Warhammer: Empire Reboot

But what happens after that? The vortex's energy has already been drained by Lawson. Even if he wins this internal conflict, all that awaits him is more ruins, a more devastated Red Pirate headquarters, and a pack of vicious dogs lurking in the deeper shadows, waiting for him to bleed to the last drop.

He coldly issued the order: "All ships, form a decisive battle assault formation."

The adjutant paused, but Huron continued without turning his head: "Just put on a show, let them think I'm going to fight them to the death."

The adjutant suddenly realized something and lowered his voice: "My lord, we need to... break through?"

Huron gave him a cold, sidelong glance: "What, you want to stay here and gnaw on rotten bones with these mad dogs?"

The adjutant immediately bowed his head: "Yes, sir."

The remaining elite forces of the Red Pirates began a slow advance. All main gun muzzles lit up with charging lights, boarding torpedoes were launched, and veteran Red Pirate soldiers boarded the assault pods with chilling resolve. Seeing this, the opposing pirate coalition also began to roar excitedly as they pressed forward. The barrage of insults on the channel reached its peak:

"That old dog Huron is going to fight to the death!"

"Whoever cuts off that damn iron claw of his, I'll trade him a whole ship of high-quality slaves!"

"His head is mine!"

The distance between the two sides rapidly decreased in the void. On the outer ring of the ruined star city, blinding artillery fire was the first to tear through the darkness.

The Red Pirates unleashed a swift and precise volley, instantly piercing through the two small gunboats charging at the forefront.

The pirate alliance retaliated fiercely, with hundreds of chaotic plasma beams and macro cannon trajectories illuminating the void as if it were daytime, and exploding orbs of light connecting among the wreckage of the ship to form a vast sea of ​​fire.

Just as the pirate alliance gritted its teeth, thinking that Huron was about to launch a full-scale meat grinder battle, the Red Pirates' main fleet suddenly completed an emergency turn that could be described as an art at extremely close range!

Huron did not hesitate to place three heavily damaged frigates at the forefront of the line as physical shields.

The crew of the three red pirate ships were still desperately pleading for help over the communicator:

"Overlord! Our starboard thrusters are completely disabled!"

"Overlord! Shield overload, we can't hold them off!"

Huron shut down the communication without even glancing at it.

Taking advantage of the cover of friendly fire explosions, the main force of the Red Pirates charged out of the storm's trough like an arrow released from a bow!

A black market merchant's heavy cruiser attempted to intercept from the side, but was brutally rammed by the temporary flagship where Huron was stationed!

The outer armor of the two steel behemoths rubbed together violently, and blinding sparks rained down in the vacuum.

Huron coldly ordered the boarding, and the Red Pirates' Death Squad stormed into the Black Merchant cruiser like a flood. Just ten minutes later, the ship's bridge was completely cleared, and the out-of-control massive hull writhed and crashed into a nearby abandoned space station, turning into a huge fireball.

The pirate alliance was a motley crew, and this sudden turn of events threw them into disarray, causing them to block each other's pursuit routes.

As Huron led his last remaining loyal troops out of the gravitational pull of the outer storm of the vortex, he turned back. Deep within the storm behind him, the flames continued to burn fiercely.

That was once his throne, his empire.

Back then, he crawled out of the despairing ruins of the Badab War and, with absolute power and fear, forcibly chained the remnants, traitors, exiles, thugs, black market merchants, slave traders, heretical Mechanicus, and all sorts of lawless mad dogs into the same leash.

Huron the Blackheart. Lord of the Great Vortex. The absolute overlord of the Red Pirates.

And now, the chain has broken. The wealth he had accumulated over hundreds of years, the fear and dark order he had built, were uprooted by Lawson in just seven days.

What made him grit his teeth and consider the greatest humiliation of his life was...

Lawson wasn't there to conquer this sector. He just walked in like a market shopper, took the most valuable items, dismantled what was usable, burned what was an eyesore, and finally left the devastated mess for Huron to clean up.

What utter contempt and humiliation this is!

Huron stared intently at the receding crimson storm, forcing himself to memorize every flash of light from the explosions in the void.

Remember those spies who betrayed him when he was weak, remember those hyenas who pounced on him and tore him apart while he was bleeding.

Furthermore, the name "Lossen" must be etched deep into the soul.

A pirate lord may lose a lair that took centuries to build, but he must never lose his instinct to hold grudges. Every blood debt must be repaid with a thousandfold pain.

In the cold, gloomy conference room of the temporary flagship, the last surviving adjutants stood silently in a circle.

Valk is dead, Hamadleya is dead, the "Destruction Ghost" has changed hands, and the Black Talon Guard has lost more than half of its forces in a series of bloody battles.

The once invincible elite Red Pirates were largely consumed in seizing ships, pursuing enemy forces, returning to their aid, and this pointless internal strife.

Those who are still standing here today are the die-hards who didn't run away, didn't kneel down, and didn't try to grab something and run away in the chaos.

It's not that their loyalty to Huron reached some sacred level; such a term simply doesn't exist in the Red Pirates' dictionary.

They stayed simply because their interests were too deeply intertwined with Huron's.

Once Huron falls, they will be immediately captured and skinned alive by the newly emerging pirates in the whirlpool.

They stand here not because there is still a road ahead, but because there is no way to retreat.

An adjutant with half his face studded with black nerve spikes broke the silence first:

"My Lord, we can actually retreat to the outermost edge of the Great Whirlpool. There are still a few extremely well-hidden old anchorages and several small docks that haven't been touched by Lawson's looting forces. As long as we make some repairs and gather our scattered remnants, we can still raise the Red Pirates' banner once again."

Another hot-tempered adjutant immediately burst into a tirade: "Raise a flag?! What are you going to use to raise it?! Your mother's ribs as a flagpole?!"

Black Nail, the adjutant, glared at him menacingly.

The man sneered repeatedly, showing no sign of backing down: "Those dilapidated shipyards on the outer ring can't even straighten the keel of a single frigate! We're short of high-purity fuel, we're short of labor slaves, we're short of Astartes gene seeds, we're short of money, we're short of capital warships! And what we lack most is 'fear' that can make those mad dogs kneel and kowtow again! You believe it or not, if you go to the outer ring and raise your flag today, ten third-rate pirate gangs will come in their crumbling ships tomorrow morning asking you for berthing fees?!"

A suffocating, long silence fell over the conference room.

After a long silence, Black Nail, the adjutant, asked hoarsely, "Then where else can we go?"

Huron ignored their argument, his expression remaining fixed on the tactical star map on the table.

The vast star sector of the Great Vortex has now been glaringly marked by the system as a whole area of ​​red chaos, representing extreme danger.

That was the old kingdom he had built with his own hands, and which he had watched collapse with his own eyes.

He could indeed lead his men back to fight for it.

With the lives of the last elite Red Pirates, he could fight those hyenas to the death, inch by inch, through ruins and decay. Perhaps with his shrewd tactics, he could win a few battles and even regain control of two or three star cities.

So what? He will squander his last and most vital assets in a desolate wasteland where Lawson has drained all their value.

What a true ruthless leader fears most is not temporary wins or losses, but rather trying to prove he "didn't lose" for the sake of laughable pride, thus squandering all his remaining resources on a pointless, futile battle that yields absolutely no benefit.

Huron slowly raised his head, his gaze shifting from the great vortex to the other end of the star map, across the deep void.

"Go find Abaddon."

Upon hearing this, everyone in the conference room held their breath and looked up at him in unison.

Warlord, Abaddon.

The absolute ruler of the Black Legion. The mastermind behind the long and protracted war. The monster that could forcibly mold countless unruly legions of traitors, bloodthirsty warbands, warp demons, madmen, and ambitious individuals from the galaxy into a terrifying war machine.

An older adjutant swallowed cautiously: "The Overlord... the War Commander, he will devour us whole, skin and bones."

Huron glanced at him coldly: "Of course."

His quick and matter-of-fact answer stunned everyone present.

Huron swung his iron claws: "Abaddon would never be so kind as to pat me on the head just because I lost my flagship like a stray dog. When I came to him with my remaining troops, the first thing he did was put us on a scale and weigh how much meat we still had to squeeze out of us."

“He will demand the map of the Great Vortex in my mind; he will want my top-secret intelligence network; he will want to annex my remaining fleet; he will want me to personally be the fastest and most dangerous knife for his Black Holy War. He will even try every means to turn the once independent name of ‘Red Pirates’ into a chain tied to the feet of the Black Legion.”

Black Nail, the adjutant, clenched his fist: "If that's the case, why should we suffer such humiliation?"

Huron slowly rose from the temporary throne.

His massive, towering frame cast heavy, oppressive shadows on the faces of every adjutant in the dim light.

"Because Abaddon also wanted to kill Lawson."

“I didn’t go there to beg; I went there to make a deal with him.”

He strode to the tactical star map and slammed his iron claws down on the coordinates of the "Agrippina" sector.

"The War General can tolerate a pirate king losing power in the outer star sector, but he absolutely cannot tolerate an empire's ruler expanding his territory on the dark side of the empire while using full-band broadcasting to trample the faces of all Chaos Lords underfoot!"

A fierce glint gradually appeared in the eyes of the adjutants in the conference room.

Black Nail, the adjutant, raised his head and asked through gritted teeth, "Overlord, what if the War Commander wants us to kneel?"

"Then kneel."

There was not a trace of humiliation in Huron's single eye, only the pure flames of revenge.

"Only a living wolf has the chance to bite through its master's leash in the future. A king who dies in the ruins of the Great Whirlpool is only fit to have his bones used as a glass of cheap beer by those low-class pirates."

Huron sat heavily back on his throne, gazing out the porthole at the boundless, deep void.

As long as they're alive, this debt will be settled.

When wolves lose their old dens, they seek refuge with larger, more bloodthirsty packs.

P.S.: Guys, I'm a bit busy today. I have a parent-teacher meeting tonight. I'll only be updating 1.3 words today, please forgive me!

Chapter 191 Taking stock of the harvest: A horse won't get fat without night grazing!

When Huron left the Great Maelstrom with his remaining troops, Lawson no longer paid him any attention.

A pirate king who has lost his flagship, his treasure trove, his gene bank, and the foundation of the Great Vortex is still dangerous, but he is no longer the ruthless overlord who once ruled a pirate empire.

Lawson could roughly guess where Huron would go.

Abaddon.

No one but the Warmaster could take in Huron now, and no one was qualified to put this wolf with a broken spine back on the war machine.

Klossen didn't care.

Huron went to find Abaddon, which was perfect timing.

Once Agrippina has laid a solid foundation, she'll be able to deal with even Abaddon, let alone Huron, whose stronghold has been emptied.

Once the Pirate King left the Great Maelstrom, he was just an ordinary rebel army.

The Ghost of Destruction finally arrived at the outer spaceport of Agrippina primary star.

The pirate king's flagship, stretching ten kilometers, slowly came to a stop at a giant, temporarily marked anchorage, its outer armor still not fully repaired.

The Agrippina Orbital Dock opened up three layers of defensive isolation zones for it.

Dozens of heavy-duty traction cables secured the ship's hull.

Hundreds of engineering barges moved around it.