Warhammer: Empire Reboot

If Wolverine and Sabretooth were merely crude heretical garbage, the Cult of Mechanics could declare them destroyed on the spot.

But they are too strong.

So powerful that several nearby Astartes Chapters proactively adjusted their tactics, following the gap torn open by Wolverine and advancing deeper into the Zerg swarm.

A group of white-clad Templars leaped down from the city wall and charged into the swarm of insects along the bloody path carved out by Wolverine.

The Astartes bombardment rifle fired in bursts, shattering the Zerg elites who had dodged the heavy artillery fire one by one.

In the sky, the Hurricane Motorcycles reassembled into a crossfire network, while on the ground, the XV8 Sequence followed behind Wolverine, expanding their gains.

Further away, the saber-toothed tiger had already passed the corpse of the bio-titan and was accelerating toward the next swarm of heavy insects.

Boom boom boom!

Thud thud thud!

Ion cannons, heavy railguns, explosive bombs, and Zerg bio-cannons are intertwined.

The already crumbling northern defenses of Karian began to push forward.

The eldest forging sage closed public communications.

The mechanical tentacles hovered above the control panel, hesitant to fall.

Those machines did indeed use alien technology.

Their tactical coordination is also unsettlingly precise.

According to the oldest technological precepts on Mars, any one of these would be enough to attract scrutiny, the apologists, or even a purge of the Forging World.

But these mechs belong to Lawson.

The one who holds the seal of the empire.

Investigating his technology is not the same as investigating a border foundry director.

Demanding the dismantling of Wolverine and Sabretooth is not the same as impounding a few unblemished local war machines.

That means Mechanicus must first answer one question.

Is Mars ready to turn against Lawson?

If Lawson refuses to conduct an investigation, would the Mechanic really dare to send its friars?

If the Dark Side of the Empire refuses to provide the Mechanicus with living metal, black stone samples, and visionary enclave technology, can Mars withstand such a loss?

If the matter were to reach Guilliman, how would the Cult of Mechanics explain why they would investigate a group of war machines that were saving the world of the Empire during the height of the Terran War?

More importantly, the interior of Mars is not a solid block.

Some casting generals would consider this blasphemous.

There will also be more sage explorers and technology lords willing to make secret deals with Lawson in order to obtain Wolverine's anti-gravity structure, Sabretooth's double-layered shield, and that mysterious collaborative network.

A whistleblower who is too direct may not necessarily be able to get a trial.

They are more likely to make the whistleblower disappear first.

The eldest forging sage remained silent for a long time, and in the end, he only created a top-secret file in his own closed neural core.

[Targets: XV88-W Wolverine, XV104-S Sabretooth.]

[Preliminary assessment: It combines the structure of the Tau combat suit, Imperial Void Shield technology, and a mobility system from an unknown era.]

[There appears to be collaborative computation beyond the scope of conventional machine spirits.]

[Target: Lord Lawson, the Seal Bearer of the Empire.]

Political risk: Extremely high.

Military risks: Incalculable.

[Without unanimous authorization from the Martian Supreme Council, public characterization, seizure of the prototype, and unauthorized access to the driving core are prohibited.]

The data flow paused for a moment in the machine's view.

He added another one.

[Recommendation: Continuously observe and collect combat data. Under the guise of technical exchange, damage maintenance, and mech soul identification, try to obtain limited access.]

This is not a concession.

At least he wouldn't call it a concession.

The Cult of Mechanics possesses ten thousand years of patience.

They could wait for the war to end, for Lawson to reveal more of his technology, for the relationship between the Holy and Dark Sides of the Empire to change, or they could wait for a unified will to form within Mars that could bear the consequences.

Before this, no one would be foolish enough to send the Guardians of the Church to Lawson and demand that he hand over Wolverine and Sabretooth.

That's a declaration of war!!!

The Cult of Mechanics is clearly not prepared to withstand this war.

…………

The swarms of insects on the ground have been suppressed.

This does not mean that all planets in the Pacific Sector have returned to peace.

There are also a large number of knife-like insects burrowing underground, swarms of flying insects hovering in the sky, and many wild beasts that have lost synaptic control wandering in ruins, forests, and the lower levels of cities.

The Hurricane Motorcycles controlled the skies, the XV8 Sequence advanced following the battle sequence, and the Flying Bear Motorcycles relentlessly hunted down the remaining synaptic units.

With Wolverine and Sabretooth deployed to the battlefield, the Zerg's last remaining advantage—the heavy weaponry—was also destroyed.

The Overlord-level executioners are very strong, but Wolverine is faster than them.

Often, a single, complete kill is all it takes for a Dominator-level executioner, hatched from a large amount of biomass, to fall.

Bio-Titans are capable of breaching Astronautical defenses, destroying armored regiments, and even crushing Knight armor, but Sabertooth was created specifically to hunt such behemoths.

Those heavy creatures that require the Norn Queen to mobilize a large amount of special nutrients and undergo a long incubation process to create are often surrounded by groups of saber-toothed tigers as soon as they set foot on the ground.

The swarm of insects did not care about the deaths of these creatures.

Whether it's the Blade Bugs, the Executioners, or the Bio-Titans, they are all merely organs created by the Hive's will according to the needs of the battlefield.

Under normal circumstances, an insect colony can recover ten or a hundred units of biomass for every unit it expends.

This is the underlying logic behind the Tyranid swarm's ability to sweep across the galaxy.

However, in the Pacific Sector, this cycle was disrupted.

Even if the swarm briefly occupies a local battlefield and begins to build digestion facilities, Lawson will arrive across the planet in a second.

The enormous shadow wheel swept across, severing the towering biomass transport pipeline in the middle.

The biomass slurry that has already been processed by the insect swarm will also be directly extracted.

Every unit of insects invested yields no return.

They might even owe them money!

As the war has progressed, the Pacific Sector has become a giant millstone specifically designed to devour Tyrannosaurus.

Every evolution of the swarm is effective.

They were indeed able to create more suitable biological units in response to the previous attack, and they did indeed inflict casualties on Lawson's forces.

Kolosen's troops were always kept at full strength.

Since entering the galaxy, this swarm has never suffered such a severe net loss in a single war zone.

Synaptic communication among Norn queens gradually changes.

Lawson remains the biggest threat.

This label has not changed.

That individual and the war system he controlled have been regarded by the Hive Will as an enemy that must be eliminated.

He not only killed the Zerg, but also devoured the Zerg's spoils.

As long as he continues to exist, any swarm tentacles that approach the Empire could fall into the same consumption trap.

The greatest threat does not mean that you must immediately kill someone here with your entire tentacle.

The hatred of the hive's will can last for hundreds or thousands of years.

It can bypass a region that is difficult to devour, consume other worlds first, and then bring back even greater power.

Continuing to invest at the current scale will not eliminate Lawson.

His speed rendered targeted decapitations meaningless.

They couldn't catch up with him.

The diagnosis of the synapse in the sea is becoming increasingly clear.

Current resources are insufficient.

Continuing the offensive will only lead to greater losses.

To crush Lawson's forces, we can no longer rely on a single main tentacle leading a large number of branches to slowly wear them down.

More main forces must be deployed simultaneously, with several main tentacles pressing into the Pacific Starfield from different directions, forcing his delivery network, heavy mechs, and combat formations to face multiple battlefields that cannot be abandoned at the same time.

The goal is to ensure that his replenishment rate cannot keep up with his destruction rate.

The goal is to prevent him from severing the transmission pipeline on every planet.

Unless a few more main tentacles reach the Pacific region, this war cannot be won.

…………

Warfare in space remains brutal.

Guilliman and the Imperial fleet, led by Sun Lord Leontus, have fought countless standard days in this void.

In the distance, an Imperial cruiser is burning.

Its bow was pierced head-on by bio-plasma, and the several-kilometer-long hull split in two.

Emergency isolation doors fell one after another, but they couldn't stop the acid from spreading along the ship's interior.

A creature hundreds of meters long boarded the cruiser and bit its side.