Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Then they sailed away in front of the entire Red Pirate fleet.

If the Ghost of Destruction is successfully piloted away by Lawson, Huron will lose more than just a superflagship.

The entire whirlpool will see that the Pirate King's underwear has been stolen from his most heavily guarded lair.

Those captains will be completely shaken, and may even immediately raise the flag of rebellion.

The Dark Merchant Guild will reassess the Red Pirates' credit rating and terminate all arms deals.

Those small and medium-sized pirate groups that relied on him would begin to think about who should be their next master.

Abaddon would laugh at his incompetence with a look of fear in his eyes.

The entire dark side of the empire will recount the story of Lawson's decapitation strike.

Huron cannot let this happen. Even if it means destroying the ship, he must leave Lawson and the ship in the whirlpool.

He turned and gave orders to the entire ship.

"All fleets, charge your main guns and attack the Void Shield node outside the Destroyer Ghost!"

The bridge adjutant stood there, dumbfounded.

"Your Majesty, that is your flagship..."

Huron delivered a backhand punch, the heavy power armor sending the adjutant flying more than ten meters, crashing into a load-bearing column and breaking it.

"I know that's my flagship!"

Huron stepped over his adjutant's corpse and roared at the holographic tactical table.

"That's why we're going in! Open fire!"

The command was transmitted throughout the core anchorage via an encrypted link.

The Red Pirate fleet that followed Huron to reinforce immediately deployed into formation.

Three stealth-class cruisers and six raiding frigates were the first to remove their muzzle armor.

The giant cannon roared, the light spear tore through the void, and the plasma beam and heavy torpedoes formed a dense barrage of fire, all crashing into the outer void shield of the Destroyer Ghost.

A violent energy explosion lit up the center of the anchorage.

The three Star City batteries near the core anchorage also received orders to fire.

However, their cannons failed to turn around for a long time.

From the very first day of their construction, the underlying firing parameters and machine spirit logic of those Star City forts were set to protect the Destroyer Ghost.

Now that they are required to unleash their firepower on the protected targets, many junior fire control personnel and aircraft operators are caught in a logical conflict, while commanders dare not press the launch button.

Huron's tactics panel clearly showed the silence of the three star cities. He immediately recognized this hesitation based on fear and inertia.

In a world rife with warlord factions, even a second's hesitation could ignite a rebellion.

"Notification to all anchorages."

"Whoever doesn't fire will die."

After the order reached the first star city defense group, the commander of that star city hesitated for two seconds. He was weighing the odds of victory between Huron and Lawson.

Huron's temporary flagship main gun locked onto the star city.

A high-energy light spear pierced through the void and struck the command tower of Star City directly.

The command tower vaporized in the intense heat, killing thousands of pirates and technical priests instantly. The ruined Star City structure spewed out oxygen and flames.

This blatant and violent annihilation shattered everyone's hopes and wishful thinking.

Subsequently, all the remaining Star City gun emplacements, defense platforms, and outer patrol fleets turned their cannons toward the Ghost of Destruction.

On the outer layer of the Ghost of Destruction, multiple void shields flickered violently under the saturation attack of massive firepower, rippling with dazzling purple waves.

This 10-kilometer-class flagship's defensive capabilities exceed those of conventional warships.

It is itself a mobile war fortress.

The system features over ten layers of stacked void shields, an extremely exaggerated armor redundancy design, an independent locking system for the anti-blocking compartments, and an internal swarm intelligence that is forcibly squeezing the machine soul with computing power that exceeds human limits to allocate the shield energy network.

External fleets simply cannot breach its defensive shell in a short period of time.

Inside the flagship store.

The main control shrine.

T-001 sends real-time data reports to Lawson via a neural interface.

"External firepower index continues to rise. Enemy fleets and Star City have formed a crossfire network."

"The pressure on the first layer of the Void Shield has reached 39 percent, and the rate of energy loss is within a controllable range."

"The second layer is stable. The third to tenth layers are in standby charging mode."

"The outer layer of the ship's adamantite armor was undamaged."

Lawson stood in the center of the Machine Soul Shrine, letting the surrounding data cables emit a ghostly blue light. His expression was calm, completely ignoring the slight vibrations emanating from the outer walls of the armor.

"Geller force field calibration progress?"

"Eighty-four percent. Due to the ship's prolonged static anchorage, the subspace coordinate reset will require an additional eighty seconds."

"Ignition process in progress. The plasma reactor output has reached the critical value for transition."

"The underlying logic is still resisting. The opposing Mechanicus Sages have left behind a large number of defense protocols. But the swarm's computing power has already completed the physical layer's circuit suppression, and they cannot refuse basic navigation and defense commands."

Lawson nodded: "Continue to maintain energy suppression. Cut off the power to the sides and recharge the Void Shield."

outside.

Huron stood in front of the viewing window.

He watched as the Ghost of Destruction, braving the barrage of gunfire, spewed out jets of scorching plasma from its main thrusters, slowly but resolutely adjusting its attitude, aiming its bow at the weak point of the subspace storm.

Huron finally came to realize a fact.

Lawson could withstand the firepower. He was about to complete his jump preparations and leave with the Ghost of Destruction.

Huron turned sharply to look at the boarding commander on the other side of the bridge.

"Execute the boarding maneuver. Immediately."

Cold sweat dripped down the officer's chin as he immediately reported the tactical predicament: "Overlord, the target's external berth is locked. The Void Shield array has not been penetrated. Conventional boarding torpedoes cannot penetrate the Void Shield and reach the hull."

Huron's prosthetic eye glowed red.

"Then let's force our way through! Use heavy assault torpedoes! Push through the Void Shield and get in!"

"The torpedo tubes are being loaded!"

Several raiding frigates forcibly broke formation and approached the Ghost of Destruction despite the secondary guns' fire.

Dozens of heavy boarding torpedoes, trailing long contrails, pierced through the dense barrage of macro gun fire and crashed headfirst into the outer armor of the Destroyer Ghost.

However, the swarm intelligence took over all of the flagship's close-in weapon systems within the same microsecond.

The immense computing power allows for the precise calculation of the trajectory, acceleration, and deflection angle of each boarding torpedo.

It does not require manual aiming by fire control servitors, nor does it require verbal commands from weapons officers.

The close-in weapon system array on the outer deck of the Ghost of Destruction simultaneously turned.

Flames flashed continuously across the surface of the ship.

The dense chains of tracer bullets formed a perfect physical interception network.

Most of the boarding torpedoes were blown apart in mid-air by precisely calculated barrages before they even got close to the Void Shield, turning into fireballs that expanded outwards, and the elite Red Pirates inside were instantly reduced to space debris.

A few lucky torpedoes managed to hit the Void Shield thanks to its heavy armor.

Under the micro-management of swarm intelligence, the frequency of the void shield at the point of impact changes instantly, using the refractive force field to deflect the torpedo.

The torpedo lost its balance and scraped against the side of the ship, eventually breaking apart.

As Huron watched the dots representing the boarding forces on the holographic screen go out in droves, he roared, "Continue reloading! All frigates, move in!"

The second round of boarding torpedo launches.

The result was unchanged.

The Ghost of Destruction was all too familiar with this tactic. It had historically been one of the Red Pirates' strongest platforms for launching boarding raids.

Huron had stood on that ship countless times, watching torpedoes tear apart Imperial warships.

Today, swarm intelligence has taken over its defense system.

Lawson, in turn, used the Red Pirates' most prized close-in weaponry—their own close-range artillery net—to precisely and ruthlessly destroy the Red Pirates' boarding force.

This zero-latency, all-around automated defense is a greater military humiliation for Huron than the capture of the ship itself.

Now, even the fortifications he personally ordered to be built are slaughtering his fleet.

Huron felt as if a ball of highly radiating plasma was burning inside his chest.

He gritted his teeth, forcing out the words: "Contact the ship's crew. Find those who are still resisting."

The communications officer replied in a trembling voice, "Sir, the entire ship's internal communication network has been physically severed. Our signals cannot reach any compartment nodes."

"Use my private backup channel!"

"It has been completely shielded due to strong electronic interference."

"Where is the Dark Mechanicus's covert operation?"

"Port not responding".

Huron strode down from the command platform and grabbed a high-ranking technician belonging to the Dark Mechanicus. His power claws wedged into the technician's metal spine.

"How many backdoor protocols did you leave when you were doing maintenance on my ship?"

The technician's mechanical voice emitted a distorted electronic tone: "Many, Overlord. We have three independent secret network portals directly connected to the bottom layer of the Machine Soul. But... but now they're all shut down."

"Who locked it up? How many technical priests did Lawson bring with him?"

"I don't know, Overlord. The logic behind closing the gate is extremely volatile. It has the characteristics of a machine soul... or rather, something much larger is devouring the machine soul and using its authority to kick us out."

Huron stared intently at him.

"Now, open them."