Warhammer begins in 2026

In M15, humanity officially launched its intersolar colonization expansion, with massive numbers of colony ships and elite formations taking off daily from near-Earth orbit. In a secluded private estate nestled in the heart of Britain, a constantly lit, light blue arcade features five floating holographic game pods arranged side-by-side. Huang Feng, Neos, Macardo, Erda, and Olpeson, wearing neural-connected headbands, are immersed in the wildly popular hardcore virtual reality game "Ember of the Galaxy," currently tackling the highest-difficulty large-scale raid dungeon, "The Spider's Room."

The team composition is fixed: Huang Feng plays a ranged psionic archer, clad in dark-patterned bone-scale armor, wielding a rare level 70 armor-piercing longbow; Neos is a heavy-armored Templar Knight, his entire body covered in reflective titanium alloy plate armor, obscuring most of his face, leaving only a slit for vision; Macado is an arcane elemental mage, his robes and ribbons having holographic flowing light effects; Erda is a fragile shadow assassin, his figure semi-transparent throughout, easily detected as invisible by the system even when standing still; Olpeson is a heavily armored berserker, wielding a two-meter-long serrated giant axe, serving as the team's off-tank; the last to fill in is the priest Su Jinyu, an immortal friend Huang Feng randomly matched with in a dungeon three days ago, specializing in mental soothing and group instant healing, and has known Macado for a long time, their friendship spanning nearly ten thousand years.

Huang Feng's team had four members, but they were missing a healer. He casually clicked the system's random matchmaking option and was immediately matched with Su Jinyu. At that moment, Makado had just finished adjusting his spells. Seeing his teammate's ID, his pupils dilated in shock, and his finger accidentally pressed the wrong casting hotkey, releasing a useless ball of illuminating starlight. He stood there stunned for a full three seconds before muttering, "With so many players online across the entire galaxy, you can still get a friend in random matchmaking? Your luck is good enough to win the lottery!"

"GGG, let's start!" Huang Feng stretched his wrists in the game pod, nocked an arrow and rested his longbow on his shoulder. His voice was crisp and decisive. "Just follow the normal battle formation, don't steal aggro."

The dungeon entrance was a metal gate covered in spiderwebs. The moment it was pushed open, a stench of decay and dampness assaulted the senses through the holographic olfactory simulation. Neos immediately stepped to the front, raising his shield to block. The heavy tower shield wedged itself into a crack in the ground to stabilize his center of gravity, but as soon as he entered, he stepped into a spiderweb trap hidden underground. His ankles were instantly bound by elastic spiderwebs, and the two-meter-tall heavily armored knight staggered forward, almost falling face-first to the ground.

Olpeson, as the off-tank, couldn't help but burst out laughing. His giant axe venomously venomously splattered across his shoulder armor, instantly drawing massive aggro and getting ganged up on by the spiders. Su Jinyu frantically used two instant heals, emptying a third of his mana bar. He sighed helplessly, "Don't laugh! If the off-tank gets distracted, the whole team will be wiped out."

The front corridor was densely covered with small worker spiders, numbering over a hundred. Huang Feng drew her longbow, and psionic arrows spread out in a fan shape, clearing out more than thirty worker spiders in the front row with a single volley. The mental suppression effect of the arrows directly paralyzed the spiders' nerves, perfectly matching her group psionic characteristics in reality. Makado stood in the back row, raising his hand to chant Arcane Storm, and purple lightning swept across the entire corridor. However, the mage's spell had a full five-second cast time, during which two spiders that slipped through the web climbed up the wall to Makado's head and crawled into the collar of the mage's robe.

The usually aloof and unflappable Makado broke down on the spot, stiffening his body and shrugging, his tone expressionless yet revealing his annoyance: "Help me clean the top of my head."

Erda remained invisible the entire time, intending to ambush the Spider Queen Priest in the back row, but instead became engrossed in looting, circling the corridors to collect rare shell materials dropped by spiders, without dealing any damage. Several times, Huang Feng marked elite monsters, but Erda ignored them until the elite monster broke through the tank line and lunged at Su Jinyu. Only then did she slowly appear, slicing off the monster's neck with two strikes, and immediately went back into stealth to loot the corpse. She was a pure, passive assassin in the dungeon.

The first four levels of mobs took three hours to clear, and everyone was starting to feel mentally exhausted. Neos, as the main tank, repeatedly raised his shield, taunted, and blocked. The heavy armor made the operation tedious. He took off his headband, took a sip of water, and complained expressionlessly, "The mobs in this game have more health than the mini-bosses. The cost-effectiveness is extremely low."

The final boss, the Spider Queen, fell from the top of her nest. Measuring a full ten meters in size, her abdomen was swollen with egg sacs, and her eight long, arthropod legs could tear through the alloy ground. She also unleashed a wide-area spray of paralyzing spider silk. In the first engagement, the Queen unleashed a global web, trapping all four members of the party, except for the invisible Erda, in mid-air. Macado's face was completely obscured by the silk, his vision blacked out, and he frantically cast spells, nearly hitting his own main tank. Olpeson struggled so violently that he snapped the handle of his battle axe, rendering the weapon unusable.

Erda, the only free player on the field, didn't immediately try to rescue her teammates. Instead, she circled around the Queen to observe the weak points the dagger was piercing. She also took a funny screenshot of her teammates being bound by spider webs, saving it to post on her friends list later.

Huang Feng, relying on the archer's nimble wrist adjustments, severed the spider silk in front of him, continuously weakening the Queen Mother's eyes from a distance; Su Jinyu, enduring the skill's stun effect, activated a group mental calming aura to counteract the Queen Mother's inherent mental erosion debuff, stabilizing the entire team's chaotic mental state. After a fierce battle lasting two and a half hours, the Queen Mother's abdominal egg sacs exploded, and her massive body crashed onto the spider silk ground, completely losing its life.

Everyone slumped in the game pod, sighing collectively. Huang Feng rubbed his aching shoulders and neck, his face full of admiration: "How come this game takes so long to complete a dungeon? It took us an entire afternoon. If we don't get the Assassin's best weapon, we're complete innocent victims."

As per team agreement, Erda was given priority to loot the assassin's exclusive weapon. Erda deactivated her stealth, leisurely crawled to the location of the Queen's head, and looted the corpse. The other four simultaneously withdrew from combat alert and began chatting. Huang Feng glanced at Neos and Macardo, who had removed their headbands, and looked through the game pod window at the streaks of colony ships constantly streaking across the sky: "Humanity has begun to expand outwards. The Iron Legion is sweeping through the surrounding star sectors. Aren't you going to help out? You still have time to play games and slack off?"

Makado wiped his mage gloves, his tone calm: "Humanity doesn't need us now. They can already mass-produce all types of STCs stably and autonomously iterate their Iron Man units. At this stage, no native civilization in the entire galaxy can stop human expansion. It's enough for us to just watch."

Huang Feng unconsciously tapped the outer wall of the game pod with her fingertips, her expression darkening. She knew perfectly well that peace would only last ten thousand years. Ten thousand years later, the autonomous AI Iron Man would rebel across the entire galaxy, unleashing a galactic mechanical war that would sweep through all human colonies; then, a massive global subspace storm would erupt without warning, severing all fixed star paths in the Milky Way, completely cutting off trillions of scattered colonies from each other, crippling intergalactic logistics and communication, and plunging the brilliant golden age into a chaotic old night of civilizations fighting each other and resources depleting. Even Neos, who could freely traverse subspace, would only be able to protect herself then, powerless to save the entire galaxy.

Previously, Huang Feng had privately spoken with Neos five times, hoping that he would use his subspace privileges and immortality to lay the groundwork for humanity's future civilization, such as sealing the core STC and reserving refuge starfields. However, Neos remained consistent in his stance: humanity's path must be paved by humanity itself; forced intervention from external forces would only distort the evolution of civilization, leading to a worse outcome.

Huang Feng was furious about this and even devised an extreme plan: taking advantage of humanity's peak combat power during the Golden Age and before the subspace storms could take hold, he would select a group of harmless, technologically advanced humans, equipped with a full set of STCs, protective armaments, and subspace jump engines, to relocate directly to the Andromeda Galaxy, completely escaping the galactic catastrophe and leaving the native Milky Way galaxy to its own devices to deal with the calamity. However, after this idea was proposed, Macardo, Neos, Erda, and Olpeson all rejected it; no one was willing to voluntarily sever human civilization.

This incident troubled Huang Feng for nearly a year, until he was matched with Su Jinyu and slowly began to let go. Su Jinyu has a gentle and easygoing personality, and her unique spiritual energy can silently soothe mental anxiety, which perfectly counteracts Huang Feng's internal emotional turmoil. She is obsessed with sculpture and the aesthetics of light and shadow, and in her spare time, she often drags Huang Feng and Erda to the deserted wilderness and high-altitude clouds of Earth for sightseeing. The only exception is that she is extremely opposed to Neos, and every time they meet, she will subconsciously take a half step back, avoid eye contact, and have zero communication.

Huang Feng mediated multiple times and helplessly explained: "He looks cold and aloof, like a villain, but he's actually a top-tier otaku. He has no hobbies other than exploring subspace and technology. He's extremely introverted, doesn't chat with strangers, and is never wary of acquaintances."

To ease tensions between the two, Huang Feng organized four dinners. At each table, Neos kept his head down, drinking tea without uttering a word; Su Jinyu stared at her plate the entire time. The two remained two meters apart, exchanging not a single word, not even a glance. After observing this several times, Huang Feng completely gave up and abandoned any attempt to break the ice.

At this moment, Erda walked back to the game pod, brandishing a curved dagger with a blade that gleamed with shadowy light and twisted patterns, and said in a calm tone: "It's out, [Shadow Ripper], the best weapon for the Assassin version."

Huang Feng glanced at the real-time display in the upper right corner and immediately exited the game login screen: "Log off, time for dinner. Outdoor barbecue in the courtyard tonight, all drinks ready."

As night fell, warm lights illuminated the manor courtyard, and long barbecue tables were set up on the stone floor. Olpeson volunteered to grill the meat, but his skills were a disaster; the steaks were charred and smoking, filling the courtyard with smoke. Neos, stung by the smoke, silently raised his hand and used his psionic energy to disperse it, his expression one of utter frustration. Macado, having accurately predicted the mishap, had already instructed his servants to prepare the food.

A few people lounged in small groups on wicker deck chairs, sipping low-alcohol fruit wine and sparkling drinks while gazing up at the night sky. Countless colony ships, trailing pale blue ion tails, shot out of Earth's orbit like meteors, heading towards the outer reaches of the solar system, stretching endlessly. The evening breeze carried the fragrance of grass and trees, offering a panoramic view of the peaceful prosperity of the Golden Age.

Huang Feng downed three glasses of fruit wine in a row. He had a very low alcohol tolerance and soon became drunk. His cheeks turned red and his eyes became unfocused. He turned to the side and raised his hand to slap Neos' arm hard without any restraint: "Give me some strength! If you just watch humans fall into the abyss, then people will really wish they were dead."

Neos sidestepped her elbow, his expression calm and his tone composed: "Right now, I am just an ordinary psionicist. I do not have the power to shake the course of the galaxy. Forcibly intervening will only trigger a greater chain of disasters."

"He's drunk again." Erda sighed skillfully, and she and Su Jinyu supported Huang Feng, whose legs were weak. Huang Feng was still muttering about the idea of ​​relocating to the Andromeda Galaxy, his head leaning on Erda's shoulder, his steps unsteady. The two of them slowly helped him back to his bedroom, and he almost tripped on the stone steps in the courtyard along the way.

Only Neos, Macardo, and Olpesson remained in the courtyard. Macardo and Olpesson both looked at Neos, their gazes then falling on the half-empty bottle of fruit wine Huang Feng had left in his hand. They exchanged a glance, then silently tilted their heads back and drank their beverages. They possessed infinite lifespans, but ultimately they were not omniscient and omnipotent gods; faced with the impending catastrophe, all of them were helpless.