Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Eldar light cruisers weaved through the artillery fire, while the Ranger fleet retreated, releasing chaff as they went.

Further away, warships with hulls covered in musical score patterns were approaching.

Leisani didn't look at them.

She only looks at the target runes.

During the seventeenth lateral maneuver, right-wing rider Saan had just cut off the propulsion shaft of a Chaos Landing Pod for her.

The three men, in a triangular formation, tore open the engine hull of a scrap metal frigate, drove in a molten metal bomb, and the explosion unfolded behind them.

The Chaos Frigate veered off course and collided with the slave transport ship.

The shields of the two ships crushed each other, flames spewed from the cracks, and thousands of slaves tumbled in the vacuum.

Lysani lowered her body, her mind and spirit controlling the core of the soul bone. The Storm Serpent flipped to the side with her thoughts, avoiding a beam of dark red light spears fired from the outer turret of the Ark.

Horace ordered, "Third team, spread out to the left outer ring! Those scrap metal guys are calibrating the heavy artillery's blind spots; don't get yourselves stuck in the Ark's shadow and become sitting ducks!"

"receive."

Lysani lightly tapped the control rune, causing the winged rider to create distance.

Then she heard it.

A voice that shouldn't be on the battlefield channel, too soft, sounded like it was coming from the inside of a helmet, close to the skull.

It passed through the mental protection and the spiritual bone rune barrier, landing directly on the soul stone on her chest.

She hadn't heard that voice in seventeen years.

"Lesani, my daughter."

Her mother died in a battle while chasing a Dark Eldar slave ship.

The Soul Stone was brought back to Saim-Han and placed in the ancestral temple of the Crimson Moon Clan.

"Lesani, turn around."

Her fingers lifted a millimeter off the manipulating runes.

At this speed, even a millimeter means that the nervous system has already recognized "turning around to take a look".

The Chaos Cannonball grazed past on the left, shaving off a piece of the tail fin guard, and an alarm rune popped up.

Leisani bit the tip of her tongue.

The pain pulled her back.

"Third team, wake up! Count off!"

no respond.

Arene's Storm Serpent is out of control.

He was still alive, his helmet facing forward, but his hands were off the controls, his fingers spread out as if touching something unseen.

The soul stone on his chest flashed extremely fast, as if it were about to jump out of his chest cavity.

"Arian! Put your hand back on the joystick! It's an illusion!"

Lysani cut to the side, preparing to wake him up by ramming him with the wing.

It's too late!!

A Slaanesh warship slid out from behind the Chaos fleet, its bow splitting open to reveal long, thin arms and musical instrument-like structures.

Those arms ripped through the void, and the voices became concrete. Lysani heard another name: Arene's mother, or sister, or first love.

She didn't know exactly who it was, but she knew that the voice was more important to Arene than the entire Ark world.

Because he was laughing, in the out-of-control, tumbling aircraft, in the gaps between the void's barrage of fire, Arian was laughing, a laugh that belonged to an afternoon that no longer existed.

Lysani gritted her teeth and fired.

The Star Dart cannon shattered the side thrusters of his aircraft; she would rather he eject than fly into that rift.

Arian's motorcycle tumbled and disintegrated, and his body was ejected from the machine.

The Soul Stone fell out of the breastplate.

A hand reached out from the purple mist and grabbed the Soul Stone.

Arian's final screams echoed through the communication channels.

The young riders' speed suddenly dropped.

The fear ingrained in the genes of the entire race was simultaneously activated.

For the Eldar, death is not the end. After death, there is always another mouth waiting.

And that mouth had just let them hear the sound of chewing.

Horace's roar drowned out the channel.

"All new recruits, withdraw from the combat zone! Veterans, fill in! Use the highest overheat shields to clear the area! Anyone who dares to approach within 300 yards, I'll shoot them first!"

Lysani failed to save Arien, and instead delivered his Soulstone into the mouth of Slaanesh.

She wanted to rush over, tear the warship apart, chop off the hand, and snatch Arian back.

But Horace's order was correct.

Getting too close is suicide, or worse.

“Lesani, what are we doing? Should we retreat?” Saen called out to her in the channel.

She looked towards the battlefield; the Chaos Fleet was pressing in.

The Slaanesh warships created gaps in the defensive network, and the Iron Warrior heavy gunships began to use crossfire to block the retreat angle.

The Red Pirate escort fleet followed behind the Slaanesh fleet like carrion beasts that had smelled a wound.

"Go back to the second ring, don't let the boarding boat slip through."

"Arian's Soulstone is still in that monster's hands..."

Lysani opened her mouth: "He's dead. Today, we can only take his name back to the clan hall."

Saen did not speak again.

They retreated to the second ring.

Saim-Khan's fleet is still fighting.

A Eldar light cruiser swept past the left flank of the Chaos fleet, launching a salvo torpedo at an extreme angle. The torpedoes passed through the gaps between the Chaos frigates and struck a Dark Mechanicus tracking ship.

The bow exploded, and the brass furnace inside, along with the psionic slave nailed to the throne, shattered into pieces.

Pretty.

But the light cruiser was a beat too slow in breaking away, and the helmsman's psionic senses were swept by something, like walking in a dark alley and suddenly having someone blow on the back of his head.

With that one shot, the Steel Warrior heavy gunship locked on, and three rounds of heavy cannons fired simultaneously, slamming into its side.

Through the breach in the ship's hull, the Eldar crew desperately sealed off the inner spiritual bone passage. Rescue boats rushed out from the direction of the Ark, preparing to retrieve the Soul Stones.

Then that thing stood on the bow of the ship.

Sarasien Thousand Strings.

Four arms, long and slender, with movements somewhere between a dancer and a butcher.

It brought the bone flute to its lips. The sound of the flute did not travel through the air, but was directly recorded into the vibration frequency of each soul stone.

Dozens of soul stones veered off course from the rescue mission, as if being pulled along by threads, and drifted toward the Slaanesh flagship.

Saen cursed.

Horace switched into the channel: "Focus fire! Blast that flute-playing monster off the Soulstone!"

Hundreds of jet-powered motorcycles turned simultaneously.

Leisani was among them.

They spread out beyond their maximum range, unleashing Star Darts, Molten Bombs, and Eldar Missiles simultaneously, the barrage raining down on the flagship like a red meteor shower.

The first wave tore through the shield, the second wave shattered several resonant structures at the bow, and the third wave hit the ritual platform surrounding the Great Demon.

Several soul stones detached from the threads and were recaptured by the rescue boat.

A brief cheer erupted in the channel.

Then, many hands reached out from the flagship's wound, grabbing a rider who had gotten too close.

The Storm Serpent engine whistled, all the propulsion runes lit up, and the thrust was already at its limit, but those hands were not using physical force to drag him.

They were distracting him.

A rider's eyes are on the light at the fingertips, and his soul is responding.

Lesani saw him turn around.

The helmet visors were facing them.

She couldn't see the rider's expression, only that his hands had left the handlebars and his fingers were spread open.

Exactly the same as Arene.

Just then, Horace's weapon opened fire.

The hot-melt spear was fired at the same second the rider turned around.

The explosion tore the rider and the vehicle apart.

"boom!"

The Soul Stone popped out, and a rescue drone rushed over, snatching it away 0.3 seconds before the purple arms could close.

The rider's body was dragged into the flagship's rift.

There was a four-second silence on the channel.

Everyone understood that the patriarch was saving souls.

What was destroyed was the body that no longer belonged to that rider.

Leisani looked away.