Warhammer: Rebuilding the Golden Age Starting with Farming

Chapter 140: They've reached the city?

To be honest, something's not quite right about this.

Five days have passed since Kolber returned with his elite squad.

According to the previous schedule, the convoy led by Reagan's Engineering Division 6, which was responsible for burying thermal base stations in the western desert, should have returned to Fort Horison by two days at the latest.

Now, they've vanished without a trace!

Not only have they disappeared, but there's no signal either!

However, it does make sense.

Communication has always been a major, brain-boosting problem.

Although Andy had thirty-eight small balloons, their coverage area was limited.

Within a 500-kilometer radius of Horisonburg, the signal is full; you can make not only radio calls but also video calls!

But once you go beyond that range, it becomes a complete blind spot.

The atmosphere of Zais is filled with all sorts of messy radioactive dust and industrial waste gas, and the ionosphere has been messed up by thousands of years of war, resulting in an astonishingly high attenuation rate of radio signals during long-distance transmission.

Unless Andy can actually build a real geostationary satellite right now, or build a large one every 100 kilometers on the ground...

Power relay stations are needed; otherwise, it will be difficult to change this situation where "communication relies on shouting."

Of course, Andy didn't think anything serious would happen to Reagan.

He's a seasoned veteran who's been a land-based ship captain for decades, and his survival skills are top-notch.

In addition, although Engineering Department 6 did not bring power armor on this trip, they were equipped with a full set of T-9000 exoskeletons and CBS.

High explosive crossbow.

With this configuration, it can even put up a fight against a small-scale regular army, and if it can't win, it can run away.

A couple of days ago, just to be on the safe side, Andy sent out a heavy shuttle.

They conducted a low-altitude search along the planned route of Engineering Department 6.

As a result, the pilot flew back and reported that apart from seeing some messy tire tracks and a few piles of unidentified wreckage still smoking in the wasteland, he didn't see a single thing.

There's nobody here!

There were neither living people nor dead people, nor any wrecked vehicles.

That's quite mysterious.

A fully mechanized heavy vehicle fleet can't just vanish into thin air, can it?

Andy even suspected that these people might have thought the outside world was too exciting and had run away with the equipment and money.

Or perhaps, they were outmaneuvered by some blind super warlord?

However, considering Reagan's personality—he was desperate to curry favor with powerful figures—the possibility of him running away is extremely low.

Just as Andy was pondering whether to wake up Xiao Liu and ask her to help with a divination.

"The red indicator light on the radio suddenly lit up."

This is an emergency frequency band, accessible only to advanced internal communicators.

"Boss? Boss! Can you hear me?!"

Reagan's voice came through the speakers, accompanied by extremely loud background noise.

The noise sounded like some kind of heavy machinery tearing through metal, interspersed with dense explosions and some kind of inhuman roar.

"I can hear you."

Andy immediately sat up straight and turned the signal gain to the maximum.

"Where have you been? It's been five days. I thought you'd been eaten by sandworms."

"Don't mention it, boss, something terrible has happened!"

Reagan sounded breathless, as if he had just done strenuous exercise.

"We're in Kolumbik now, right in the main urban area of ​​the trade zone!"

"We're hiding in the underground parking garage of an office building. The cars are all there, the equipment is all there, and we're all safe."

"I also ran into some old buddies from when I was working on ships. Now everyone's gathered together and blocked off the entrance to this building."

Kolumbik?

Andy glanced at the map.

That place is southwest of Horisonburg, about a thousand kilometers away, and it is indeed a signal dead zone.

But that's not what Andy is focused on.

"hide?"

Andy repeated the word, a hint of doubt in his voice.

"In a place like Kolumbek, besides Aisy and Odin, who could force you to hide in an underground parking garage?"

"Is some clueless gang causing trouble? Why not just blow it up?"

Andy has great confidence in Deep Space Industries' current capabilities.

As long as they don't encounter a regular armored group charge, the Sixth Engineering Division can easily dominate ordinary gang shootouts.

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the communication.

Then, Reagan dropped a bombshell.

"Not a gang."

Reagan's voice was very low, as if he was afraid of disturbing something outside.

"It's the Twilight."

"The Twilight Ship and the Reiss aliens have invaded the city!"

"What the heck??"

Andy's first reaction was that he had misheard.

"Say it again? Who and who?"

"The Twilight, the troops of Aissi," Reagan explained rapidly, "and those red aliens, the Reissians."

!

'

"They started fighting, and they fought their way from the outer mining areas all the way into the core urban area of ​​Kolumbik!"

What the heck is this?

Andy was confused.

The people of Reis are allergic to ultraviolet light and die from exposure to sunlight.

Their skin and muscle tissue will rapidly die and disintegrate when exposed to strong sunlight or radiation of a specific wavelength.

This is why they always hide underground and deep in dark ruins, never daring to run wild on the wasteland in broad daylight.

The Kolumbek Trade Zone is a cluster of cities built on a vast area of ​​ruins.

Although there is a huge alloy dome overhead, it is dilapidated and full of large holes, allowing sunlight to stream in from many areas.

In addition, as it was a trade center, high-powered industrial searchlights were hung everywhere for illumination.

For the Reiss, what difference is there between this level of light intensity and swimming in a pool of sulfuric acid?

What gave them the audacity to invade the city?

This is not a beaver.

"Are you sure it's a Reiss?" Andy pressed. "And not some other mutant monster?"

"100% certain!"

Reagan was absolutely certain.

"Boss, here's what happened—"

Reagan began to recount what they had experienced over the past few days.

It turned out that they had stumbled upon Aiqi's secret operation when they were laying thermal base stations in the sand dune mine that day.

Contrary to rumors, Aiqi was not simply grabbing territory.

She is using an extremely sinister technology to mass-produce an army.

"Skeleton Mech"

Reagan uttered that word.

"She collected the corpses of the dead Reiss, disassembled them, and then reassembled the bones using some kind of mechanical device."

"White skeletons, filled with batteries and motors, some can fly, and some can burrow through the ground."

"She even dug out the vocal organs of the Reiss and turned them into a cannon that could fire air waves!"

As Andy listened, his brows furrowed deeper and deeper.

Using alien corpses to create automated weapons?

This technology sounds familiar.

Under Imperial law, such behavior constitutes a serious "abuse of alien technology." If the court were to witness it, they would at least convict Aixi of heresy and then have his entire family roasted.

But it really works.

No need to pay wages, no need to feed them, and they can be recycled and reused even after they die—a perfect, cheap productivity tool combined with a line-filling tool.

"And then?" Andy asked.

"Then those Reissians went crazy."

Reagan continued.

"They seem to have been provoked and have started to retaliate fiercely."

"Aishi led her army of skeletons in retreat, and the Reiss pursued them relentlessly."

"The final battleground shifted to Kolumbik."

"It's like hell outside right now, there are skeletons fighting aliens everywhere."

"And the strangest thing is—"

Reagan paused for a moment.

"Aish rarely uses floating cannons now; she mainly relies on those skeleton mechs to fill in the gaps."

"The Reiss also became very strange. They used the shadows of buildings, underground pipes, and gaps in the rubble created by the bombs to fight the Twilight in urban warfare."

"They seem to be less afraid of light now."

"No, they are still afraid of light. I saw several of them rush into the sun, and their bodies were indeed smoking, and their skin was rotting."

"But they don't care! Even if their skin is rotten, they'll still rush in and slash a couple of times!"

"This suicidal attack has completely shattered the Twilight's defensive lines!"

Hearing this, Andy felt increasingly uneasy.

Although the Reiss are ferocious, they are still living beings and have the instinct to survive.

Fighting under deadly radiation is a behavior pattern more like that of the Tyranids than that of a social, independent Xenomorph race.

Unless they are driven to the brink by something.

Or—what are they protecting?

Or perhaps, Aixi really crossed some kind of line for the Reiss?

Did you dig up someone's ancestral grave?

But this is not the most critical point of contention.

The most critical point of contention lies in the environment.

"Kolumbik————"

Andy mentally recalled a picture of Kolumbek.

Although the place was dilapidated, the lighting conditions were definitely not bad.

If the Reiss were to launch a large-scale invasion of the city, the environmental damage alone could reduce their numbers by half.

As long as Aiqi guards those well-lit squares and main roads and sets up searchlights, it will be invincible.

Why did it turn into urban warfare?

Why send the skeleton mechs to fill in the lines?

It makes no sense at all in terms of tactical logic.

unless----

Andy suddenly thought of a possibility.

Reagan.

Andy interrupted Reagan's rambling.

"You just said you were in the underground parking garage?"

"yes."

"What color is the sky outside right now?"

"Huh?" Reagan paused, "I can't see the sky from the basement—but when I came in just now, it seemed—"

Reagan's voice suddenly became hesitant.

"It seems... a bit dark?"

"Even though it's daytime, I feel...drowsy?"

"It's like—something is blocking the sun?"

Andy's eyes sharpened instantly.

Under normal circumstances, this would only be a sandstorm or a cloudy day.

However, this is in stark contrast to the unusual behavior of the Reiss people who dared to launch a large-scale attack and enter the city.

There is only one explanation.

The lighting conditions in Kolumbek have been artificially altered.

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