Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"grown ups?"

"The entire fleet."

Huron changed the order: "Cancel the retreat order."

The adjutant paused, his expression changing slightly: "Sir, Vashtor's battle plan is..."

"Fuck Vashtor."

Huron abruptly stood up, his crimson eyes fixed on the giant ship bearing his name.

"Full fleet charge! All ship cannons recalibrated! Ominous Ark turned! Assault fleet contracted formation! I will reclaim the Ghost of Destruction! It is my ship, my throne, my banner, mine!"

The adjutant lowered his head: "Yes, sir."

The Chaos Fleet began to change formation.

The previously dispersed suppressive firepower quickly converged, and the massive hull of the Ominous Ark slowly turned. More than a dozen Chaos warships contracted from both flanks towards the center, forming a fierce assault arrowhead aimed directly at the Huron in the Imperial fleet formation.

Lawson smiled as he looked at the Chaos Fleet's suddenly changed formation on the tactical projection.

"Huron has taken the bait."

"Candle Dragon Squadron, seize his right flank, board the torpedoes, and aim at the exposed side of the Ominous Ark."

The two Ominous Arks turned their bows around and directed all their firepower at the Huron.

Dark energy beams and subspace projectiles traced distorted trajectories in the void before slamming into the Huron's void shield.

The shield light curtain flickered violently, and the composite armor on the ship's hull rippled under the impact.

This ten-kilometer-long behemoth underwent a complete overhaul under Lawson's command.

The shield was stacked three times.

The two ominous arks concentrated their fire on it, but it not only withstood it, but its broadside guns also opened fire in return.

The massive cannon barrage tore open the edge of the shield on the left side of the Ominous Ark, and the array of light spears precisely cut into the gap in the shield, burning a molten groove hundreds of meters long into the ark's hull.

The boarding torpedoes were launched from the Huron's launch silos, passed through the crossfire zone between the two warships, and the drills pierced the side armor of the Ominous Ark.

The torpedo compartment door opens.

Lawson has arrived.

The psychic field expanded the instant he stepped out of the torpedo, covering the entire Ominous Ark.

Countless shadow blades unleashed from behind Lawson.

They emerged layer by layer from the psychic field behind Lawson, like silver scales, like an inverted galaxy, like a metallic storm compressed into the ship's interior.

Deep in the corridor, alarm lights flashed wildly, the walls made of flesh and metal were writhing, and the low rumble of the demon-driven core echoed along the ship's hull.

Lawson raised his hand and gently pressed it forward.

The next instant, a silver torrent erupted.

Tens of thousands of shadow blades shot out simultaneously, like a swarm of killing stars unleashed.

They exploded into a three-dimensional network of death throughout the entire Ominous Ark. Silver light rushed from the main passage into the side corridors, drilled into the maintenance pipes from the ceiling, slid down the floor cracks into the lower deck, penetrated the weapons compartment through the damaged cable wells, and then gushed out from the engine cooling pipes.

At that moment, it felt as if an invisible hand had pierced the interior of the entire ark.

Then, the hand unfurled tens of thousands of blades.

Tens of thousands of shadow blades crisscrossed inside the Ominous Ark.

They swept from one deck to another, from one corridor to another, and from the depths of the ship's belly all the way to the bridge.

Wherever the silver light passed, chaotic runes were severed, demonic flesh was burned through, and metal pipes were precisely peeled away. Red pirates, Dark Mechanicus priests, mutated slaves, demon-possessed individuals, and ship guards were harvested in droves.

From the outside, this ominous ark still appears enormous, menacing, and heavily armed.

Inside, however, death had filled every passage like mercury.

Meanwhile, Lawson himself was walking towards the bridge in the main corridor.

He stood with his hands behind his back, unhurried and unhurried.

Beneath his feet lay trembling flesh and blood armor plates, on either side were cut-open pieces of Chaos Power Armor and scattered wreckage of explosive guns, and the alarm lights above his head flickered, making his shadow appear longer and shorter.

Occasionally, guards would rush out from around the corner ahead.

They opened fire in anger and fear, roaring as they did so.

Before the bomb could even reach Lawson, it was sliced ​​in mid-air by several passing shadow blades.

Lawson continued walking forward.

The shadow blades cleared a path in front of him, converged behind him, hovered above his head, and swept past his feet.

Silver blades swirled around him, forming a flowing galaxy. Any enemy who approached him was instantly torn to shreds, as if they had crashed into a rapidly spinning celestial ring.

Where he went, chaos and death followed.

Before he even reached the place, chaos had already begun to scream.

Later, the defenders inside the Ark of Ominous Signs stopped trying to fight back and began to flee.

There's no point in running away.

The hatches will be cut open, the elevator shafts will be filled with silver light, the ventilation ducts will become death tunnels, and even the chaotic officers hiding in the armored compartments can hear the increasingly close metallic shrieks coming from outside.

The sound slipped through the crack in the door, seeped into the wall, and climbed down the pipes to their feet.

Then a silver light appeared, and everything fell silent.

In the few minutes it took for Lawson to walk with his hands behind his back, the entire internal defenses of the Ominous Ark were plowed through from the inside out by tens of thousands of Shadow Blades.

As Huron listened to the screams echoing across the ship's communications, his rage gradually froze.

"Third deck is unresponsive!"

"The weapons deck has been breached! Those damn knives are crawling out of the pipes!"

"Engine compartment requesting support! The Demon Core is going out of control, it's screaming, it's..."

"All guards of the barracks have been wiped out! Repeat, guard the barracks..."

The sound abruptly stopped...

The monitoring screen in the outer passage of the bridge went black one after another. The blood-red runes representing the status of the compartments jumped from "combat" to "out of contact", and then from "out of contact" to a deathly gray without any feedback.

Blackheart Huron stared at the rapidly extinguishing runes, the anger in his eyes gradually subsiding.

Huron's mind raced at an astonishing pace at that moment.

He remembered Lawson during the Battle of the Great Vortex; back then, this man wasn't as strong as he is now.

They're not strong enough to single-handedly storm into the Ark of Doom and clear out the internal defenses of a warship in minutes.

Each meeting is different, each war is a step up; what others build up over millennia, he seems to climb with the passing of days.

Huron let out a low curse.

"Damn it, we can't fight, we have to leave."

Vashtor had pre-installed emergency teleportation arrays behind the bridge of every Ominous Ark, which were life-saving passages left by the Dark Mechanicus for high-value commanders.

Once the teleportation array is activated, users can be transported to a safe node in the subspace within seconds, and then transferred to a backup fleet by a subsequent beacon.

Huron turned abruptly and strode toward the teleportation array behind the bridge.

"grown ups?"

One of the Red Pirate Guards spoke up instinctively.

"Shut up!"

Huron didn't even turn his head. "Guard the door, stall him, and kill him."

The six elite Red Pirates immediately turned around, aiming their bomb guns, chain axes, molten guns, and powered weapons at the bridge entrance.

Two officers from the Ominous Ark roared as they activated the bridge defense system. Thick armored partitions fell down in layers, demonic runes lit up along the door frames, and automatic turrets popped out from the ceiling, copper-colored energy accumulating at their muzzles.

Huron knew they couldn't stop them.

But as long as it can hold them off for three seconds, that's enough.

The teleportation runes had begun to light up, purple and bronze light intertwining in the geometric patterns on the floor, like the gaping maw of a demon.

Huron stepped onto the edge of the array, his power claws hanging at his sides, his single eye fixed on the corridor ahead.

He heard footsteps.

The next instant, a beam of silver light shot out from the ventilation opening above the bridge.

Huron's psionic armor suddenly lit up, and Chaos Blessing exploded into a dark red light barrier in front of him. However, the barrier only lasted for a moment before splitting in the middle like a thin piece of cloth cut by a blade.

The silver light swirled along the ground.

Huron broke his right ankle and fell forward, crashing heavily onto the edge of the teleportation array.

His right foot remained inside the formation, but his body lay outside.

The teleportation rune flickered violently, its coppery light twisting twice before being forcibly interrupted due to incomplete payload.

"No!"

Huron's roar exploded in the bridge.

But before the roar could even finish, the silver storm had already arrived.

The console, slaves, guards, officers, turrets, and rune arrays were all reduced to fragments.

Huron was the only one who didn't die.

He lay prone in his own blood, the blood from his severed foot spreading outwards along the grooves of the teleportation array.

Footsteps came from the end of the corridor.

Lawson looked down at the black-hearted Huron on the ground.

"He runs pretty fast, but unfortunately, his legs are a bit short."

Huron raised his head, his single eye filled with hatred, a hatred so intense it seemed he wanted to devour Lawson's face whole.

“Losen…”