Warhammer: I don't want to become a stinky can!

Page 560

The long-dormant engine started running again, its hum like that of an ancient whale, as layers of white mist lapped against the giant ship.

At the foot of the giant ship, withered trees that had grown over the years were broken off like small branches. On the deck, warriors, some with armor that looked bloated and rotten, and others as thin as bones, hurried along, starting the ship in place of the long-dead crew.

"Woo——"

The Resilient, stranded in the garden mud, began to move slowly.

Karas breathed a sigh of relief. Inside the observatory, the astrological platform, personally designed and forged by the Pale Lord, began to move. The course was correct, and the timing was correct.

He heard a long sob in his ear, and Karas didn't want to tell whether it was Nurgle's or Aisha's.

Apart from the Pale Lord, they were all too cowardly.

Karas thought to himself, and felt a great sense of relief. The delicate balance that had lasted for millennia had finally been broken by two gods of different races, and Nurgle could no longer imprison what he thought was his beloved son.

"put!!!"

Karas roared, and the Death Guard's last stockpile of black missiles was released as a parting gift to the dilapidated garden. Smoke and dust rose not far from the giant ship, and the edge of the garden became even darker.

As the white mist washed away the debris, the Resilient slowly sailed away from the spot.

ended……

Karas took another deep breath. Of the total force of 490,000 troops, along with hundreds of millions of auxiliary soldiers and accompanying sages, only a mere shipload of warriors—70,000—had survived. Most of them were clearly mutated.

Even fewer ordinary people survived; only the most fervent believers connected to Death managed to survive, numbering less than a hundred.

Silent white mist seeped in through the cracks in the corridor, gently enveloping him. Karas felt the pain, as if he had been run over, lessen slightly. Mortarian had distributed his power to his followers—

However, Karas was unsure whether it was merely a painkiller or actually had a healing effect.

It doesn't matter.

Karas looked up at the ceiling. The Pale Lord had locked himself away and needed to prepare to return to the physical world—he might try to make himself less frightening, or he might not.

........................

……

Tired, in pain, and desperate.

death.

monster.

With his skeletal fingertips stained with the blood of a foreign race, Mortarian squatted on the ground, patiently drawing the numbers needed for the ritual. The blood-written characters resembled chains or the limbs of a living spider, locking the prey in the center of the array.

His wings, like a tattered cloak, hung to the ground, and screaming skull-like patterns shrieked within them.

7665678… Mortarian wrote, his eyelashes fluttering.

【Quiet. 】

He said that looking up at the offerings nailed to the floor, Mortarion needed a portion of the authority of "life," or at least weaken Aisha a little, so that the prisoners would not easily escape.

Tears streamed down Mortarian's face, and he quickened his pace. The Eldar Goddess of Life loved to weep, and her tears had the power to enhance her own abilities. Gouging out her eyes wouldn't stop her crying; Mortarian had tried it.

【alright……】

The Pale Lord rose and walked to the center of the altar, grasping the black stone spear stuck in the ground—its polarity was masculine.

+I wish I...+

A soft whisper arose, like the gentle tone of Barbalus, yet distorted like the hum of a garden. The spell that could manipulate Nurgle's power was a variant of Barbalus—none of this was a coincidence.

The incantation lit up, the entire hall flickered, and the offerings began to wail, but were quickly engulfed by the white mist.

A rustling sound of growth could be heard.

Tender yellow shoots sprouted from the cracks, emerging from skeletal armor; vines drooped down, and pink new flesh grew, quickly climbing the insect-like exoskeleton to form muscle and skin.

—A puff of white mist escaped from between Mortarian's masks.

A scorched yellow color crept up the leaf buds, the vines curled and withered, and the grayish-white putrid fluid seeped out of the newly grown muscle. The pale lord's body swayed.

Mortarian still gripped the spear tightly, its light flashing. He slowly loosened his grip, the ritual ended, and the mist receded rapidly like a receding tide.

Failed.

Mortarian coughed as he looked at Aisha, whose Eldar god had already fainted.

Unbearable... Death and new life are inherently incompatible.

He needed to find someone else. Mortalian breathed in his mouth. This result did not surprise him. The Primarch himself could not imagine what it would be like to control [Life]. He was not attached to Life.

Mortarian searched his mind for his brother… perhaps Vulcan could be a better option.

He gave up the attempt, and Mortarian turned and slumped back onto the bench, dejected and weary.

Mortarian raised his hand, looking at his bony hand, which resembled the arthropods of an insect.

He took seven deep breaths... He's back, he's back... Hades is in the solar system.

He hoped that Hades wouldn't mistake him for an alien when they first met.

...When did he become so much like Guilliman? So optimistic.

Perhaps he shouldn't have returned to the physical world.

The physical universe is not too welcoming of the existence of a subspace, although there is a way to get there, but only at a cost.

Mortarian blinked his hazy green eyes as he silently calculated in his mind. He recalled the beheaded Dark Eldar. The Emperor had acted, but the Pale Lord had hidden himself well—his past stubbornness had protected him well.

Terra... Emperor, King, Hades... Mortarion found it hard to imagine the coexistence of these three, but the numbers told him that they had formed a delicate balance.

The gas mask emitted another puff of white mist.

Go back, go back... In any case, the Pale Lord needs to return. Since none of his brothers are willing to return first, he will take the initiative to return.

Humans need help, and he also needs to see his old friends.

Mortarian was silent for a moment, then looked at his hands again.

……

Rather than despair, he should perhaps prepare in advance an escape route should Hades go berserk when he sees him.

The Pale Lord laughed in despair.

Mortarian felt despair as his former friend became an alien on the summit of Mount Barbarus, but he still existed, continued to exist... and refused to leave.

After all, his long-cherished wish was not fulfilled, and after all, he prided himself on his resilience.

7... Mortarian glanced at Aisha, who was struggling slightly to the side, and he knew something was wrong.

He needs to abide by the laws of the subspace.

Subspace has its own unique order; the first should be 6, then 7...

No... the first one isn't necessarily 6...

Mortarian fell silent, but he still remembered his wish.

At least two... he thought, to fulfill their wish from back then.

I hope the other person still remembers the promise they made.

...I hope he will return as a human being.

....................................

The School of Athens 1.1 Update.

First, Hades cruelly limited the forum traffic of each sage, preventing them from spamming the forums without limit, which put too much pressure on the main server.

However, he still maintained the ranking system, with higher ranks receiving more traffic.

Another change is that Hades' level has been increased to fourteen. He still underestimated the sages; their combat power has increased a little too quickly.

Five months after the founding of the Academy of Athens, in addition to the avalanche of low- and mid-level technologies, Hades also received a considerable amount of technology that had been left behind by the Golden Age.

Some of these technologies were so advanced that even the sages themselves didn't understand them, yet they uploaded them directly to the Academy of Athens to see how their technologies could be rated.

In short, they used the Academy of Athens as a free valuation system, or perhaps they wanted to see if there was a complete version of the technology.

In this way, they received a lot of low- and medium-level technologies, very few high-level ones, but they received many incomplete papers on the highest level, which was beyond the highest level, without really understanding the value of the technologies they had.

Hades was greatly shocked by this.

This added a significant amount of work to his workload. Aside from administrative reviews, Hades began working with the sages to complete these highly valuable technologies: the General Cannon, the colossal virus capable of devouring an entire star sector, and the alteration of the trajectories of stars and planets...

During this period, a number of outrageous technologies emerged that disregarded human life and death. After a brief assessment, Hades believed that the weapons developed using these technologies could even put up a fight against the Necromancers in space.

Speaking of space necromancy, the application of the [Athens Academy] also brought an unexpected surprise. Hades discovered a very small amount of necromancy technology among a large number of uploaded technologies. Following the clues, Hades found a sage who was keen on innovation.

This unremarkable sage, who possesses some of the technology of space necromancy, comes from the infamous Forge World No. 8 and is fortunate enough to be on the same ship as Kaul.

Alina (α3), through Kaul's introduction, Hades successfully found her. After a brief communication (coercion and enticement) and the allure of reputation, Hades gained a loyal sage.

This sage was extremely skilled at grave robbing, possessing his own set of grave-robbing techniques, and enjoyed digging up the undead graves of space spirits beneath jungle planets.

To date, she has successfully excavated the tombs of no fewer than four minor dynasties.

Although, according to the sage, only one world was involved in the deep excavation—simply because she was certain that due to natural causes, the automaton spirits of this small dynasty malfunctioned, preventing the space undead from reviving properly, and the planet became a dead star.

This is also why α3 Alina was exposed to Hades's gaze.

Deep within this small dynasty, beneath the coffin containing the Necromancer Lord, Alina α3 forcibly inserted her 654 tapeh into the socket beneath the coffin and forcibly downloaded a segment of data from the Necromancer using four different communication protocols.

The scrambled code was not successfully deciphered by the sage and was forgotten by him over time. In the end, the sage judged it to be a piece of useless code.

With the mindset of casually gaining some experience so she could go on the forum and argue with the tech-obsessed sages, α3 Alina uploaded this "junk code" to [Athens Academy].

And it was successfully discovered by Hades.

Hades recognized the value of this code at a glance—it was a lord-level control protocol.

"Then, great Om Messiah... what does this mean?"

Alina α3 stood in front of Hades and asked hesitantly.

Hades fell silent. He realized that there was always a wealth of talent among humankind, but these talents might not even realize what they had done.

"This means,"

Hades said slowly,

"After finding the key corresponding to the dynasty and breaking through the firewall of the Automaton Souls—this agreement will allow us to gain lord-level control and take over the low-level army of the Space Necromancers."

The sage fell into a long silence. After a long while, she spoke again cautiously.

"My Lord, I think the first two points are very difficult to achieve?"

Hades fell silent again.

If he weren't here, it would be incredibly difficult for humanity to decipher the Necromancer's keys, but he's here—he possesses the knowledge of the Void Dragons, cracking keys and breaching firewalls… given enough time, it's not particularly difficult.

"The Emperor is above, this is blasphemous."

This opened a new door for Hades, but even a pragmatist like Hades found it somewhat unacceptable.

...Commanding the undead army?

In fact, in the world of space necromancers, there is a world called the "Lonely World". This is a world that is automatically managed by automaton souls. For various reasons, the minds of the space lords in this world have been destroyed, making it impossible for them to awaken from hibernation and realize the advanced functions in the program.

The consciousness of the space necromancers on this surface has been completely erased.

But the time for revival has come, and the automatons, unable to find a manager, will mechanically awaken the space undead and, imitating the actions of their former lords, lead them to begin expansion.

This proves that the army of the Necromancers in space does not care who their commander is.

They "obey" the commands of the automaton, or rather, the program.

Low-level space necromancers do not possess advanced cognitive abilities; they have no personality or soul of their own and only know how to receive commands from the machine spirit.

So... if at this point, someone intervenes with the automaton soul, inputs the management protocol, and lets the automaton soul confirm a new manager.

Hades looked at the sage who stood before him, so submissive and obedient, and felt as if he had opened the door to a new world.

Hades during a brainstorming session.

No, Hades thought, the Empire's strength is currently unstable, and this cannot be revealed rashly.

Each dynasty has its own unique key. Cracking the key of an entire dynasty requires at least one automaton soul in the tomb world, while breaking through the firewall requires real-time operation.

Hades thought that if he wanted to increase his leverage in the fight against the Necromancers, he should increase the number of Dynasty Keys he possessed.

He thought of the Death Guard's grave-digging team.