Warhammer: Empire Reboot

He was declared a mind polluter by the Supreme Aether, ordered to commit suicide, his statue was toppled, and his name was erased.

Just forty hours ago, the fifth expeditionary fleet of the Tau Empire was still carrying out indiscriminate slaughter of his people over his planet.

Now, he followed behind a human warlord and stepped back into the High Dome.

O'Showa was extremely restrained; he stopped three steps inside the door and did not move an inch further.

His gaze, like two sharp swords, slowly swept over everyone in the hall.

He recognized them; he recognized every face here.

"You have finally come, tyrant of the dark side of the empire, with your stolen false power and traitors to our people."

On the floating throne, the High Ether Anvar spoke, his voice still ethereal, echoing in the empty hall.

"Human, you have barbarically invaded the homeworld of a sovereign civilization without a declaration of war; you have shamelessly used combat suits and drone technology stolen from us to attack the original owners of these technologies; you have even openly sheltered a traitor officially convicted by the Grand Council! Your actions are the most brutal trampling on the path of supreme goodness!"

Anwa then turned his gaze to O'Shovar, who was standing by the door, and his accusations against O'Shovar became even more scathing:

“Oshova, I gave you a chance to come back, but you chose betrayal. Did you think that kneeling before a foreign race would bring you salvation? Look at the Vision Enclave now! Those civilians who once blindly followed you are now reduced to ashes because of your foolishness and stubbornness! Their deaths are all because of you!”

In the hall, many ethereal beings began to echo the condemnation of Oshowa.

Oshowana's hand, which was gripping the knife hilt, began to tremble slightly uncontrollably.

The leaders of the Titanium race seemed to have regained their dignity as a superior civilization through these accusations.

However, while Anwa was making his righteous accusations, Lawson was doing something else entirely.

His psionic field, like an invisible giant net, covered the entire hall.

The projection of the Tau's soul in the warp is extremely faint, as faint as a candle that could be extinguished at any moment in the wind, but in the eyes of a powerful being like Lawson, it is still a clearly discernible flame of life.

He sensed 416 soul projections.

But there were clearly 417 people standing in the hall.

One is missing?

Lawson narrowed his eyes slightly, focusing his psychic perception on the direction of the floating throne.

There, he sensed no signs of life.

There were no soul projections, no heartbeats, and no sound of blood flowing. However, there was extremely high-frequency electromagnetic activity, a tiny drain on the energy matrix, and a very faint smell of synthetic chemicals being released into the hall's air.

The hint of mockery in Lawson's eyes vanished, and he walked straight toward the floating throne.

"Halt! You despicable human!"

A very senior ethereal being suddenly stepped aside, blocking the staircase leading to the throne.

He shouted, "No non-Titan creature may approach within fifteen meters of the High Ether! This is the supreme law of the Great Council!"

Lawson didn't even glance at him, and continued walking.

Behind Lawson, a tall figure stepped out.

As Er Gou walked, he casually pulled down the ceramic glove on his right hand. He walked up to the ethereal figure and slapped him across the face.

boom!

The ethereal being was hit head-on by a speeding heavy truck and was sent flying sideways!

He flew more than ten meters away, crashing heavily onto the third tier of the circular seating area, severely deforming the entire row of alloy seats.

He didn't die; Er Gou had clearly pulled back his strength with extreme precision, but one side of his jawbone was completely dislocated, leaving him lying in the ruins whimpering in pain.

The hall was deathly silent; no one dared to move.

Er Gou flicked his wrist, spat on the ground, and sneered, "The law? The place where our boss stands is the law."

Lawson walked to the throne.

The fact that Anwar's accusations are still ongoing is extremely strange.

Lawson's subordinate had just slapped his most loyal subordinate away and was now less than a meter away from him, but Anwa's speaking speed and tone remained completely unchanged!

In the lobby, several extremely perceptive senior executives finally began to realize that something was wrong.

Lawson raised his right hand.

It's like wanting to touch an exhibit displayed in a shop window.

Then, half of Lawson's forearm went straight through Anvana's seemingly solid chest and came out through his back.

At the moment of contact, Anwa's image rippled like water, with color dispersion and pixel peeling appearing at the edges for a few milliseconds.

But then, the incredibly sophisticated projection system immediately self-repaired, and the image became flawless again.

Meanwhile, "Anwa" continued to accuse Oshova incessantly.

He didn't even look down at the hand that had pierced through his chest.

The reactions in the hall at this moment revealed the extremely distinct class and professional characteristics of the Titanium Empire.

The supreme commander of the Fire Clan, Osham, suddenly stood up from his seat.

He instinctively took two steps forward, his brain trembling wildly. In his life, he had given the throne at least eight thousand sacred military salutes.

Tu's chief engineer immediately pulled up the power parameters and light refraction index of the highest-level holographic projection technology of Titan on his wrist data panel.

He was frantically calculating, even though he already knew the conclusion in his heart, but he had to finish the calculations and use data to confirm this absurdity.

The highest representative of the Shui clan stiffly turned his head to look at the most mysterious group of people in the entire hall, the Ether Seats.

In that row of high seats, all forty-seven Ethers present had their heads bowed.

Not a single person showed any surprise; they remained absolutely silent, like stone statues.

That unspoken silence, at that moment, was a thousand times more terrifying than any piercing scream.

Lawson slowly withdrew his hand from the ball of light and shadow.

He glanced around at the row of silent ethereal seats and asked, "How long has he been dead?"

A long, deathly silence.

The etheric beings maintained the same posture: heads bowed, hands clasped in front of their abdomens.

Lawson didn't ask a second time.

Er Gou's movements were so fast that even afterimages couldn't be seen.

The necks of the two Ethers closest to the passage were snapped with remarkable speed and precision.

The crisp sound of bones cracking echoed in the hall as the body was thrown to the ground like a tattered sack.

A collective gasp filled the hall.

Throughout the six-thousand-year history of the Tau Empire, the supreme Aether has never been publicly crushed like a pig or a dog.

With death, Lawson's swarm network instantly pierced the cerebral cortex of the two ethereal beings who had not yet completely dissipated.

Lawson closed his eyes, reading through those memories that had been hidden for two hundred years.

A few seconds later, a low laugh escaped from his throat.

Then, the laughter grew louder and louder, eventually turning into a deafening roar that echoed through the sky!

Anwa is indeed dead, and he died at the hands of humans.

Under the supercomputing analysis of the swarm intelligence, the massive stream of memory data unfolded rapidly in Lawson's mind like an absurd and cruel painting.

The story goes back to the famous Battle of Mugulas Bay during the third expansion of the Tau Empire.

The Titanium Empire, young and fearless, recklessly provokes the bottom line of the human empire.

The Empire's retaliation was simple and deadly: the Assassin's Court dispatched a top-tier hunting team.

The assassin tasked with killing Anwar was a Kurixus assassin.

The Tau people's defense system, which they are so proud of, is indeed sophisticated, but the Kryxus assassin is "untouchable".

In the ethereal memory, the assassin moved with impunity, wiping out all of Anwar's honor guard.

Anwa escaped the hidden bunker, but was easily caught up in the open.

Ironically, when Anwa died, his pheromones were still being released at full power.

So much so that the few Tau warriors who tried to protect him were beheaded by the assassin in a completely "gentle and peaceful" manner.

After Anvar's death, the Ether Council made a decision that was a matter of "two evils": the death of the Supreme Ether would shake the foundation of the rapidly expanding Tau Empire.

Therefore, the highest level of lockdown order was issued.

They extracted Anwa's memories, personality, and thought patterns from his lifetime to create a perfect artificial intelligence.

The holographic projection continued to deliver speeches and issue orders.

The Ether Council declared that no one should have close contact with the High Ether.

The ethers created the projection, but the projection had no pheromones.

So they built another machine.

Hidden within the base of that floating throne is an extremely sophisticated chemical synthesis device.

It perfectly replicates the pheromone molecule characteristics of Anwar during his lifetime.

Later, in order to expand the control range, this device was even connected to the planetary communication relay network.

That's why that "gentle calm" was able to spread to every corner of the entire planet Tau with the sound waves from the broadcast.

For two hundred years, the entire Titanium Empire, with its trillions of inhabitants, has been firmly ruled by a cold, hard program and a chemical dispenser.

The initial design was for the parliament to make the decisions, and for AI to announce them.

But the Ethers are also human beings, and they also have conflicting interests.

When the parliament is deadlocked, the easiest way is to let the "Supreme Ether" make an unquestionable ruling.

As a result, they increasingly delegated their disagreements to that program for resolution.

Because the program was trained using Anwa's thought process, its rulings always "conform to Anwa's style," so no one finds them wrong.

When all the fragments of memory were pieced together, Lawson slowly opened his eyes.

It was indeed somewhat unexpected. During the Battle of Mugulas Bay, the Empire was already riddled with problems and barely able to take care of itself, yet it still managed to send a team of assassins to kill the High Ether of the Tau Empire.