Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"How do you notify the believers in Hives 1 and 2? Any leak of electronic signals will be instantly detected by the Thinker Array of the Ministry of Justice. They will trace the data stream directly to the Purification Guild."

Vespera picked up the purple wine on the table and took a small sip.

“As I just said, you don’t need to write a letter to get the wasps out of their nest.”

She raised her left wrist, revealing a purely mechanical gear pocket watch.

The pointer points to Imperial Standard Time 0355.

"No electronic signals. No data exchange from communication base stations. The alliance between Hive City 1 and Hive City 2 does not need my remote commands."

"This is absolute synchronization based on the timeline."

Vespella's purple right eye flashed with a cold, logical light: "Three days ago, we agreed on the countdown to the delivery date. The main sewage gates at the bottom of Hives 1, 2, and 3 were set to open simultaneously at 03:55."

The Marquis remained uneasy: "But opening the main gate will inevitably leave traces! Even if you cut off the guild's internal surveillance, that Astartes will eventually send people to check the control valves of the lower-level water network. They will find out that someone discharged waste liquid!"

"We'll be the scapegoats!"

Several nobles began to retreat out of fear.

"madness."

Vespera placed the wine glass on the table.

"Did you think that lever I just pulled was to turn on the main switch?"

She pulled up a forged internal defense document on the tactical projector.

"This lever simply cut off the data line between the Water Purification Association's monitoring room and the bottom valve. It made our monitoring room legally blind during the riot, so that we could have a solid alibi afterward."

"The ones who actually unlocked the bottom-level main gate were not the technical priests of the Water Purification Guild, nor were they nobles like you who could leak secrets at any time."

"It's a machine servant, and a scrap machine servant that has undergone severe chemical lobotomy and been implanted with a one-way execution program."

Vespera ruthlessly unfolded her closed-loop fraud scheme:

"These servitors were given a single instruction: at 0355, insert the authorization plate with the punched password card into the main switch control panel. Then, lock the internal high-strength explosion-proof door of the control room."

"When the main valve is opened, tens of millions of tons of boiling, highly acidic waste liquid will pour down. The servoir and all the equipment in the control room will be completely submerged, corroded, and melted by the waste liquid in the first instant."

"There are no witnesses, no clues, and not even ashes will be left."

She pointed to a set of data on the holographic projection:

"As for that punch card, I registered it under the name of a PDF logistics quartermaster responsible for the maintenance of the lower nest sewage system half a month ago using a forged dispatch order. And that quartermaster was blown to bits by a stray bullet during yesterday's Greenskin siege."

"No matter how vast the Ministry of Justice's intelligence network is, or how astute Astartes is, when he traced the source of the disaster, all he could find was that it was a terrorist attack planned by radical members of the Lower Nest mutant laborers, who used the lost access card of a deceased PDF officer."

"All the clues form a perfect vicious cycle. Not a single drop of water will splash onto the silk robes of the high-ranking members of the Pure Water Guild."

Three seconds of deathly silence followed in the sealed room. Then, a suppressed gasp of admiration erupted.

"Flawless!" The Viscount trembled with excitement. "That Astartes can't even find where the real enemy is!"

Vespera picked up his glass again.

"Prepare to hear the cries of despair."

The three main nests of Obolus form the lowest level of the network.

It was dark, damp, and filled with the stench of a mixture of chemicals and a sweet, plague-like odor emanating from every piece of rotting flesh and every mutated body.

This is the holy site of the Pale Flesh Cult.

Millions of Neurgut believers were immersed in waist-deep, foul-smelling sewage.

Their bodies were highly mutated, with festering skin and covered in tumors.

They knelt on both knees and recited prayers praising their loving father in distorted voices.

However, the bottom layer of the three hive cities is not monolithic.

The bottom hive of the No. 1 main hive is the oldest and deepest underground space on the entire planet.

Thousands of years of industrial pollution and imperial abandonment policies have resulted in the largest mutant population in the world here.

The Pale Flesh Cult has nearly 5.5 million followers here, occupying two-thirds of the bottom nest's space.

Their high priest is a high-ranking plague sorcerer who has the ability to summon low-ranking demons in the material world.

The bottom nest of main nest #2 is relatively new and has a more regular structure.

The Nurgle Cult has infiltrated approximately 3.8 million people here, but due to the frequent patrols of the PDF at the bottom of Hive City 2, the cult's area of ​​activity has been compressed into a few abandoned mining tunnels.

The No. 3 main nest is the base of the Clean Water Guild.

Vespera has the deepest control over this area, where the sect has about 2.7 million followers.

Although they were the fewest in number, their stronghold was located directly below the waste liquid storage tanks of the Water Purification Guild, which was one of the reasons why Vespella chose Nest City No. 3 as its main base.

The total number of Nurgle followers in the three haunts is approximately twelve million.

Inside a huge underground sedimentation tank in Nest City No. 3.

A high priest of the sect raised a rusty scythe, preparing to disembowel a captured, healthy human as a sacrifice.

A dull, metallic tearing sound came from above.

Rumble.

The high priest raised his head, and the third deformed eye on his forehead saw the last scene of his life.

The explosion-proof ceiling, several meters thick, collapsed with a loud crash.

Tens of millions of tons of boiling industrial waste liquid, with a temperature as high as 140 degrees Celsius, rich in radioactive isotopes and highly corrosive acids, poured into this underground space like a celestial river.

scoff!

When the boiling acid came into contact with the High Priest's mutated skin, blessed by the Father, the thick carapace, which was almost impenetrable by conventional attacks, was like a candle meeting a raging fire in the face of pure chemical violence.

Muscle tissue was dissolved in less than half a second, and bones turned black and broke.

This is not the slow, numb decay brought on by a plague; this is pure destruction.

Millions of inhuman screams erupted from the entire underground pipe network at the same instant.

But most of the Nurgle believers did not die.

The Lord of Plague's blessing endowed their bodies with regenerative abilities far exceeding those of ordinary people.

The strong acid burned through their skin, melted their clothes and weapons, and the excruciating pain felt like their souls were being torn apart, but their internal organs and core skeletons barely managed to function due to the rampant proliferation of mutated tissue.

They survived, screaming in the boiling venom, suffering agonizing pain.

"They're the people at the top! They're the hypocrites at the pinnacle!"

"They are purging us! They are flooding the Father's holy land with poisonous water!"

Deep within the core altar of the Pale Flesh Cult, several high-ranking plague warlocks withstood the first wave of the intense acid.

Their mutations far exceeded those of ordinary believers; they even developed reaction membranes on their bodies that could secrete neutralizing acid.

They maintained a shred of rationality.

But when they saw millions of lower-class believers screaming in agony as they surged toward the upper passages, they understood that this torrent could not be stopped by any command, even if they wanted to maintain order.

The plague sorcerers made the only sensible choice: to join the tide and guide its course.

Transform this instinctive rampage into a targeted, full-scale invasion.

Driven by the instinct for survival, the stimulation of intense pain, and the enraged religious fanaticism,

The dimensional barriers of the subspace were weakened by intense emotional fluctuations.

Low-ranking plague demons, each wielding a rusty cleaver, tore themselves out of the melting corpses of the believers.

"Charge upwards! Tear them apart! Bring the Father's grace to every living creature that breathes!"

Millions of mutated thugs, their bodies dripping with strong acid and their skin dissolving but still surviving, along with plague demons pouring out of the warp rifts like a black tsunami from the sewers, began their all-encompassing infiltration through gravity-fed sewage pipes, abandoned ventilation shafts, maintenance tunnels, and cracks in the slums.

This is Vespera's masterpiece.

Her plan was executed flawlessly and very smoothly.

As the High Priestess of the Water Purification Guild, her authority covers the entire planet's water cycle system.

Main hives number 1, 2, and 3.

The gravity-fed sewage gates at the lowest levels of the three giant metal peaks, each with a population of four billion, were recently fitted with punched password cards by three pre-programmed machine servants in three separate control rooms.

Tens of millions of tons of industrial waste liquid were poured down from the bottom storage tanks of the three nests.

In Hive City 1, 5.5 million Nurgle followers suffered the most intense attack.

This area has the largest waste liquid storage capacity and the highest temperature.

However, the high priest of this sect was also a high-ranking plague sorcerer. He immediately summoned a group of plague demons to act as the vanguard, guiding the tide of believers toward the nearest upper passage.

In Hive City 2, the reaction of the 3.8 million followers was the most chaotic. Because the sect's stronghold was compressed into narrow mining tunnels, the waste liquid flooded the area faster than expected, and many followers were trampled to death while fleeing. But the survivors' anger was also pushed to the extreme.

Although the number of believers in the third hive city is the smallest at 3 million, they are also the closest to the civilian area of ​​the middle hive.

Vespera knew the local pipe network like the back of her hand. She precisely selected several large-diameter ventilation shafts that led directly to the Zhongchao factory area as flood outlets, allowing the rioting tide of believers to rush into the densely populated area as quickly as possible.

This way, she can better achieve her goal.

Having occupied the top district for so many years, she is too much of an official member of the imperial court in this nest world.

Stupid, rotten, and inefficient.

In the traditional organizational logic of the Imperial Defense Forces, sudden disasters at the lower levels of the hive city require a lengthy reporting process:

Sentry discovers enemy activity → runs to communications station → communications soldier sends encrypted telegram → company level → battalion level → regimental level → Chaodu Supreme Defense Command.

Ideally, this process takes four to six standard hours.

Four hours is enough for millions of fanatical Nurgle cultists to break through the defenses and slaughter hundreds of millions of civilians in the Lower Nest.

Vespera was a master strategist.

She had anticipated the delays in the Imperial bureaucracy, and to ensure that Lawson couldn't manage both ends, she simultaneously detonated the bottom layers of the three hive cities.

But she knew nothing about the underlying operating logic of Lawson's war machine.

Main Hive City #1, Spire District, Governor's Office.

Imperial Standard Time, 0356.