Warhammer: Empire Reboot

This is a problem he cannot solve.

He hasn't encountered a problem he can't solve in a long time.

Peturabo's first order after taking command was for all fleets to retreat and cease all attacks.

The second order was issued to the Iron Warriors' mobile foundry.

Thousands of asteroids were pulled from subspace storms, arrayed in the vacuum, and then recast, fitted with gravity anchors, sensors, and super-heavy mass projectors.

Several dozen days later, a ring structure closed around Blackrock Fortress.

Thousands of asteroid fortresses are connected by gravity cables and deployed outside the fortress's kill radius.

That was a precise figure that Peturabo deduced by using all the battle damage data.

He named the structure the Steel Crown.

He then ordered the firing.

Millions of physical projectiles were fired from various points on the crown.

Each shell has a different mass, initial velocity, direction of rotation, and angle of incidence.

They rushed toward the fortress, crashed into the defenses, and were deflected, absorbed, or dismantled.

The entire process was synchronously recorded by three thousand sensor nodes for seven consecutive days.

"What are you doing?" Abaddon stood on the bridge, looking at the endless hail of bullets. "Are you tickling it?"

Peturabo ignored him.

In his eyes, a blueprint is gradually unfolding.

After testing the waters for a few more days, he stopped.

"I've finally found a way to crack it."

He pointed to a continuously repeating data stream on the screen: "It's not random. Its defense structure reassembles before each attack arrives, and the reassembly method calls from a huge database of structures, and the calling rule is to find the optimal solution."

"It always chooses the defensive configuration with the lowest energy consumption and the least structural stress."

A very slight curve appeared at the corner of Peturabo's mouth.

"Since it will always choose the optimal solution..."

"Then let's give it the best answer it can't refuse."

On the thirty-ninth day after Peturabo's arrival, the siege officially began.

The steel crown's three thousand nodes simultaneously attacked the fortress's four thousand seven hundred structural nodes from three hundred and sixty directions.

These nodes, personally selected by Peturabo, are interconnected and form a stress network covering a quarter of the fortress's surface.

Given this method of withstanding attacks, the fortress has only one optimal energy response.

The surface of the fortress began to reorganize, and the geometry folded inward to form a symmetrical defensive configuration.

That was exactly the configuration Peturabo wanted.

"Launch the gravity anchor."

Twelve gravitational anchors were launched from twelve points on the crown.

They stopped 900 meters from the surface of the fortress and then started simultaneously.

Twelve gravitational singularities are anchored in the vacuum, pinning the metric of that space.

The surface reconstruction of the Seventh Blackrock Fortress came to a halt at this moment.

Geometric reorganization requires that space itself can be rewritten, but this space cannot be changed now.

The fortress came to a standstill for the first time.

Peturabo's model gives a window duration of seventeen minutes.

Seventeen minutes later, the energy structure of the gravity anchor will collapse under the fortress's countermeasures, the space will regain its elasticity, and the fortress will close again.

So, those seventeen minutes were used to drive a stake in.

The Iron Warriors' engineering corps is already in position.

The device they carried was called an anchor pile, which Peturabo designed based on seven days of test data.

It has only one function: to nail itself into the geometric center of the fortress, permanently depriving it of its ability to be reconstructed.

Once the stakes were driven in, the fortress could never be closed again.

Peturabo was unaware that he had inadvertently solved another problem.

The space anchored by the gravity anchor includes the entire front half of the fortress.

In that space, any technique that attempts to rewrite the distance between two points to zero will fail.

Because the distance has been fixed.

Inside the fortress, the swarm network's transmission nodes issue alarms in the same second.

The Lion King stood in front of the observation window of the command center, looking at the report.

He had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

He was already tired of the game of throwing stones for so long.

From the first day Peturabo arrived, he knew it wasn't a real attack.

"Prepare the entire fortress. They will enter from the designated area. Let them in."

……

Abaddon stood on the narrow bridge of the flagship, watching the gap forming in the light screen.

However, all the Chaos Lords at this moment turned their awe-inspiring gazes toward Perturabo, rather than the Chaos Warmaster beside him.

Abaddon's jealousy and rage almost burst forth from the gaps in his armor.

“Now, I need your fleet.” Peturabo turned to Abaddon and ordered, “Launch a feint attack from three directions to draw its attention away from the main breach. I need you to commit at least three hundred warships as expendable resources.”

"My Black Legion is not a expendable resource!" Abaddon finally erupted.

Peturabo remained unyielding, stating, "Any cost is acceptable in order to breach this fortress."

"I refuse to use my soldiers to pave the way for your uncertain calculations!"

Peturabo took a step closer, his massive body bringing an oppressive, mountain-like presence.

He looked down at Abaddon and said, word by word, "The fact that I couldn't take this fortress means it's great enough to warrant my utmost efforts. The fact that you couldn't take it only proves that you're still the same loser who needed thirteen expeditions to learn how to topple a single Blackstone pillar."

These words struck Abaddon's deepest wound with pinpoint accuracy.

He stood up abruptly, pointing directly at Perturabo's visor: "At least the galaxy remembers that I tore open the Great Rift! I ended the Cadia! And you, Perturabo? You spent ten thousand years hiding in your steel cage, just to prove to the entire universe that Dorn owed you a compliment, and what was the result? Ha ha!"

Peturabo's rock-solid stance stiffened for a fraction of a second.

Roger Dorn, that golden fool, that brother who could never see his talent.

In order to surpass Dorne, Perturabo betrayed Terra, stormed the palace, and personally defiled the genetic seed of the Emperor's Fist.

When he finally prepared everything and was able to prove himself, his opponent had already turned into a skeleton.

He won the war, but he forever lost the meaning of victory.

"Your personal emotions are irrelevant to the mathematical model for breaching this fortress."

Peturabo didn't want to argue with Abaddon. He turned around and said, "What you call achievements is a historian's subject. What we have before us is a problem of physics and spatial geometry. If you can't understand the difference, shut up and watch me solve it."

Abaddon stood on the bridge for a long time.

He then sat back on the throne.

“Very well, Lord of Steel,” he said. “Let’s proceed according to your plan. The Black Legion is willing to pay any price for the ultimate victory of Chaos.”

Peturabo was not surprised by the result.

The savage force yields to superior wisdom; this is an inevitable law of the universe.

He was so engrossed in his own perfect calculations that he failed to notice what flashed in Abaddon's eyes.

In the days that followed, Abaddon had arranged everything, and he outwardly handed over command completely.

He stayed deep inside the bridge, seemingly meditating.

"The Lord of Steel will open the doors for us."

He said to his chief wizard, “But the one who steps into the fortress and brings victory to the gods must be the son of Horus.”

"Closely monitor the status of the gravity anchor."

"When the energy flow of the twelve anchor chains reaches its peak, it is the moment when the crack is most stable. It bypasses Peturabo's calculation center and transmits the signal directly to me."

In Peturabo’s grand and intricate war symphony, Abaddon quietly inserted a note of his own.

The countdown starts.

The thousands of steel-clad fortresses began to charge, and the roar of the energy cores reverberated through the hulls, reaching every warship.

Perturabo stood on the command platform of the Ironblood, surrounded by dozens of light screens.

"The feint attack fleet is in position."

"The mass projector is now in preheating mode."

"The gravity anchor outputs 90% of its energy."

"The engineering team is on standby, and the anchor pile carrier has completed balancing."

Everything is proceeding according to plan.

Three hours before the final assault, Abaddon's wizards detected a peak in the gravitational field.

Abaddon opened his eyes.

"assault."

Dozens of Black Legion heavy landing craft and Fear Claw assault pods broke out of the fleet formation without receiving a public order.

The engine spewed out plasma flames, like a pack of hounds breaking free of their chains, rushing straight towards the space that had just been nailed shut.

On the command platform of the Ironblood, all the light screens in front of Peturabo turned red in the same second.