Warhammer: Empire Reboot

Deep within the guild's tower lies a secret chamber that was not included in the imperial architectural blueprints.

The walls of the secret room were not coated, but instead consisted of constantly changing, distorted blocks of color that defied Euclidean geometry.

A dim blue light seeped out from the cracks in the floor.

The air was filled with the smell of ozone and the nervous anxiety caused by overthinking.

Several nobles dressed in magnificent silk robes paced back and forth in the secret room, their facial muscles twitching with fear.

"We're finished, we might really be finished."

A viscount in charge of logistics for the second hive capital stopped in his tracks, his voice sharp:

“That Astartes of unknown origin is a monster! The Grand Marshal of the Ministry of Justice has handed over the data network, Governor Cassius is under house arrest in the Spire, and what’s even more terrifying is the outer defense line.”

The Viscount pointed to the tactical projector in the secret room: "The Greenskins' offensive has stopped! Planet PDF has been formed into an iron wall by those black-armored soldiers!"

"There are still more than three days until the settlement date!"

The viscount's voice turned into a desperate roar: "How can we repay our debt to the Weaver of Fate?"

The nobles inside the secret room were filled with unease.

The people in this room were not greedy mortal bureaucrats like Cassius.

They are true heretics.

This Greenskin invasion is not simply an alien disaster.

This was a meticulously planned financial operation.

The actual leader of the Tzeentch Church is Lady Vespella, the high priestess of the Third Nest City's Clean Water Guild.

Ten years ago, Vespera signed a contract with Sal Corax the Weaver of Fate, a shapeshifter under the command of Tzeentch.

In the logic of the subspace, this is a contract similar to a highly leveraged soul futures trade.

Vespera used the souls of billions of mortals on this planet as collateral to borrow a vast amount of chaotic spiritual energy from the Great Demon.

These psionic powers were used to maintain the mutated lifespans, twisted desires, and unshakeable political power of the nobles present.

Borrowing must be repaid; interest is the death and despair of mortals.

According to the original plan, the invasion of these millions of greenskins was their harvesting tool for liquidation.

With the outer defenses of the hive city collapsing, hundreds of millions of civilians who have descended to the hive will be slaughtered.

The extreme fear, despair, and collapse of faith generated during the massacre will be directly allocated as profits to the Weavers of the Warp.

Green-skinned killers, cunning and ruthless soul collectors.

The nobles, perched atop the tower, used a psionic barrier to escape the calamity and subsequently continued to rule over the survivors under the guise of post-disaster reconstruction.

A perfect short-selling plan.

Until Lawson and his legion of assassins smashed the chessboard with brute force.

Emperor Angels take over PDF.

The battle lines are secure, the orcs are routed, and death has ceased.

Without death there is no despair, and without despair there is no soul entering the house.

The fatal flaw of high-leverage short selling has been exposed: if hundreds of millions of souls cannot be delivered within three days, the contract will be in breach.

The Weaver of Fate, Sal Corax, has been enraged.

The price of default is forced liquidation. Vespella and the souls of all the corrupt nobles present will be drained by the Great Demon, and they will wail eternally in the blue flames of the warp.

Chapter 100 Borrowing Nurgle's Knife to Collect Tzeentch's Dishes

"Quiet, you idiot."

A languid female curse cut off the nobles' wailing.

Madame Vespera slowly emerged from the shadows of the secret room.

She wore a deep blue velvet robe, exquisitely tailored but understated.

At first glance, she appears to be a cold and efficient guild manager, until you notice her right eye.

Her left eye has a human pupil.

His right eye was a purple crystal that spun like a nebula.

When that eye looks at you, you'll have the illusion that it's not looking at your face, but rather analyzing the underlying code of your soul.

Vespera held a glass of semi-transparent, purple, high-end red wine in his hand.

She remained completely calm, looking at her colleagues facing bankruptcy with nothing but disdain.

"The fact that the green-skinned soldiers can't come in just means we've lost a harvesting tool. Investment always comes with risks, and I've already prepared for hedging."

Vespera walked to the holographic projector and gently swirled his wine glass.

The purple liquid left a viscous trail on the glass.

"The rotting flesh in the abyss has long been thirsty for food."

The Viscount was stunned: "You mean the Pale Flesh Cult of the Lower Nest?"

Another marquis stared wide-eyed: "Nurgle's follower? Vespera, are you insane?"

The Marquis strode forward: "Let's not even talk about how we can bypass surveillance to contact those filthy madmen. Even if they really riot and kill billions of civilians, the souls of those who died under the plague and the butcher's knife will belong to the merciful Father, Nagu."

"How could the Lord of All Changes possibly accept a sacrifice from his enemy?! You're using counterfeit money to pay off the Great Demon's debt!"

The Marquis's questioning is entirely valid within the chaotic legal system.

Tzeentch and Nurgle are mortal enemies; Tzeentch, representing change, and Nurgle, representing stagnation, are irreconcilable in the great war of the Warp.

The Viscount chimed in, "Since you are the High Priest of the Water Purification Guild and control the circulating water system, why not just poison the water directly? Press a few buttons, and billions of people in the nest will die within ten minutes from their internal organs rotting! Wouldn't that be enough to pay off the debt? Why resort to the uncontrollable cult of the Necropolis?"

Vespera stopped in his tracks.

She turned her head and looked at the Viscount with her purple nebula eye.

A cruel, cold smile curled at the corner of his lips.

"That's why I can directly hear the divine pronouncements of the Lord of Change, while you are only fit to be a bunch of scraps that can be sacrificed at any time."

She placed the wine glass on the table.

"Is poisoning our style?"

"Only mortal assassins and ordinary people pursue simple physical death. The Lord of Change does not eat corpses; He tastes the dramatic changes of fate."

"If I were to poison him, that kind of death would be too boring, like stagnant water without any ripples. The soul would be so bland that even the lowest-ranking blue ghoul wouldn't give it a second glance. Without dramatic changes in emotions, there would be no resonance of warp energy."

"What the Great Demon wants is change, the kind of extreme despair, fear, and instantaneous collapse of faith that those civilians who thought they were just barely surviving within the defense lines, or who were even cheering for the Space Marines, would experience when they saw their familiar neighbors and coworkers suddenly turn into mutated zombies covered in pus and tearing open their throats!"

"Only souls that experience dramatic fluctuations at turning points in their destiny have sufficient value and are worthy of being used as bargaining chips to settle scores."

The nobles were awestruck by this pure subspace logic.

Vespera turned toward an array of ancient thinkers deep within the secret chamber.

"Do you really think I would hand over this feast to Naurgle?"

A diagram of the water circulation network of the Nest City appeared on the holographic screen.

A faint purple light flickered at some hidden nodes.

"Ten whole years."

"I have been injecting Tzeentch Psionic Dust into the drinking water of billions of civilians at a concentration of one part per ten million through the condensate collectors and bottom circulation system of the lower nest."

"This substance is chemically non-toxic and harmless, and the Imperial Medical Department's scanners cannot detect it at all. But after ten years of accumulation, it will leave an invisible mark of the Lord of Change on the soul of every commoner who has drunk this water."

The nobles finally understood.

“When the followers of Nurgle thought they were reaping lives and spreading plagues for the Father, they were nothing more than free butchers I hired, without even knowing it themselves.”

"At the moment when civilians are killed by Nurgle cultists, the vast, desperate souls created by death will not fall into Nurgle's Garden! The hidden crystal dust within the souls will act like a magnet, directly intercepting them and drawing them into the pool of debts we have entered into with the Fateweavers."

"Use Nurgle's knife to harvest the leeks for Tzeentch."

Vespera turned to look at the dumbfounded nobles and slightly raised his chin.

"This is the trick that the Lord of All Changes appreciates the most."

After a brief silence in the secret room, the marquis swallowed hard and pointed out the biggest obstacle.

“Your plan is perfect, but there’s a dead end in its execution.”

The Marquis pointed towards the ceiling: "That Astartes has completely taken over the Ministry of Justice's central Thinker array. All communication bands and all server skulls are under his surveillance."

"Although the Nurgle cultists in the lower nest are fanatical, they also need instructions. If we send someone to make contact or transmit riot signals over the network, the abnormal data stream will be intercepted instantly."

The Marquis's logic was clear: "Without communication and coordination, how could you get millions of Nurgle followers scattered throughout Lower Nest to launch a riot at the same time?"

"Planning? Collaboration? Communication?"

Vespera looked at the Marquis and chuckled softly.

“My lord, you have been in the imperial bureaucracy for too long. Your mind has been hardened by the regulations.”

Her smile vanished, and her eyes turned cold.

"The followers of Nurgle are not an Imperial defense force that requires pre-battle mobilization and communication coordination, nor are they allies that need to negotiate interests."

"They are a group of beasts whose brains have been rotten in putrid water, driven only by the instinct for survival and the desire for destruction; they are a nest of wasps hidden underground."

Vespera stood before the ancient Thinker array, his hand still gripping the red lever.

The lever has been pushed to the bottom.

The air inside the sealed room was stagnant, and the distorted color blocks on the walls, which defied Euclidean geometry, slowly writhed under the blue light.

"Gentlemen, a riot is about to begin."

Her normal pupil in her left eye and the purple nebula crystal in her right eye simultaneously gazed at her noble colleagues in the secret room.

The marquis in charge of ore transportation swallowed hard and posed a real threat:

“Madam. The underground water networks of the three main hives are independent. That Astartes has full control over the Ministry of Justice. If only the third hive riots, his army will instantly gather there. We need a simultaneous outbreak on all three fronts to break through his defenses.”