Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Now he has himself.

The empire for which he fought, conquered, and bled in the starry sea has become a decaying behemoth with superstition as its skeleton and fear as its blood.

The Imperial Truth states that there is no God in the universe.

The Emperor himself said it and carried it out. Loka the Word Bearer was forced to kneel before the Emperor in front of everyone because he knelt before him. It was the most humiliating moment of the Great Crusade and the starting point for Loka's betrayal.

Now, emperors are treated as gods.

The book written by Loka, the book that the emperor himself burned, became the sacred text of the state religion.

The entire empire was doing things that the emperor had explicitly forbidden, and justifying them in the emperor's name.

The Lion King closed his eyes.

He wasn't sure if it was real or some kind of warp illusion, or if the mist over the Dragon Forest hadn't yet dissipated.

Is he still trapped in a dream, only that the dream has become more absurd?

But the pain of the gravel underfoot was real, the smell of blood in the wind was real, the sound of the Foundation Death Squad clearing corpses in the distance was real, and the blood of Zabril was real.

This is not a dream!

This is the world he woke up in!

The Lion King opened his eyes, his gaze shifting from the dissipating blue light curtain.

He sighed deeply: "Loka has won."

"That coward who only knows how to kneel on the ground and write scriptures, he won."

The Lion King slowly lowered his head, looking at the giant sword in his hand that had accompanied him for countless years.

"We traversed the sea of ​​stars, beheaded countless aliens, and shattered countless superstitious totems, all to inscribe my father's 'Imperial Truth' among the stars."

"And then I woke up..."

"The loyal became tombstones, the rebels became demons, and my father, who spent his whole life trying to erase the gods, became the greatest god in the entire galaxy."

"The lies he hated most became the laws of the empire, and the people he wanted to protect most were setting each other on the stake in his name."

He gripped the sword hilt again.

"This is not the empire I know."

"This is a huge, decaying tomb that has been rotting for ten thousand years!"

As Zabril lay among the rubble, listening to these words, a bitter feeling welled up in his throat.

He understands so well!

He experienced the same shock a few years ago.

They were ejected from a subspace rift, a span of ten thousand years.

He couldn't accept this drastic change. He once sat alone in the mine for three days, unable to do anything but repeatedly confirm that he wasn't going crazy.

But Zabril dared not say anything.

He wasn't even sure if he had the right to speak.

The mountain breeze blew again.

The Lion King turned his gaze from the distance and landed on Lawson.

The force that Lawson exerted when he grabbed his wrist just now was not at the level of a Space Marine.

He is very strong; his pure strength is on par with mine.

The Lion King asked one last question.

"So, you're now in charge of the dark side of the empire? You're the one my father chose?"

The Lion King's problem hangs in the mountain breeze.

Lawson shook his head.

"Your Majesty, the regent of the dark side of the empire is Dante, the chapter master of the Blood Angels. I am merely the seal bearer, responsible for logistics, personnel, taxation, supplies, and of course, the war."

"As for whether your emperor has chosen me..."

Lawson did not respond verbally.

He raised his left hand.

The five fingers are covered with dark gold metal claws, each finger blade gleaming with a deep iron-colored luster, and the edge of the blade faintly reveals a thin layer of golden light.

Claw of Horus.

Lawson raised his right hand again, and a battle axe appeared—Angron's battle axe, the Spinebreaker.

Both weapons appeared simultaneously on the rubble field of the Gray Ridge Mountains on the planet Kamas.

The Lion King was suddenly stunned.

The Claw of Horus was the weapon of his brother Horus. During the Great Crusade, Horus used it to tear apart the armor of countless alien kings. Later, Horus rebelled, and the claw became one of the symbols of the rebellion. In the footage, it was inherited by Abaddon, who used it to launch the thirteen Black Crusades.

He also recognized the spinebreaker.

Angron's Axe, the Primarch of the Devourer Legion, the twelfth brother, a war machine driven mad by the Butcher's Nail. That axe had already chopped off countless heads during the Great Crusade. Later, Angron fell to become the Primarch of Khorne, and the Spinebreakers were also tainted with the stench of the Warp.

But now, there is no trace of chaos on either weapon.

The Lion King's senses are sharper than any instrument.

He could detect the residual subspace aura on a weapon, even if it was only one ten-thousandth of its original concentration.

There is no Chaos Corruption on Horus's Claw, nor on the Battleaxe of Angron.

Instead, there was a flavor he was extremely familiar with: the golden fire of the emperor.

The unique psionic imprint that only Primarchs who have seen the Emperor in person and experienced the Starfire radiation can recognize.

Pure and intense.

The two relics of the rebellious Primarch were reforged by the Emperor's golden fire.

The Lion King raised his head and looked at Lawson.

"You killed Angron?"

"Yes."

"Abaddon is dead too?"

"Failed to kill."

Lawson retracted the Claw of Horus. "The four shameless evil gods of the warp attacked simultaneously and forcibly dragged him back. However, I tore off his two arms and took the claw and his flagship with me."

The Lion King seemed to understand.

Lawson continued, "Before Angron fell, a small piece of his soul remained deep within him, undestroyed by the Butcher's Nail. A fragment of empathy. I extracted it and personally returned it to the Emperor."

The Lion King's expression changed, and he asked an even more serious question.

"Are you able to contact your father on your own initiative?"

A flame ignited at Lawson's fingertips.

The flame was a pure gold color, and the radiating psionic imprint was so clear that it could not be faked.

It is a living, controllable golden flame bestowed by the emperor himself.

The Lion King stared at the ball of fire.

His senses could penetrate the surface of the flames and reach something deeper, the source of that golden fire connected to a colossal being deep within the subspace.

He could sense that at the other end of the connecting line was an extremely large, ice-cooled light source.

The Lion King felt his father's presence once again.

His hand trembled slightly.

Lawson withdrew the golden flame from his fingertips, his tone becoming more relaxed.

“I have a projection in the warp, and I can occasionally interact with the Emperor.”

Although the last time his subspace consciousness approached the cold sun, it was ruthlessly pushed away by the Emperor.

But such details don't need to be told to the Lion King.

Without batting an eye, Lawson added, "The Emperor is fairly close to me. I gave him the Golden Flame twice, and I often chat with him, although he doesn't reply much. Of course, you know the Emperor's personality better than I do. After returning the Angron Empathy Fragment, he tacitly approved of my actions and expressed his gratitude to me."

This statement is partly true and partly false.

There is a lot of room for interpretation between “default” and “closeness”, but Lawson chose the version that was most advantageous to him.

The Lion King was unaware of these details.

He only knew three things:

First, Lawson possesses Primarch-level weapons reforged by the Emperor's Goldenfire, which indicates that the Emperor at least approves of Lawson's use of these weapons.

Secondly, Lawson has access to Starbeam. Throughout the entire Empire, only a handful of people can have direct interaction with the Emperor.

Third, Angron's fragments of empathy were returned to the Emperor, who did not refuse. This means that the Emperor acknowledged Lawson's handling of Angron's soul.

For a Primarch who has just awakened from a ten-thousand-year slumber and discovered that the entire universe has been turned upside down, the label of "one who is recognized by the Emperor" carries immense weight.

The Lion King was the one among the twenty Primarchs who was best at making independent judgments.

He was also one of the most pragmatic Primarchs.

The reality is that he has just awakened in the Dragon Forest, knows nothing about the current situation, and has no legion, no fleet, no logistics, and no intelligence network by his side.

He stood on a fringe planet overrun by chaos, wearing an ancient suit of armor that was not fully repaired, surrounded only by rubble, corpses, and a group of miners.

The man before him wielded the Imperial Flame and commanded a new type of army he had never seen before, which had defeated the demon principality Angron and forced back the leader of the traitors, Abaddon.

He needs information and resources right now.

You need to know the current status of your legion, the Dark Angels.

Lawson was the first person he encountered after he opened his eyes who was capable, qualified, and willing to answer these questions.

The person chosen by my father can be trusted!

only……