Warhammer Survival Guide

Chapter 109 Arbitrator

Three hours later.

The Seventh Agricultural Theater, the Northern Granary, and the Deep Space Take-off and Landing Platform Area D-4.

The ground is paved with reinforced concrete slabs up to two meters thick, with black asphalt poured between the slab joints.

A gale, whipping up a corrosive yellow mist, raged across the open platform, scraping against Rowe's face.

Rowe raised his wrist and glanced at the brass pocket watch.

The pointer pointed to 9 AM Terra Standard Time.

He put down his pocket watch and straightened his dark gray Executive Yuan uniform.

This is the standard style for an agricultural consultant; he rarely wears it normally.

The top button of the collar was fastened, and the wrinkles at the cuffs were smoothed out.

He turned his head and glanced at the line behind him.

Buck stood on the left, holding a precision-engineered explosive gun wrapped in rags in his arms. His one eye was fixed warily on the sky, and his electronic cochlear implant flickered a faint red light in the cold wind.

Father Alpha stood on the right, his red mechanical robe fluttering in the wind.

The servo robotic arms behind him did not move as actively as usual, but were tightly attached to his back, in a low-power posture called "standby and obedience".

It was an airship sent by the Governor's Office that brought Luo Wei and the others here.

Next to him is Bill, the "Butcher," who is in charge of the northern grain depot.

This giant, who was nearly two meters tall, seemed somewhat agitated at the moment.

He wore the iconic heavy industrial exoskeleton, and the hydraulic pistons groaned as they moved with his weight.

Unlike Rowe, Bill did not remain silent. He paced back and forth, his metal boots clattering on the ground.

Behind him were two hundred private soldiers from the northern granary.

These people were equipped with a motley collection of gear, some wearing cobbled-together armor.

Some of them had iron plates hanging directly on their bodies.

He held all sorts of weapons, from automatic guns to heavy logging guns.

They stood in a loose line, some whispering, others smoking cheap cigarettes.

This team was trying to demonstrate the force of local bullies.

Beside them, several representatives sent by the governor and local officials from the Ministry of the Interior stood silently, their expressions solemn, in the tense atmosphere of waiting.

Rowe looked away and advised Bill, "Have your men put out their cigarettes, and have your men stand up straight."

"If you don't want to be mistaken for rebels and get covered in fire later, you'd better make them look like a regular planetary defense force, not a bunch of thugs who just crawled out of the bottom hive."

Bill stopped, his mechanical eye rotated, and he exhaled a puff of white steam.

"Brother Rowe, you're too nervous." Bill's voice was amplified by the sound grille, carrying a metallic vibration.

"This is my territory. No matter who comes from above, if they want to transport goods out of the northern granary, they'll have to do what I, Bill, say. My brothers have shed blood; they deserve a smoke."

Luo Wei simply stated, "According to Article 7 of the Imperial Tithing Tax Collection Act, during the collection period, the area within a five-kilometer radius of the take-off and landing platform is a temporary military control zone."

"Within the controlled zone, any armed personnel not part of the Imperial establishment who exhibit undisciplined behavior" will be considered a potential threat.

"And there is only one way to deal with potential threats: elimination."

Upon hearing this, Bill paused for a moment, seemingly wanting to refute.

Just then, the sky changed.

The originally grayish-yellow clouds began to churn without warning.

A deep, humming sound, powerful enough to cause internal organ resonance, came from high above.

The sound was very soft at first, like distant thunder.

Just ten seconds later, the sound turned into a tangible wave of sound.

The pebbles on the ground began to bounce.

The glass of the searchlights around the platform creaked.

"They're here," Father Alpha announced.

At the heart of his logic, a massive mass was detected breaking through the atmosphere.

The clouds were violently torn apart.

A massive black ship slowly emerged from behind its menacing bow.

Unlike ordinary shuttles.

This is a heavy armed transport barge belonging to the Ministry of the Interior, codenamed "Terra's Burden".

Its size is astonishing, exceeding 500 meters in length and 200 meters in width.

The ship's surface is covered with thick Gothic armor.

Countless flying buttresses and spires cast in fine gold stand atop the stern of the ship.

It makes it look more like a flying, mobile cathedral than a spaceship.

Beneath the hull, twelve plasma thrusters spewed out blue-white flames.

The high-temperature airflow instantly evaporated the acid mist in the air.

The terrifying heatwave caused the ground temperature to rise sharply even at an altitude of thousands of meters.

"Everyone, head down, keep your balance!" Luo Wei shouted, while quickly crouching down and grabbing the fixed railing beside him.

Bill's private army was still in a daze.

The next second, the blast wave hit the ground.

"boom!"

The gale turned into a hurricane.

Dozens of private soldiers, who were standing loosely, were thrown to the ground by the gust of air, their weapons clattering to the floor.

Bill managed to stand up with the help of his heavy exoskeleton, but his massive body was also shaking violently, forcing him to extend his mechanical arm and grab a loader parked next to him.

The giant ship slowly descended.

A shadow fell over the entire D-4 area.

The artificial light source was swallowed up, and the world seemed to have entered night.

This is a kind of physical mass pressure, which is very pure.

With millions of tons of steel suspended overhead, the fear of them falling at any moment and crushing everything into dust made it difficult for everyone to breathe.

Accompanying the giant ship was the escort fleet.

Six dark blue Valkyrie gunships circled around the giant ship.

Under their bellies, multiple rocket pods were mounted, and the twin laser cannons on the nose and the heavy-explosive machine guns on the side doors were pointed unreservedly at the welcoming crowd on the ground.

The red laser sight swept across Bill and his men.

"Crack, boom."

The giant ship's hydraulic landing gear touched the ground.

The earth trembled violently.

Two meters thick reinforced concrete slabs, with several cracks rapidly spreading outwards from the landing gear as the center.

The engine stalled.

The roar of the thrusters gradually diminished, turning into the whistling of the turbines idling.

The hot air distorted the view.

Luo Wei then straightened up and dusted off his shoulders.

His expression remained unchanged, but his heart rate remained at a high frequency of 120 beats per minute.

He is observing and evaluating.

This ship is far larger than the tithe collection ships of previous years and the last quarter.

Last quarter, all that arrived was a medium-sized cargo shuttle, a few clerks, and a team of guards.

Today, it is an armed fortress.

This indicates that the situation at the front is worse than expected.

The empire's thirst for resources has reached the point where it is willing to use heavy fleets to plunder directly.

"Zzz."

On the belly of the giant ship, the heavy armored hatch slowly opened.

White hydraulic steam gushed out, forming a thin mist on the ground.

The metal plank slammed heavily onto the ground.

The entire platform was completely silent, save for the sound of the cold wind.

Footsteps sounded.

Neat and uniform, heavy and powerful.

"Tap, tap, tap."

The first to step forward were not civil servants from the Ministry of the Interior.

A group of warriors clad in black armor, standing in tight tactical formation, emerged from the smoke.

They wore full-face black helmets with only a red visor slit in their visors.

The heavy shoulder armor was emblazoned with a golden scales and sword emblem: the symbol of the Imperial Ministry of Justice.

They are arbitrators from the Ministry of Justice.

They held black, powered suppression shields in one hand and a short, stubby explosive shotgun in the other.

He had a thick stun baton and a stun grenade hanging from his waist.

They are the walking law, the most ruthless executors of the imperial will.

The arbitrators quickly dispersed, their movements as precise as machines.

They didn't even glance at the welcoming crowd, but quickly occupied the various strategic points on the platform, setting up portable bunkers and machine guns.

An arbitrator in charge of perimeter security strode toward Bill's private army.

One of Bill's men, who had been knocked down by the blast wave, was struggling to get up and pick up an automatic gun that had fallen inside the yellow warning line.

The gun was positioned just ten centimeters beyond the safe zone designated by the arbitrators.

The arbitrator did not issue a warning.

He simply strode forward, and using the momentum of his charge, slammed the power-operated suppression shield in his hand into the chest of the private soldier.

"Click."

A clear sound of bones cracking rang out.

Before the private soldier could even scream, he was thrown five or six meters away like a rag doll hit by a truck, crashing heavily to the ground.

He spat out blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, twitched twice, and then remained still.

The arbitrator withdrew his shield, not even glancing at the corpse on the ground.

He turned around, faced the restless crowd, and turned on the megaphone on his helmet.

"According to the Imperial Tithing Tax Collection Act - Wartime Special Provisions, any unauthorized person or object crossing the cordon within the collection area shall be deemed to be attacking Imperial property."

The cold, synthesized electronic sounds echoed across the platform.

"Those who disobey will be executed immediately."

These four words instantly extinguished the nascent anger that had just risen within Bill's private army.

Those thugs who had been shouting earlier were now pale-faced, gripping their weapons nervously, but none of them dared to raise their guns.

Because behind the arbitrator, two grenade launchers were pointed at their heads.

This is the red line.

Empires need no explanation, only obedience.

Bill's face turned very ugly.

His hands clenched into fists, and the exoskeleton creaked and groaned from overload.

Being humiliated like this on his own territory, in front of his own men, is unacceptable for a warlord who rules by prestige.

He was about to step forward.

A hand pressed down on his robotic arm.

Luo Wei appeared beside him unnoticed and said in a deep voice, "Don't act rashly. Those are arbitrators from the Ministry of Justice. They possess the 'on-site adjudication power' granted by the Empire."

"In their eyes, there are no leaders, no warlords, only two kinds of people: law-abiding citizens and corpses."

Rowe scanned the black armor.

"Look at their equipment; they're using the MK-IV Suppressor power shield and the Judgment type explosive shotgun."

"If your men dare to pull the trigger, this place will become a real slaughterhouse in three seconds. Your northern granary will be completely wiped off the map today."

Bill was breathing heavily, but he ultimately did not take that step.

Although he is reckless, he has survived until now not only because of his ruthlessness, but also because of his keen sense of death.

He could smell the true scent of death emanating from those black-armored warriors.