Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The fairness lies in the fact that Lawson did not demand any item that exceeded the scope of reasonable compensation.

All he wanted were spoils of war dug out of the garbage heap, battlefield scraps that the Astartes had never bothered to take with them.

His genius lies in the fact that he bought the future control over the dark side of the entire empire at the price of "scrap".

"Absolutely no problem."

Dante answered solemnly.

"The price a person on the verge of dying of thirst pays for a bottle of water is completely different from the price they pay for a bottle of water at the beach. The company commanders of each battle group are pragmatists who have been through mountains of corpses and seas of blood; they would absolutely agree to such a deal."

"What kind of nonsense is this!"

Seth slapped his thigh hard. "Every time we go deep behind enemy lines to carry out raids and decapitation strikes, the last thing we lack is spoils of war! Those traitors' bases are piled high with all sorts of good stuff, but we're small and outnumbered, and we have to retreat after each bombing, so it's inconvenient to take anything with us. It's heartbreaking to see!"

“Last year we took down an Alpha Group outpost,”

Seth recalled, "There were more than thirty assault guns in a semi-repaired state inside, enough to arm an entire mechanized company. But we only had one warship and sixty capable brothers, so in the end we could only blow up the entire base, along with the guns."

"Thirty-odd assault guns!"

Seth spat fiercely, "I'm so heartbroken I haven't been able to eat for three days."

Seth grabbed Lawson's shoulder, the metal shoulder armor clashing together with a dull thud.

"This time, with the Rosen brothers' troops with us, as long as we're given enough bombs to kill to our hearts' content, all the spoils we can't take with us are his! Hahaha..."

Lawson smiled.

If his sole aim was to become an arms dealer for a monopolistic empire, Lawson would not deserve to be called an ultimate pragmatist.

Sending elite soldiers in single-digit numbers, like nails driven into the dark side of the Empire by hundreds or thousands of Astartes companies, was a multi-pronged strategy.

The plan to obtain Space Marine power armor from various chapters for free is merely the first layer of its skin.

The second layer of the plan involves using the accompanying suicide soldiers to haul away the wreckage of Chaos warships, demonic weapons, and ancient ruins that Astartes abandoned due to insufficient transport capacity or their aversion to heresy into the armory space, thus plundering the war wealth of the entire Dark Side.

The real core is the third layer of logic, the "final blow".

On the battlefield between the Empire and Chaos, a battle against a Grand Magus or a Chaos Lord often requires the Astartes to pay a heavy price.

The Ultramarines' explosive guns will shred the grotesque flesh of demons, the Blood Angels' chainswords will slit the throats of Chaos Terminators, and the Astral Army's heavy artillery will deplete the deflection shields of the Demon Engines.

When those monsters were cornered, their shields shattered, and their bodies on the verge of collapse...

The three or five assassins following behind Astartes would pull the trigger of the plasma gun with extreme precision, or plunge their charged power swords into the demon's vital points.

The final kill was achieved.

According to the physical laws of the Warhammer universe, when a daemon dies, its energy returns to the oceans of the warp.

However, the system will forcibly intervene and determine who gets the kill.

The vast amount of life points, massive amounts of subspace energy, and rare special genes or traits will all be intercepted and flow into Lawson's system account.

The entire Dark Side of the Astartes, and indeed the entire war machine of the Imperium, is responsible for withstanding the most intense artillery fire and whittling down the monsters' health.

Lawson's elite combatants will be responsible for the final blow.

This is a highly efficient form of niche parasitism.

The Astartes will be happy because the Great Demon has been killed, and the credit goes to them.

Lawson would be in his distant base camp, watching the warp energy numbers constantly fluctuating on the system panel, and exhaling a smoke ring with satisfaction.

More importantly, as these suicide soldiers boarded the strike cruisers of various chapters, they followed them as they warp to every sector and every monastery fortress in the Dark Side…

Chapter 149 The Hidden Power, True Immortality

Lawson's swarm intelligence network will no longer be limited to the Oberlus Triad or the Klein Galaxy.

His soul will truly enter a distributed state.

This is Lawson's most hidden trump card.

When he landed on the wrecked spaceship, Lawson had to proceed with extreme caution.

Because if someone detonates the wrecked ship's power core, all the assassins will die, and Lawson will also die.

Even after establishing himself on the planet Obulus, he still had weaknesses.

If the Chaos Fleet tears through the defenses and launches an indiscriminate extermination orbital bombardment, simultaneously burning the surfaces of the three planets to glass, Lawson will also have a very high probability of dying.

He put all his eggs in one basket, but even the biggest basket is still just a basket.

However, when his assassins are spread throughout the galaxy, becoming millions of independently operating yet closely interconnected nodes, the concept becomes entirely different.

As long as there is one assassin alive in the galaxy, as long as there is one brain connected to the swarm's mind that is beating, Lawson's will will not perish.

Even if his original planet is devoured by the Great Demon, he can instantly reshape himself using the body of any assassin on an Imperial cruiser tens of thousands of light-years away, or in a trench in a peripheral star sector.

It's hard to die even if you want to.

This is true immortality.

As long as the total number of nodes in the swarm intelligence doesn't drop to zero, Lawson will live forever.

The probability of the total number of suicide soldiers in the entire network reaching zero is approaching infinitesimal at an exponential rate as the distribution range of the nodes expands.

It does not sell its soul to the warp gods, nor does it rely on the life-extending mechanism of the Golden Throne; it is purely based on biological redundancy on a massive base.

Lawson exhaled a puff of smoke, the red glow of his cigar briefly illuminating the gray sky.

He couldn't help but laugh to himself.

When he was scavenging for survival in a space wreck, he never imagined that one day he would pave the way to immortality for thousands of Astartes squadrons of strike cruisers in the dark side of the Empire.

"Lord of the Seal."

Seth moved closer, forcing a fawning smile.

Lawson patted Seth's shoulder armor, which was painted in red and black.

“Brother Seth.”

"We've fought side-by-side against the Great Demon. 'Seal Master' is a title for the clerks and politicians in the Ministry of the Interior. Just call me Brother Lawson."

“Hey, Lawson brothers.”

Sylvester laughed immediately:

"As you can see, my battle group was almost wiped out at Iron Oath Fortress. The company structure is severely depleted, and the subsequent reconstruction task is arduous."

Seth rubbed his gloves.

His hands, which had once easily torn apart the throat of a Chaos Lord, now wrung out a fawning quality reminiscent of a street thug.

"Given our current situation, three people per company is too few."

"Give me two more men from each company. Make it five."

Seth leaned closer, like an old man haggling with a vendor at a market:

"I assure you, wherever the Flesh-Tearer goes, as long as it's not completely smashed, no matter what kind of spoils it is, no matter how big it is, no matter if it's stained with the blood of the Khorne demon, the excrement of the Tzeentch mage, or the pus of the Nurgle plague, I'll leave it all for you."

“Even…” Seth’s eyes flashed with an extremely dangerous light, “As long as you give us enough bombs, plasma, and medical supplies, I can guarantee that from now on, the Flesh Rippers will add a special item to their mission list for every sortie: ‘Specially seek out and hunt large demonic entities to collect warp energy samples for the Lawson Brothers.’”

Although Seth didn't know the specific mechanism of Lawson's "warp energy," he keenly sensed that the barely perceptible "satisfied look" on Lawson's face when he personally killed the Great Demon was what Lawson was truly pursuing.

A shrewd cutter always knows how to tickle the boss's sore spot.

Dante stood aside, watching Seth, the wildest leader of the Flesh-Tearers, cling to Lawson like a child begging for candy, and silently turned his gaze back to the arena.

He secretly planned that once the Flesh Tearer left, he would find a way to talk to Lawson alone.

The Blood Angels' main company has far more units than the Flesh Tearers.

If a company loses one person, the supply efficiency of its own battle group will be reduced.

Seth shouldn't be allowed to benefit from this deal all by himself.

Lawson laughed heartily.

He could certainly hear the unspoken meaning in Seth's words. This Flesh-Tearer Chapter Leader had perfectly grasped the core KPI of "generating warp energy for the boss."

For Lawson, there was no real difference between three assassins and five assassins.

The Flesh-Tearers Warband only has a few hundred members in total, and no matter how much the station quota is increased, the total number will still be a fraction.

However, the significance of opening this door is profound.

Today Seth set a precedent with the "5-person quota." If Quintus of the Ultramarines' Fifth Company sees this tomorrow, will he come begging Lawson to give them 5 as well? The day after tomorrow, if the Chapter Leader of the Emperor's Fist hears about it, will he also send someone to "discuss relations"?

As long as Lawson has flexibility between "5" and "3", all chapters must adopt a "please Lawson" approach and create maximum warp energy gains for him on the battlefield.

The harder they worked, the stronger Lawson became.

The more they depend on Lawson, the safer Lawson becomes.

Without any hesitation or deliberation, Lawson extended his right hand and gave Seth's power glove a resounding high five.

"make a deal!"

The dull thud of metal colliding with flesh echoed under the gray fortress sky.

In the nearby arena, the assassin wearing only a vest finally stopped "playing" and decisively slammed the 3.1-meter-tall Oglin man to the ground with a handstand.

The veterans of the Star Guard erupted in one last frenzied cheer.

They rushed forward, tossed the suicide soldier high into the air, shoved wine jugs into his hands, and haphazardly pinned their treasured medals and insignia to his vest.

A faint smile finally appeared on the assassin's face.

But for those exhilarated veterans of the Astronautical Army, that smile was the best response.

Lawson exhaled a puff of smoke and turned to walk toward the command fortress.

Just then, the contest on the west side of the fortress finally came to an end.

With a dull thud as the massive Oglin fell to the ground, he was knocked down once more.

This is the seventh time.

His back, shoulders, and lower back had almost plowed the rocky ground of the square with indentations of varying depths.

This time, he didn't get up and charge again. Instead, he sat on the ground, panting heavily, sweat mixed with dust washing over him, leaving streaks of mud.