The Creators: From Night City

Page 468

The other demon vanished into the void, reappearing behind the Star Speaker.

It retrieved a bone dagger from the warp, imbued with the power of Tzeentch, tainted by 999 souls, and forged through nine blood sacrifices.

The bone blade, engraved with unclean words, was raised high by the deformed hand and then plunged into the Star Speaker's body at its root.

The next second, the wailing stopped abruptly, and countless eyes began to appear on that frail body.

The Emperor's power rapidly faded, while the Star Speakers madly veered into depravity, sliding into the embrace of the Lord of Change.

The souls and flesh of all the members of the psychic choir melted in an instant, breaking through numerous obstacles like swallows returning to their nests, and gathered at the location of the Star Speaker.

A giant 'chaotic egg' was thus formed.

Ripples swept across the warp, and encrypted psionic information was immediately sent to all the Tzeentch archdemons on this planet.

Inside the Spire Council Hall, where the Spire Conference was held, almost all of the planet's top rulers were instantly corrupted by demons who had been lying in wait.

Meanwhile, within the vast Lower Nest, nine bloody rituals were being performed simultaneously. Under the leadership of the Chaos Wizards, 99 psionicists and 9999 deceived and ignorant souls were sacrificed to the Lord of Change, in exchange for a minor warp storm in the fifth sector of the Kronus Expansion.

Thanks to this subspace storm, the 'veil' of the material world was severely weakened, and nine spatial rifts were successfully opened through cult rituals.

Countless warp demons roared and surged forth from the warp, craving slaughter, blood, warm flesh, and sweet souls.

The entire Lower Nest instantly became a hell in the real world, with death spreading wildly in all directions.

The hive garrison launched a fierce resistance, and the entire planet was once again dragged into the quagmire of war.

Fortunately, such scenes were commonplace for the empire.

With the fall of the Star Language Hall, long-distance communication on the planet has been essentially paralyzed, and the complete annihilation of the upper ruling class means that the entire planet will fall into a state of leaderlessness.

Thus, the demons' plan is about to enter its final stage, and the fall of this fertile industrial planet is imminent.

The great demon who had replaced the head of the Kalilan family lay lazily in the Spire Council Hall, which had been turned into a lair of flesh and blood, calculating and planning countless sinister plots, measuring and predicting possible changes.

'Everything is going according to plan,' the 'patriarch' of the Kalilan family, still in human form, lay in a recliner made of flesh and bones, muttering to himself in a self-comforting manner, but his mind was unable to stop recalling the warp flash that had occurred not long ago.

Has the ever-changing master of change cast his gaze upon this? Will the established facts undergo new changes?

The demon, disguised as an 'old man,' pondered countless thoughts surging through his mind.

…………

Inside the bottom nest, aboard the colony ship 'The Seeder', Doria awoke from a daze caused by the violent tremors.

An Felyne jumped up excitedly, speaking in a language the hunter couldn't understand, its furry paws patting the communicator next to its ear as if reporting something.

Doria struggled to get up, but was pushed back onto the medical bed.

Despite its seemingly frail cat-like body, it contained immense strength. Doria struggled a couple of times, only to find herself being held down as if by a mutant, with no room for resistance whatsoever.

She had no choice but to give in and resign herself to lying on the bed, looking around.

This is a small cubicle that has been set up as a medical room, and the patient is, of course, her.

"Awake?" a slightly mechanical voice asked.

Doria turned her head and saw an engineering robot staring intently at her, its golden visors gleaming with light.

She instinctively crossed her arms and tentatively asked, 'A craftsman?'

“Yes, it’s me,” Jiang Bing replied, controlling the robot.

After 'refining' the 'Euclid Core', Jiang Bing successfully gained control of all the equipment in the entire base, and this advanced colony spaceship has become the private property of [Anti-Entropy].

The entire base has been completely transformed.

A faint golden halo flowed across the cold white metal walls, and the combat weapons that had been ferocious not long ago had reverted to their original identities as engineering robots, busily working at various damaged and broken points.

Following the robot, Doria stumbled into the "Eco-Dome" located in the front center of the spaceship.

This is the spaceship's ecological zone. In addition to the hydroponic farm and air regeneration system, there is also a multi-level, well-lit space garden, which should be planted with various plants to provide oxygen and food, and also serve as a psychological relaxation area for the crew.

Unfortunately, over the long course of time, these organic materials have all turned into dust.

After all, in order to establish themselves on this planet, the early pioneers not only dismantled most of the industrial equipment, but also took away the most important 'energy core' of the entire colony ship, leaving only enough energy reserves to barely support the ship's hibernation.

As the intelligent steward of the spacecraft's central control system, AR-303 is barely able to maintain its own operation, so how could it possibly have the extra energy to take care of these other things?

Turning the corner leading to the 'think tank', Doria was surprised to find that the spaceship, which should have only housed two people, was now filled with many strangers.

The towering metal power armor gleamed with a cold luster, and its two-meter-tall size made these strangers look like metal giants.

The crimson goggles were immediately aimed at the huntress, and his burning gaze seemed to be burning with fire, full of vigilance, as if he would shoot her the moment he sensed something was wrong with her.

Looking at the massive gun in the other person's hand, Doria knew that with just one shot, she would be completely reduced to a pile of minced meat.

Fortunately, the engineering robots led the way, and the imposing guards did not stop her.

As the metal door slid smoothly to the side, Doria finally met her transformed employer.

Or, according to her impoverished and ignorant understanding, she had met a 'living saint'.

Chapter 950 Promotion, Transformation, and Reforging

"You're here," Jiang Bing casually beckoned Doria to sit at the corner table. After temporarily silencing the hunter with a dish she had never seen before, he turned back to continue talking to Flying Eagle.

"BOSS, all the 'Apostles' who have undergone the torch-granting ceremony have assembled and are ready to join the battle at any time." Flying Eagle's voice was somewhat hoarse, and the marks of war were now etched on his once youthful face.

After some time, his body had grown to nearly 3 meters tall. The exposed skin on his face shone faintly under the light, and his eyes were no longer pure black and white, but covered with a tiny nerve membrane.

"All participating apostles must have the intensity of their internal flames reach the baseline I have set. You should have already reviewed the information I sent you about 'Warspace' and 'Demons,' and the mental defenses of those who fight against them must be up to standard."

"I understand, but in that case, the number of qualified people will probably be less than 200."

“These numbers are enough. The local troops should also be taken into account, after all, this is their homeland.”

"Besides," Jiang Bing tapped the eagle's breastplate with his cane, then pointed to the twelve 'Black King Guards' surrounding him and said, "Don't we still have you 'reforged' guards? To be honest, I don't need your protection. With your combat strength, it should be enough for the early stages."

Flying Eagle hesitated, but considering the strength of his boss, he ultimately remained silent.

Jiang Bing's forces alone have grown to over 20,000 'Apostles' during this period of rapid expansion. These troops are enough to overwhelm any power or nation in the cyberpunk world in a siege battle. However, in the Warhammer universe, not to mention the vast galaxy burning with war, even the current Hive City might not be able to run rampant.

People in this world often say that the life of every empire's inhabitant is the emperor's currency.

The emperor who sits on the golden throne will use them to redeem the fate of mankind.

However, compared to the wealthy and powerful man with a golden coat, Jiang Bing was not so rich.

As things stand, the population under the [Anti-Entropy] force is even smaller than the population of the Nest City where he currently resides.

The emperor is rich and can spend money like water at the card table with the four peddlers. Jiang Bing definitely can't keep up. He can only play the elite troops route.

The close connection created by the Fire-Borrowing Ritual allows the 'Black King' to keep a close eye on his precious children at all times, ensuring that their souls will not be easily captured by the Warp or demons after death.

As long as the souls remain safe, Jiang Bing, who possesses the 'Life Furnace', can easily 'recast' them. If the supply of ether can keep up, he can even add more materials and manually complete the fourth phase of the 'Ascension Plan', which is still being improved and promoted.

The 'Forge of Life' contains the 'Hundred Phases of the Forge'—the complete 'blueprint of life' for these ancient creatures originating from the borderlands.

Most of these "hundred-faced beasts" have long since become extinct in the long river of history, but their most essential life fragments—'genetic memes'—have been preserved in the "furnace of life".

Jiang Bing removed the modifications that were clearly inhumane and would lead to significant distortions, but still refined a luxurious fourth-stage 'promotion and transformation' plan.

This solution incorporates all of Jiang Bing's extraordinary knowledge as a 'craftsman' and can be considered a masterpiece of his current level.

The entire fourth stage of transformation is somewhat similar to the 19 transformation surgeries of Astartes, but the transformation method is more high-dimensional and direct (referring to being thrown into the life furnace for direct reforging), the enhancement dimensions are more comprehensive, the upper limit is higher, and the success rate is infinitely close to 100%.

Of course, the downside is that it is expensive and the modification methods are extremely limited. Currently, each modifier must be 'forged' by Jiang Bing personally controlling the 'Life Furnace', and the amount of ether consumed is quite considerable.

After all, the modifications to each subsystem in the fourth stage all originated from the mythical creatures recorded in the 'Forge of Life,' which makes the essence of these modifications almost a complete transformation, a leap in level.

The living bone matrix modification and self-repairing network modification of the furnace bone frame system originated from the ancient stone root dragon that coils around the earth's core.

These ancient dragons, whose bodies are composed of massive skeletons and coiled at the bottom of the world, have a skeletal structure that resembles a "living rune stone." When damaged, they can rapidly heal themselves by absorbing various forms of energy. Their unique structure not only greatly increases the toughness and strength of their bones and provides excellent energy storage and conduction capabilities, but also actively directs the localized impact force they receive to their entire body.

The transformation of the high-energy blood cells and pheromone fluid network of the blessed blood circulation system originates from the sap of the ancient golden tree, also known as the red and blue drips in the border region.

Of course, the modification does not involve directly replacing the recipient's blood with these Dettols. Instead, it involves installing an additional organ called "golden lymph nodes" on the subject. This organ will automatically gather life energy and gradually add trace amounts of red and blue Dettol elements to the body fluids, which are mainly blood, as they flow through it, until the body fluid system is slowly sublimated to a form close to that of 'red and blue Dettols'.

The multi-stage lung filtration system, the Heart of the Forger, the Furnace Liver and the Purifying Kidney, and the distributed ganglion modification of the Hundred Organs Matrix all originate from the children of the initial ominous signs.

"Ominous signs" are not actually diseases, but rather manifestations of an excessively intense "life furnace" of power, possessing a distorted and terrifying, almost limitless, life adaptability.

Jiang Bing deciphered and selectively removed some of the "wild growth" life codes from the initial ominous sign, taking its essence of "infinite vitality" and stripping away its distorted appearance. Although it dissolved nearly half of its strength, it still endowed the modified person's organs with terrifying resilience and purification capabilities.

The instinctive processing unit and multi-spectral sensory modification of the source neural architecture are derived from an ancient mythical creature called the Thousand-Eyed Monster.

Its 'genetic code' is very strange. This thing is essentially a big eyeball. It does not have eyes in the traditional sense. Special visual nerves are distributed throughout its body, and thousands of light-sensitive points grow on its surface that can sense different energy dimensions (heat, magnetism, magic, slight changes in gravity, and even the flow of time).

Therefore, based on massive amounts of information, it can "predict" the opponent's movement trajectory in the next few seconds before taking action.

Unfortunately, it gained this powerful function at the cost of a brain that makes up half of its body size.

However, Jiang Bing only needs the other party's 'genes' to have the underlying framework of 'parallel processing' and 'pattern prereading' related to neural structures.

After extracting the relevant 'genes,' he did not choose to implant them into the brains of the modified subjects. Instead, he used the omnipotence of the Life Furnace to directly 'rewrite' the spinal cord, brain, and peripheral nervous system structure of the subjects, activating the 'instinctive processing units' that were already present in the brain but whose power was mostly dormant, and expanding the corresponding sensory spectrum, giving the modified subjects almost predictive intuition and super-fast learning abilities.

The final step of the transformation involves compressing high-density life energy and forging the subject's etheric fire within the subject's chest cavity to form a 'life furnace' that simulates the structure of an etheric furnace.

Of course, the reference organism for this step is no longer 'The Crucible of a Hundred Forms', but Jiang Bing himself.

This 'Life Forge', a blend of life energy and the bestowed fire, will become the energy source and coordination center for the apostles' reforged, powerful bodies.

However, this also means that the concentration of 'etheric fire' in the body must reach a certain threshold in order to meet the standards for the final step of the transformation, which can be considered as setting the requirements for the transformation in disguise.

To be honest, this whole process will allow the memetic structures, such as muscles, tendons, blood, and bones, derived from ancient mythical creatures to fully integrate with each 'Apostle'. While they may not reach the physical strength of the ominous child, Mongot, they will still be able to get infinitely close to the mythical creatures of the borderlands.

Although they have not yet come into contact with Astartes in this world, with the innate talent of 'craftsmen', after this modification, the 'Apostles' should have no problem overwhelming the elite Imperial Guard of Holy Terra.

After all, every Imperial Guard was personally crafted by the Emperor, and every 'recast' Apostle was also personally 'forged' by Jiang Bing.

There's no reason why a dedicated 'craftsman' couldn't outdo an Asian psionic primitive in this regard.

Chapter 951 The Deteriorating Situation

Sacrifice forged the foundation of the empire.

Life is insignificant at this moment.

Fear breeds doubt, doubt breeds hesitation, hesitation breeds cowardice, and cowardice breeds betrayal.

Loyalty that is not absolute is absolute disloyalty.

Political Commissar Fakla of the 3rd Company, 75th Regiment of the Planetary Defense Force, loudly delivered a mobilization speech and, with a raised hand, directly shot a cowardly deserter who tried to escape.

The laser gun, jokingly referred to as a 'flashlight,' unleashed beams of light, pouring out the emperor's fury upon the demons and their minions.

The monsters responded with a desperate charge of various twisted minions, sharp and deformed claws and teeth, and bloated human suicide bombs.

The vast population of the hive city became the most convenient material for the demons, and the demon servants made up of these corrupted ordinary people were the best cannon fodder.

"Corporal Harlan!"

Commissar Fakla raised his hand and precisely detonated a Heart Eater's head with a bomb pistol, then shouted behind him.

"How are your team's preparations going? The position needs you now."

"Just you wait, Political Commissar, my 'mother' has been waiting for a long time."

Corporal Harlan, wearing goggles and sporting a greasy face with blackened teeth, was eagerly holding his "mother"—a twin-barreled heavy logging rifle.

Nearly ten hours have passed since the demonic invasion of Vesos began. In this timeframe, which is neither long nor short, the planet's defense forces have been completely fragmented.

Without any orders from the planetary governor who was the commander-in-chief, the troops stationed in various parts of the hive city could only fight on their own.

After the demons destroyed most of the signal base stations in the middle and lower nests, the 3rd Company of the 75th Regiment, which had been driven from the middle nest to the lower nest by the demons, temporarily lost contact with the main force.

Whether the planet has completely fallen, what is the current situation of the nobles of Upper Nest, and whether the Astral Legion stationed nearby has received the distress signal from the planet are all unknowns.

Commissar Fakla had many questions swirling in his mind, but that did not prevent him from making judgments about the battle situation.

"Retreat! Heavy weapons crews, prepare!"

The defenders lost dozens of lives before finally retreating to the second position behind the corner, while the bloodthirsty demon minions followed closely behind, charging into Passage No. 13, which was being guarded by the Third Company.

The narrow passage became the perfect ambush location.

The twin heavy logging guns roared out two blazing flames, unleashing the emperor's fury on the crowded human targets.

Blood and flesh flew everywhere, in a physical sense.

Corporal Harlan roared wildly amidst the gunfire, while the throngs of Heart Eaters were harvested one after another like ripe wheat.

The tide of battle turned at this moment.