Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"There are several things in common."

Er Gou counted on his fingers.

"First, they are all concentrated in the lower nest and the bottom residential area, with no abnormalities in the upper and middle levels. Second, the disappearance process is extremely slow, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions per month, which will not trigger the alarm threshold of the administrative system. Third, no traces of any known forces' activities were left behind, no remnants of Chaos Corruption, no traces of Dark Eldar raids, no signs of Orc destruction, nothing at all."

He added the last bit.

"Fourth, and what concerns me most, none of the planets that have been involved in the incidents are within our jurisdiction."

Lawson also found it a bit strange. He asked, "Of the more than three hundred planets, not a single one has been taken over by us?"

"Yes, boss."

"The population data of all the planets where our foundation sequence has been laid is normal. The ones that have problems are either lost worlds that have not yet been reclaimed, or newly reclaimed planets that have just been conquered by Dante or other chapters and have not yet been handed over to us for management."

Lawson leaned back in his chair, lost in thought.

"It seems there's another force in the Empire's shadow that we're unaware of."

"Prioritize the investigation."

"Starting with the three planets where the incidents recently occurred, send in gene sniffing nodes and intelligence sequences. I need to know where those people went."

P.S.: 1.2 words updated today.

Chapter 250 Will Guilliman become the boss's son-in-law?

Since entering the Agrippina Sector, the Usvi Ark has been constantly busy.

However, the restoration work in the Bone Soul Realm is progressing slowly.

Karaden and the Prophets have been maintaining the purification array continuously for several days.

Seventy-three high-ranking warlocks worked in shifts, using pure psionic pulses to cleanse the corrupted spiritual bone structure, attempting to strip the chaotic corruption from the ancestral soulstone's lattice.

The effect was minimal, almost negligible.

The pollution from chaos is not a physical impurity adhering to the surface of the spirit bone, which can be washed away.

Just like ink dripping into water, you can dilute it, but you can't completely separate the ink from the water.

Karaden announced this data at the subsequent Council of the Prophets.

The council chamber was filled with all the top executives of the Usvi Ark...

The twelve high-ranking prophets, six phoenix lords, the Bone Song master craftsman, the chief soul guardian, and the Ark's civil administrator and military commander.

More than thirty of the Eldar's top decision-makers sat around an oval table carved from Eldar bones.

The desktop displays a real-time status map of the Bone Soul Realm. The healthy areas are a soft milky white, while the polluted areas are a glaring dark purple, with the dark purple area covering nearly a quarter of the total area.

"We encountered a more serious problem than we had anticipated."

Karaden said in a deep voice, "The pollution has not lessened. According to the current attenuation model, if no new purification methods are found, the polluted area will break through the suppression threshold of the sorcerer array within eight to twelve months and begin to spread towards the core of the Bone Soul Realm."

"Once the core is contaminated, the souls of the ancestors will be completely lost."

The Bone Soul Realm is the core of the Spirit Race civilization.

Losing the Bone Soul Realm is equivalent to losing the soul of the Ark.

The leaders of Usvi looked somber.

But even worse news awaited them in Karaden.

"The contamination of the Bone Soul Realm has triggered a chain reaction that we did not foresee."

“The Ark’s medical officer submitted an urgent report to me three days ago.”

Karaden looked at the medical officer sitting at the corner of the table: "Dr. Celine, please report to the council."

Celine stood up: "Councilors, there are currently 117 million Eldar women in the gestation period on the Ark."

This number is already very high within the Eldar's reproductive system.

Eldar have an extremely low birth rate. An Eldar woman typically gives birth to only one or two offspring in her lifetime, and the gestation period can last for several years.

The 117 million pregnant women represent the entire population increase of the Usvi Ark over the next few decades.

The fetal development of the Eldar is completely different from that of humans.

Human fetuses only need nutrients to complete their physiological development in the womb, but this is not the case for Eldar. Eldar fetuses undergo development in the second stage of pregnancy...

Roughly equivalent to the second trimester in humans...

They will begin to develop innate psychic perception, which is not acquired but is a fundamental component of the psychic soul structure.

Celine pulled up a set of psionic scans of Eldar fetal development.

"Under normal circumstances, the fetus's innate psychic perception will resonate faintly with the Ark's Bone Soul Realm. The fetus's soul draws upon the psychic echoes of its ancestors' souls from the Bone Soul Realm, using these echoes to shape its own spiritual dimension..."

"The Bone Soul Realm is the amniotic fluid of the Spirit Race fetus. The echoes of the ancestors' souls are the nutrients necessary for the development of the fetus's soul."

The prophets in the council chamber were beginning to realize what Celine was about to say, and they all involuntarily tensed up.

"The Bone Soul Realm is now corrupted by chaos."

Celine switched to the next set of scans.

The image depicts the soul structure of a spirit fetus.

A normal Spirit Race fetus's soul should exhibit a pure silver-white halo.

However, dark purple spots appeared in the aura of the fetus's soul.

"In the past few days, Ark's obstetrics center has received 3,200 reports of abnormal pregnancies."

"Two thousand four hundred of them were stillbirths..."

"The remaining 800 cases are even worse; the fetus's soul structure did not collapse, but was rewritten by the pollution of chaos."

Celine closed the scan.

"To put it simply, these fetuses are no longer Eldar; they are becoming vessels for Warp entities within the mother's body. If they are born, what will be born will not be a baby, but a demon parasitizing the body of an Eldar baby."

The atmosphere in the council chamber became even more oppressive.

The master craftsman of Bone Song clenched his fists on the table.

A phoenix lord unconsciously placed his hand on the longsword at his waist.

A young prophet sitting in the corner lowered his head.

"All 800 cases have been isolated."

Celine said, "We performed emergency termination surgery on 63 of them. Post-operatively, it was confirmed that a rudimentary core of demonic consciousness had formed in the fetus."

“Where is the Matrix?” Karaden asked.

"Of the 63 mothers, 41 survived the surgery, while 17 died from the backlash of psychic energy released when the demonic consciousness core was removed. Five suffered permanent damage to their souls from the backlash and are currently in a state of soul shock with an unknown prognosis."

"The remaining seven hundred-plus cases await a decision from Parliament."

Celine sat down.

The first to speak was Alshine, the chief of the Soul Guardians.

"Great Prophet, we must immediately conduct soul scans on all pregnant women on the Ark to confirm the extent of the contamination. At the same time, I suggest that the Prophet Council issue an emergency decree to halt all reproductive activities on the Ark until the contamination problem in the Bone Soul Realm is resolved."

This statement caused a stir in the council chamber.

The military commander stood up, his face grim.

"Nonsense. A female Eldar may only give birth once or twice in her lifetime. If we stop reproducing now... the population replenishment of the Ark will be interrupted for decades."

Alsane looked at him coldly: "If we don't stop, the Ark will not face a population crisis, but a demon incubation crisis. Do we want a population crisis, or a demon crisis erupting inside the Ark?"

Not all fetuses will be contaminated!

The high-ranking prophet Iselan also stood up; she was the prophet in charge of fertility matters on the Usvi Ark.

"Dr. Celine just said that there were 3,200 cases of abnormal pregnancies, and there are 117 million pregnant women on the Ark. The abnormality rate is less than three per thousand, and the vast majority of fetuses are still healthy. We cannot terminate the pregnancies of 117 million mothers just because of a three per thousand abnormality!"

"Three per thousand is the current figure."

Celine added, "But the contamination is spreading. The abnormality rate three days ago was 1.7 per thousand, and there are still many that haven't been checked."

"Then let's isolate the healthy fetus from the contaminated area!"

Iseran said, "Let the warlocks create a personal psionic barrier for every pregnant woman!"

117 million pregnant women.

Alshine looked at her.

"We only have seventy-three high-level sorcerers, and they are all currently engaged in maintaining the Bone Soul Realm purification array. Are they able to handle it? Where are you going to draw people from?"

The debate continues, with some proposing a phased approach: terminating treatment for fetuses confirmed to be contaminated, while continuing observation for fetuses that have not yet tested positive for abnormalities.

Some suggested transferring all pregnant women off the ark.

Where to go?

If a pregnant woman is already contaminated but hasn't been detected, what's the point of transferring her to the Ark?

Some have suggested terminating all pregnancies.

The proposal sparked fierce opposition the moment it was put out.

117 million Elven lives.

The Usvi Ark represents all the hope for the next few decades.

If all restrictions are lifted, the Ark's population will begin an irreversible decline.

Without newborns to replenish the fleet, Usvi Ark will become a ghost ship filled only with old people within a few thousand years.

This is another form of genocide.

The debate lasted for nearly three hours.

Karaden remained silent for most of the time.

The arguments in the council chamber were neither right nor wrong.

They are both right.