Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"The wreckage of the Plague Raven flagship has been contaminated and is spreading again. The Suanni Warband requests authorization to use high-intensity golden fire to burn it."

“Authorize,” Lawson said. “Don’t burn through any usable reactors.”

"The purification radius has been recalibrated."

As for the three ominous arks that Guzogg had placed so much hope in, they had now completely ceased their resistance.

They should have been the most powerful strategic assets of the Ogre Catastrophe Fleet.

Abaddon and Vashtor used wrecked spaceships towed from the depths of the void to transform them into war fortresses capable of traversing the Great Rift, carrying large armies, and hosting warp rituals.

Each Omen Ark is like a moving world of wrecked ships stitched together by magic steel cables.

Their firepower was sufficient to suppress ordinary imperial fleets.

Their size is sufficient to carry a branch of the Chaos Legion.

When Lawson attacked these arks, he never intended to break them open inch by inch from the outer shell.

He ordered the boarding agents to directly search for the Magic Steel Neural Plexus and the Ferryman's Control Core.

No matter how large the Ark is, its underlying logic still needs to transmit commands and connect the engine, fire control, navigation, and subspace anchoring.

Once that spine is found, the behemoth can be paralyzed.

The core control zones of the three arks were breached almost simultaneously.

The demonic entity known as the "Ferryman," responsible for piloting the Ark, was secured to the control node by the Black Legion using stakes and magic steel cables.

They resembled subspace chunks of flesh transformed into helmsmen, their bodies sewn together with the ark's underlying nervous system.

Guzogg can command the Ark normally, but he doesn't truly understand its structure; rather, he issues commands to the giant ship through these demonic ferrymen.

The Yazi battle group was responsible for clearing out the surrounding guards.

The Suanni battle group is responsible for purifying nodes.

The ferryman demons struggled in the golden flames for eight seconds before being burned to a crisp, along with the magic steel cables beneath them.

From that moment on, the three Ominous Arks ceased firing.

The outer turret lost its unified target, the shield matrix broke down, and the engine entered a semi-dormant state.

However, the fact that the Chaos forces were wiped out and the Ferrymen were eliminated did not mean that Lawson had completely taken control of these enormous spoils.

"BOSS, the T series has attempted to integrate with the Ark's underlying control system."

T-001 stated, "Currently, it can reliably control the main engine, some attitude propulsion, basic fire control, and the twelve main outer gates. In addition, more than 70% of the area is in an unscannable blind zone."

Lawson observes the ominous Ark from the perspective of a suicide soldier.

The left wall features a Gothic pointed arch structure and retains remnants of imperial naval prayers.

On the right is the inner wall of some kind of alien ship hull, made of a material that resembles bone or sintered ceramic steel.

Dried bloodstains, scratches from unknown creatures, and some strange metal structures that are still emitting low-intensity radiation can be seen in the crevices.

Many sounds came from inside the ark.

There was a crawling sound coming from inside the pipe.

Irregular impact sounds came from the deck in the distance.

In some of the cabins that had lost power, faint prayers or alarms could still be heard intermittently.

These sounds echoed through the ship's hull, making it difficult to determine their source.

The Ominous Ark was converted from a derelict spaceship.

When Abaddon and Vashtor found these wrecked ships, in their pursuit of speed in remodeling, it was impossible to thoroughly clear every area inside.

The Black Legion's landing forces will only deal with the key areas they need to use.

As for the cargo holds deeper inside that had been sealed off by heavy armor for thousands of years, the broken decks that had formed independent ecosystems due to gravitational anomalies, and the old compartments that contained alien temples, cursed databases, runaway servant factories, or unknown insect hives, they were simply handed over to the Chaos Lords who took over the Ark to deal with themselves.

Warlords like Guzogg wouldn't actually deal with it.

All he needed to do was ensure that the Ark could launch the fleet, open its cannons, and send his own warbands and slave troops to the battlefield.

As for whether there are gene stealers, crazy AIs, or alien contamination deep inside that even Chaos Space Marines wouldn't want to touch, he would most likely just weld the hatch shut and draw a warning rune in his blood.

This is both the value and the trouble of the Ominous Ark.

Danger lurks deep within, and so does treasure.

A cult of pure-blooded gene-stealers, who have been thriving for thousands of years, may be living in some closed agricultural pod, considering themselves the children of God.

A remnant of a golden-age AI, possibly trapped in a killing loop due to a logical error, is still executing defense protocols that have long since become obsolete.

A brood of Void Worms affected by subspace radiation may have grown to the size of a main battle tank, multiplying by gnawing on ship hulls and slave workers.

It could also be a whole batch of STC blueprints that the Mechanics Cult has been dreaming of, lying in some forgotten colony ship archive.

It's possible that a decade's worth of refined gold ore production from a certain star sector is sealed away in the cargo hold of a transport ship that has been out of contact for tens of thousands of years.

It may even contain weaponry from the Great Expedition, prototypes of dark technology, or some Golden Age equipment that is still operational today.

The Chaos factions that obtained the Ominous Ark were actually aware of this as well.

While carrying out their mission as Chaos Warlords, they would also send out elite veterans to explore the depths of the Ark, provided the course and the battle situation permitted.

Therefore, there must be many areas inside the Ark that have been partially opened.

Many exploration teams also perished there, leaving behind equipment, logs, and unfinished clues.

Lawson faces the same problem.

The difference is that others are gambling with their lives when exploring the Ominous Ark.

His exploration of the Ominous Ark is like an assembly line unpacking blind boxes.

The other two ominous Arks are also being dealt with.

The three colossal ships, resembling three void beasts with broken spines, were slowly towed towards the periphery of the near-Earth dock of Agrippina's main star, secured by a dozen heavy tugboats and hundreds of auxiliary towing platforms.

Agrippina already possessed some of the most advanced ship repair and military industrial facilities in the Empire's dark side.

After his takeover, the modular production reforms, the takeover of the Cornerstone sequence, and the integration of T-series technologies, the shipyard here has transformed from a mechanical religious workshop into a true sector-level industrial heart.

But the Ark of Ominous Signs is too big.

They cannot be directly crammed into a conventional dry dock.

It must first be stopped on the perimeter, secured with a locking ring and traction anchor, and then processed in sections like disassembling an asteroid.

This was exactly what Lawson wanted.

The most important thing now is to take over the framework of the three arks.

The three ominous arks have distorted exteriors and chaotic internal structures, but their foundations are excellent.

They were originally pieced together from a massive number of space wrecks and ancient ship hulls, and their armor thickness, redundant space, cargo capacity, landing capacity, and fault tolerance far exceeded those of ordinary imperial capital ships.

A conventional battleship might lose its combat capability if a few key sections are breached, but the Ominous Ark could still maintain its operation even if it lost an area the size of a city.

Lawson can use it for many things: automating arsenals, mobile docks, and loot recovery bins.

Large-scale temporary refugee resettlement area.

It can even serve as a mobile command center and deterrent platform during the Empire's covert patrols.

If the three arks are thoroughly cleaned and equipped with Agrippina's fire control, living metal neural network, and starship assassin navigation, they can become three aerial fortresses that move back and forth in the dark side of the Empire.

It can undertake more flexible sector patrol, expeditionary resupply, and heavy suppression missions.

Lawson looked away.

Lawson leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes to examine the half-key fragment and the ancient forging hammer that had just been sealed in his personal armory space.

The two objects still floated quietly in their respective honeycomb cells.

…………

The ogre scourge fleet was completely annihilated in Agrippina.

When the battle report was delivered to the Chaos War Commander, it was already tattered, resembling a piece of charred skin.

Guzog is dead, and the Plague Crows, Plague Guardians, and their accompanying pirate fleets are being destroyed one after another on the Agrippina High Rail.

The three ominous arks were towed into the outer perimeter of the Agrippina near-shore dock.

That piece of the key also fell into Lawson's hands.

For the first time since the calamity fleet set sail, it has been swallowed whole.

Deep in the dark anchorage, in the tactical room of the backup flagship, Abaddon watched the last transmitted video.

“Guzogg is finished,” Huron said. “Those three arks will also become Lawson’s property.”

A few seconds later, the sound of gears meshing came from the shadows behind the tactical room.

A demonic engine core cracked open on its own, and black flames surged from the crack.

Brass gears, shattered icons, magic steel pipes, and subspace noise intertwine to form the projection of Vashtor.

The surrounding Dark Mechanicus priests all bowed their heads.

"Guzogg lost three of my arks."

Abaddon looked up: "Your three Arks are Guzogg's fate. That's how it'll be written in the battle report."

Huron added, "And now, Lawson's shipyard has three more new toys."

Vashtor turned to Huron.

Huron sighed, “He will dismantle the Ferrymen, cleanse the Felsteel Neural Plexus, and cut open every old section. You knew he would do it. Once he’s done, those three Arks will no longer belong to the Cataclysmic Fleet, nor to you.”

Abaddon then pushed a crimson coordinate onto the tactical console.

“Agrippina should have been your battlefield.”

"The world of forging. The reactor. The shipyard. The mechanical priest. The old temple. Interfaces everywhere that you can pry open."

"You should go and kill Lawson yourself and take back the key!"

Vashtor finally spoke.

“You want me to go to Agrippina in person.”