Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The light here is so dim that ordinary people can hardly see anything.

He stopped in his tracks.

After confirming that there were no surveillance devices or living beings within 50 meters, he extended his right hand.

A faint glimmer of light flashed in the darkness—the exit of the stasis field.

A hand reached out from the light and grabbed 10086's forearm.

10086 pulled hard.

A non-combatant was pulled out of the stasis field.

He was wearing the same gray dust suit as 10086, and his face was another extremely ordinary Terran face.

10086 reached out again, the second one.

Two newly arrived assassins crouched in the darkness.

Maps, population distribution, security check patterns, patrol routes, and dangerous areas were all synchronized.

Then the three of them stood up and walked in three different directions without prior arrangement.

10086 continued to advance towards the middle layer of the No. 1 Nest City.

The second assassin turned towards the lower nest.

The third assassin returned to the alley entrance. As he passed the woman holding the baby, he pulled out half a piece of corpse starch from his pocket—the half that 10086 hadn't finished eating.

He bent down and placed the object next to the woman's knee, then walked into the crowd without looking back.

The woman looked down at the half-eaten starch, paused for three seconds, then grabbed it and stuffed it into her mouth.

The same scene was playing out simultaneously in the five hive cities of Planet One.

Within six hours of the thirty assassins entering the first hive, the number of assassins in each hive increased from six to 120 through the static force field of the armory space.

They spread silently, like ink drops into water, seeping into every corner of the city: docks, factories, residential areas, black markets, underground pipe networks, and even the logistics areas of the arena.

Second Nest City

A suicide bomber infiltrated a mid-level black market gambling den posing as a gambler.

He sat in the corner, playing Emperor's Hand with three locals for two hours with a worn-out deck of cards.

He lost six rounds and won two, and the amount of ration coupons he lost was just enough to make his fellow gamblers think he was an unlucky but generous sucker.

"Again?" a burly man with a face full of scars asked him as he shuffled the cards.

"Damn it, I'm not coming."

The assassin looked dejected and slammed the last ration coupon on the table: "I lost it all. I still have to go to Iron Throat to carry boxes tomorrow."

How much do you earn carrying boxes in a day?

"If you're lucky, you'll get four coupons. If you're unlucky, you won't get any."

The big guy chuckled and put the ration coupon in his pocket: "Don't be discouraged, brother. Try again tomorrow, maybe you can make up for it."

The assassin shook his head, stood up, and staggered out of the gambling den.

The frustrated expression on his face remained until he was out of sight.

The two-hour gambling session allowed him to obtain the names, occupations, residential areas, and daily routines of three gambling buddies, as well as the personnel composition, power relationships, and profit chains within the gambling den.

These data, through swarm intelligence and cross-comparison with intelligence obtained from different channels by other assassins, began to piece together a power map of the middle class in the Second Nest City.

The same scenario is happening simultaneously in the other hives on Planet One.

Ten thousand non-combat suicide soldiers and one thousand platoon-level combat suicide soldiers.

Including the initial thirty advance team members, the total number of suicide soldiers on Planet One reached 11,030.

Lawson felt the torrent of data coming from Planet One.

Map showing the distribution of the arena in Nest City No. 1.

The black market network of the Second Nest City.

Complete map of the drainage system of Nest City No. 3.

Details of the conflict between the manager of the No. 4 Nest Arena and the Governor's Office.

Data on ore mining and transportation routes in Nest City No. 5.

And the near-Earth orbit parameters of the six monitoring ships.

The estimated return time of the Tyrant-class cruisers and the four Sword-class corvettes.

The daily routine of Governor Krause.

The Governor's Office's defensive deployment.

The architectural structure of the core area of ​​No. 1 Nest City.

Swarm intelligence categorizes, encodes, and cross-validates these fragmented pieces of intelligence, piecing them together into an increasingly clear panoramic view.

On the holographic projection table, the three-dimensional model of Planet One is no longer a blurry red blob.

The outlines of the five hives began to appear, each containing countless blue dots, which marked the locations of the assassins.

These spots of light are still spreading.

Like ink dripping into water, like roots sinking into the soil.

Like a virus invading every cell of the host.

The swarm intelligence system updates its intelligence summary every ten minutes, and the amount of data has become so large that a dedicated sub-thread is needed to process it.

Lawson's gaze lingered on the spire of City One, where Governor Krauser's mansion was located.

The defensive deployments there have been thoroughly investigated.

Three thousand elite Bloodsteel Legion guards are stationed around the Governor's Mansion, with six heavy weapons outposts on the outer ring. The passageways in the top area have been transformed into a series of killing fields.

Any force attempting a direct assault will be torn to shreds by crossfire.

But to Lawson, these things were no different from paper.

Forty-six White Tiger powered armored vehicles and thirty thousand platoon-level suicide soldiers were directly airdropped into the inner part of the tower's top area through a static force field, bypassing all the outer defense lines.

Three thousand guards? Thirty thousand Astartes-equivalent assassins could quickly wipe them all out.

The White Tiger Armor's attack speed is so fast that heavy weapons don't have time to turn around.

Klaus himself?

Based on the intelligence gathered, the swarm intelligence assessment concluded that Krauser had most likely received some form of enhancement from the Khorne Archdeacon.

Physical attributes should be between those of a regular Astartes and a Primitive Astartes.

With the addition of the Chaos Space Marine guards who might be with him, the intensity of the battle will rise to another level.

But that's about it.

Forty-six White Tiger Armors ganged up on one Chosen of Khorne; the outcome was a foregone conclusion.

Lawson could carry out the decapitation tonight.

Tomorrow morning, Krause's head will be hanging on the flagpole of the governor's mansion.

But he didn't move.

His gaze shifted from the top of the tower to the orbital space surrounding Planet One.

Six small green dots mark the orbital positions of the Defender-class surveillance ship.

These small boats are insignificant, each only 300 meters long, and armed with just a few light laser cannons, which are not even enough to fight smuggling ships.

What really caught Lawson's attention were those few shadowy figures marked in red.

The Tyrant-class cruiser HMS Bloodspine and four Sword-class frigates.

They are still in the Klein system, but are on their way back.

Three months later, the 5.5-kilometer-long Blood Ridge will appear in the Obulus galaxy.

A steel behemoth weighing 32 million tons, armed with 36 broadside cannons, four torpedo tubes, and two focused laser cannons. One of them could blast the ground defenses of Planet Three into glass shards.

Lawson can kill Krauser, take over the surface of Planet One, and control the 18 billion people of the five hive cities.

But he couldn't control the track.

Planet Three doesn't even have a single Sword-class frigate.

Those patrol boats of the Ministry of Justice? They're disguised as warships, but using them to intercept a Tyrant-class cruiser is no different from poking an elephant with chopsticks.

This is Lawson's biggest weakness.

He possesses the White Tiger Power Armor, and he has innate psionic energy. He has the ability to instantly teleport within the armory space.

But wars in the Warhammer universe are never fought only on the ground.

Whoever controls the track controls everything.

A Tyrant-class cruiser is parked 30,000 kilometers above you; whatever you do on land is futile.

It can bombard you with orbital attacks for days on end, blasting through the outer shell of your entire hive and burying billions of people, including you, into the earth's crust.

You didn't even have a chance to fight back.

Therefore, killing Krauser now is pointless; the fleet will still return even if we kill him.

Upon their return, the new commander will carry out the same orders: to flatten Planet Three.

What Lawson needs is the fleet itself.

He needs that Tyrant-class cruiser, and he needs those four Sword-class frigates.

He needs to take them from the Khorne believers and make them his own.

Seize the ship.

The moment this idea took shape in Lawson's mind, swarm intelligence began automatically deducing feasible solutions.

The core logic is very simple.

The fleet returned from a two-year war in the Klein system, out of ammunition, running out of fuel, and all the boarding slaves were dead.