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Chapter 802 [244] [Motalian]
Something came and stopped in front of me. In the thick poisonous gas of the night, I recognized it as a strange, ugly convoy. Most of the creatures that made up the convoy were things stitched together from corpses, and I could smell the aura of psychic energy on them.
Then, in front of me, as I struggled to breathe, the convoy stopped.
I suppressed my instinct to cough and opened my eyes amidst the blinding toxic fumes, where I saw the two men leading the convoy.
Compared to the other creatures in the convoy, they fit my definition of humanity better...
They were all wearing gas masks made of fine leather. The taller, older one wore a half-mask, and I could see the deep wrinkles and furrows between his eyebrows and eyes on the upper half of his face—he always looked stern.
The other, younger and thinner guy, wore a full-face mask. I could only see his short white hair sticking up like roadside weeds, but from his body language, I had a feeling that this guy would be more comfortable than his companion.
Upon seeing me, they all stopped simultaneously.
They started arguing. The white-haired boy seemed to be trying his best to persuade his companion, but their hoarse language was hard to understand, so for the first minute, I couldn't understand what they were saying at all.
"My goodness, how did he grow so big?"
"I thought you were dreaming... Hades, what kind of monster is that?"
“Motalian—I told you, Motalian! The guy who should have been in Nacre Fortress—we could have escaped that day if he had been there!”
Damn it, without Mortarian that day, the villagers who were running around in panic wouldn't have been able to escape at all. In the end, when Nacre arrived, Hades managed to pull Karas back into the slave-catching warehouse with a quick snap, and then the two of them pretended to be unconscious and escaped death.
[Karas] let out a strange laugh.
“I still suspect you’re delirious—stop talking nonsense, Hades. It’s good to bring him back… Nacre won’t be forcing you to hunt villagers next month.”
In reality, Hades is mostly used when fighting psionic beings. Hades doesn't have much of an advantage when fighting other physical enemies, but out of a desire to torment them, Nacre still sends Hades out from time to time.
Without exception, Hades's mission to enter the village always failed.
Hades should be thankful that his physique is good enough that Nacre cannot find a replacement. If Karas were like Hades, he would probably have been turned into a puppet long ago.
However, Hades also knew very well that Nacre was not attacking him much now because he was still young, like waiting for a seedling to bear fruit. Once Hades grew into adulthood, Nacre would definitely use Hades as material to modify puppets.
Nacre wasn't foolish enough to use a child's body for modification; the material was too fragile and didn't meet the Xenomorph's standards.
Even so, there are still punishments, and they are collective punishments.
Several times, Karas witnessed Hades being kicked off the cliff by Nacre. Nacre threatened Hades that if he did not return within a day and a night, it would torture Karas to death and turn him into a puppet.
This is why Karas sometimes harbors such intense hatred for Hades—
Because Hades never yielded on this matter, Karas thought several times that he was going to be tortured to death by association.
But every single time, Karas would see Hades climb up at the last moment like an unkillable cockroach, and Nacre would have no choice but to lash Karas out a few times before leaving in a huff.
It's impossible not to be moved. Hades clearly had the chance to run away on his own, or simply die in the process due to the decline of his willpower, but every time he climbed up so as not to implicate Karas.
But Karas still harbored hatred, or rather, jealousy, because Hades would rather remain as he was than lower his standards—
But [Karas] had already let it go.
His first battle was to burn down the village that had driven his mother and him away years before.
Karas hated Hades, yet he couldn't truly raise his sword against him. Perhaps the only thing that comforted him was that Hades seemed to be a hysteriac, often talking nonsense, which was perhaps the only thing that made him better than Hades.
"Don't arrest him!"
Hades suddenly stepped forward, gripped Karas's shoulder tightly, and lowered his voice.
"Didn't you want to escape? This is your chance."
"Are you crazy?"
"That guy is no ordinary person..."
Hades gritted his teeth. He couldn't stand being tortured under Nacre's control. It was even more torturous than the black-hearted brick factory in Myanmar. He was still alive only because of his and Karas's extraordinary emotional intelligence, flattery skills, brick-moving ability, and indomitable spirit.
If we can't run now, we absolutely cannot take [Motalian] with us, otherwise all three of them will be under Nacre's control...
This life is over.
Hades glanced at Mortalian again, and saw a damn super-juvenile Primarch that was almost two meters tall.
He wasn't quite sure why he was only seeing [Motalian] now.
According to the plot as he knew it... two years ago, [Motalian] should have appeared on the ancient castle on the hillside, not now.
Is this the [Motalian] he knows? If not, his judgment is no longer correct, and—
Even so, [Motalian] is not a good person for communication and dialogue.
"Give me some time to see if we can communicate—Karas, just trust me this once!"
"Believe you? Ha."
Even so, Karas crossed his arms and took a half step back.
Seeing that Karas had already expressed his opinion, Hades hurriedly turned around and cautiously walked towards me. He did not take his weapon with him, but instead asked Karas to keep his long scythe.
Because of the poisonous gas, I was still struggling to breathe.
Later I learned that I had fallen halfway up the second highest mountain in Barbarossa, where the concentration of poisonous gas was far higher than at ground level.
This is why [Karas] thought they could capture me; no living being can move freely in such a concentration of toxic gas without any protection.
Hades braced himself with one hand in a defensive posture, while the other hand held up his spare gas mask from his waist. He moved closer to me warily.
It wasn't until he got closer that I noticed his physique was somewhat similar to that of the Silent Nun in the palace. Was he a soulless being? But he was different from the ones I had seen before.
"Motalian?"
He says,
"Hello? Are you Mortalian? How are you?"
Mortarian.
I wondered, was that white-haired boy calling me by that word? He uttered the word so naturally, as if he had known me for a long time and firmly believed that this was my name.
To my surprise, I don't dislike the word "Barbarus".
I don't resent the real name my tyrannical father gave me, the number fourteen, or the words "Hey!" or "You."
It's as if that's my real name.
[Yes, I am Mortarion—who are you?]
"Motalian" stammered in Barbalus, "Unfortunately, he was unarmed and empty-handed."
"Hades, my name is Hades. I have never seen you before. Where did you come from?"
This made Mortarion hesitate for a moment, but then he figured that the person in front of him posed no threat to the Emperor and Terra—in fact, it would have been fine if he had.
Terra Palace
Mortarian said,
[Macardo was giving us a lesson at the time... but...]
[Motalian] frowned, his head throbbing with an explosive pain.
[What happened next—a psionic explosion, after which I was swept here by the psionic turbulence.]
The white-haired boy looked shocked.
Even though he was wearing a thick gas mask, Mortarian could tell from his sudden, frozen body language that he was shocked.
Holy crap, where did this apocryphal scripture come from?
Terra Palace, Makado?! No, dude?!
Hades was stunned; he was now even more hesitant as to whether the Mortarion before him was the one he knew...
Countless sarcastic comments flooded Hades' mind like a mudslide, but in the end, Hades concluded that no matter what, Mortarion was still a Primarch.
As long as he is a Primarch, even the weakest Primarch level, he would be strong enough to completely resist the Nacre army that came to the Barbarus Plains, given the low concentration of poison gas there.
"This is Barbarossa."
Hades said in a hoarse voice,
"Then what are you going to do next?"
[Motalian] shook his head. In fact, he had no other thoughts at the moment except to breathe in some fresh air.
His previous thought was only to overthrow the Emperor, but now that the Emperor is far away from him and Mortarion is free, Mortarion decisively puts the unpleasant memories behind him.
"Uh...that...that..."
Hades was stunned. He realized a serious problem: if this Mortarion hadn't been abused by the Nacre, how could he possibly fight back against the Xenomorphs?
Hades sensed the growing impatience of Karas behind him. Time was running out. The slave-catching team was controlled by Karas's psionic powers, and if they waited too long, Nacre would notice.
[What are you planning to do now, Hades—what are you all doing?]
Mortarion felt he was starting to adapt to the gas, even though he was still feeling stinging and weak all over. He looked at Hades, and his Primarch instincts told him that the person in front of him seemed to be in great distress.
"Oppressed".
Hades glanced cautiously at Karas's location, lowering his voice so that only he and Mortarian could hear him.
“Motalian… As you can see, because we can’t beat them, Karas and I are now being forced to work for a psionic alien lord named Nacre—the alien lord exploits every human, abusing, toying with, and killing them.”
This sounded very much like the behavior of an emperor, and Mortarian felt a surge of energy.
So what do you plan to do?
“I was prepared to live a miserable, oppressed life… but… Mortarian… I feel like you have the ability to lead us in rebellion against him?”
Hades felt that the whole world was doomed. He spoke as if he were fooling a child, but only he knew that the Primarch in front of him could explode into a super giant of three or four meters in a week—he could do it by just eating dirt.
He felt that no matter what, even if it was Peturabo, who was killed eleven times, or Angron, who would go crazy at any time, they would at least be a little better than Nacre.
This world consists only of cesspools, and another, less dirty cesspool, for Hades to swim wildly in the sea of dung.
He just hoped he could get ashore before he was full.
[Resistance...]
Mortarian said that this word had appeared countless times on the Emperor's lips, but now, Mortarian felt his soul shining for it.
Because he saw real people being oppressed.
[Motalian] wanted to agree immediately, but he hesitated for a moment, remembering the guard who had died by his sword.
[I desperately want to help you, but I am not strong enough... You will die before my eyes.]
Stable.
Hades thought so.
He was already very moved as long as the Primarch had this intention—it was like a rock in a cesspool, not a real lump of dirt.
"No, no, no, I believe you are definitely stronger than you think."
Moreover, these are high-quality Primarchs raised by the Emperor—surely they could easily launch a devastating attack on the Barbarus under low-toxicity conditions, right?!
Hades cautiously walked over and handed the gas mask to Mortarion.
He heard Karas's disapproving rebuke behind him, but Hades had already made his decision, just as he had two years ago not chosen to die by luck, but instead returned to the slave-catching team's warehouse and pretended to be unconscious.
He had been at his breaking point for a long time, but he had been struggling to find an opportunity.
The scars from being hung up and whipped by Nacre were throbbing with pain, along with the half-rusted slave nail that ran through his collarbone. His stomach was permanently ulcerated from the toxins. Hades sometimes limped because his left calf, which had been comminuted and broken after being kicked off the cliff, had not truly healed. Nacre would also occasionally make Hades kneel on bricks.
The same was true for Karas, or perhaps because he wasn't particularly rare. He fared even worse than Hades, having been forcibly infused with psychic energy by the alien lord, his arms covered in scars from forced growth. Karas had broken his ribs at least twice, and had been threatened by Nacre to breed with female aliens. On another occasion, a furious Nacre nearly turned Karas into a psychic puppet, but Hades's witty and eloquent flattery saved his life. Because of this, Karas never truly harbored any deep hatred for Hades when he was implicated in others' misdeeds.
"Motalian...take us...run."
Hades felt his voice trembling slightly. Karas finally realized something was wrong. Footsteps approached from behind Hades. Hades watched as Mortarian took the gas mask that was completely the wrong size and pressed it to his face to breathe.
Hades had thought about escaping countless times, but he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't be hunted down by Nacre on the plains. It was too difficult for him and Karas to manage on their own, and the villages in the early stages would definitely not take them in.
However, Mortarion was able to fight against the Nacre army no matter what on the plains.
"Resistance... resistance... all we need is one more strong fighter... Mortarian, if you don't mind, I'd like to become your sworn brother."
Hades said, trembling, and then he strode up to Mortarian.
"Come on, sir, I'll lead the way. I know a shortcut down the mountain to the plains."