Warhammer: Empire Reboot

This time, Lawson expanded the number of company commander-level suicide soldiers from one thousand to six thousand.

The other 54,000 combat soldiers have all been promoted to platoon leader level, which means there are no ordinary soldiers left.

If the numbers can't be increased for the time being, then we'll focus on building a leaner force.

As long as he has enough life points, he can be promoted to the rank of company commander later on.

Fifty thousand unarmored assassins, whose physical abilities are slightly stronger than those of the Space Marines in the original story, are also a formidable force.

Then there are non-combat suicide soldiers.

Lawson increased the total number of non-combatant suicide soldiers from 230,000 to 450,000.

They were allocated over 20,000 to Planet One, where the total number of assassins exceeded 40,000.

The infiltration network has been further encrypted.

Lawson glanced at the numbers and found that the total number of all the assassins now amounted to exactly 500,000.

The pace of expansion has been too fast lately.

It will be even faster in the future.

Currently, a single green-skinned breeding cycle yields 900 million life points, which, if all were exchanged for non-combat type assassins, would amount to 45 people.

This is equivalent to adding 45 non-combatant assassins in one cycle.

Based on this calculation, in the next cycle, plus the harvest from clearing out the Greenskins outside the Nest City, his number of assassins may exceed one million!

It's another integer. What abilities will I awaken this time?

A million suicide soldiers, that's quite a milestone, isn't it?

For a mere planet like Nest City to function smoothly, it would require millions of assassins.

On the dark side of the Empire, at least hundreds of thousands of humans on Empire planets are struggling in dire straits.

On the Holy Land of the Empire, hundreds of thousands of human planets are also mired in cesspools.

After working so hard for humanity, it wouldn't be right for the emperor, the ruler of the empire, not to give them some benefits, would it?

The night wind blew in through the ventilation cracks in the outer shell of the hive.

Lawson glanced at the running log.

The assassin infiltration network on Planet One continues to expand.

The seaweed conveyor belt in Agricultural World No. 2 runs day and night, consuming and dispensing a compressed package every two seconds.

The Ironbone Project, native to the Third Nest City, has entered the third cycle of cultivation. Orc spores in nine hundred cultivation pools are quietly expanding in the organic sludge.

Everything is proceeding according to plan.

But Lawson closed his eyes and returned to the warp.

He's been here many times recently.

Thirty-one times.

Compared to the first time he came, his little black hole has grown considerably larger.

It used to be the size of a millet grain, but now it's about the size of a soybean.

A black hole the size of a soybean.

Lawson was not satisfied with the size.

In the warp, the projection of the Tzeentch archdeacon can cover an entire galaxy. The soul fire of a high-ranking Khorne demon can illuminate half a star system. Nurgle's gardens stretch endlessly, and Slaanesh's palaces shimmer in the folds of dimensions.

A soybean.

Compared to them, we are like a grain of sand under the feet of an ant.

But this soybean has a unique property: it is something that even the four gods of chaos cannot bite, and it is still expanding.

The essence of a black hole is to devour.

The tiny black hole still stands beside the enormous, cold sun.

"Boss, I'm here again."

Lawson speaks by projecting his thoughts directly, like throwing pebbles into a lake.

Ripples spread in all directions, with the cold sun being the only expected recipient.

Now that Lawson defines himself as an employee of the Empire, it's not wrong for him to call the Emperor his boss, since the Emperor doesn't care anyway.

The cold sun did not react.

Expected.

Lawson didn't mind at all.

"You came four days ago last time. If you have any objections, you can let me know. If you don't, I'll take it as your consent."

Eternal silence.

If we compare the Emperor's existence in the Warp to a mountain, then Lawson is a mosquito perched at the foot of the mountain, shouting at the summit.

The mountain won't answer the mosquito's question. The mountain won't even notice the mosquito's presence.

In fact, Lawson figured out one thing the first time he came here.

The Emperor's consciousness had shattered into countless fragments during ten thousand years of torment. Most of the fragments were used to maintain the operation of the Star Torch, guide the Empire's voyage, and fight against the endless waves of demons. The remaining consciousness that processed information was probably less than one millionth of the total.

What's needed to get that one-in-a-million fragment to notice a soybean is frequency.

So Lawson came thirty-one times.

The first few times he spoke seriously, he reported on his troop deployments, analyzed the strategic situation of the Empire's dark side, and described the distribution of Chaos forces in the Obulus system.

The report is well-organized, logically rigorous, and can be considered a perfect military report.

The emperor did not respond.

Later, he changed his strategy and started telling stories, such as how he almost had his finger bitten off by the fart demon on the first day he landed on the wrecked spaceship, and how awesome he was when he fought Valentine, the commander of the eternal Chaos.

The emperor did not respond.

Later, he began to criticize the inefficiency of the Imperial bureaucracy, the hypocrisy and madness of the State Religion, and the infighting and buck-passing among the Space Marine chapters. He even cursed the Emperor himself: "You shouldn't have launched the Great Crusade. If you had stayed on Terra and taken good care of your twenty sons, the galaxy wouldn't be in this mess today."

The emperor did not respond.

If you're not going to respond, then don't respond.

Lawson didn't care; he had plenty of patience.

When dealing with important people, the key is not to make them remember what you said, but to make them remember that you were there.

If you come here many times, it becomes a habit.

Habits last longer than memories.

"Then let me get down to business."

“Your living saint, Vera, is still alive. After she used up the energy you gave her last time, she was in a coma for two days, but when she woke up, she was no different from a normal person. Her psionic energy had completely dissipated, and her golden wings had retracted. But I scanned her soul spectrum, and it's different from before, as if you've branded it. The flame you gave her hasn't gone out; it's just shrunk to the deepest part of her soul, like a seed. I guess it needs some specific triggering condition to be reactivated.”

Lawson packaged Vera's current soul spectrum data into an information pulse and shot it toward the cold sun.

The pulse struck the cold, luminous surface and was absorbed.

Or rather, they were ignored.

Lawson couldn't tell the difference between the two.

"Okay, next one." He turned the page decisively.

"The Nurgle riots in the third hive have been completely wiped out. The remaining Nurgle cultists in the bottom hive, along with those disgusting altars they built in the sewers, have all been burned. The corpses have been fed to Squiger. Seventy percent of the nobles have been cleaned up, and the Ministry of Justice and the Planetary Defense Force are completely under my control."

He sent over footage of the raid on the nest.

Tens of thousands of warriors advanced in formation through the pipes, red beams of laser guns slicing through walls of rotting flesh, and flamethrowers crackling as they burned the Nurglefly carpet clinging to the dome. The scene ended with an underground plaza where hundreds of warriors stood beside mountains of heretic corpses.

The cold sun did not respond.

"You have to give me some kind of response, right? Even if you think I didn't kill enough, that's fine."

"Then I'll show you something good."

He pulled up the footage from that day.

The moment Vera transformed into a living saint, golden wings of light unfurled beneath the dark dome of the haunted city, illuminating all buildings within a radius of tens of kilometers.

Billions of civilians knelt on the ground, their cries and prayers forming a vast ocean. Vera hovered in the air, her golden tears falling and instantly erasing the Tzeentch Dust from the victims' bodies.

"One billion sixty million people, three hours and fifty minutes, all of them were saved. Your little girl did a great job."

The cold sun did not respond.

Lawson wasn't annoyed and continued speaking.

"And there's the situation on Planet 1. Khorne's followers, Krauser, have turned that planet with 180 billion people into a slaughterhouse. Gladiator system, death quotas, forced injections—the population will collapse in twenty-three years. But I've already reported these to you; you probably won't remember them."

He sent over a recording of the arena from Planet One. In the massive circular arena, two emaciated civilians were fighting each other with rusty daggers. The stands were filled with Bloodsteel Legion soldiers, who roared in unison. On the judge's platform, a skull judge in a black robe raised his skull scepter and pronounced the loser dead.

The loser struggled as he was dragged out. The winner knelt in a pool of blood and vomited.

“Your people,” Lawson said, “180 billion, with hundreds of thousands being crammed into the arena every day. But I know you’re barely able to control Terra right under your nose.”

He was stating the facts.

The cold sun remained silent.

Lawson projected the prepared images one by one, like posting notices on a wall.

The scene depicts the execution of a heretical high-ranking official. White Tiger Death Soldier A throws a fat guild priest off the seventeenth floor, smashing his head into a bloody pulp.

The footage shows the entire city being cleansed, with black vehicles from the Ministry of Justice shuttling between different levels of the hive, and armed soldiers kicking open door after door, dragging out screaming traitors.

Footage of the bottom nest factory resuming production.

Footage of the Planetary Defense Forces training.

It's all been spread.

All of them disappeared without a trace.

Lawson was already used to it.