Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"Use your highest level of charm to relax it, lower its alertness, and then capture it alive."

"But……"

"Don't come back if you can't catch him."

The two great demons fell from a height of 100 meters, and each regained their footing three meters from the ground, landing lightly on the mossy ground at the edge of the Silent Swamp.

They were about 1,500 meters away from the barking toad.

Safe distance.

Qianxian crouched behind a piece of rotten wood, cautiously peeking out half of his head to observe the motionless, grayish-green ball of flesh in the distance.

Qianxian was both amused and exasperated. "I've played all sorts of monsters, like the Spiked Demon, the Snake Servant, and the Pleasure Engine, but I've never played the Katachon Giant Toad."

Ash crouched down next to Qianxian, her eyes narrowed into slits.

The Keeper of Secrets is using psychic perception to sense the mental fluctuations of the barking toad.

“It has thought processes,” Ash said in a low voice. “Extremely primitive, extremely simple, with only two layers. The first layer is a binary judgment of ‘safe environment/unsafe environment.’ The second layer is the instinct to eat. Other than that, it’s completely blank.”

"Can it be used for seduction?"

"Theoretically, it's possible. The essence of seduction is to inject excessive pleasurable signals into the target's emotional channels, causing its brain to be overwhelmed by pleasure and thus lose its vigilance. This toad has a feeding instinct, and eating produces a primal sense of satisfaction. I can try to amplify this sense of satisfaction, making it think that it is eating the most delicious meal of its life."

"Then let's try it."

The Keeper of Secrets closed her eyes and unleashed her alluring domain.

Slaanesh's alluring power radiated outwards from Ash's body like an invisible ripple.

This power is a deadly temptation for humans; it paints the most desired images in your mind, causing you to lose all will to resist in ecstasy.

But for a toad, Ash has to adjust the frequency.

She shifted her allure from the emotional channel to the instinctive channel, bypassing the complex emotional layers possessed only by higher beings, and directly connecting with the barking toad's most primitive neural reflexes.

The message is simple: safety, comfort, plenty of food, and the ability to relax.

The ripples slowly moved toward the barking toad.

1,500 meters, 1,400 meters, 1,300 meters.

The barking toad's two yellow eyes moved slightly.

The allure signal has reached its outer sensing range.

1200 meters, 1100 meters, 1000 meters.

The barking toad's posture underwent a subtle change; its previously tense hind legs relaxed slightly, and its bulging eyes on its head half-closed.

It is being influenced by enchantment.

Qianxian watched nervously from the side, her fingernails digging into the rotten wood.

Nine hundred meters, eight hundred meters, seven hundred meters.

The barking toad's eyes were completely closed.

Its breathing slowed, and its gray-green body rose and fell slightly, as if it had fallen into a comfortable semi-sleep state.

"efficient!"

A fine layer of sweat appeared on Ash's forehead. Using a high-level charm spell on the toad was the most outrageous move in his career as a Keeper of Secrets. "I'll push it a little further, let it completely enter a deep relaxation state..."

"Wait." Qianxian suddenly raised his hand.

Her senses detected something unusual.

That is the instinctive alertness that living beings develop when faced with an "overly comfortable environment".

All creatures in Katachon are trying to kill all other creatures.

The barking toad, which has evolved in this environment for millions of years, has a deep-seated rule in its genes: if you feel comfortable, it means something is trying to eat you.

Seduction itself is the biggest danger signal.

"Withdraw..." Qianxian hadn't finished speaking.

The barking toad's eyes snapped open.

In a mere 0.01 seconds, the two cloudy yellow eyes went from half-closed to completely wide open, with the pupils contracting sharply.

Then its body swelled up.

The grayish-green skin bulged outward like a balloon, and the gaps between the wart-like protrusions split open, revealing a pale, blood vessel-filled membranous tissue underneath.

Qianxian and Aishi turned and ran at the same time.

The two Slaanesh demons unleashed their fastest speed at that moment.

But they all knew they couldn't escape.

Within a one-kilometer radius, they were only six hundred meters away from the barking toad.

Time seemed to stretch out.

As Qianxian ran, she glanced back and saw the half-meter-tall grayish-green fleshy ball expand to three times its original size before its skin shattered instantly, and a thick cloud of grayish-white mist shot out in all directions at a visible speed.

The aerosol spread much faster than they could run.

A ridiculous thought flashed through Qianxian's mind: If I were blown up by a toad and returned to the subspace, would I be laughed at for tens of thousands of years?

Then she felt a tightening around her waist.

A field of spiritual energy, like a giant hand, grabbed both great demons simultaneously, pulling them backward with an acceleration far exceeding their previous running speed.

The next second, Qianxian and Ash were thrown to Lawson's feet.

Lawson hovered high in the air, far beyond the range of the barking toad gas.

He was looking at the scene unfolding in the distance.

Centered on the barking toad, the grayish-white poisonous mist expanded outward at an alarming rate.

Wherever the toxic fog passes, all organic matter dissolves instantly.

The trees began to melt from the roots, and giant trees tens of meters tall collapsed like candles that had been fast-forwarded. The bark, wood, and leaves turned into a bubbling, grayish-green slurry in the toxic fog.

The moss, ferns, and mycelium on the ground liquefied simultaneously, turning the entire land into a pot of boiling organic soup.

A apex predator, the Katachán monitor lizard, at least fifteen meters long, that couldn't escape in time was grazed by the edge of the poisonous fog.

In less than two seconds, its tail transformed from a muscular column covered in scales into a flowing gray liquid. The monitor lizard let out a scream, and its entire body rapidly collapsed, melted, and disappeared, as if hot water had been poured onto a sugar figurine.

The poisonous fog dissipated.

Centered on the location of the barking toad, a perfectly circular dead zone with a radius of exactly one kilometer appears in the Silent Swamp.

The dead zone was gray and white, with a thin layer of organic residue covering the ground.

The barking toad itself disappeared, becoming part of that layer of grayish-white residue.

Lawson slowly exhaled.

"It lives up to its reputation."

The two large demons at his feet had recovered from their shock and were scrambling to make amends.

"This kind of thing is impossible to catch!"

"Its alert mechanism is too abnormal; it even interprets the highest level of charm as a danger signal. In essence, it is..."

"The anti-predator instinct, evolved to its extreme, will trigger self-destruction with any external stimulus, regardless of whether the stimulus is benign or malicious. Charm is more dangerous than physical proximity because it directly affects its nervous system. For a creature where 'feeling comfortable is equivalent to impending death'..."

Ash was also giving a long-winded technical analysis, his scholarly air as a keeper of secrets being brought out by the need to survive.

Lawson glanced at them.

"That's because you're all useless."

P.S.: 1.5 words updated today.

Chapter 231 The Katachan Woman's Plea for Sex and the Black Watch's Plea for Help

The two great demons weren't annoyed by the insults.

Even if its owner calls it a piece of trash, it won't even get a scratch.

Qianxian even found the condescending and disdainful tone in Luosen's voice when he scolded her quite pleasant to listen to, and she savored it several times in secret.

They obediently shrank behind Lawson, squatted down quietly, and peeked out.

They were curious about how Lawson planned to catch a toad that even the highest level of Slaanesh's charm couldn't handle.

Lawson's psychic senses rescanned the Silent Swamp.

After the barking toad exploded, other barking toads within a two-kilometer radius experienced a mild stress response.

Several moved a distance deeper into the area, two remained completely still, and one moved closer to the edge of the explosion zone, probably assessing whether the newly formed dead zone could be expanded into its territory.

Lawson locked onto the barking toad near the edge of the dead zone.

It crouched on a patch of moss, just like the previous one, with grayish-green skin, covered in warts, and two cloudy yellow eyes staring blankly ahead.

A Keystone Sequence assassin stepped out of the light curtain and landed steadily on the moss layer.

He is a little over 1.7 meters tall, of medium build, and has an ordinary appearance.

Wearing a standard gray uniform, he looked no different from any ordinary gray-clad man on any planet in the Dark Side of the Empire.

Qianxian leaned on Luosen's shoulder and glanced down.

She couldn't help but mutter, "He's not some tough guy like Er Gou or San Gou, nor is he a big guy like Xiong Wei. He's just an ordinary plumber, like the bottom of Chaodu. How does he manage to catch big toads?"

Ashby Chizuru remained calm and carefully observed the assassin's movements.

The keeper whispered, “Lighter steps, lower center of gravity, relaxed body language, like a hunter who grew up in the jungle.”

Qianxian tilted her head and looked at him: "I think he looks like a plumber who grew up in the jungle."

Actually, Lawson wasn't entirely confident either.

This is an experiment.