Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"My lord...you flatter me. This is our duty."

"No. This is your glory."

Lawson shook his head, then fixed his gaze on Katarina with the expectant look of a comrade-in-arms: "But my warriors, though brave, are all brutes who only know how to kill. In the upcoming purge, we will face cunning nobles, politicians who are full of lies, and heretics hidden deep within."

“We need eyes that can distinguish between purity and defilement. We need a voice that represents the orthodoxy of the state religion to suppress those conspirators who attempt to resist censorship through politics and the law.”

"Captain Katarina, I beg you, bring the sacred relic and stand by my side. Be the ultimate witnesses to all the evil on this planet."

Faced with such a request, what choice did these four fervent nuns have?

"This is our destiny, and also our supreme glory!"

Katarina knelt on one knee: "Katarina is willing to lead the way for you! As long as your sword is pointed at heresy, the fire of our faith will surely light your path!"

"It is our duty! For the throne!" The other three nuns knelt down in unison.

Lawson smiled.

"Get some rest. Soon, this planet will tremble because of your anger."

He left those words behind, turned, and walked out of the room.

The solemnity and compassion on his face vanished instantly when the heavy door closed.

Over the next few hours, six thousand platoon-level assassins poured into the Spire district, taking over all strategic nodes: the communications hub, the Void Shield control room, the Governor's armory, the Noble Council hall, and several main passages leading to the Lower Nest.

The PDF elites and noble private armies that were originally guarding these places obediently surrendered their positions.

In three hours, the Spire district was completely transformed.

On the surface battlefield, Lawson mobilized four thousand elite troops and, using swarm intelligence, carried out a micro-management takeover that only he could accomplish. Each of his elite soldiers directly took over a PDF-level regiment of about three thousand men, replacing the ordinary regimental commanders and political commissars who had fallen into chaos due to the confinement of their superiors.

The lower-ranking PDF soldiers not only did not object, but instead displayed fanatical obedience.

In the past, mortal noble officers would only hide in the rear, using their batons to feed them as cannon fodder into the meat grinder. But now, leading their charge are the legendary Imperial Angels' direct troops, those super-strong men who can cleave Norber's head in two with a single blow.

In the simple minds of these common soldiers, being able to fight under the command of angels not only meant a greater chance of survival, but also the supreme glory of sitting at the emperor's table after death.

What truly amazed the veterans of the Empire was the efficiency of this new command system.

In the past, when a corps of 12 million troops received an order from the command headquarters to infiltrate, it would go through layers of encryption, be relayed by communications soldiers, and finally be carried out at the grassroots level. By the time the order reached the front line, the position had already been lost.

But now?

When Lawson generated a strategic encirclement plan at the Spire Command Post, less than 0.01 seconds later, the suicide squad leaders hundreds of kilometers away had already issued the most synchronized orders for charge, cover, and fire suppression within the same microsecond.

Artillery fire always lands three seconds ahead of the infantry charge. Armored penetrations always pinpoint the weakest gaps. Even logistics ammunition vehicles can avoid congestion and mysteriously appear behind the companies that need ammunition the most.

The 12 million-strong army, under the micro-management of swarm intelligence, has become an ultimate war machine with a single brain.

The Sphinx District, the Governor's Office.

Lawson ordered the Captains of the First Rank to go to the Second and Third Main Nests respectively, each with two thousand platoon-level assassins and legal arbitrators, to carry out the takeover.

Within forty-eight hours, all three nests had changed hands. There was no significant resistance whatsoever.

The entire planet was in Lawson's hands.

Obolos 1 Main Nest City, Ministry of Justice Central Fortress.

This fortress, constructed entirely of jet-black adamantite and cast steel, sits atop the edge of the Spire district, coldly overlooking the abyss of the hive below. Normally, it is the most terrifying place on the entire planet, representing the unquestionable Imperial Code of Holy Terra.

Today, the gates of this black fortress have been completely opened to true death.

Led by three White Tiger power armors, three hundred suicide soldiers entered the Ministry of Justice's core secret area, the Central Thinker Data Tomb.

The heavily armed arbitrators along the route stood against the walls like statues. Thorne had issued the highest-level coordination orders.

The assassins headed straight for the intelligence hub, which covered an area the size of several football fields and consisted of countless flashing indicator lights and thick cooling pipes.

"Take over the port and establish neural bridges."

A dozen or so assassins strode forward. They didn't chant soothing prayers for the machine spirits like the mechanical priests, nor did they apply sacred oil. They directly pulled out the core mainline of the data array and connected it to their portable high-frequency neural signal converters.

The next second, the planet's largest surveillance network was completely opened to swarm intelligence.

The Ministry of Justice's monitoring system is divided into three layers:

The first layer is fixed surveillance. Tens of millions of miniature surveillance arrays are deployed throughout the three main hives, hidden in the dripping beast statues, exhaust pipes, and even the reliefs of noble manors, capable of monitoring the Vox communication network in real time. High-magnification crystal lenses and sonic detectors on the outer walls of the fortresses and the towers scattered throughout can eavesdrop on whispers hundreds of kilometers away. Heavy automatic turrets at key intersections are linked to the surveillance probes, ready to destroy locked targets at any moment.

The second layer involves orbital and mobile surveillance. In near-Earth orbit, Imperial spy satellites scan the surface day and night, filling in any blind spots. But what truly makes the hive insidious is the hundreds of thousands of servo skulls—anti-gravity drones modified from the skulls of devout believers or fallen veterans, equipped with high-precision optical sensors, thermal scanners, and gene sequencers. They can silently traverse the hive's poisonous gas, relentlessly tracking any anomalies they detect until they are recalled or destroyed.

The third layer is human intelligence. From the bedside of nobles to the assembly line of corpse disposal plants, there are spies and infiltration agents from the Ministry of Justice everywhere.

This system is undoubtedly massive and terrifying.

However, it has a fatal bottleneck: data processing capability.

In a world of billions of people, the amount of data generated every day is astronomical. Even with tens of thousands of analysts and bots working day and night, the Department of Justice would be unable to handle such a massive deluge of information.

The result is that even if surveillance cameras capture heretical gatherings, they are often only unearthed from a massive amount of footage months later. The Ministry of Justice's daily stability maintenance still relies on proactive patrols and special task forces; surveillance can only serve as evidence for post-event accountability, and cannot provide pre-event warnings.

But everything changed the moment this massive and bloated system was forcibly integrated with swarm intelligence.

Lawson closed his eyes.

With the parallel connection of the swarm network, it instantly received data streams from all over the planet.

No delay, no overflow, no visual fatigue.

In Lawson's mind, the entire Obolus was deconstructed into countless transparent data slices.

He saw several gang leaders dividing up the laser guns they had pried off PDF's corpse in the underground bunker of the Second Nest.

He overheard several oligarchs in the top-floor suite of the Third Nest Water Purification Guild discussing in terror how to destroy ledgers showing their black market transactions with the Lower Nest Heretics.

He even saw, through the perspective of a servo skull flying over the spire's exhaust fan, several PDF procurement officers hiding in a secret room burning classified documents related to the resale of military rations.

True, complete, and omniscient knowledge.

"I see... The decay of this planet is more spectacular than I imagined."

With this computing power, Lawson's control over the planet has gone beyond military suppression; it has penetrated into every capillary and nerve ending.

Meanwhile, in the hall below the governor's mansion, the generals awaited trial; the nobles of the various cities lived in constant fear; and Cassius felt as if each day was an eternity.

They were all waiting for that executioner's blade, called the censorship of heretics, to fall.

But the knife did not fall.

For Lawson, these people had all become meat stewed in a pot.

The heat was just right, and the lid was on. When and how to eat it was entirely up to him.

He has no time to deal with the scheming and backstabbing of ordinary people.

Because he has an ultimate task to do that is ten thousand times more important than cleaning up this rotten mess.

"Swarm, what is the status of the takeover of all the arms factories and supply depots on this planet?"

"Reporting to the commander, all 117 large military-industrial complexes, 400 secondary ammunition processing plants, and all strategic reserve warehouses belonging to PDF and the major guilds in the main hive cities 1 to 3 have been taken over and locked by platoon-level suicide soldiers."

"very good."

At this moment, Lawson's gaze was not on the map of the planet that symbolized conquest.

He stared at another image on the holographic projection: a wrecked spaceship.

That colossal object, formed by the compression and fusion of countless warship wreckage in the subspace, was 120 kilometers in diameter, resembling a steel death star.

"What do you think I went through all this trouble to forcibly take over the political and military power of a planet within three days?"

Lawson downed a glass of 300-year-old Amasec wine that he had plundered from the governor’s cellar in one gulp.

Destroyed spaceships are the real target.

It contains countless lost technologies and mountains of scrap metal. More importantly, it is now a playground for outlaws, inhabited only by demons and green-skinned thugs.

To others, warp demons are cosmic nightmares representing destruction. But to Lawson, those red-skinned demons are walking warp energy.

"Based on the last time-space coordinates transmitted back by the twelve anchorage assassins who remained on the wrecked ship," the swarm mentality worked in Lawson's mind: "The stern of the wrecked ship has begun to break away from the laws of the real universe and enter the edge of subspace. The countdown to sinking has begun."

Once the wrecked ship has completely sunk into the warp, the Khorne army will surge in like a tsunami. Because of the previous action of the Death Squad system to permanently annihilate the souls of demons, Khorne has been engulfed in an irreconcilable hatred.

"A natural, fully enclosed, super slaughterhouse that can be destroyed without restraint. How could I possibly give up such a once-in-a-century treasure trove?"

Lawson stood up and placed his hands on the table.

The reason he risked being branded a rebellious warlord by the Inquisition to forcibly take over the planet was solely for one purpose: he needed to legally and unhinderedly requisition all the explosives in the world.

"Swarm, retrieve the military supplies inventory report."

A deep blue waterfall of data flooded the holographic projection screen.

【Material No. 01: Liquid Promethium.】Source: Underground storage facility of the Promethium Extraction Monopoly Guild in Main Nest City No. 3. Available equivalent: Approximately 4.7 million tons.

Lawson stared at the number.

Promethium was usually just fuel for flamethrowers in the Empire, but his knowledge of physics told him that if this high-energy chemical substance was compressed to hundreds of thousands of tons in the core of a completely sealed, oxygen-filled spaceship and then detonated instantly, it would not be combustion, but the ultimate thermobaric effect.

Within the confined space, millions of tons of promethium instantly vaporize and explode, generating fireballs at tens of thousands of degrees Celsius and overpressure shockwaves powerful enough to crush adamantine armor into paper. Under such a sudden change in environment, even a demon, whose body is said not to completely conform to the laws of the material world, would have its internal organs torn apart by the negative pressure and then vaporized by the high temperature.

[Material No. 02: Military-grade thermoplastic explosives and high explosive blocks.] Source: First Nest City Arsenal, Lower Nest PDF Armory, Ministry of Justice Ammunition Depot. Available yield: Approximately 350,000 tons. Additional information: Six underground military production lines in the Second Nest City have been taken over and are operating at full capacity, producing 3,000 tons per day.

【Material No. 03: Macro Cannon Shells and Earthshaker Ammunition.】Source: Recovered from the ruins of destroyed orbital arrays, Planetary Defense Force heavy artillery positions. Available Quantity: 12,000 super-heavy macro cannon shells (over 50 tons per shot); 900,000 earthshaker ammunition.

Looking at the list of supplies, Lawson let out a wild laugh.

"That's right, I'm going to blow up that spaceship."

However, it's unrealistic to expect to pulverize a behemoth with a diameter of 120 kilometers like blowing up a building. Even if you filled the entire planet with all the explosives in it, it would only be a loud firecracker compared to its asteroid-like mass.

"To kill an elephant, you don't need to fry it into mincemeat. Just cut its neck and pierce its heart, and its massive weight will be the last straw that breaks its back."

Structural blasting and using leverage against each other are the correct solutions.

Chapter 97: Making the Last Big Move

"Select 5,000 platoon-level suicide soldiers to return to the abandoned spaceship through a stasis field."

"Transfer high-energy explosives from the controlled hive warehouses as needed, in any quantity."

"Operation begins!"

Five thousand suicide soldiers poured out from different locations on the wrecked spaceship through 12 pre-arranged suicide soldier anchor points.