warp.

The medical officer from Chaodu is already on the scene.

Hundreds of medical staff in white protective suits moved among the patients, but their faces were filled with confusion and helplessness.

A senior medical officer approached Lawson, suppressing his panic: "Sir... we've conducted a full range of biochemical tests on all patients. Blood, urine, cerebrospinal fluid—all indicators are within the normal range. Physically, these people are perfectly healthy. We can't find any cause for their illness."

Lawson was not surprised.

This is not a disease on a physical level; it is a curse of the subspace.

Even the Empire's most advanced medical equipment cannot detect damage at the soul level, because the soul is beyond the detection range of physical instruments.

Lawson turned to Katarina: "Do you have any ideas?"

Katarina's face was as stiff as iron.

"Battle nuns are not medical nuns. Our holy water and prayers can dispel low-level warp interference."

She hesitated for a moment, but it only applies to individuals. One person at a time. 1.8 billion people…

She didn't finish speaking.

Sera and Sena also joined the rescue efforts.

Sera sprinkled holy water on the forehead of an unconscious old woman while reciting exorcism prayers.

A golden glimmer flashed on the old woman's forehead, but it lasted for less than a second before extinguishing.

The curse's anchor is not on the surface of the body, but deep within the soul; holy water and prayer cannot reach that level.

Sena tried pressing the Imperial Eagle emblem from her nun's armor against a child's chest, concentrating her will and silently chanting, "The Emperor's light dispels all darkness."

The eagle emblem was indeed slightly warm, but that was all.

Although the nun's faith was pure, her individual psychic power was too weak to reach the foundation of the mark that Tzeentch had left on billions of souls.

All our efforts are just a drop in the ocean.

The common people began to despair.

Despair spreads among people like a plague, and this despair itself is part of the curse, accelerating the burning of the soul.

Lawson stood in the center of the shelter, like an immovable iron tower.

The swarm intelligence is operating at full speed, trying to find any feasible solutions.

The armory's purification function can remove subspace contamination from weapons, but that applies to inanimate materials.

The psychic imprint within a living being is "embedded in the soul," not attached to a physical surface. Purifying the Tzeentch imprint from a living person's soul is tantamount to performing psychic surgery without killing the soul. The system lacks this capability. It's not feasible.

Endogenous psionic energy can interfere with subspace phenomena, but that's like covering a signal with white noise.

The imprint is deeply rooted in the soul; it can only temporarily alleviate the symptoms, not eradicate them.

Moreover, the energy required to continuously exert psionic interference on 18 billion people far exceeds Lawson's current total amount of endogenous psionic energy, making it impractical.

蜂群思维给出了冰冷的评估：“若不及时解除，预计7-10天内将有12-15亿人因灵魂耗竭死亡。其余3-6亿人因晶尘浓度较低可能存活，但将遭受不同程度的永久灵魂损伤。”

Lawson closed his eyes.

He was indeed only good at killing, and he was invincible against his enemies, but when faced with a plague that affected the soul, his strength and his tactics were all useless.

At this moment, he felt the deepest sense of powerlessness he had experienced since arriving in the Warhammer universe.

In a corner deep within the sanctuary, novice nun Vera knelt on the ground.

She was surrounded by a dozen or so civilians wailing in pain.

An elderly woman huddled before her, her withered hands clutching the hem of Vera's black nun's robe, pleading hoarsely, "Please...water...just one more sip of water..."

Vera had already given her water three times, and each time, the old woman was in more pain after drinking it, and the blue fluorescence deep in her throat would become brighter.

Vera's hands were trembling.

She was the youngest of the four nuns, having graduated from seminary only six months prior.

She was full of enthusiasm when she was assigned to the nun's squad, believing that she would dispel all darkness under the Emperor's guidance.

Then the transport plane made an emergency landing, the greens besieged the city, chaos erupted, the battle nuns were scattered, and teammates fell one by one...

In the end, only the four of them remained.

In the past three days, she has experienced things she could never have experienced in three lifetimes.

Steel angels descending from the sky, starships crushing millions of orcs, and the bottom hive defenses battling despair.

She watched as the expressionless, black-armored soldiers beheaded the monster with a single stroke, and as Sister Katarina knelt before the steel giant.

She thought everything would be alright; the emperor sent angels, and angels were omnipotent.

But now, the angel stood in the center of the shelter, like a silent iron tower. He did not move.

What is he waiting for?

Vera didn't understand.

She looked around at the gaunt faces, the blue glow, and the desperate cries—it all felt like an invisible hand gripping her heart tightly.

She did the only thing she knew she had to do.

She knelt down, clasped her hands together, and closed her eyes.

She prayed.

Those texts that I memorized countless times in class, such as "The Emperor's Protection Sutra," "The Text to Dispel Heretics," and "The Hymn of Dawn."

All the prayers vanished at that moment; her mind went blank.

What she uttered to the emperor was simply the most basic and desperate sentiment of a 23-year-old girl:

"Your Majesty, look at them. They are in pain. They have done nothing wrong. They just drank water. They just wanted to live."

“I don’t know how to save them. I can’t do anything. I’ve studied the scriptures and prayed for three years, but I can’t do anything in the face of all this.”

"Please... if you can hear me... even just a little bit..."

She choked up, and tears rolled down her cheeks from her tightly closed eyes.

In subspace.

The Valar's prayer was like a tiny spark, attempting to penetrate the thick, iron-like barrier of warp storms on the dark side of the Empire.

But the storm was too thick.

Beyond the Great Rift, the warp of the Empire's dark side resembles an eternal black ocean, where the light of the Star Torch is gradually diminished to a near-zero afterglow.

Vera's prayers were as faint as a candle in a hurricane in the darkness.

Her voice faded away.

no respond.

Vera sensed it; there was nothing there.

There was no imperial warmth, no holy light, only Tzeentch's mocking whispers echoing through the warp storm.

"Do you see? Your God is not here. He has abandoned you..."

Vera's body trembled uncontrollably.

She knew it was a devil's lie, but at this moment, faced with the suffering of billions of people and her own powerlessness, the lie seemed so convincing.

Her faith is wavering.

A tear fell onto her clasped fingertips.

Lawson looked at Vera.

His exceptional five senses allowed him to clearly perceive every detail of Vera's body.

Her trembling shoulders, her tearful profile, her clenched fingers with white knuckles.

The swarm mind made no comment on Vera's prayer.

Swarm intelligence does not have a computational model for "faith" and "prayer," as those are outside the realm of physics or mathematics.

But Lawson's thinking is not limited to swarm intelligence.

He was a human being, and the memories of being human twice gave him things that swarm intelligence could never comprehend.

As he looked at Vera, something suddenly occurred to him.

After completing the third leap and unlocking the "Warp Essence," he once looked directly into the Warp Soul Sea.

In that chaotic, churning dimension, he saw two things:

One's own projection and the emperor's projection.

He had tried to communicate with the emperor, but the emperor "read his messages but did not reply."

After that, Lawson's attitude toward the Emperor became pragmatic.

It was a living dead person tied to a golden toilet, possessing unimaginable psychic powers, but its consciousness had been shattered into countless fragments, each carrying out a different task.

The Emperor's psychic fragments were already overburdened by the need to maintain the Star Torch, protect the Path of Souls, and suppress demons.

Vera's prayers could not penetrate the warp storm.

But Lawson can.