Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Twenty-three people, wearing homemade armor and carrying automatic guns and explosives.

The leader was a large man with mutated tumors on his face and shriveled human ears hanging around his neck.

Kyle gave the signal after they had all entered the dead end.

Seven gray-armored Astartes opened fire simultaneously.

Crossfire creates kill zones in dead-end alleys.

Bombs and lasers bounced back and forth in the confined space, and all twenty-three cult members fell to the ground within a dozen seconds.

Kyle stood up from behind the bunker, preparing to order an evacuation.

He stopped.

At the end of the dead-end alley, a shadow split open.

Kyle's explosive pistol instantly pointed in that direction, and all six Greybone Company members turned around at the same time, raising their weapons.

Three people emerged from the shadows.

One of them...

Kyle's finger was on the trigger, but he didn't pull it.

White hair, a giant sword, and ancient armor.

A stature taller than any Astartes.

Kyle's pupils contracted.

The face had aged, but the contours remained the same.

"If you were him."

Kyle's voice was somewhat hoarse: "Then you should know that we don't know the truth about Caliban. I did not join Chaos. There are seven people in the Greybone Company, and in six thousand years, not one of them has ever touched anything from Chaos. We kill cultists, we kill mutants, we kill demons that crawl out of the rift. We scraped off the insignia because wearing First Legion armor means death."

“I know, so I forgive Zabril.” The Lion King glanced at Zabril beside him, “and I forgive you, and everyone behind you.”

Kyle knelt on one knee on the gravel floor of the dead-end alley, before his father.

"My Lord..."

The Lion King stepped forward and placed his hand on Kyle's gray shoulder armor.

"Put the emblem back on."

Behind him, six members of the Grey Bone Company laid down their weapons and knelt on the ground.

"Seven men of the Ash Bones Company, heed my command."

The seven brothers stood up and lined up in a row, their gray shells forming a line in the dim light.

Kyle turned to the Lion King.

What do you want us to do?

The Lion King said, "Come with me, there are many more people like you in the galaxy."

Kyle glanced back into the depths of the dead-end alley, where 60,000 civilians were still waiting for clean water.

“Give us ten minutes,” Kyle said. “I’ll put the last batch of water purification chemicals at the distribution point.”

Ten minutes later, the seven gray-armored Astartes returned to the dead end.

The seven men followed the Lion King, Zabril, and Mordecai into the shadows at the end of the alley.

The shadows closed in.

The dead-end alley was empty again.

Only twenty-three cult members' corpses and spent shell casings scattered on the ground remained.

Next to the water purification station on the fourth residential floor, there was an extra box of unsigned water purification agents.

…………

The Lion King traversed half of the empire's dark side.

The forest walk allowed him to leap between shadows, with Zabril and Kyle following behind him.

They found more fallen angels.

Some people live alone in the wilderness, like Mordecai, guarding a lighthouse that no one ever comes to.

Some people hide in the lower echelons of the Empire in small groups, erasing their insignia like Kyle, becoming a group of non-existent ghosts.

Some people are so old that the life support system of their power armor is the only thing that keeps them standing.

There was a creature that lived alone for four thousand years beneath the ice cap of a frozen world, surviving by hunting mutated giant insects beneath the ice.

When he was found, his power armor was covered by a thick layer of animal hide, his explosive gun had been repaired countless times with insect shells and ice crystals, and the face behind his visor had almost forgotten how to make expressions.

The Lion King stood before him: "Come with me."

The old soldier took one last look at the four-thousand-year-old ice cave, then turned and rejoined the group.

There was a doctor who lived in the bottom nest.

He used his Astartes medical knowledge to treat the inhabitants of the Deep Nest, who called him the Grey Doctor.

He was found setting a child's broken bone.

The Lion King waited until he finished the surgery before speaking.

Some people are in an even worse situation.

In a world ravaged by chaos, three fallen angels were pursued for eighty years by the judge priests of the dark angels.

They ran across half the star sector, and every time they thought they had shaken off their pursuers, the dark green figure would reappear.

The three people were reduced to two, and the two were reduced to one.

The last man was forced into the deepest part of an abandoned mine. He had run out of ammunition, and his power armor's reactor had only three percent of its power remaining. Facing the approaching footsteps at the mine entrance, he drew his combat knife, preparing for a final stand.

When the last veteran saw the Lion King, his fighting knife fell from his hand.

He kept repeating the same sentence: "Why did you take so long to get here!"

A few months later, more than three hundred fallen angels gathered around the Lion King.

Their ages range from several hundred to nearly ten thousand years old, and their origins are found in every corner of the Empire's dark side.

Some people are physically intact, some are severely injured, and some need a long time to recover their mental state.

But they all had one thing in common: during the long years of being hunted down, abandoned, and regarded as traitors by the entire empire, they did not turn to Chaos.

Now the pardon has arrived.

The Lion King formed a new warband for them: "The Resurrected".

The resurrected are those who have died once and come back to life.

Forming a battle group is just one of the things Lion King has done in the past few months.

Another thing is observation.

He traveled to many places, some of which were in the old world of the empire that Lawson had not yet touched, and others were planets that Lawson had already reclaimed and brought under his administration.

The gap between the two worlds was greater than he had anticipated.

The Lion King visited an old world empire called Korxian.

It is far from the Great Rift, has never been invaded by Chaos, and even maintains a faint connection with the Imperial Holy Surface.

Logically speaking, this should be one of the worlds with the best conditions on the dark side of the Empire.

He stayed in Korxian for two days.

The upper level of the hive is the noble district, with golden eagle banners hanging from the spires. The air is triple-filtered, food is imported from agricultural planets, and noble sons wear silk and jewels, discussing at banquets whose private army is more elite.

The middle level of the city is an industrial zone, where workers operate machines they don't understand in sixteen-hour shifts.

The sages of the Mechanic Church told them to recite this prayer when pressing this button and to sing this hymn when turning this valve.

The lower layer of the nest is the bottom nest.

The air was yellowish-green, a mixture of industrial waste gas, sewer steam, and ventilation ducts that hadn't been replaced in centuries, forming a layer of toxic smog that would never dissipate.

The light comes from cheap chemical lamps that are only a few hundred meters apart, and most areas rely on burning garbage for lighting.

Water dripped from the rusty pipes; it was grayish in color and had a metallic taste.

The inhabitants of the bottom nest live in shacks built from scrap iron and concrete fragments.

Their skin was unhealthy pale or gray, many had chronic respiratory diseases, and the whites of their eyes were yellow.

Children are generally smaller than average due to malnutrition.

The only respectable building in the bottom nest is a state church.

The golden dome stood out starkly against the surrounding ruins, and was packed with kneeling worshippers.

The pastor stood on the pulpit and told them with all his might: suffering is the emperor's test, patience is the proof of faith, and after death, the soul will find rest by the emperor's side.

The inhabitants of the bottom nest gave one-tenth of their last food ration to the church in exchange for a pardon bearing the emperor's image.

The Lion King stood at the church entrance for a long time.

The emperor's own words echoed in his mind: There is no god in the universe, all religions are shackles of ignorance, and the future of mankind depends on reason, science and conquest, not on worship and prayer.

Now, the Emperor's name is printed on pardons, exchanged for the last bite of food from the bottom nest dwellers.

The Lion King turned and left Korxian.

He then went to three more old world empires, where the situation was much the same.

The nobility indulged in pleasure at the top, the workers toiled in the middle, and the bottom waited to die in poisonous gas and sewage. The state religion collected tithes at every level.

The administrative system is so bloated that a single material allocation order requires seventeen stamps.

The Cult of Mechanics monopolizes all technology, treats maintenance manuals like gospel, and the Astral Army's training methods are still at the level of lining up for execution.

The empire was decaying at a slow pace.

Then the Lion King went to the world of Lawson.

The first one is the industrial world.