Warhammer: Open the door! Human League players!

Chapter 161 The Attack of the Cult of Mechanism

The Human Alliance's forced closure of the Corpse Starch Factory, fueled by various factions, spread rapidly within half a day, causing widespread unrest throughout Terra.

The Ministry of the Interior's communication efficiency has reached its highest level in ten thousand years at this moment.

The widespread famine, which had been deliberately concealed by the Ministry of the Interior, has been fully exposed, with Terra's food reserves reduced to only three days' worth.

Panic quickly spread among the common people and the upper-class nobility.

The continuous confiscation and purge of noble families plunged the entire Terran hereditary aristocracy into a life-or-death crisis.

The United People's Party (UPP) is an external force. The high-level purge they launched was ruthless, regardless of seniority, power, or background. Any nobles or officials involved in corruption, hoarding, exploiting the people, or condoning the tyranny of the dead were all included in the purge list, their property confiscated, and they were uprooted.

In just half a day, hundreds of noble and wealthy families collapsed.

These noble and powerful families possess enormous wealth, and each of them holds a high-ranking position in domestic affairs.

The surviving Terran nobles finally understood—this time it wasn't a political game, it was annihilation.

In order to survive, the major noble factions, which had been fighting and vying with each other for centuries, put aside all their personal grudges and formed an unprecedented, secret alliance.

High-ranking officials in the Ministry of the Interior, hereditary lords, and court nobles exchanged secret reports and shared intelligence, secretly colluding with the remaining conservative forces of the Inquisition, the extreme clergy of the State Religion, and the conservative faction of the Mechanism Church, preparing to fight back to the death, risking the fate of their entire race against the Human Alliance's thunderous purge.

Under the propaganda of a group of conservative forces, the outside world generally regarded the actions of the People's League as an invasion, and various parties gathered to protest under the banner of "purging the court of corrupt officials".

Within the Empire's established legal system, the Primarch, as a son of the Emperor, is born with legitimate legal authority and is therefore entitled to govern the country.

Kerenlian is an outsider, without any official imperial lineage or personal endorsement from the Divine Emperor.

Given the Emperor's condition, he cannot explicitly acknowledge the Human Alliance's status. If he were to do so, the Grey Knights would react defensively.

Therefore, the Human Alliance, lacking legal support, was naturally not recognized by the vast majority of forces in the Empire.

The undercurrents of the conspiracy could not be hidden from the high sage of the Cult of Machines, Caul, and the leader of the Sisters, Celestine. The two did not agree with the xenophobic views of the crowd, and fierce disputes broke out between them and the conservative faction in their respective high-level councils.

The gears hummed in the council hall of the Cult of the Machine God. A group of mechanical sages and forging monks gathered in the hall. The forging general, whose heavy cybernetic armor gleamed with a cold, hard metallic luster, questioned Caul, who stood opposite him, in a stern voice.

"The Humanoids of the Alliance have defied the Emperor's will! They are heretics, and you are attempting to overthrow the entire Mechanicus!"

Kaul returned to the Mechanicus and continued his efforts, secretly persuading a group of Sage Lords to accept the Human Alliance, thereby initiating a reform within the entire Mechanicus.

However, his actions were exposed by conservative sages.

The mechanical eyes of all the surrounding mechanical priests locked onto Kaul, and countless mechanical appendages trembled slightly, the entire scene filled with hostility towards Kaul.

A large amount of data streams kept testing Kaul.

They knew that Kaul was strong, but that multiple sages or lords could effectively suppress him.

At this moment, Caul merely glanced at the various sages of the Mechanicus Cult, the forging lords, and the data collided.

The powerful backflow of data caused several sages to crash instantly.

Sensing something was wrong, the many sages immediately took action simultaneously.

A violent electronic explosion occurred in the hall, and hundreds of sages and lords felt immense pressure.

"Are you kidding me!"

"Artificial intelligence! Kaul, this is a betrayal of Omnisiah!"

The data shows that one can defeat a hundred enemies, which is clearly the use of blasphemous technology. Only artificial intelligence that once nearly destroyed humanity could be combined with the power wielded by Kaul.

As the tubes around him shimmered with light, Caul calmly retorted, "I have never betrayed the God of Machines. Imperial technology is trapped in dilapidated ancient ruins, countless STCs have been permanently lost, and civilization continues to decline."

"The Human Union brings hope for breaking the deadlock; adapting to development is the mechanical sublimation that Omnisaya expects."

"Heretical! All technology originates from the God of Machines, and cannot be tampered with by outsiders!" The Forging General's tone grew increasingly sharp. "So-called new technology is a heretical product of a distorted machine soul. You are obsessed with external things and have betrayed the faith of the entire religion for millennia!"

"Clinging to backwardness and decay is not piety; it's just that you're unwilling to relinquish your vested interests," Caul retorted. "The tide of time cannot be stopped, and embracing change is the inevitable trend."

After this confrontation, the Mechanicus was completely divided, with the conservatives gaining the upper hand and regarding Kaul as a heretical sage who had deviated from the doctrine. Only a few enlightened monks secretly agreed with Kaul's views.

The holy light of the highest council of the Church of England filled the council hall. The Pope sat on the throne, with a group of cardinals and high-ranking clergy standing below. All eyes were solemnly fixed on Celestine.

"Celestin, as the leader of the Sisters and a saint of the God-Emperor, you are protecting Fang Yun, an outsider with no legal standing, and the entire Human Alliance."

Clerus, clad in holy armor, stood amidst a chorus of opposition, his expression calm: "I have remained true to my principles and have never betrayed the God-Emperor."

Fang Yun is a companion tacitly approved by the Divine Emperor; he is by no means an invader coveting the Empire.

The Pope's face darkened with anger upon hearing this: "The Holy Emperor is sacred and inviolable. The Primarch's wielding of power through blood is lawful and just. The Human Alliance's baseless and unfounded interference in Terra's affairs, including shutting down starch factories vital to the people's livelihood and causing famine, constitutes outright aggression!"

"The fact that starch factories rely on corpses to produce food is a distorted form of politics. The purpose of the People's Alliance to shut down the source of the chaos is to eradicate this abnormal way of life."

Celestine retorted in a deep voice, "You are using the name of protecting the Emperor to raise the banner of purging the court of corrupt officials, but in reality you are afraid of the existing order being broken and are deliberately eliminating the new forces that can save the Empire."

The debate between the two sides yielded no results, and the Church of England split. The vast majority of clergy followed the Pope in opposing the Union of Peoples, but Celestine stood firm and defended the Union of Peoples alone among the Church's leadership.

With the two main sects splitting one after another, the conservative forces of the Empire are becoming increasingly united. Relying on legal principles and religious righteousness, they continue to exert pressure, making the Human Alliance's situation in Terra increasingly difficult. Only Kaul and Celestine have become some of the few high-level supporters who can help them gain a foothold in the Holy City.

It was precisely at this moment, when the court was completely torn apart and the conflict between the sects intensified, that Guilliman and Feralas saw through the Empire’s deepest fatal predicament—the Primarch, though seemingly in power as regent, had never truly grasped all of the Empire’s military power.

For Guilliman, it would have taken only a few months to gradually replace and purge this group of corrupt hereditary nobles and completely straighten out the internal order of Terra.

But now the continuous turmoil has completely consumed all his time and energy, making it impossible to make progress in the short term.

Although Ferrus held the main force of the Imperial Navy and several Astartes Legions, barely stabilizing the core combat power, the control of the Empire's massive mortal legions, local garrisons, and planetary defense forces was still affected by hereditary nobles and veteran bureaucrats because his confidants were still in the army.

This group of resentful and disgruntled lords and bureaucrats could incite their troops to stage a mutiny at any time, shaking the very foundations of Terra's rule.

The potential rebellion of the mortal army is still within Felus's control. The truly deadly and most difficult-to-deal-with hidden danger is actually the Mechanicus.

The Cult of Mechanicus has a monopoly and complete control over all the fleets, naval systems, Titan armaments, fortress defenses, and even all combat equipment of the entire empire.

In other words, at this moment, the only real power that Felus and Guilliman truly held was their own Astartes Legion.

Once the Ministry of the Interior, local warlords, conservative nobles, and the Mechanicus collude and form an alliance of interests, their combined power will expand instantly, enough to bypass the will of the two Primarchs and privately mobilize the Imperial regular army to achieve their own selfish desires and political goals.

The empire never lacked officials; tens of millions of bureaucrats served throughout its territory.

Those who truly hold top-level power and can influence the landscape of Terra are only a mere ten thousand people.

Yet this very small number of top-ranking nobles suffered a devastating blow under the People's Alliance's swift and decisive purge. Within half a day, hundreds of high-ranking nobles were purged, and nearly one-tenth of the empire's high-ranking county officials and hereditary lords perished in this rapid power reshuffle.

The once unified and centralized Holy Terra has been cracked by an undeniable power divide amidst undercurrents.

The situation deteriorated completely, and the surviving nobles were all in a state of panic.

In order to survive, all the remaining top Terran nobles completely abandoned their infighting and, under the guidance of the High Lord, formed a life-or-death alliance with veteran officials of the Ministry of the Interior at its core.

They mobilized their family's private army, hired assassins, contacted the state religion's hidden forces, and borrowed the secret combat power of the Mechanicus Cult, sparing no expense to set up a deadly trap, preparing to ambush the Human Alliance forces that came to raid their home, and desperately reverse their fate of destruction.

According to the list, the Human Alliance dispatched a total of one hundred mechanical humanoids controlled by players from other worlds to form a hundred-person extermination team, heading straight for this top noble mansion in Terra to carry out the mission of sealing off, arresting, and clearing out the criminals.

When the orderly formation of a hundred mechanical humanoid figures broke through the manor's massive gate and stepped into the private residence of this top-tier nobleman, all the players were shocked by the extremely extravagant and decadent scene before them.

"Holy crap, the nobles of the Empire really know how to play."

The long corridor, paved entirely with top-grade obsidian, stretches into the depths, its walls inlaid with ancient colored crystals that have vanished from the starry sea, and the eternal lamp forged from star mineral crystals floats in the dome.

Layer upon layer of villas, private sanctuaries, jeweled pavilions, and flowing courtyards stretch endlessly, piled high with priceless treasures plundered from countless star fields in the Milky Way. Even the tableware of the lowest-ranking servants is crafted from precious metals and rare crystals.

Outside the walls, hundreds of millions of civilians in Terra starved to death, and the people lived in constant fear; inside the walls, the nobles indulged in extravagance, squandered wealth, and hoarded mountains of riches.

The extreme wealth gap and the decadent extravagance of the powerful sent chills down the spines of all players.

Inside the main hall of the mansion, the high-ranking officials of the Ministry of the Interior, dressed in brocade robes, along with a group of elegantly dressed noblewomen and aristocratic sons, did not flee. Instead, they sat upright in the hall, their eyes sinister and their faces full of disdain.

Upon seeing the hundred mechanical humanoids lined up in neat rows, the noble official sneered, his voice arrogant and sarcastic: "These foreign stray dogs dare to trespass upon the sacred residence of the Terran nobility? Do you really think you can overthrow the millennia-old orthodoxy of the Empire with just a few iron bodies?"

The elegantly made-up noblewoman beside him also shouted sternly, "You monstrous hybrids, trampling on the order of the Divine Emperor! We are hereditary nobles appointed by the Divine Emperor, of legitimate blood. You are nothing but barbarians from beyond the borders, utterly ignorant of your own mortality!"

The noble youths cursed and shouted angrily, their eyes filled with contempt and hostility towards the Human Alliance.

The high-ranking official raised his hand and waved it sharply: "Kill these usurpers! Let the barbarians from beyond the borders see the majesty of the Terran nobility!"

A dense swarm of private guards and heavily armored assassins immediately rushed out from the rear of the hall, wielding pyrotechnic guns and power axes.

Imperial standard-issue weaponry charged fearlessly toward the hundred-man mechanical humanoid formation.

However, the mechanical humanoid controlled by the player outperforms ordinary human weapons, with an indestructible alloy body and rapid-fire standard weapons.

In a short time, tens of thousands of elite noble guards were slaughtered, their corpses littering the magnificent corridors and their blood staining the exquisite floor tiles.

The arrogant shouts of the nobles in the mansion instantly turned into expressions of terror.

Just as the player's forces were steadily advancing, clearing out the remaining armed forces in the mansion layer by layer, and about to complete the mission, flames and gunshots suddenly erupted from the walls, hidden chambers, beams, and underground passages of the entire mansion!

The state religious ascetics, secret agents of the Inquisition, noble assassin legions, and the Mechanicus's ambush units, who had been lying in wait for days, launched their attack simultaneously. Countless molten beams of light, explosive bombs, and electromagnetic restraint devices poured down from all directions, densely covering the entire mansion.

This was a deadly ambush laid by the nobles after they banded together, using all their resources to annihilate the Human Alliance's extermination forces in one fell swoop, making an example of them to break the Human Alliance's high-pressure purge.

The interior of the mansion was instantly transformed into a brutal battlefield.

Despite the danger, the 100-player robotic warriors remained calm and quickly formed a battle formation to counterattack, relying on their superior mobility and firepower to launch a furious counterattack.

Despite the fearless and relentless advance of the Imperial elite troops lying in ambush, they could not withstand the coordinated advance of a hundred robotic humanoids.

"These are heretics!" The sages of the Cult of Machines who were secretly manipulating all of this had an extreme aversion to those mechanical humanoids, while many sages and lords also showed greed on their faces.

The ambush troops fell in droves and were completely wiped out; all the ambushes inside the mansion were quickly slaughtered by the players.

The mansion was filled with smoke and littered with corpses, and the deadly trap set by the nobles had completely failed.

The surviving high-ranking officials and nobles collapsed to the ground, their faces deathly pale, and roared in despair, "Impossible!! My empire is legitimate, protected by the Divine Emperor!"

Just as the nobles were in despair and the players were about to complete the purge—

Outside the mansion, on a remote highland wasteland, a giant lava destruction device of the Mechanicocracy slowly started up.

This is the ultimate weapon specially designed by the Mechanicus to completely erase the battlefield, reclaim Human Alliance technology, and cooperate with the nobles' conspiracy. It is designed for total destruction and indiscriminate cleanup.

A terrifying torrent of energy gathered, compressed, and surged at the muzzle of the cannon, and a dazzling crimson beam of molten light pierced the sky of Terra and crashed down on the entire noble mansion!

An endless torrent of scorching lava instantly engulfed the kilometer-long manor, its extreme heat melting fossils, vaporizing metals, and incinerating all living things and buildings.

The magnificent noble courtyard, the layered palaces and pavilions, the remaining nobles, noblewomen, young masters, and the last remaining guards and assassins hidden within were all instantly dissolved and reduced to ashes.

A terrifying shockwave swept across the area, indiscriminately bombarding all units within the field.

The hundred player-controlled robots, which had just finished a bloody battle, had no time to evacuate and were all directly covered by the giant lava firepower.

A deafening roar shook the heavens and the earth; a violent explosion swept across the entire block.

One hundred sophisticated mechanical bodies exploded, shattered, and dismembered in succession. The power core overloaded and exploded, and precision circuits, alloy limbs, and intelligent components flew everywhere. The entire hundred-person mechanical humanoid extermination team was wiped out.

The entire luxurious aristocratic mansion was completely razed to the ground.

Before the heat of the artillery fire had subsided, the Mechanicus servants, who had been waiting on the perimeter, rushed into the ruins at full speed. They skillfully cleared away the high-temperature molten slag and methodically collected, packed, and sealed all the mechanical humanoid remains, core debris, and precision parts.

They did not linger in battle or leave any trace. Once the reconnaissance was complete, they immediately withdrew from Terra's main city, and the transport fleet sped towards the depths of space, heading straight for Mars.

At this moment, within the Human Alliance's command center, Anna was still unaware of the complete conspiracy behind the nobles' desperate counterattack, the Mechanicus's final cleansing, and the plunder of technology. She had not yet realized that this was a plan to harvest the Human Alliance's mechanical technology.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she quickly looked up, her slender fingertips rapidly swiping across the main control screen to bring up the global interstellar monitoring star map.

On the enormous holographic screen, several transport fleets laden with mechanical wreckage transformed into crimson dots, their trajectories unusually orderly.

With a unified direction, they are rapidly moving away from the Terra star system, traversing the vast sea of ​​stars, heading towards Mars, that ancient, crimson planet hiding endless secrets and mechanisms.

"An attack on the Human Rights Alliance?"

"How dare you!"