Warhammer: Empire Reboot

If he could use his psychic powers to amplify a simulated feeling of fear to a sufficiently strong degree and then radiate it outwards…

For those hungry little devils hiding in the bulkheads of the wrecked ship, this was an irresistible lighthouse.

They will come.

They will definitely come.

Lawson didn't hesitate for long.

He chose an area that had already been cleared by the assassins, an abandoned cargo hold about two kilometers away from the forge stronghold.

The cargo hold is not large, about 20 meters long and wide, with a ceiling height of four meters.

Only Lawson went in.

The little devil can sense the aura at the soul level.

They become alert if there are too many human soul signals around them.

Lawson needed to make himself look like an isolated, fearful mortal.

The most recent assassins were lying in ambush 300 meters outside the cargo hold, just at the edge of the limit of psionic perception, so that they would not be detected by the Imps, and were still within Lawson's control.

Lawson crouched down in the cargo hold.

He covered his face with his hands.

Crouching in the dark, covering their face with their hands, is the most instinctive defensive curl-up that humans exhibit when extremely fearful.

Any subspace parasite that feeds on negative emotions could immediately understand the meaning behind this gesture: there's a feast here.

Lawson is acting.

The problem is, he needs to act convincingly enough.

It's not just about body language; it's about generating genuine fear at the soul level.

Because the little devils don't smell the visible expressions and postures; they smell the emotions in the soul.

Fear that is feigned is empty and pale on a spiritual level, like a fake dish without aroma; it looks plausible, but it smells nothing.

Lawson needs to generate genuine fear fluctuations on a spiritual level and then amplify them with psychic energy.

Chapter 51 Entrapment is the Most Despicable Thing (Third Update)

Lawson crouched in the darkness and closed his eyes.

He began to build up his emotions.

This is not an easy task.

After hundreds of years of tempering in his previous life, Lawson's personality has been compressed into an extremely narrow range of perception of fear.

The instinctive fear that ordinary people feel when facing death is like an autumn breeze passing by him.

Fortunately, in his previous life, he had ruled the largest film and television media group on Earth for hundreds of years.

He knows better than any professional actor how to evoke emotions, how to get into character, and how to catalyze a faint feeling of reality into a storm.

A sense of fear rose in his soul.

Faint, pale, like a dying spark in a dark sea.

Then, psionic energy intervened.

Lawson focused the endogenous psionic energy generated by the swarm network onto that wisp of fear, as if using a magnifying glass to focus a faint beam of light into a scorching spot.

The fear was amplified.

From a spark, it turned into a blazing fire.

Rosen's skin broke out in goosebumps.

His heartbeat quickened slightly under his conscious control. His breathing became shallow and rapid.

But his rationality, that of the commander who crouched deep within his soul and coldly observed everything, remained absolutely clear-headed.

Fear is simulated, and psychic amplification is controlled.

Like a seasoned angler casting bait into the water, the bait is real, but the fishing rod is always firmly held in his hand.

The fear amplified by psychic energy spread outward from Lawson's soul like an invisible cloud of smoke.

It penetrated the metal walls of the cargo hold and spread in all directions of the wrecked ship.

For the little devil, who was half-hibernating in the bulkhead, it was like a traveler who had been thirsty in the desert for three days suddenly smelling the moisture coming from a distant oasis.

It is irresistible.

Four minutes later, Lawson sensed the first abnormality.

Inside the left bulkhead of the cargo hold, a faint subspace energy signal is approaching.

The signal was so weak that without psychic perception, one could not detect it even if they pressed their ear against the bulkhead.

Then there's the second one, inside the right-side bulkhead.

The third one is in the direction of the ceiling.

Lawson calmly counted in the depths of his soul.

He deliberately amplified the intensity of his fear to another level.

With the aid of psychic energy, his body even began to tremble slightly, and a thin layer of sweat appeared on his forehead.

From the outside, he looked exactly like a pathetic wreck trapped in a dark, abandoned ship, isolated and helpless, on the verge of collapse.

The three little devils clearly thought so too.

One appeared first on the left bulkhead.

Its upper body slowly emerged from the metal wall, first a deformed head with only one eye, then two disproportionately thin arms, and finally a torso covered with wart-like protrusions.

Its single eye stared at Lawson, who was crouching in the middle of the cargo hold, and a wide, exaggerated smile spread across its lips, almost reaching its ears.

A second one appeared on the right bulkhead.

This one is slightly larger, with a pair of broken, curved horns on its head.

It extended a long, thin, forked tongue and licked the air, savoring the fear emanating from Lawson.

A third one is hanging upside down from the ceiling.

The smallest one was about the size of a large rat.

Its tail was wrapped around a pipe on the ceiling, and its body resembled an ugly, upside-down fruit.

The three little devils paused in their respective spots for a few seconds, exchanging glances.

Then they begin the part that the little devils love most before feeding: mocking their prey.

The one-eyed little devil on the left let out a long, eerie laugh: "Look at this poor little thing, huddled in the corner trembling. Just like those soldiers last time, his head just disappeared while he was squatting, hehehe."

"Not bad." The little devil with the broken horn on the right licked his lips: "Aged despair paired with fresh fear, top-notch."

"It's all alone!"

The little devil on the ceiling chimed in shrilly, its body swaying excitedly like a pendulum: "No guns, no knives, no friends, enough to feed us for days!"

The three little devils got more and more excited as they talked.

More of their bodies protruded from the bulkhead.

The one on the left has fully emerged into the real space, with only its toes still hanging on the wall.

The one on the right also protruded most of its body, and the one on the ceiling had even completely detached from the pipe and was suspended in mid-air.

The one-eyed imp floated to within a meter of Lawson, its single eye reflecting Lawson's slightly trembling figure.

"Do you know what's out there? Demons, so many demons, big ones, small ones, red ones, horned ones. They smell you, they're on their way. Guess how much longer you have? Five minutes? Three minutes? Or..."

Behind the gaps in his fingers covering his face, Lawson slightly opened his eyes.

His psychic senses scanned a fifty-meter radius around the cargo hold.

No more subspace energy signals are approaching.

There are only three.

enough.

The change happened in an instant.

Lawson suddenly erupted.

The speed at which the enhanced body sprang from a crouching position exceeded the reaction speed of the three lesser demons.

His right hand precisely grabbed the one-eyed imp that was hovering in front of him, and with a forceful tug, he pulled it out of the remaining warp anchor.

At the same time, his left hand reached upwards and grabbed the smallest little devil on the ceiling, which was trying to shrink back into the wall in terror.

He brought his five fingers together and clenched the deformed body, the size of a rat, in his palm.

The two little devils let out sharp, ear-piercing screams in his hands.

Their tiny claws scratched wildly at Lawson's skin.

The little devil with the broken horn on the right bulkhead tried to retreat back into the wall the moment it saw its companion being captured.

Its body has begun to sink into the metal surface, head first, then shoulders. In another 0.5 seconds, it will completely disappear into the subspace permeable layer of the bulkhead.

Lawson lifted his right foot.

He stomped on it with pure violence.

A muffled thud.

Dark green remnants of subspace splattered from the edge of Lawson's boot.

The lower half of the horned imp exploded, shattering into a pool of viscous, semi-material, semi-energy fragments.

[Subspace Energy +1.]

The system intercepted and purified its soul, causing its permanent demise.