Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"Alright, now that we've finished with the business, let's talk about some personal matters."

“Theoretically speaking, you should be able to hear it. I’m projecting the information directly onto your face. As long as even one ten-thousandth of your consciousness is still functioning, you will receive it.”

"So it's not that you don't want to respond, it's that you really can't spare the time."

“But I still have to come. What if you suddenly have the time? What if a fragment of your consciousness happens to drift over this area and see these scenes I left behind? The probability is low, but not zero. Everything I’ve done in my life has been a gamble with low probabilities, so one more thing won’t make a difference.”

The cold sunlight flowed silently.

Lawson was quiet for a while.

“One last thing,” Lawson said, “about food.”

He brought up a set of images.

Deep within the nest, nine hundred culture pools are neatly arranged.

Orc spores grow in the mud.

The visuals are very straightforward; Lawson did not edit or enhance them in any way.

Eighteen parallel conveyor belts extend from the incubation tanks to the processing area, where mature Squigs are herded onto the conveyor belts by fences.

Squig was quickly killed on the conveyor belt.

Huge industrial mills grind meat into minced meat, mix it with seaweed powder in a 7:3 ratio, press it into rectangular ration blocks about the size of a thumb, and finally pack and seal it.

The central distribution station of Nest City No. 3.

The line of civilians stretched from the gate of the ration station for three blocks.

Each person receives a packet containing five rations, enough to last two days.

A middle-aged woman took the food ration packet, tore off a piece, and put it in her mouth.

Then she cried.

"It tastes salty."

"This stuff tastes salty and meaty. I haven't eaten anything salty in twenty-six years."

More people started tearing open food bags, and more people started crying.

An old man knelt at the entrance of the ration station, raised his rations above his head, and performed the Eagle Salute towards the dome of the Nest City.

The scene ends here.

"You see, I'm raising green-skinned pigs."

"Green-skinned orcs, the Empire's mortal enemy. I plant their spores in cultivation tanks, feed them with organic waste, then behead them, crush them, turn them into rations, and stuff them into the mouths of your 118 billion subjects."

“Your state religion has an ironclad rule: ‘Those who consume the flesh of the aliens will have their souls defiled.’ I know that very well. According to this doctrine, I am already a heretic, the kind who should be burned at the stake by the Inquisition. Breeding aliens for food, operating on a large scale, and feeding over ten billion people. In Terra, the Inquisition would sentence me to ten burnings at the stake.”

"But I had no choice."

"Your third hive planet's food supply has been cut off by the enemy for two years. The reserves are enough for eighty-seven days. After eighty-seven days, there will be a great famine. Do you know what a great famine at the bottom of the empire is like? I do."

"People eat people."

"First they eat the dead. Then they eat the live. Finally, armed groups hunt each other down, and whoever has the most guns is at the top of the food chain. The entire social order collapses completely within two weeks. In the Nest City world, once famine breaks out, the death toll will jump to the billions."

"In this situation, I have two choices."

"First, do nothing. Sit and wait for your people to kill each other, while preserving your reputation as 'orthodox humanity' so that the Inquisition and the State Religion can't find fault with you. This is safe, correct, and very imperial."

"Second, raising green-skinned creatures. Feeding your people with the flesh and blood of aliens. Bearing the stigma of heresy."

"I chose the second one."

"If you think raising green-skinned animals for food is heresy, then strike me dead with lightning, so that your court and those lunatics from the state religion won't come knocking on my door to bother me later."

He's finished speaking.

The cold sunlight continued to flow slowly.

Lawson counted to three in his head.

Silence remained, as expected.

He sensed it when he was about to leave.

The edge of the cold sun.

At a certain point on the edge of the photosphere, there is an extremely tiny point, so small that it is almost non-existent relative to the entire volume of the cold sun.

A wisp of golden flame.

The golden flame broke free from the cold, luminous surface.

Its size is extremely small; if the cold sun were a star, this wisp of flame would be like a piece of dandruff that fell from the star's surface.

It bounced once and floated out along an almost straight trajectory.

The trajectory ended at a black hole the size of a soybean.

Golden flames swept across the edge of the black hole.

In that instant, Lawson's black hole exhibited an instinctive accretion reaction.

The black hole's gravitational field captured this golden flame.

Gold and black intersect in a space the size of a soybean.

The golden flames were stretched and stirred by the black hole's gravity.

It slowly rotates inside the black hole, like a tiny star falling into an abyss.

This blazing flame is like dandruff compared to the cold sun.

But it's too big compared to a black hole the size of a soybean.

It's more than an order of magnitude larger.

Lawson felt as if his soul projection was being forcefully poured into a bucket of water, like a fist-sized glass.

But the black hole swallowed it.

Golden flames swirled silently at the center of the black hole, their light swallowed by the blackness, but the gold at the core did not extinguish.

Lawson paused for two seconds.

Then they left the subspace and returned to the real world.

Obolus-III, Nest City No. 3, Spire Terrace.

Lawson opened his eyes.

He looked down at his hands.

A wisp of golden light danced on the tip of the index finger of his right hand.

Then he grinned.

"I knew it."

“Old Huang is just like me at heart; he’s the kind of person who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.”

"Raising green-skinned animals for food is heresy. You didn't kill me, and you even gave me a bonus."

PS: I'll update 6000 words first, and the rest this afternoon.

Chapter 119 The Dark Side of the Empire Now Has Its Own Beacon

Lawson stood on the rooftop terrace.

Golden flames danced at his fingertips, like a drop of molten gold swaying in the wind.

He clenched his fist, and golden light seeped out from between his fingers, spreading a few centimeters along the veins in his forearm before extinguishing.

"Cannot strengthen the physical body."

Lawson loosened his fist and flexed his fingers.

He then tried channeling the golden energy into his right leg and did a jump while standing still.

He stomped a shallow hole in the metal floor of the terrace, but it was entirely the result of muscle power.

"It also won't increase strength."

The swarm intelligence completed a cross-comparison of 472 physiological indicators throughout the body, and the conclusion was clear: this wisp of imperial power did not provide any direct benefit to Lawson's physical body.

It is more like an external energy pack encapsulated within the black hole projection, operating in parallel with its bioelectric field system without interfering with each other.

Lawson retrieved a master-level power sword from the armory.

He gripped it with one hand and channeled the golden energy into the sword.

Change is instantaneous.

The activation field of the power sword changed from pale blue to a dazzling golden-white, and the air at the blade edge began to distort violently, emitting a faint, continuous hissing sound.

Lawson stared at the layer of golden flames, whose destructive power had increased by at least double compared to before, and the flames carried a purification attribute that he could not quantify with physical parameters.

"It can enhance weapons."

He swung his sword at the air.

A golden arc of light drew a scorching trail across the night sky, stretching a full three meters before dissipating.

The arc of light swept across the guardrail at the edge of the terrace, and the metal at the cut edge emitted a faint golden glow before slowly fading.

Lawson sheathed his sword, the golden flames extinguished, and the sword retracted back to his fingertips.

"Strengthening the body: Ineffective. Increasing strength: Ineffective. Amplifying weapons: Effective." He muttered to himself, "What else?"

He closed his eyes.

The sensory network of swarm intelligence unfolds.

Same as before, no, not exactly the same.

Lawson opened his eyes and frowned.

He closed his eyes again, this time deliberately drawing upon the golden energy within the black hole.

The entire sensory network instantly lit up to a higher level.