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

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Hades pondered, but Mortarian seemed dissatisfied with Hades' answer and immediately reached for the speakerphone on the communication channel.

No, no, no, Hades can't sell Galo!

"Oh, I'm listening to you."

Mortarian paused for a moment,

"What are they saying, Hades?"

Hades took a deep breath.

"Scolding your boss."

"Leon Johnson?"

Hades stared speechlessly at Mortarian. He knew this older brother wouldn't have any self-awareness, or rather, he wouldn't even consider that possibility.

Mortarian's voice carried a hint of schadenfreude.

"I knew it."

Hades composed himself and nodded solemnly.

"Yes, so I don't think you're suited to listening to this kind of soldier's complaints."

"After all, the First Legion Commander is your brother."

"Ah, yes, he is."

Mortarian reached his hand back with ease, though he was really curious to hear what they were saying, but as Hades reminded him, they were still "brothers," weren't they?

As a "brother," he still had to give Leon Johnson some face, even if Mortarian really wanted to repeat those words to Leon.

Ah... I have exams starting tomorrow, I see, they run until July 7.1st, so updates might be a bit inconsistent in the next few days, and I won't be posting any individual announcements.

I know I definitely won't be able to update tomorrow, I'll make up for it during summer vacation, I'll make up for it during summer vacation.

Happy reading!

Chapter 245 Interlude: Nightmare Seizures (Part 2)

"Click."

The nauseating buzzing sound grew closer, and a sour smell that made him want to cry lingered in his nostrils. His muscles were rotting, and he was unable to move.

The corridors of the Endurance were bathed in a warm, yet eerily dim, dark orange light, like the last rays of sunlight dying at dusk.

Spores and insects leaped about, teased by the light.

He lay silently on a pool of soft, wet flesh, warm and elastic biological tissue that seemed to have sprung up out of thin air from the floor of the Endurance.

Before he fell, or rather, had he ever stood at all? Everything on the ship became fertile, no longer so cold, but possessing a strange sense of life.

Thoughts become blurred, but perception is magnified to the extreme, like the densely packed, swarming insects on the wall next to the kitchen waste.

He could hear the breathing of this mass of flesh and blood, the rustling sounds of growth as it crawled inwards through the gaps in the power armor, oozing a foul-smelling, corrosive slime.

The power armor was rotting and rusting, its rivets buckling under incredible force, creaking slowly.

The unbearable sound grew closer, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a swarm of flies flying towards him, scrambling haphazardly against his power armor and making a crackling sound.

They entered through his breathing ducts, a buzzing sound echoing within the power armor. They crowded together, crawling and swarming against his face, wriggling and burrowing into his mouth and nose.

His mouth and esophagus were filled with an unbearable stinging sensation. Flies with black eyes crawled all over his stomach, their wings scraping against his mucous membranes, and the sharp barbs on their antennae were pricking his flesh.

No. No.

His thoughts were filled with a weary and powerless resistance; his mind became heavy, and he couldn't even muster any anger. He tried to struggle, but it was all in vain, a convulsion.

The muscles have atrophied and turned into a kind of slippery tissue fluid, which is gurgling and encased in the skin instead of seeping out.

No. Endure it, persist, give him an order: stop his meaningless existence. Give him an enemy. Or eliminate his existence altogether.

Dim.

His vision darkened, and he felt a black liquid rise to the surface.

The once bright corridor began to darken, a light suddenly went out, then struggled to come back on, but even when it was on, it looked as if it had been out.

The whispers of darkness followed the corridor, spreading along the very edge of sight, like rapidly growing veins, pulsating—

But it didn't give him a sense of life. Although darkness is the fastest thing to move, it is not a living thing.

In just a moment, darkness rapidly engulfed his vision. His pupils constricted, an innate sense of fear gripped him tightly, and an even more profound sense of powerlessness overwhelmed him.

But he also realized that other beings were also afraid of the darkness, those beings in his stomach, on his skin, between his cells—he heard those tiny screams.

It is not an unacceptable fact that we might die together.

So he took a deep breath (though he felt nothing but flies), closed his eyes, and peacefully sank into the darkness of nothingness.

The waters of the River Styx enveloped him, sinking, sinking until he reached the bottom of the river, where even bubbles could not reach, and where thick, heavy darkness awaited him.

Darkness, but light.

He opened his eyes, and the ceiling of the Endurance was silently staring at him.

Neat, smooth, free of rust and sticky clumps of plants.

He lay on his bed, the world tilting and dizzying.

He shifted his gaze forward and saw a person sitting by his bedside, holding a control board in one hand and writing or drawing on it with the other, seemingly unaware that he was already awake.

Based on his previous training and faint memory, he recognized him as the commander of the Death Guard.

In the dim, dry room, the faint, shimmering blue of the command board reflected on the commander's pale hair and skin, sketching a pensive expression—

He then realized that the commander of the Death Guard was a rather handsome and young man.

Such a young person is the commander? He had originally thought the commander would be a much older and more dull figure.

Regardless, the commander's presence, though strange, still provided him with a sense of stability, a sign of safety.

He blinked, his rusty brain barely beginning to function, and he tried to struggle to sit up, startling the commander sitting beside his bed—

"Oh, you're awake. Are you alright?"

The commander casually put down the board in his hand, turned his head and asked him with a smile what was going on, and casually reached out a hand to help him up.

His words carried a very relaxed, natural tone, yet were not frivolous; he sounded as if he had everything under control.

This is rare, especially among Deathguards; the commander was the first to speak to him in this tone.

He was a standard Death Guardian, so his response to the Commander was silence.

If he were a Ultra Warrior, he might say he's fine while asking about the dream he just had; if he were an Imperial Fist, he would recount the dream in detail; if he were a Space Wolf, he would swear amidst a threatening snort.

But he wasn't any of those; he was a Death Guardian, so he remained silent.

He couldn't respond by saying he was okay; in fact, he was terrible, but he also couldn't say he was bad because the Death Guardian's nature prevented him from saying so—that would be a sign of weakness.

So he stared silently at the commander, unsure of what to say.

It wasn't until the commander turned his head that he saw the other half of the commander's face was a mechanical brain, with a deep scar running through the left side of his face, and the mechanical prosthetic eye on it flashing a scarlet and dangerous light.

As if he had anticipated his response, the commander shrugged indifferently, and the mechanical arm behind him extended, holding a cup.

"It's good that you're awake. Do you need some water?"

He nodded slowly, swallowed unconsciously, and realized that his throat was dry and uncomfortable, as if a fly had actually crawled over it.

The sensation of water on his lips further stirred his thoughts. Was he still dreaming?

It all still felt so unreal, about waking up from a nightmare to find the commander sitting by the bed, and him even handing him a glass of water.

Seeing that he had recovered from the nightmare, the commander scratched his head and spoke again.

"Fine. I'm not expecting you to speak first. Do you have any questions for me?"

You? He keenly grasped the information revealed in the commander's words.

But he won't ask that.

"Commander, what are you doing here?"

The commander blinked in surprise, then waved his hand cheerfully and said,

"Don't call me that, just call me Hades."

"Hmm, it seems you haven't realized what you just went through."

Hades looked at him intently.

"What did you see in your dream? Don't feel guilty, just tell me."

"The rotting Endurance, flies, lots of moss."

He tried to recall the memories from his painful nightmare, while Hades listened and nodded from time to time, as if he had known all along that this would happen.

"Finally, there was darkness, and a feeling of powerlessness was very unpleasant. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable, more disgusted than flies and slime, but I think it was what woke me up."

Hades paused for a moment, then forced a slightly awkward smile.

"Ah, that's my anti-psychic field."

He stared at Hades in astonishment, completely unaware of what he had just said in front of Hades.

"You helped me, it was you?"

Hades nodded.

"What you just experienced wasn't your average nightmare; it's something most Death Guards go through."

"A trial."

In fact, some Deathguard recruits experience nightmares during the 49 days following a successful Space Marine surgery and the start of formal training.

—Or rather, to experience the illusions they once experienced.

Some people can wake up on their own, while others will fall into a deeper, more realistic nightmare and find it difficult to wake up on their own.

At the same time, some soldiers will feel confused and disoriented after waking up. At this time, they need a spiritual guide.

These new recruits have no idea that while they are asleep, the other departments of the Death Guard are busy at work.

In the corridor outside the lounge, the Soulless Ones of Zero Company stood guard, the Gravediggers and Apothecaries were all on high alert, and the Legion Commander and Commander patrolled the entire way, in case of any unexpected situations.

After Hades' training, the shallow nightmares of ordinary recruits can be safely handled by the gravedigger, and the deep nightmares can be handled by the soulless and the gravedigger working together.

But since they were all "relatively" free, Hades and Mortarion were also busy helping the gravediggers relieve some of the pressure and also keeping track of the new recruits.

Although Hades reasonably suspected that Mortalian just wanted to mess with the recruits, showing concern and comforting the frightened ones was better than staring at a few resentful clerks in a dark, gloomy office.

Of course, Hades is an untouchable, so he would have to be present at such a scene, and his presence is more reasonable than Mortarion's.

"So... what exactly is it?"

"If it's not a nightmare, Lord Hades?"

Hades waved his hand.

"Don't call me sir, just call me Hades."

"That"

What do you think it is?

Unexpectedly, he was asked a question in return, and he could sense Hades patiently waiting for his answer.

But what is that?

The bizarre scene filled him with a suffocating and desperate feeling. What exactly was it?

Momentarily speechless.

But looking at Hades, he realized that everything that had just happened was nothing, unreal, merely a fleeting thought.

He's still here, on the Endurance, with his commander who cares about him by his side.

He was muscular, his voice was clear, and there was no decay or stench. He still had the strength to resist and fight.

"Perhaps...perhaps it was a nightmare for me."

He saw Hades raise his eyebrows in surprise.

"It was a nightmare. Yes, that's a good answer."