Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Lawson turned his attention to the other options in the organ enhancement list.

He didn't open the detailed panel for each route one by one; there was too much information there, and the swarm intelligence tool would automatically archive and categorize it in the background.

He simply glanced at the titles to get a general idea of ​​the overall system's framework.

Chapter 121 Minion Harvester - Shadow Wheel

The ear has two pathways: one is biased towards sonar localization, and the other towards intercepting communications.

The heart has three pathways: one is geared towards explosive power, one towards endurance, and one towards toxin metabolism.

The stomach has a pathway for omnivorous fortification.

Bones follow two paths: one leans towards hardness, and the other towards elasticity.

The cerebral cortex has two pathways: one is inclined towards calculation, and the other towards psionic resonance.

Each route is divided into multiple stages, and the subspace energy consumption of each stage is 3 to 5 times that of the previous stage.

In other words, it's a money-devouring beast.

With Lawson's current reserve of 85 points of subspace energy, it would take approximately 10 to 15 points to strengthen all of a suicide soldier's organs to the first tier.

Upgrading to the second tier requires 80 to 100 points.

The cost of creating a fully-fledged Tier 2 specialized assassin is almost equal to all of Lawson's current assets.

"Too expensive," Lawson muttered to himself, but with an undisguised excitement.

Expensive indicates strength.

The strategic value of this system goes far beyond simply having a few more skilled assassins.

Its true significance lies in the fact that Lawson's army can now break free from the framework of standardized mass production and begin to evolve towards "specialization and modularization".

He can create snipers with Hawkeye and enhanced arms, specializing in smashing enemy officers' heads into pieces with a bomb gun from three kilometers away.

He can create assault troops with spider eyes, explosive heartbeats, and flexible bones, providing all-around perception, instantaneous bursts of power, and steel-like bodies in close combat, specifically designed to be thrown into groups of Chaos Space Marines for melee fighting.

He can create star astronauts with star-like eyes and brains that can calculate and guide the fleet from the navigation cabin of a warship. They will never go crazy or get tired.

He can create infiltration specialists, enhance their ears (for intercepting communications), strengthen their throats (to perfectly simulate any voice), and enhance their skin (with fine-tuned skin tone and facial muscle contours), to blend into the close entourage of high-ranking enemy officials, even fooling DNA tests.

He could even create a psionic artillery force, a squadron of assassins whose brain psionic resonance was enhanced to the extreme, and whose collective resonance generated endogenous psionic energy that could be condensed into long-range mental attacks...

Lawson's thoughts were wandering further and further away, so he forced himself to stop.

"Now is not the time to plan these things."

He wouldn't expend large amounts of subspace energy for organ enhancement before the battle to seize the ship.

His 85 points of subspace energy is a strategic reserve that must be kept plentiful to cope with unforeseen circumstances.

Once he has captured the Tyrant-class fleet and purged the Khorne followers on Planet One, his warp energy reserves will surge, and his fourth-order jump will be completed. That will be the right time to invest heavily in organ enhancement.

Lawson closed the system panel and stood up.

Outside the command center, the artificial daylight of the hive city has been fully activated.

Lawson walked to the window and looked down at the swarm of people below the spire, like ants.

One million ants are scattered across three planets.

Some were tightening screws in the factory, some were moving boxes at the dock, some were killing greens in the breeding pool of the bottom nest, some were repeatedly practicing ship-seizing tactics in the abandoned ammunition depot, and some were in the starport canteen on Planet One.

But their right hemisphere is always online, always awake, and always resonating with the thoughts of a million fellow citizens.

Lawson's lips curled up slightly.

Once they've accumulated enough subspace energy, these ants will no longer be just ants.

Some will grow the eyes of an eagle, some will grow the senses of a spider, and some will grow the starlight that can see into the depths of the warp.

Different organs, different enhancements, different specializations.

They will evolve from standardized war machines into modular special forces.

Sniper, assault soldier, star astronaut, infiltration expert, psionic artilleryman...

These were just the most basic ideas in his mind.

After the fourth-order transition is completed and the system is further upgraded, the routes and combinations of organ enhancement may experience explosive growth.

Lawson turned and left the window, now testing another ability.

On the outskirts of the capital, in the middle of the industrial corridor.

A row of living metal blocks floated in front of Lawson.

Each piece is about the size of a fist, with dark silver patterns flowing across its surface.

Psionic energy seeped into the metal.

The living metal immediately responded to his will, flowing and shaping in his palm like a pool of heated wax.

Three seconds later, a 20-centimeter-long throwing knife took shape. The blade was so sharp that it reflected light, creating an almost invisible thin line. The blade was smooth, and the center of gravity was precisely positioned at the front third of the blade.

Accelerated by psionic energy, the throwing knife pierced through the air and accurately struck a piece of upright scrap steel plate 120 meters away.

The blade is embedded 20 centimeters into the steel plate.

Lawson recalled the throwing knife; the living metal liquefied from the steel plate and was extracted, arcing through the air like a drop of mercury before falling back into his palm.

"Try another one."

The throwing knife was reshaped in his hands. This time it became a forty-centimeter-long throwing sword, double-edged, with a sharp tip and a slightly curved blade to optimize aerodynamics.

It penetrates eight centimeters deeper than a throwing knife, and the cut is wider and deeper.

But Lawson frowned.

While flying swords do have greater penetrating power, they present a problem during flight: the length of the blade results in greater air resistance and more complex attitude control requirements.

He needs to allocate more psionic energy to stabilize the flight trajectory of the flying swords, and the psionic energy burden will increase sharply once he controls multiple flying swords at the same time.

Moreover, the flying sword has too narrow a killing area.

A flying sword can only cut along its blade. It is effective against a single target charging at you from the front, but not so effective against a group of scattered orcs.

"Change it again."

He began to subtract from his mind.

Throwing knives have good penetration, a narrow cutting surface, and are effective against single targets.

Flying swords offer better penetration, but their posture control is complex and places a heavy burden on psionic energy.

The sledgehammer has a large impact force but poor precision and no sustained damage.

Throwing axes, darts, armor-piercing cones, cross-shaped darts...

Swarm intelligence simulated the comprehensive effectiveness of seventeen different types of projectile weapons in various battlefield environments.

The conclusion converges to a shape.

Lawson reshaped the living metal in his palm.

This time, the silver liquid metal slowly spread out into a perfect disc, 25 centimeters in diameter, 3 centimeters thick at the center, and gradually thinning at the edges until the final cutting edge reached a molecular-level thickness.

A flywheel.

The flywheel floated above the palm and began to spin at high speed.

As the rotation speed increases, the molecular-level cutting edge forms an almost invisible cutting surface during rotation, providing a 360-degree cut without any blind spots, cutting through any contact from any direction.

The flywheel is launched.

Faster than a throwing knife, faster than a flying sword.

The disc-shaped design generates the least air resistance of all the test configurations during supersonic flight.

For the same diameter, the disc's drag coefficient is 41% lower than that of a flying knife and 67% lower than that of a flying sword. Moreover, the disc's rotational self-stabilizing effect means that it requires almost no additional psionic energy to correct its attitude during flight.

The flywheel hit the scrap steel plate.

The three-centimeter-thick Imperial Standard steel plate was cleanly and neatly cut in half by a molecular-level cutting edge.

After the flywheel pierced through the steel plate, its speed hardly decreased, and it continued to fly forward, cutting off an abandoned transport pipeline 180 meters away. Then, guided by Lawson's psionic energy, it flew back in a graceful arc.

The retrieval process is smoother than that of throwing knives and swords. The disc shape has no protruding blades or edges, so it will not get stuck inside the target.

Even if embedded in something, living metal can liquefy and flow out within half a second, escaping from the gap or wound, and then reforming in mid-air.

"This is it."

Lawson's fingers lightly brushed the edge of the flywheel.

Next is the quantity test.

The second flywheel takes shape, the third, and the fourth.

He made them levitate and rotate around him, using his psionic powers to simultaneously control the trajectory and speed of all the flywheels.

Thirty-six is ​​just at the threshold edge.

Lawson tried to increase it to thirty-seven.

The precision of psionic control immediately showed a perceptible decrease, and the rotational speed of the three outermost flywheels became unstable, with their trajectories shifting by a few tenths of a degree.

In actual combat, this slight deviation could mean that the flywheel cuts off the target's vital parts.

Lawson retrieved the extra weapon, allowing it to liquefy again and store it in the armory space.

Thirty-six shadow wheels floated and rotated around him, forming a silver halo about three meters in diameter.

The spacing between each flywheel is accurate to the centimeter level, their rotation speeds are synchronized, and their trajectories do not interfere with each other.

Under the sunlight, thirty-six silver arcs of light intertwine to form a flowing geometric pattern.

Lawson extended his psionic consciousness into each of the flywheels.

It feels very strange.

The thirty-six flywheels were like thirty-six new fingers he had grown. He could feel the weight, temperature, speed, and position of each flywheel as naturally as he could feel his own fingers clenching or extending.

Swarm intelligence assigns an independent sub-consciousness thread to each flywheel.