Inside the Space Elevator.
The elevator.
Brandon ended the call. A teasing voice came from beside him. "What do you think? If we confront Fu Haoran now, will he panic and bite our heads off?"
"Yeah, right. How could he? Unless he starts shelling us—but would he dare?" Brandon replied confidently.
"Even a fool knows how important the Starport is. If he goes crazy, can he even repair it?"
"Has anyone ever dared attack a Starport during a war?"
The noble adviser Mikhail nodded in agreement. "Exactly. If he dares touch the Starport, the people down below will hang him before the Imperial Fleet even has to lift a finger."
"So he can only sit on his throne and watch us leave."
"Then wait to be crushed to death by three hundred years of tax bills."
Brandon laughed. Everything had gone according to his calculations. He raised his glass and called out,
"To that idiot!"
"Cheers!"
Just as the glasses were about to clink, an explosion rang out without warning.
Not just one.
A whole barrage!
Then came a violent shaking!
"Look outside! What's falling?"
Someone pointed at the porthole and shouted. Everyone looked over and saw countless fragments raining down.
An absurd thought surfaced in everyone's mind, one they could hardly believe:
"Has he gone mad? He really dared to shell the place?!"
Fu Haoran leaped aboard the Valkyrie Transport and headed for the spaceport.
From above, the Space Elevator, once a steel backbone, was now shattered, with smoke billowing from it.
It hadn't collapsed, but it was useless now.
A classic case of hurting the enemy by eight hundred and yourself by a thousand.
But Fu Haoran didn't care.
"If I can't have a good time, nobody else can either!"
When Fu Haoran climbed down from the transport, two soldiers were holding Brandon down against the metal floor. Brandon stared up at him like he was a madman.
Beside him were Vasily, Mikhail, and seven other ringleaders.
Their families had been gathered in a corner. The children's cries mingled with the women's sobs.
Seeing Fu Haoran jump down from the transport, Brandon struggled to lift his head and shouted a curse. "You're insane... Fu Haoran, you're fucking insane! How dare you blow up the Starport!"
Fu Haoran crouched and used his scepter to lift Brandon's chin, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"Brandon, who gave you the impression I was an easygoing man?"
"Since you wanted to get me killed, I don't mind killing you first. At least we can keep each other company in hell."
Fu Haoran stood and looked away.
"Finished counting?"
Wade nodded. "The storage area is intact. We seized seven shuttles and three large cargo barges."
"Also, about 100,000 tons of high-purity Promethium fuel, 1.2 million Lasgun batteries of various models, 500 hundred tons of Adamantium ingots, and..."
He paused. "A batch of unregistered precision-manufactured jewelry and artworks, valued very highly."
Fu Haoran glanced at the total on the Data Pad. The numbers left him feeling conflicted.
He looked at Brandon's ashen face and sneered.
"You've got quite an appetite. What you took could've supplied us for another major battle."
Fu Haoran's gaze fell on the families, devoid of pity. "Sell them all as slaves."
The people breathed a sigh of relief, thinking they were going to live.
But Fu Haoran's next words made them feel ice-cold all over.
"Sell them to the Mechanicus Cult. I hear they've been short on materials for Servitors lately."
Fu Haoran turned and headed for the transport. A system notification appeared at once.
[Achievement upgraded: Game Breaker (Intermediate)] [Description: You proved through your actions that within Macro-cannon range, all economic principles and the rules of vested interests are nothing but hot air.] [Reward: Universal Points +666, Charisma +6] [Main Quest Imperial Duty: Tithe Collection progress updated] [Current progress: 8%]
Fu Haoran leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
He calculated the leverage he had, but no matter how he added it up, it wasn't enough.
Not even close to covering the Tithe.
"Let's check the state of my territory first," Fu Haoran told himself.
Then he was completely dumbfounded.
[Tax Arrears Correlation Analysis: S-4 Planet Economic Assessment] [Status: Systemic Collapse] [Financial Status: Severe Deficit] [Achievement Earned: Messy Situation] [Universal Points +555] [System Note: Congratulations, you've started on Hell difficulty. But remember, the Empire never keeps idlers, especially tax-delinquent ones.]
Fu Haoran's vision went black. Heart sinking, he asked, "System, when is the Empire coming to collect taxes?"
[Imperial Ministry of Interior tax ship estimated arrival in... 60...]
"Oh, there are still 60 months."
Fu Haoran breathed a sigh of relief. In the Warhammer Universe, time was often counted in decades or even centuries.
A tax ship arriving in a few months was perfectly normal.
[...Arriving in 60 minutes]
Fu Haoran's brain stalled. He rubbed his eyes.
[Countdown: 59:47]
"Fuck!"
Fu Haoran gritted his teeth and opened the quest details. When he saw the amount of tax owed, he nearly exploded on the spot.
Nine hundred million tons of military-grade metal ingots, 1.2 billion Lasgun batteries, four billion tons of Corpse Starch, fifteen million eligible recruits...
The worst part was that, based on the planet's current production capacity recovering to its prewar levels, it would take thirty years of nonstop production at full capacity!
Fu Haoran's vision went black.
Thirty years to pay it off?
"In other words, even if I get the chance, I'll still have to spend thirty years in this shithole?!"
"Wait, there are alternative tax offsets. There's hope!"
Fu Haoran hurriedly opened the options.
[Option One: Blood Tithe]: Surrender the planet's adult population to offset most material dues. Risk: Population -60%, labor force -90%, chance of Riot +70%, planetary defenses -60% [Option Two: Resource Compensation]: Surrender rare minerals (Adamantium, Promethium, etc.)/technology. Restriction: Approval rating with the great nobles and Machine Cult must exceed 90. Current approval rating: 0 [Option Three: Military Equipment Levy]: Deliver weapons/vehicles meeting Imperial standards. Restriction: Planetary arms factories are inoperative; only a small amount of obsolete equipment remains. Tax offset: less than 1%. [Option Four: Strategic Material Compensation]: Offset taxes with strategic supplies such as purified water, compressed food, and canned goods, subject to approval by the tax official. Current reserves: 0
"Blood Tithe? Before I can pay the tax, the lower classes will riot and hang me from a lamppost."
"Resources? Those nobles look at me like I'm already dead."
"Military equipment won't work either. All the antiques in the warehouse wouldn't amount to a hill of beans."
Fu Haoran's gaze locked onto option four.
The Warhammer Universe was overpopulated, and food was scarce to an almost unimaginable degree.
The lower classes on Hive Worlds survived on Corpse Starch.
At first, the stuff had been a byproduct of refining Promethium: industrial waste was dumped into machines and squeezed into a sticky energy paste, bitter, fishy, and radioactive.
Otherwise, why wouldn't it be called Promethium Starch?
As for natural food?
That was a luxury the nobles of the Upper Hive could only occasionally taste.
"Wait. If I have a lot of canned goods, could I use them to offset the taxes?"
Fu Haoran remembered that back in the 2K era, someone had traded canned goods to the Soviet Union for planes. There was no reason it wouldn't work in Warhammer!
"System, bring up the Imperial Strategic Material Tax Offset Conversion Table! Focus on the conversion rates for natural food!"
The interface refreshed, and lines of data scrolled past.
When he saw that one case of Standard Meat Canned Goods counted as 100 tons of Corpse Starch, Fu Haoran suddenly felt a huge weight lift from his shoulders.
A loophole.
A massive loophole!
"If I can get enough canned goods, maybe I can solve the Tithe problem. But where can I get that much canned food? And I still need the Ministry of Internal Affairs to approve it." A crazy plan instantly took shape in his mind.
Bring in canned goods through interdimensional travel, then use the Empire's loophole in the materials conversion rates to pay the tax!
Fu Haoran was about to plan it out further when the countdown caught his eye—47 minutes and 58 seconds.
"Shit! System, I want to cross over!"
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