Warhammer: Empire Reboot

The reactor inside Huron's body trembled slightly.

Abaddon's expression remained unchanged.

"The Calamity Fleet has set off according to your coordinates."

"The Black Legion will keep its promise."

"very good."

High-temperature steam erupted from Vashtor's chest cavity, and a layer of black oil film immediately condensed on the metal surface of the bridge.

"As long as my plan succeeds, I will compensate you a hundred or a thousand times for everything you have lost."

"War Master, you will receive a weapon that is more suitable for you now, more stable, and more ruthless than Drachnien."

Vashtor then looked at Huron.

"And you, Huron. You will receive a new fleet. Not your bunch of pirate wrecks, but a fleet strong enough to once again engulf the Great Whirlpool and make all the traitors kneel before you."

"We look forward to that day, Creator."

Vashtor seemed satisfied.

His body began to disintegrate, transforming into countless scattered micro-gears, copper-rust-colored sparks, and black data streams, which seeped into the depths of the warship through the gaps in the bridge deck.

Before he disappeared, he left behind one last sentence.

"Key fragments take priority."

Chapter 217 You've got guts! You dare to hit Agrippina!

The Vigilant Star, deep within the wartime command center.

Lawson sat in front of the tactical sand table, resting his chin on one hand.

Instead of displaying the surface battle lines of the Vigilant Star above the sand table, there was an encrypted dossier that had just been sent back by the Lurker Legion via a secret frequency.

The files originated from within the Black Legion.

Lawson turned to the last page of the file.

The disaster fleet departed port en masse.

Those ominous arks, converted from derelict space ships, are jumping into subspace one after another, accompanied by escort fleets.

If we follow Lawson's character analysis of Abaddon, the first strike the Chaos Warmaster will make after regrouping will inevitably be aimed at Vigilant Star.

Even if they don't cut Vigilant Star, they should cut Agrippina.

A man like Abaddon wouldn't allow the shame to remain unresolved for too long.

But the flight path on the file is not like that.

The Calamity Fleet did not gather in the Nakmonde Corridor.

After entering the subspace, they scattered like hunting dogs awakened by a certain scent, spreading out to all parts of the Milky Way.

The flight paths were chaotic, the targets were scattered, and the span was so large it was almost absurd.

More importantly, Abaddon himself did not embark on the voyage.

Intelligence sent back by assassins lurking at the bottom of the Black Legion:

The Warmaster remains in a hidden anchorage, guarding Vashtor and the group of Dark Mechanicus madmen, waiting for new weapons, new ships, and some deeper outcome.

Lawson tapped his knuckles on the table.

"Are they looking for something?"

The infiltrators were too low-level to reach the true core commands of the Cataclysmic Fleet.

They could only piece together a vague outline from the underlying scheduling of the Ominous Ark, the number of slaves loaded, the Dark Mechanicus's supply list, and the changes in the Overseer's authority.

The Disaster Fleet is looking for something.

As Lawson looked at the increasingly scattered flight paths on the star map, the first image that popped into his mind was Vashtor's face, composed of gears and hellish brass.

"Notify all monitoring nodes in the entire star region."

The Agrippina sector and the 50-light-year area around the warning star were circled in blood red.

"Air defense alert level raised to the highest. All ships sailing on the edge of the Empire's Dark Side shall cease active engagement and enter silent observation. If encountering a Cataclysmic Fleet, do not fire to reveal your coordinates."

“Look at them.”

The voice of the Foundation Sequence came back from the communication array: "Understood, BOSS. The alert network has been updated. Anomalies within fifty light-years, fluctuations in the Soul-Guiding Pillar, and the Mass Shadow of the Ominous Ark are all listed as top priority."

Lawson closed the file.

As he laid out the warning line, a catastrophe spanning the galaxy had already begun to spread.

To improve the efficiency of searching for key fragments, Vashtor equipped the Catastrophe Fleet with an extremely vicious radar.

Each of the Ominous Arks and each of the key escort fleets was equipped with a large number of modified psionic slaves.

These psionicists may have been Imperial Star Speakers, unregistered Hive Child Prodigies, wild psionicists overlooked by the Black Ships, or even strange priests bought from the Alien Market.

Now, they are all put into the same type of helmet.

The helmet resembled a giant metal insect clinging to the skull, its segmented limbs gripping the cheeks, and its sharp spikes piercing the temples, back of the head, cervical vertebrae, and pineal gland.

The enchanted circuits of the Dark Mechanicus forcibly amplify their psionic perception while constantly flooding their minds with whispers and search commands written by Vashtor.

The pain was so intense that my senses were stretched into spider silk; the pain was so intense that, amidst the vast physical universe and the noise of subspace, I could detect a tiny, almost non-existent fluctuation from a fragment of the key.

They were like blindfolded hunting dogs with red-hot iron stuffed in their mouths.

Even if you're crying, you should still give directions.

Even a madman should give directions.

Before dying, he wanted to convert his last convulsion into a heading parameter.

Most of the Chaos Lords who carry out missions do not know what they are looking for.

All they knew was that it was the war commander's order.

The war commander ordered them to go to a certain coordinate, and they went there.

Whether that coordinate is an Imperial Nest World, a Necropolis Galaxy, a border expansion of the Tau Empire, or a radioactive wasteland that's too lazy to even mark on a star map, it doesn't matter.

When the first Ominous Ark tore open the rift, many Imperial commanders even thought they saw a continent falling out of the Warp.

Some arks landed directly over densely populated cities.

The Void Shield collapsed layer by layer as it was battered by the rain of fire, and demons and traitorous Astartes fell into the spire like black hailstones.

The local governor, thinking the enemy was going to massacre the city, pushed all the reserves to the defensive line overnight. As a result, after the Chaos army tore open the relic chamber, they only took away an ancient thinker core that had been sealed by the state religion for six thousand years.

Eighty million mortals died because of that nest.

The target object was only the size of a fist.

Another ominous Ark descended upon a primitive world that lacked even low-orbit defenses.

The local indigenous people believed that the sky had split open and that a god had descended to earth.

Chaos Space Marines shattered their stone temples and slaughtered half the continent, all to take a bronze totem from the altar.

Those natives never understood until their deaths why the "Thunder Eagle God," whom their ancestors had worshipped for generations, was stolen by the black-armored giants from the stars.

Chaos lords can kill, plunder slaves, and offer entire planets to the gods.

But the key fragments did not belong to them.

Whoever reaches out will die.

As more and more Ominous Arks were dispatched, the shadow of the Cataclysmic Fleet almost overshadowed every star system recorded in the Imperial annals.

The planets on the dark side of the Empire, already deprived of the light of the stars and rotting in despair, were torn open with new wounds.

Worse still, they even crossed the raging energy bands of the Great Rift and invaded the Imperial Shrine, which Guilliman was barely maintaining order on.

This is not the norm.

In the past, the Chaos Fleet could, of course, break free from the Cursed Scar.

However, subspace storms are too unstable.

Long-distance voyages will tear apart formations, jump landings will deviate from their intended path, and warlords will be dragged away by their bloodlust and plundering in the real universe.

If the Imperial Navy could withstand the first wave, it could often use its local advantages to wipe them out one by one.

The Disaster Fleet is different.

The Ominous Ark is itself a mobile fortress.

The Soul-Guiding Pillars allowed the escort fleet to stay on track in the warp, while the Ferrymen granted these deformed behemoths a turning and jumping precision that shouldn't belong to the creations of chaos.

Abaddon's overseers were like black steel needles inserted into the fleet's spinal cord.

The fleet continued its voyage.

That is precisely why this war seems all the more terrifying.

It is not an ordinary chaotic frenzy.

It has a goal.

No one knows what the goal is.

In some star sectors, the Ominous Ark even ignored the air defense warnings of human fortress worlds, skimming directly over the edge of orbit and heading towards orc settlements or the front lines where the Tyranid swarms were devouring them.

This further demoralized the defending troops.

They watched with a mixture of relief and fear as the monsters capable of destroying their world left overhead.

Fortunately, the enemy did not fall behind.

The fear is that they have no idea why the enemy hasn't fallen.

For Vashtor and Abaddon, the carnage, plunder, and pollution brought by the Cataclysmic Fleet were merely collateral damage.

But for the world affected, collateral damage is the end of the world.

The Chaos Lords had no complaints about this.