The Great Purge (Part 2)

"Attention, all residents. In accordance with wartime control regulations, a curfew and blackout are now in effect. All residents are instructed to stay at home, lock your doors and windows, do not go out, do not turn on lights, and do not trust the words of any strangers. Repeat, attention, all residents..."

Armed police officers rode in patrol cars welded with steel plates, mounted large loud-speakers on the roofs, patrolled and monitored along all main thoroughfares, and repeatedly broadcasted the wartime control regulations.

The Underhive, which used to be brightly lit at night like a city that never slept, had once again plunged into pitch black, as if returning to the old days.

Only a few roads completely controlled by the armed police with established fixed checkpoints had scattered points of light.

Most of these roads led to the secret passages of various nobles. In addition to checkpoints, there were a large number of workers wearing bright yellow reflective work clothes coming and going, busy to an extreme degree.

Some drove heavy trucks, transporting large plasteel blocks to various passages; others drove engineering machinery to move the plasteel blocks to the entrances of the passages, completely blocking them off.

In the few areas where the roads were narrow and engineering vehicles could not pass, workers wearing sapper exoskeletons carried the plasteel blocks inside by brute force.

The Underhive, Carter District.

Liam, who had just reported for duty at the Water Cycle Purification System Engineering Department and had only been a recorder for a few days, listened to the broadcast coming from outside the pipes with a terrified expression.

He had barely started doing decent work for two days, and had not even decided whether to send the children to the orphanage. How could a war suddenly break out?

How long would it last this time, and could he go back to work after the battle was over?

Although as a recorder, he received an extra 10 kilograms of starch as salary every day, coupled with the food and water he had saved up before, he could still last for a while, but not for very long.

He had been working for less than half a month, and had hardly received much salary at all. Not to mention the children under his care, every single one of them was in a growing phase and ate more than the last.

"Brother Liam, I'm hungry." Another child was shouting of hunger.

Liam tore a small piece off the compressed starch block and fed it to the child who was crying of hunger.

While chewing the compressed starch, the child asked, "Why can't we go out and play at night? Can we go out tomorrow?"

With the improvement of public security in the Underhive, the children who could previously only curl up in the darkness of abandoned passages, whose skin had even turned pale white, could finally go out to get some fresh air.

This naturally made the children very happy, but just as they had been happy for two days, Brother Liam suddenly forbade them to go out again, so the children naturally could not be happy.

Liam sighed. "Maybe, maybe so. Go to sleep first, be good."

"Oh, okay." The child acknowledged, groping and crawling back to the resting place in the pitch-black passage.

Because of Liam's contribution, the resting area, which originally had nothing, was also padded with some discarded clothing so that the children would not feel miserable all over after sleeping.

Listening to the repeated broadcast outside, Liam sighed again.

He hoped Lord Angel's side would win. Even if they had only spent a few days of normal life, he did not want to return to his previous life.

Liam's thoughts were also the thoughts of most Underhive residents, and this was why the workers responded actively.

Thanks to this, good news came one after another from the command post established at the exit of the largest passage in the mid-lower underhive.

Old John looked at the various passage entrances marked on the holographic sand table, which were being rapidly blocked by various teams.

There were no riots or chaos in the Underhive, and even the Badab Ecclesiarchy, which had previously been in conflict, now obediently tucked their tails between their legs and behaved themselves.

No remnant nobles were escaping from the passages of the mid-lower underhive now either.

The brother units in the Midhive were very capable, Old John thought to himself.

The entire blockade mission was largely completed, and the rest was to check for omissions and fill the gaps.

Unlike the calm Underhive, the Midhive was already ablaze with artillery fire.

The Midhive, Becker Machine Plant.

As one of the core properties of the Becker Family, most of the employees of the machine plant were extremely loyal to the Becker Family.

Therefore, facing the calls of the armed police, the processing plant not only did not surrender, but instead enclosed the core factory area, attempting to put up a stubborn resistance.

The commander of the 3rd Regiment of the 6th Special Operations Division looked through binoculars at the processing plant that had sealed off all entrances and exits, and angrily punched a bunker.

Not only had these bastards designed the outer factory area like a labyrinth, causing the first wave of surprise attacks to fail in breaking straight through to the core area, but now they still dared to refuse surrender and attempt a stubborn resistance. They truly were damned to hell!

"Continue broadcasting." The commander shouted to the armed police, and issued another order, "Demolitions team, get ready. Start preparing for demolition right as the broadcast is happening."

"People inside the plant, listen up. The Becker family has forsaken the God-Emperor and turned to the heretics..."

The call to surrender quickly sounded again, and the five members of the demolitions team carried melta bombs, swapped all their extra load for plasteel ballistic plates, and then rushed rapidly toward the factory building at a sprint speed under the auxiliary power of their exoskeletons.

Despite the intricate road environment of the factory, the demolitions team still rushed through a distance of more than one kilometer in just two minutes, arriving beneath the wall of the core area, and planted the melta bombs.

Receiving the ready signal from the demolitions team, the commander excitedly punched the bunker again.

"Demolitions team did well. Order the whole regiment to prepare for assault."

A few minutes later, following the loud roar of the melta bomb, the thick plasteel wall was blasted directly open with a large hole.

The commander leaped up and charged fiercely toward the breach, taking the lead: "All units, assault! Hack these bastards to pieces!"

"Bang, bang, bang!"

"Boom!"

A small number of automated turrets on the walls of the core area began to fire, attempting to stop the assault pace of the special operations division.

However, the Chimera Support Vehicle, which had already been poised for action, also took aim and opened fire, and its large-caliber automatic cannons directly destroyed the automated turrets.

The commander, who had already rushed to the breach, looked back and found that shells from an automated turret had smashed into the assault team, causing many people to fall to the ground, their lives or deaths unknown.

"Damn it, crimes compounded!"

Raising his bolter, he rushed straight into the core factory building from the breach.

Some workers of the Becker Family held autoguns, attempting to use the complex environment of the factory building to fight urban warfare with the special operations division.

However, bolts not only possessed attitude control systems, but the shattered diamond shrapnel after the explosion was just as lethal as offensive grenades.

Faced with the small grenades that could turn corners and change directions on their own, these workers basically only had time to fire a single shot before being blown into sieves.

The special operations division did not need to think about how to break open bunkers at all; bolts and warhead fragments would find the enemies by themselves.

As for the workers who had not undergone rigorous training, the autoguns in their hands had a hard time hitting the personnel of the special operations division. Even if they hit, the insufficiently powerful ordinary warheads could only leave slight dents on the plasteel ballistic plates, unable to harm the soldiers inside the exoskeletons.

Meanwhile, the soldiers of the special operations division, whose drills had reached Level 3 "Well-Trained", utilized their equipment advantage to charge and strike fiercely, rapidly breaking through the fragile defense line organized by the workers.

In a state of comprehensive inferiority in terms of numbers, equipment, training level, and morale, in less than half an hour, the Becker Machine Plant was completely controlled.