Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"This is the greatest sincerity I can offer you."

The entire inner courtyard of the fortress was as quiet as if it had been trapped in a static field.

Lawson's lips twitched slightly, and he finally spoke.

"In this universe, no one is qualified to test me except the Emperor."

As soon as he finished speaking, 395 White Tiger warriors silently stood behind him.

Immediately afterwards, within a 20-kilometer radius outside the fortress, the ordinary soldiers in gray combat uniforms who had been clearing the battlefield stopped what they were doing.

Eighty thousand gray figures converged in this direction from every corner of the battlefield.

The 500,000 Star Guard soldiers inside the fortress turned pale.

The main force of the Third Company of the Holy Blood Angels loosened their grip on their weapons for a moment, then tightened it again.

The two grey knights behind Judge Roderick had beads of sweat on the hilts of their power swords.

Dante slowly turned his head to look at the dark, approaching sea.

Just as the silence reached its extreme—

Roderick took a step forward.

He stepped directly to a position three meters in front of Lawson and pointed at Lawson.

"The leader of the White Tiger Battle Group."

"What should be the first reaction of an imperial warrior who is truly innocent and loyal to the emperor when faced with an examination by the inquisition?"

“A true Imperial warrior would say, ‘Please check.’”

"You don't even dare to be investigated."

"Unless you really have something to hide."

"Unless there is something hidden in your soul that you yourself dare not look at."

"The more you refuse to accept trial, the more it proves you have something to hide..."

The voice just fell.

The wind rises.

A hand reached out from the side.

The next second, Judge Roderick's neck was gripped between the five fingers of this hand.

He was lifted up like a rabbit being grabbed by the scruff of its neck, suspended in mid-air for half a second, and then slammed down onto the scorched earth of the fortress.

A muffled thud.

Roderick's forehead struck the scorched earth, and he coughed up blood.

The left hand of the Ironclad Terminator armor was still pressing on the back of his head, preventing him from lifting his face.

In his right hand, he gripped a power axe made entirely of hellish brass, the blade resting against Roderick's cervical spine.

The two Grey Knight guards' power swords had only been drawn a third of their length when they were pressed against their faceplates by the rotary explosive guns of the other five Iron Cavalry Terminator armors.

The two gray knights froze.

The entire inner courtyard of the fortress was stunned.

Er Gou held Roderick down and turned to look at Lawson.

He doesn't care about any judge; as long as the boss nods, he'll chop off that bastard's head.

Lawson ignored Er Gou and stared at Dante's mask of death, the mask of Saint Gillespie, a symbol of perfection and holiness.

"You've actually wanted to die for a long time, haven't you?"

"Fifteen hundred years. In this mess where even starlight can't reach, you lead a group of brothers whose blood runs in madness. To others, you are a living legend, a regent in the shadows. But to me, you are..."

Lawson shook his head, only a deep sigh escaping his lips as one of his own kind looked at another:

"Just a weary veteran who doesn't even dare to 'close his eyes and rest'."

Dante's breathing suddenly stopped behind the mask of death.

Lawson glanced very casually at the Grand Inquisitor lying on the ground.

"These fools in the Inquisition, who only know how to flip through the code, think that maintaining the Dark Side relies on faith and purity. But you and I both know that there are only two rules in the Dark Side: who is killing demons, and who is holding up the sky for this crumbling empire."

"Dante, I, Lawson, am giving you this face today."

"It's not because you're the regent, it's just so that you, with your old bones that are about to break, can have one less thing to worry about today."

Dante nodded slowly and closed his utterly weary eyes behind the mask.

Thank you for your understanding!

Over the past 1,500 years, countless people have asked him for protection, countless people have knelt before him, and countless people have praised his divinity.

But only this mysterious warband leader in front of him could see through the golden mask to the riddled soul behind it, a soul that longed to fall but could only stubbornly hold on.

Lawson looked at Roderick, who was still lying on the ground, and waved to Er Gou.

Er Gou then released his foot from the Grand Judge.

Lawson lifted Roderick off the ground.

He patted the scorched earth off the high judge's collar.

He said in a gentle tone, "Grand Judge, you may investigate now. Investigate thoroughly and carefully. If you find nothing, I will break your legs."

Two.

Roderick gritted his teeth.

Now that Lawson has put it this way, he can no longer back down.

If a judge withdraws in such a situation, his career is over.

He waved.

Two Grey Knights carried something out of the Stormraven's hatch.

The soulless.

This is a woman wearing a gray prison robe and a metal collar around her neck.

Her face was as pale as a sheet of paper, her eyes were devoid of any luster, and she exuded an aura that made everyone instinctively uncomfortable—a psionic emptiness.

The Soulless One is the Empire's rarest and most precious anti-warspace weapon.

The very existence of such a person is a negation of the subspace.

Wherever they go, the psychic energy there fails. This applies to anything sustained by the warp.

Whether it's a demon's physical body, a Tzeentch's illusion, or a psionicist's mental activity, anything within three meters of a soulless person will feel like being disconnected from a power source.

Roderick directed the soulless one toward the four living saints.

The onlookers, the flesh-tearers, retreated, their instinctive loathing for the soulless deeply ingrained in their genes.

The soulless one walked to a position five meters away from the living Vella.

Roderick stared intently at them.

The golden wings of the four living saints are still spread out, and the golden halos above their heads still radiate warmth.

The soulless one took two more steps forward.

three meters.

Two meters.

one meter.

The golden aura of the four living saints did not diminish in the slightest and remained unaffected.

Vera glanced calmly at the soulless one.

The suppression collar on the soulless person made a soft "click" sound.

The indicator lights on the collar were off.

The soulless man's expression changed.

She stood there, stunned, as if trying to sense something.

Then she looked up and shook her head at Roderick.

Roderick's face turned pale.

The soulless one didn't absorb any spiritual energy, which rules out the possibility of a Tzeentch illusion.

The three fake saints of Solly Akaha collapsed the moment the first soulless one approached.

This time, not only did it not collapse, but it also had no impact whatsoever.

Roderick stood frozen in place, his mind racing.

He had already stepped into the river, and could only keep moving forward.

He waved.

Another assistant to the judges came out of the cabin carrying a wooden box.

The wooden box is engraved with the seal of the Imperial Court, the highest-ranking court in the empire.

Roderick solemnly opened the box.

Inside the box lay a round, silver instrument with countless fine runes engraved on its surface.

At the center of the instrument was a small droplet of dark red liquid that had solidified into an amber shape.

The Holy Blood Angel soldiers who were watching all gasped the moment they saw the drop of dark red liquid.

Legend has it that at the end of the Great Crusade, when Primarch Robert Guilliman was fighting beside the Emperor, he used his own armor gauntlet to smear a drop of blood from a wound in the Emperor's shoulder.

This drop of blood, sealed inside this instrument, has been used by the Inquisition for the past eight thousand years as the highest-level "tool for verifying heresy."

Any soul that shows any impurity in the face of this drop of blood will be burned on the spot by this instrument.

This instrument is called the "Wheel of Judgment".