Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Another general chimed in, "The reserves must remain in the Spire! Protecting us is protecting the spark of civilization on this planet!"

In the eyes of the high and mighty imperial nobles, the ordinary citizens of the haunted city were not even human beings; they were merely a string of expendable numbers on a data board that could be erased and replenished at any time.

The young officer was in despair.

He gritted his teeth, swallowed his anger, performed an extremely stiff Eagle Salute, and silently left the hall.

Throughout this farcical debate, one person remained completely silent.

Grand Marshal of the Ministry of Justice, Gideon Thorne.

He stood quietly in the shadows of the hall, his black Ministry of Justice standard armor seemingly absorbing all the surrounding light.

He neither spoke out to stop the governor's decision nor made any sarcastic remarks.

As the chief executive officer of the Ministry of Justice, Marshal Thorne wields terrifying power; he even has the authority to execute a governor on the spot if the governor betrays the empire.

But he was very clear about the dark operating logic of the empire.

In this cruel and desperate universe isolated by warp storms, corruption and selfishness often serve as the lubricant for the Imperial bureaucracy to keep itself running.

Cassius may be a cowardly fat pig, but he didn't side with Chaos, and he paid his tithes on time, which was enough.

As for the lives of billions of ordinary people in the lower classes?

There is no provision in the Imperial Code that stipulates that a governor must exchange his own life for the life of a commoner.

“In the Empire’s books, life is the cheapest currency. And I know exactly what you, Cassius, are planning. It’s nothing more than that the food can’t be brought in, and we can’t last two months.”

Marshal Thorne maintained his unsettling silence.

The Sphinx district remained a scene of revelry, with hypocritical celebrations and prayers intertwined.

In stark contrast to the towering spire district, thousands of meters below lies the Nest City grounds, which are transforming into a living hell.

Obolos No. 1 main hive, twelfth outer defense zone.

The sky was gray, obscured by thick smoke and poisonous clouds, but the battlefield itself was anything but dark.

Everywhere there were explosions, blinding red beams of laser guns, and dim yellow gunfire spewing from the crude weapons in the hands of the green-skinned orcs.

"For the Emperor! Hold the line! Anyone who retreats will be subject to battlefield discipline by the Political Commissar!"

A young planetary defense lieutenant stood in a trench made of sandbags and the corpses of his comrades, roaring at the top of his lungs.

His military uniform was already soaked with mud and dark red blood, and the barrel of the standard laser pistol in his hand was red-hot from continuous firing.

In front of the trenches lay a veritable sea of ​​green-skinned soldiers.

Endless orc lads, like a green flood, trampled over the corpses of their comrades, unleashing chillingly frenzied roars as they charged madly toward the human positions.

These green beasts, standing over two meters tall and with bulging muscles, displayed a despairing vitality and brutality.

The laser beams struck their thick skin, burning through the flesh and leaving charred bullet holes, but unless they hit the head or heart directly, these monsters didn't even flinch.

They brandished crude but extremely heavy machetes, or carried dead guns that had no sights and were purely for guesswork, crashing into PDF's defenses like meat grinders.

puff!

A heavy bomb machine gun operated by three PDF soldiers had just mowed down a dozen or so greens charging at the front, and before they could reload, an even larger orc, Norber, had already leaped into the trench.

The Norman let out a deafening "Waaagh!" battle cry and swung his massive, serrated power axe.

The three soldiers, along with the heavy explosive machine gun, were instantly cleaved in two at the waist by the ferocious force.

Warm blood and entrails rained down on the muddy trenches.

"Brothers! Fear not! The Emperor is watching over us! Our souls will return to..."

Seeing the defenses breached, the young lieutenant drew his power sword, preparing to deliver a morale-boosting heroic declaration and lead a counter-charge.

But he never got the chance to utter the words "Golden Throne."

Chapter 90 The Fighting Nun in Desperate Circumstances

A gust of wind, carrying a strong stench, swept in, and a huge, rusty throwing axe flew from afar at an astonishing speed, embedding itself precisely in the lieutenant's neck.

A sickening cracking sound, like bone breaking.

The lieutenant's head, still bearing the expression of anger, flew off his body, tumbled a few times in the air, and rolled into the muddy water, where it was mercilessly trampled into a bloody pulp by the large foot of an orc that rushed up after him.

The PDF lines collapsed instantly without their commander.

These ordinary soldiers from the hive, who had only received a few months of basic training, had their psychological defenses completely shattered by despair when faced with these unreasonable alien beasts.

The ground troops suffered heavy casualties, with limbs and bodies scattered everywhere. Every second, hundreds and thousands of lives were brutally taken by the green-skinned soldiers.

Even though some veterans are still gritting their teeth and making futile resistance using cover, it's like trying to stop an out-of-control mudslide with their own bodies; it's only a matter of time before they are completely swallowed up.

Beyond this desperate battlefield, delve deeper into the darker corners of the nest.

Lower Nest, Residential Area No. 79, Third Civilian Shelter.

This underground air-raid shelter, originally used to store industrial waste, is now crammed with thousands of the empire's lowest citizens.

There were no lights, and the air was thick with the sour smell of sweat, excrement, and the stench of hormones emanating from fear.

In the darkness, muffled explosions and chilling, inhuman roars could occasionally be heard from afar.

Each tremor causes a shower of dust to fall from the top of the air-raid shelter.

People huddled together, huddled in the cold, damp corner.

"Holy Emperor, please unleash your wrath and burn away those green demons..."

"Your Majesty, have mercy on your lowly servant..."

In the darkness, the sounds of desperate prayers rose and fell.

In this technologically advanced but spiritually oppressive universe, faith is the only psychological defense for these ordinary people at the bottom of society when faced with incomprehensible terror.

In the corner, a little girl, about seven or eight years old and covered in dirt, was clinging tightly to the arms of an elderly scavenger with a wrinkled face.

Her large eyes were filled with tears of fear.

"grandfather……"

"Will those green monsters eat us, like in the gang tales?"

The scavenger grandfather hugged his granddaughter tightly, his mechanical prosthetic limb, which only had three fingers left, trembling slightly.

But he still managed to force a smile that looked worse than a grimace, and stroked the girl's hair with his rough hands.

"No, little Ida, no."

The old man's voice was hoarse and deep: "We are praying to the Holy Emperor. The Emperor sits on the Golden Throne in the distant Holy Terra. He is all-knowing and all-powerful."

"But, but it's so noisy outside, the explosion was so loud..."

The little girl sobbed, looking up at the dark ceiling: "Grandpa, can the Emperor really hear our prayers? It's so dark and deep here..."

The old man paused for a moment, and a single, cloudy tear rolled down his cheek.

In this messed-up galaxy, the Emperor is too busy maintaining the navigation network of the entire star system and wrestling with the evil gods of the warp. He has no time to listen to the cries of a little girl in a hive slum.

“He will surely hear you, child.”

The old man nodded vigorously: "As long as we are devout enough, when the Emperor hears our prayers, He will open His eyes, which burn with fierce flames."

"Then, He will send out those legendary death angels, over two meters tall and clad in massive, heavy armor! They will descend from the sky, crashing to the earth like burning meteors! They will use explosive guns and chainsaw swords to wipe out all those green-skinned monsters! They are the Emperor's sharpest swords, invincible!"

As the little girl listened to her grandfather's ancient tale about space warriors, the fear in her eyes subsided slightly, replaced by a glimmer of innocent hope: "Will angels really fall from the sky to save us?"

"Really. Grandpa swears."

The old man held the girl tightly, closed his eyes, and continued reciting the prayer he had repeated countless times.

They had no idea that thousands of kilometers away in the upper atmosphere, there was indeed a huge meteor burning with raging flames, carrying world-destroying kinetic energy and ten thousand death angels as cold as Asuras, hurtling toward this land!

Another battlefield.

Obolos Nest: Ruins of the Cathedral of the Martyrs.

This place was once the spiritual pillar of the entire Lower Nest Anglican community, but now, this magnificent Gothic building has been nearly half destroyed by war.

The huge stained glass windows had long since shattered into a patchwork of fragments. The stone statues depicting the suffering of saints were now not only covered in rainwater, but also stained with shocking dark red blood and viscous green bodily fluids.

In front of the dilapidated central altar of the church, a desperate and extremely fierce defensive battle was unfolding.

The forces stationed here are not ordinary planetary defense forces, but the most fanatical and deadliest armed force of the Imperial State Church: the Battle Sisters.

Even the battle nun, blessed with the Emperor's faith, appeared so vulnerable in the face of this irrational catastrophe.

The nun squad responsible for escorting the sacred relics had been stranded on this planet a few days ago due to a warp storm.

What was originally a whole squad of nuns has now been wiped out.

Only four figures remained on the defensive line.

Standing at the very front was the commander of the combat nun squad, Sister Katarina, the captain of the nun squad.

She was a woman who could drive any man mad and terrify any heretic.

She has long, fiery red hair that is dazzling and wildly flowing.

She did not wear the heavy iris helmet, leaving her exquisitely beautiful yet icy face exposed to the smoke of gunpowder.

On the corner of her left eye, there is an old scar that runs across her cheekbone. This does not detract from her beauty; instead, it adds a wild and deadly ferocity to her.

Katarina wore a tight-fitting, heavy black power armor, the ergonomically designed armor perfectly outlining her slender and powerful physique.

"Heretics! Die! Turn to ashes in the Emperor's wrath!"

Katarina's long legs, clad in armored combat boots, slammed into a mutated ghoul that lunged at her, sending it flying.

Immediately afterwards, she held a blaster in her left hand, engraved with intricate holy words. The muzzle spat out a dazzling tongue of fire, blasting the ghoul's head into a cloud of blood mist.

In her right hand, she wielded a heavy chainsaw sword.

With that teeth-grinding buzzing roar, Katarina, like a Valkyrie dancing in a bloody dance floor, executed an extremely clean spinning backslash, cutting two extremist fanatics who were trying to sneak up from the side in half!

These lunatics, dressed in tattered cult attire and covered in pustules, were Chaos cultists who took advantage of the Greenskin invasion to wreak havoc in the Lower Nest.

The nuns not only had to face the surging green-skinned orcs coming from the street directly in front of them, but also had to deal with the heretical lunatics who kept pouring out from the underground sewers and the back door.