Warhammer: Empire Reboot

A second sound followed immediately.

"Lord Leon El-Jonson, First Grand Marshal of the Expeditionary Forces, Sword of War of the Supreme Court of the Dark Side of the Empire, First Legion, Primarch of the Genesis, has arrived!"

The air in the square seemed to freeze for a moment.

Guilliman looked up abruptly.

From the depths of the static force field, a tall, white-haired old man emerged.

His figure was taller than most Astartes, dressed in dark armor with a cloak hanging down and a sword at his side.

The Lion King, Leon Al Johnson.

Even though Guilliman already knew that the Lion King was in the shadows of the Empire, and even though the intelligence was already laid out on the table, when Leon actually stood in front of him, the shock that spanned thousands of years still could not be completely suppressed by reason.

Leon looked at Guilliman and nodded slightly to him across the square.

Guilliman nodded in response.

Leon and Dante stood to one side.

"Lord Lawson, the ruler of the Empire's dark side, the head of the Supreme War Court, and the acting regent of all the dark forces, has arrived!"

From the depths of the light curtain, Lawson emerged.

Behind him followed Er Gou, San Gou, Ao Qi, Ao Jiu, and other guards.

The moment he appeared, all the troop deployments, all the battle groups assembled, and all the behemoth-like war machines finally found their center.

It's like an entire system of empire's dark side warfare is being revealed through one person.

All the generals of the Holy Face Empire were looking at him.

Lawson's gaze swept across the square, seeing Guilliman, Leontus, Trajan, and those shocked and uneasy eyes.

The First Legion, the Holy Blood Angels, and all battle orders simultaneously shouted: "Welcome, Lord Seal Bearer!"

The sound soared into the sky, crashed against the shield dome of the front-line command post, and then rolled outwards across the square.

Among the Ultramarines, several officers hesitated for a moment.

Then they looked at Guilliman.

Guilliman nodded, and the front-line Ultra Warriors were the first to pound their chests, followed by more blue-armored warriors.

"Welcome, Master of the Seal!"

The court representative recorded this historic moment but has yet to draw a conclusion.

Because they don't know how to define it.

Are these reinforcements?

Or is it another kind of empire?

P.S.: 10,000 words updated today.

Chapter 258 What is the Imperial Seal Bearer? The Number One Person Under the Emperor!

Calhous.

An unremarkable agricultural world on the southern edge of the Taiping Starfield.

The transport plane's engines were still running, and the grayish-white dust was whipped up by the heat wave, landing on the damaged kneecaps of White Sanctuary Company Commander Markan, only to be quickly dispersed by another gust of wind.

The White Church has stood guard here for over a hundred years.

The people on this planet have come to regard them as something more reliable than the governor's mansion.

On planting day, children would paint the white sanctuary's cross emblem on the barn door; elders would place the first sheaf of wheat on the steps of the sanctuary fortress; and new recruits of the Planetary Defense Force would swear an oath to their company flag before holding a gun for the first time.

Markan stood in front of the transport plane, his helmet tucked under his left arm.

A royal guard stood before him, his golden Orammit armor glaringly mocking the gray landscape.

Behind the Imperial Guard, the Silent Sisters escorted dozens of psychics onto a transport plane.

Those people were bound by black restraint rings, their mouths were sealed with duct tape, some were wearing tattered uniforms of the Planetary Defense Force, some were wearing coarse cloth clothes of farmers, and there was a little girl of about ten years old whose left foot was bare and whose soles were cut and bleeding from the gravel on the ground.

As she was led forward by the Silent Sisters, she kept looking back at Markan.

Markan watched her being loaded into the transport plane, remaining silent for a long time before finally speaking: "The war zone's response we received said that Terra's forces are arriving. I thought you were here to support the defenses."

The Imperial Guards looked at him indifferently.

“We are acting in the name of the Emperor to collect the tithe from psionicists. All psionicists registered in Calhos must evacuate and not fall into the hands of the Tyranid swarm.”

"So you really are here to collect taxes."

Markan said angrily, "The Zerg vanguard has arrived, but where are the reinforcements the Empire promised us?"

The Imperial Guard tilted his head slightly and glanced in the direction of the transport plane's cabin door.

The Silent Sisters had already taken the last group of psionicists up, and the sound of restraint locks closing could be heard from inside the cabin.

He looked at Markan again and said, "Company Commander, you have done your duty to protect this planet, and your company has done its duty. Now, you must evacuate."

"Because Calhouz has been designated as part of the scorched earth zone."

"Before the swarm arrives, the planet's surface resources must be burned, underground food depots must be blown up, water sources must be contaminated, and the atmosphere must be ignited by orbital incendiary warheads. If the Terrans devour this place, the next phase of the Ogram flank war zone will face an even larger-scale biomass counterattack, and this outcome cannot be allowed."

Markan stared at her, as if trying to confirm that he had misheard.

The Imperial Guard continued coldly, "Company Commander, the Empire exists so that humanity as a whole can continue to exist. The world you've guarded for a hundred years is just a node on the war zone star map. When a node cannot be preserved, it must be severed."

"What if I refuse?"

The Imperial Guards took a step forward.

"Then I will record your refusal as disobeying the highest order of the war zone. You will be relieved of command, and the remnants of the White Sanctuary will still evacuate. If your brothers follow you in disobeying orders, I will suppress them with force as appropriate!"

Markan suddenly felt very tired.

He slowly put on the helmet, which flashed twice before reconnecting, and the low breathing of the remnants of the White Sanctuary could be heard on the channel.

He wanted to say, "Keep defending!"

He wanted to say that the White Sanctuary would not abandon the world it was protecting!

He wanted to tell Terra to hell, and let those sitting behind the star map see for themselves the people in the underground shelter before deciding whether or not to turn them into torches!

But he couldn't bring himself to say it.

Because he knew that if the swarm devoured Calhos, more worlds would be pushed into the digestive pool. The cruelty of the Empire was sometimes not a lie, but the fangs that grew from the facts themselves.

"White Sanctuary Third Company, prepare to evacuate," Markan sighed deeply.

Just then.

A deep rumble came from the depths of the sky.

The sound was like two raptors clad in steel swooping down from above the clouds, tearing two gaps in the gray sky.

The Imperial Guard's voice immediately rang out in the open channel: "Unknown aircraft, identify it immediately. This is the Imperial Execution Zone. Unauthorized approach is considered a hostile act."

The next moment, thirty Xiongwei riders descended in front of the transport plane, their heavy motorcycles creating an anti-gravity field that pushed the muddy ground outwards, forming a ring of dry, cracked circular dents.

The bear guard at the front slowly disembarked, his nearly five-meter-tall body blocking the white sanctuary and the Imperial Guard, the giant axe on his back longer than an ordinary Space Marine.

"By order of His Majesty the Seal Holder, abandon the scorched earth tactics and continue to hold the White Sanctuary!"

The Imperial Guard's helmet tilted slightly: "What, the one who holds the seal?"

Xiong Wei glanced at her: "The Emperor of the Empire, Lord Lawson."

…………

As the Imperial Guard's transport planes took off, the wheat fields of Calhouz were still swaying in the wind.

On the distant northern hills, smoke was still rising from several landing sites of the Tyranid reconnaissance creatures.

The White Sanctuary had just finished clearing out a batch of knife bugs and gun bugs, and several burrowing creatures responsible for finding water and underground heat sources were nailed to the irrigation canal, their carapaces not yet completely cooled.

A few flying insects occasionally streaked across the horizon, only to be quickly shot down by anti-aircraft guns, dragging acid and bits of flesh as they crashed into the wheat field.

If you only look at the surface, Calhous even resembles an agricultural world in the midst of autumn harvest.

Vast golden wheat fields still stretched to the horizon, and automated harvesters slowly advanced to the sound of the cornerstone pastor's prayers. Rail-mounted elevators were still sending the last batch of grain samples into the high-altitude granaries, and the gates of the underground grain depots opened and closed as rows of grain trucks drove past on the field roads.

White Sanctuary Company Commander Markan watched as the Imperial Guard transport plane entered the clouds.

"The Imperial Guards are gone, the scorched earth work has stopped, and then what?"

The leader of the Bear Guard stood beside the Flying Bear Motorcycle, his five-meter-tall, heavily armored body blocking half of the sunlight.

"Turn this planet into a fortress."

Markan said, "The Hive fleet will arrive in twenty-one days at the earliest, and no later than twenty-six days. We don't even have enough time to build a complete outer ring defense line."

The Xiongwei leader only replied with two words: "Enough."

The next instant, the air outside the landing zone began to distort.

The delivery of 100,000 foundation stone sequences was completed in less than ten minutes.

The static force field expands again.

This time, drones emerged from the light screen.

Their silhouettes are reminiscent of Titanium-based engineering drones: circular main unit, anti-gravity suspension, modular tool arms, and swarm collaboration.

But when the numbers began to surge forth in the thousands, and when those drones split into reconnaissance groups, drilling groups, materials groups, welding groups, transportation groups, printing groups, and energy groups in the air, everyone realized that this was no ordinary titanium-based engineering technology.

The origins of these drone-building projects do indeed lie in Vision Enclave, which was the first thing Lawson set his sights on.

For a construction maniac who is reshaping the dark side of the empire, this kind of thing has an irresistible allure.

It will automatically survey and construct, build cities on wasteland, and liberate manpower from the most primitive civil engineering labor.

Later, this technology was transported back to Agrippina, where it was dismantled, reconstructed, and expanded by the casting world of the Empire's dark side.

Later, UR-025 took over the underlying logic.

It recalibrated the drone swarm to have stronger environmental adaptability, a more robust fault-finding mechanism, higher material tolerance, faster mission splitting speed, and more direct swarm collaboration.

In recent years, almost every forging world on the Dark Side of the Empire has been expanding and building drone production lines.