Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Magnus stayed on the Prophecy Star, researching witchcraft. Occasionally, he would send a few Thousand Sons out for a stroll, but they would retreat after Lawson's psionic barrier cut off their connection.

So, there's only one option left worth considering.

Vashtor sighed like a human: I wonder if Peturabo can hold on?

P.S.: 1.5 words updated today.

Chapter 230 Carrying Two Giant Demon Toads

For Lawson, data is just the surface.

The changes over the past four years are far more profound than the cold, hard numbers in the Hive Log.

At the end of the swarm log, there is an inconspicuous update.

[Chitinous Inner Mold Upgrade: Level 1 → Level 2. Trigger Condition: Accumulate 30 chitinous cores to unlock advanced lattice recombination schemes.]

Eliminating petty thieves is one of the daily tasks in the combat sequence.

Gene sniffing nodes are responsible for location, combat sequences are responsible for infiltration, and the Bixie battle group is responsible for cleanup.

Over the past four years, the number of gene thieves eliminated has reached billions.

The first-level chitin inner armor was fully deployed in the combat sequence two years ago.

Each assassin consumes thirty-something points of cinnabar energy, which, once implanted, grants them an internal layer of protection equivalent to a carapace.

What truly concerned Lawson was something else entirely: the chitinous core.

Each time a pureblood patriarch is killed, a high-density chitin crystal is occasionally peeled from deep within its spine.

This thing is extremely rare; only clan leaders among billions of cunning individuals can produce it, and not every clan leader has it.

Four years ago, Lawson only had two, which he kept in the armory.

The system displayed "Insufficient cores, unable to parse high-order solutions", so Lawson didn't take it seriously.

After four years of extermination, over a hundred clan chief-level targets were killed, and the stockpile of chitinous cores finally accumulated to thirty.

The system automatically triggered the parsing.

The parameters of the secondary chitinous inner armor appeared before Lawson.

He looked at it carefully.

The core upgrade lies in the recombination of the crystal lattice structure.

The chitin fibers of the primary inner carapace are arranged in a unidirectional stacking pattern, like a deck of cards.

The secondary inner shell uses high-order coding information extracted from the core to rearrange chitin fibers into a cross-helical structure, similar to the molecular weaving of spider silk.

Numerous microscopic elastic nodes are formed between the fibers, giving the entire inner armor extremely strong toughness.

Same thickness, same weight.

Defense power doubled.

This is the most ingenious aspect of the second-level inner armor. Its improvement does not come from being thicker or heavier, but from the structural optimization of the material itself at the microscopic level.

The total amount of chitin fibers remained almost unchanged; what changed was their arrangement and connection logic.

This means that the assassins implanted with level 2 armor are completely identical in weight, flexibility, and movement ability to those with level 1 armor.

Run when you need to run, roll when you need to roll, crawl through pipes when you need to crawl through pipes.

But its ability to take a beating has doubled.

T-001 conducted a set of comparative tests: a standard explosive gun bullet was fired directly at a distance of fifty meters. The first-level inner armor was penetrated, but the second-level inner armor bullet was stuck in the surface layer by the lattice structure and failed to penetrate.

A standard chainsaw sword slashed with all its might, cutting through two-thirds of the first-level inner armor. The interlocking spiral fibers of the second-level inner armor became entangled in the chain teeth, and the chainsaw sword jammed on the spot.

Its protection level has surpassed that of the Void Armor of the Sun Auxiliary Army during the Great Crusade.

What pleased Lawson even more was the self-repairing ability of the second-tier inner armor.

Chitin itself is an active biological material, and after being implanted into the body of a suicide soldier, it will form a symbiotic relationship with the host's bioelectric field.

The cross-spiral structure of the secondary inner armor has the ability to self-reorganize. In the area that is cracked during combat, a certain amount of chitin is consumed, and the surrounding chitin fibers will automatically extend, interweave, and fill the crack within ten minutes, thus resealing the crack.

In a battle that lasts for several hours, this means that the assassin's protection will not decrease linearly with the number of hits, but will recover on its own.

The resource consumption of the second-tier inner armor has increased tenfold.

Each person in Level 1 inner armor has 30-odd points of material, and each person in Level 2 inner armor has 300-odd points of material plus 300 points of subspace energy.

But after doing the math, Lawson thought it was a good deal.

The increased survival rate brought by the second-level inner armor is a real improvement.

In the long run, the investment in the second-tier domestic league will recoup its costs after several dozen matches.

Lawson issued the upgrade order.

The first to be upgraded are the cornerstone riders of the entire 210,000 combat units and the 3 million Hurricane motorcycle fleet.

The combat sequence is Lawson's fist, so the defense must be strong.

Although the riders of the Hurricane Motorbike Squadron are only in the Foundation Ranks, they drive Eldar jet motorcycles to carry out high-speed assault missions, resulting in a large exposure area on the battlefield.

When flying at subsonic speeds close to the ground, light armor offers limited protection, and secondary inner armor provides them with a life-saving layer of protection.

Xiong Wei's performance was even more exaggerated.

The centurion's heavy armor made them equivalent to light walking tanks.

After the implantation of the secondary chitinous inner armor, an additional layer of biological armor, doubling the size, was added beneath the heavy armor.

In the same battle, a Bear Guard was hit in the left shoulder by the molten cannon of the Chaos Desecrator-class Demon Engine.

The temperature of the thermomelting cannon was high enough to melt through standard power armor. The outer armor of the Centurion heavy armor was indeed melted through, but the inner secondary chitinous inner armor underwent an unexpected reaction under high temperature. The bio-fibers in the cross-spiral structure carbonized and shrank under extreme heat, forming a dense heat-insulating shell that kept the heat out of the skin.

The heavy armor on the left shoulder of the bear guard was burned to scrap metal, and the secondary inner armor inside was charred black, but his arm could still move.

He swung the power hammer with his left arm, which should have been beyond repair, and smashed the cockpit of the demon engine.

In its postwar analysis report, the swarm intelligence team gave the second-level chitinous inner armor a four-word comprehensive evaluation: excellent value for money.

As for the chitin inventory, Lawson is not worried at all.

The chitin raw materials accumulated over four years of eliminating billions of gene thieves have filled the armory section.

The number of cores is also continuously increasing, and there is a chance that they will drop every time a clan leader's lair is cleared.

At the current rate of core accumulation, unlocking the Tier 3 inner armor is only a matter of time.

In the more distant future, the Zerg main fleet will eventually reach the dark side of the Empire.

By then, the source of chitin will no longer be the scattered nests of gene-stealers, but the overwhelming army of Zerg.

Every Zerg creature that is killed is a walking chitin mine.

Lawson closed the log, picked up the now-cold teacup, and took one last sip.

This seemingly insignificant improvement only occupies half a page in the hive log.

Compared to the magnificent recapture of star sectors and the trillions of tons of military production capacity, a thin layer of biological armor seems insignificant.

But wars are always decided by these seemingly insignificant details.

Every bullet each suicide soldier blocks adds to their life by one second. Each second they live adds to their life by one more shot. Each shot they fire adds to their life by one more enemy.

This change becomes apparent at a macro level.

…………

Lawson turned off the data, closed his eyes, and focused his consciousness inward.

He could feel the vast ocean of spiritual energy within his body.

The total number of cornerstone sequences has climbed from one billion to tens of billions.

Each cornerstone node is a miniature oscillation source in the psionic network. The endogenous psionic field generated by the simultaneous resonance of billions of nodes has expanded to a point where even Lawson himself needs time to adapt.

His strongest weapon is no longer his physical body.

Sixth-tier genetic base, mechanical extremes, Angron Battle Axe, and Horus' Claw—these trump cards, which were enough for him to take on the Primarch one-on-one four years ago, have now taken a backseat in his overall combat strength.

Psychic power is the real trump card.

Lawson had heard that powerful psionicists in the Empire could crush a tank out of thin air.

Psionicists of that caliber are extremely rare throughout the entire Empire and are closely monitored by the Inquisition.

Lawson can now crush a room full of psionicists out of thin air.

The endogenous psionic field generated by the resonance of billions of nodes manifests as an extremely pure force field manipulation ability at the physical level.

For Chaos, this is more terrifying than any weapon.

The most direct manifestation of psionic enhancement can actually be seen standing in a corner of Lords' Court in Lawson.

Ash Velos and Salasien Thousand Strings.

Two high-ranking Slaanesh archdemons, either one alone, would be enough to plunge a hive world into perpetual madness and corruption. Together, they would be a force to be reckoned with, even for some Space Marine chapters.

Now, Lawson occasionally unhooks their collars to let them move around freely.

The moment the collars are removed, the suppressed subspace essence within the two great demons will rebound and be released like a spring.

Slaanesh's powers of seduction, fear, pain manipulation, and soul corruption will be restored to their full strength in an instant.

Last month, Lawson conducted a test at the Royal Court's training grounds.

He removed the collars from the two great demons, allowing them to attack him together.

There's only one rule: whoever gets within a kilometer of Lawson wins.

Ash made the first move.

The Keeper of the Secret revealed her true form, and her alluring aura spread out in full force, enough to make mortals within a ten-kilometer radius kneel down and kiss her toes on the spot.

At the same time, Qianxian launched a soul resonance attack from the flank, with each of his four arms playing a soul string at a different frequency, attempting to shatter Lawson's defenses on a mental level.

Lawson stood there, his hands in his pockets.