Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Lawson smiled and said, "That's interesting. I'll go take a look."

PS: 10,000 words updated today.

Chapter 257 The First Meeting of Lawson and Guilliman

Let's rewind to two weeks ago.

Pacific Starfield, adjacent to the Battle of Ogram.

Carmina-6 planet.

This planet was originally a level-two agricultural world with stable food production and a complete orbital granary system, capable of providing long-term food rations for the seven surrounding recruit worlds and three forging satellites.

When the tentacles of the Tyranid swarm swept across the Pacific region, half of Kalmina-6 immediately collapsed.

The wheat fields in the Northern Hemisphere were first covered by shadows.

Sporangia, swarms of flying insects, and orbital debris fell from outside the atmosphere like a plague growing in reverse.

Wherever it lands, chitin and acid will grow there.

Before the grain could be harvested, it was submerged in the digestive pools of the insect swarm.

The imperial garrison set up its last line of defense in the southern grain belt.

There are three rail elevator towers, twelve underground granaries, a 500-kilometer-long defensive trench, and a temporary converted sanctuary fortress.

The 97th Remnant Regiment of the Cardia, the 13th Pacific Starfield Native Infantry Regiment, three National Religion militias, more than 200 combat nuns, 27 Lemanrus units, and a Silver Skull Battle Group squad that had just been decimated were all crammed onto this defensive line.

Their troop strength list was very full.

In reality, less than a third of them were able to stand up and fire.

The rest are either dead or waiting to die.

The swarm of insects pressed in from three sides.

The knife-like insects spread across the horizon like green waves of wheat, their shells rubbing against each other as they ran, making a sound like a slaughterhouse being dragged across a metal plate.

Gun bugs were caught in the middle, constantly spraying biological projectiles at the defensive line.

Further away, several Hive Tyrants advanced through the drained farmland, followed by poison-spitting beasts and a swarm of Devouring Bugs that were gnawing on tank wreckage.

The Imperial artillery was still firing.

A ground-shaking cannon fired continuously until its barrel turned red-hot. The gunnery leader poured holy oil on it, and the holy oil evaporated instantly.

The loader next to him, missing a hand, still used his teeth to bite the shell's sling and push it in.

"For the Emperor!"

After he shouted that, the cannon exploded.

The explosion blew the entire artillery crew into the air, and the limbs fell into the trenches behind them.

The political commissar beside him didn't even glance at them, but simply raised his pistol and roared at the retreating local infantry:

"Take one step back, and you'll be shot! Take ten steps back, and your whole family will be considered heretics!"

The local infantryman was nineteen years old. He had two holes in his chest from being shot by a gun bug. He wasn't trying to escape; he just couldn't stand anymore.

Before the political commissar fired, a knife-like insect jumped into the trench and sliced ​​the two men in two.

This is the fairness of empire.

Cowards die, and so do the loyal.

The difference is that the former gets to hear one more piece of nonsense before he dies.

On the east side of the granary, the fighting nuns are launching a counter-charge.

Their black armor was scorched and pitted by the acid, and their holy seals were fused together, yet they still sang war songs.

The flames from the flamethrower burned the first wave of knife-like insects into charred pulp, and the second wave of insects charged over the corpses of their own kind.

A nun, her abdomen pierced by claws, clung to the insect and pressed a molten bomb into its chest cavity.

Before the flames engulfed her, she was still calling out the Emperor's name.

The bones of a saint and the bones of a deserter are indistinguishable in the digestive tract.

At the top of the Holy Fortress, Aldan, the deputy company commander of the Silver Skull Legion, stood on the cracked clock tower.

His power armor had lost one shoulder plate, his left arm was only half intact, and half of the chapter emblem on his chest had been burned off by acid.

He had five Astartes with him, but they were running out of ammunition, their chainsaw blades were dull, and the apothecary had died three hours earlier.

They should have evacuated.

Based on strategic assessment, Kalmina-6 is no longer worth defending.

The orbital fleet was pushed back by the swarm of Zerg creatures; two of the three elevator towers were destroyed, and the last one was being smashed by airdropped spores.

Food reserves cannot be transferred, the civilian evacuation rate is less than 6%, and the planet's biomass pollution has exceeded the reversible threshold.

In other words, this planet is dead.

But the Holy Face Empire's chain of command still insists that they "hold back the Zerg flank and buy time for the main battle zone of Ogram."

How long will it take to win it over? Nobody said.

Ardan looked at the Zergling Tyrant in the distance and opened the tactical channel.

"All defensive units, prepare for the final round of fire."

A local officer asked, "Sir, do we have any reinforcements?"

"You are our reinforcements!"

The western defense line has been breached.

A raptor crashed through the bunker, crushing more than thirty State militiamen inside into a bloody pulp.

The swarming worms behind it rushed toward the temple fortress along the trenches.

Leman Rustank rotated his turret and opened fire at close range, turning the entire trench into a sea of ​​fire.

The next second, the swarm of insects that emerged from underground tore open the tank chassis and dragged the crew out.

The commander was still firing his pistol when a worm bit off his face.

On the east side, the battle nuns' song stopped; they were all dead.

The last nun knelt on the scorched ridge, her hands gripping a broken sword, with a dozen or so insect corpses piled up in front of her.

A gun bug approached her, and a biological bullet shattered her helmet.

As she fell, the flames behind her were still burning, like a tiny flag.

Ardan jumped down from the clock tower, followed by five Astartes.

The Silver Skull Battle Group has been reduced to just a few people; any grand pronouncements would seem like painting over corpses.

Aldan charged toward the breach.

He cleaved the first knife-wielding insect in two with his chainsaw sword, and more insects swarmed up.

On Aldan's channel, a signal came from the last elevator tower.

"The cargo compartment is full of wounded soldiers and food samples. Requesting launch clearance."

Ardan looked up at the sky; the swarm of Zerg bio-ships blocked the orbit, making the probability of a successful launch from the elevator tower extremely low.

"Launch!"

Three seconds later, the last elevator tower was ignited.

The enormous cargo hold, trailing flames, hurtled into the dark yellow sky.

Countless swarms of flying insects rushed over.

All the cannons on the ground that were still capable of firing were aimed at the sky and fired.

Lasers, shells, explosive arrows, missiles—like fireworks before death.

The cargo hold plunged into the clouds.

Then, the tentacles of a biological ship descended from the cloud, coiled around it, and crushed it.

The cargo hold, filled with wounded soldiers and food samples, exploded high in the air, the flames illuminating the entire defensive line.

Aldan raised his chainsaw sword again; this time, there was no defense.

A dozen minutes later, this last resistance was also overwhelmed by the swarm of insects.

The final resistance of Carmina-6 will only appear as a small line on the Imperial star map: "This world has delayed the swarm's flanking advance for seven hours and sixteen minutes."

The Holy Empire will continue to assess the losses, adjust its defenses, and issue the order to "hold out and await reinforcements" to the next world.

In the Empire, "waiting for reinforcements" truly meant: "to die a little slower."

…………

Taiping Starfield Frontline Command Post.

This fortress was originally the orbital control center for a forged satellite, but Guilliman temporarily converted it into the frontline brain of the Fourth Terran War.

From the outside, it looks like a steel nail embedded in a planetary ring.

Hundreds of communication spires extend from the surface of the fortress, receiving signals from various war zones in the Pacific region.

Every second, new requests for help, new evacuation requests, new death statistics, and new reports of planets losing contact flood in.

In the command center hall, a star map occupied the entire dome.

Large areas of the Pacific Starfield have been dyed a deep purple.

The tentacles of the insect swarmed across the star map like living creatures, sweeping across the agricultural world, the nesting world, the mining satellite, and the logistics port.

Many planets that were sending food production and troop deployment reports yesterday are now just grayed-out markers.

The deaths of billions of people are merely the extinguishing of a single point of light on a star map.

Guilliman has been working for 97 hours straight without a break.