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

Page 863

The outer creature screamed in agony as attacks came from all directions—antimatter spears, anti-entropy light waves, dark matter rays… a dazzling array of attacks, a dazzling array of colors, spacetime was churned into a chaotic mess, impossible to observe with normal thinking.

Each attack brought destruction, yet the Star God was unable to effectively extract souls and fuel from these already soulless armies.

Each strike was heavy enough, carrying deep-seated hatred, dripping with blood, and large fragments fell, almost forming a river of sunlight of varying sizes throughout the entire galaxy.

The attack was effective, although the outermost part of the largest block was still a huge problem, although it seemed that Tarasin's army was running low and could only hold out for a few more moments, and although the situation ahead remained unclear.

But in reality, this is the best destination they can reach by burning themselves out.

The outer ones are shattered, still troublesome, but no longer on the level of destroying the galaxy. The Deathbringers brought chaos to the galaxy's subspace when they came, but now they are leaving, hoping to leave the galaxy with as much clarity as possible.

Their incompetent generals were distracted again at this moment—of course, this did not affect the battle situation; now, the one truly commanding the battlefield was the final echo of the “fear of death.”

How will future civilizations describe this war between the Necromancers and the Star Gods?

Tarasin thought with a tremor that he had returned to his original form, a historian.

A blood feud.

It thought, this is the best description: a blood feud, too numerous to recount, enough, enough. The rage of the race is enough to make the dead break open their graves, abandon their last hope, and drag the other side down to hell together.

Tarachin suddenly felt great pain.

It was in great pain, extremely painful. Although Tarasin was not a good general, he was a good historian. He suddenly realized that he might be the last and only witness to this tragedy. No one else could truly understand the meaning of this war.

The fear of death and the ethereal spirits of space have come to an end.

The Endless Tarasin was exhausted. It wanted to say something, but Orikan would never understand it, and Szalak would rather die than face such an end.

It suddenly longed for Hades to wake up sooner, and it wanted to talk to its alien friend about something—at least they shared the same views and positions on this matter, and perhaps Hades would pat it on the shoulder and then sigh silently.

But what could Hades say? He was not one to fear death.

Tarahim shed tears as the last and only survivor.

They will eventually fall on their way to life.

Chapter 863 [305] Stalemate

The grief of the other races did not bring tears to Mortarian's eyes.

He was just finding it a little difficult.

Just like countless times before.

I'm used to it.

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

Above the vast and deep starry sky, the Milky Way, like countless suns falling, illuminates the entire sky. The planet, which already has a thin atmosphere, is now illuminated like a sun. From outer space, the entire planet shines brightly white.

Only the center of the planet's surface remained, cracked like a spiderweb, with fine, winding patterns resembling the intricate altar markings of an eerie eye.

Fourteen towers, forming a perfect circle, rise from the white sand desert, pointing their swords at the sky.

Upon closer inspection, under the blinding white light, countless wisps of mist swirled around the black stone towers, which were illuminated to a grayish-white color. They were like living tentacles, wriggling and drifting down from the heights of the black towers.

Gazing at the planet-sized altar, which seemed to possess a strange magic, space itself seemed to collapse there, forming a trap resembling a giant gravitational field. Above the planet's orbit, the enormous, radiant white fragments were slowly drawn towards it.

The altar captured the fragments of the Star God at an extremely fast speed, but on such a massive scale, even the fastest speed seemed incredibly slow. The shrieking stars plummeted down, angrily crashing onto the planet's surface.

A magnificent meteor shower streaked across the sky.

A volley of arrows was fired, a silver dragon pierced the sky, and the shattered gods were a whole expanse of white rainbow rain that pierced the starry sky. The white light falling to the ground within it varied in size and could be seen with the naked eye. The largest piece was even larger than a whole continent, while the smallest piece was no bigger than a fist, and some were even no thicker than a hair.

They varied in size but were numerous, like a dreamlike, shimmering white rainstorm pouring down.

They are bathing in it.

A massive, ancient hum, seemingly emanating from the depths of the continent, caused the entire planet to resonate at a low amplitude. Fourteen towering structures rose from the ground, influencing the entire planet, while the gushing streams at their feet were the true lifeblood. Turbulent currents of the subspace manifested from the real spacetime.

At the very center of the altar, a towering skeletal monster let out a shrill, mournful cry, as sharp bone spikes pierced through its spine.

Suddenly, before the first drop of light rain roared and splashed onto the earth, the entire planet, shattered by the white rainbow, seemed to be covered with a hazy filter. Fine, dusty, dark gray-white powder fell down in a flurry, and no one knew where it came from, as if it had appeared out of thin air.

Just as the Death Guardians realized that ash was beginning to fall from the sky, a thick layer of ash had already piled up beneath their feet. The whole world seemed to have entered some otherworld, with knee-deep ash scattering with people's breath and movements, like a snowy world.

No one was surprised that the Death Guards now standing beside Primarch Mortalian were these surviving warriors—each of whom had died at least three times.

Their memories of the past have become more blurred, like a world shrouded in mist. In their place are more silent and more resilient souls. Death has been absolved time and time again. They are the dead who have crawled back from the silent world of ashes to fight.

The Death Guardians, on the contrary, felt a sense of relief, or rather, a sense of familiarity. They were already used to this and were genuinely delighted that their powerful Primarch had expanded his domain.

Everything fell silent. The Death Guard's once moss-green armor suddenly faded. The Primarch's domain was absolutely silent, so the warriors began to use sign language. After several brutal wars, the tacit understanding between the warriors had reached a new level. With just a few simple gestures and nods or shakes, complex and precise battle plans were formulated.

Thus, in the third nanosecond of the Silent Realm, the first fragment of a Star God—about the size of a calf—torn apart the psionic field around it, revealing the sharp and clear physical world beneath the hazy world, and crashed heavily into the γ zone of the third battlefield.

In the next instant, the towering, shrill Star God roared like thunder from the ground, and a twisted pillar of light hundreds of meters high soared into the air. Next to the still-forming Star God energy, dozens of dazzling arcs stopped in mid-air—the Death Guards guarding nearby had already thrown psionic grenades toward the Star God's landing point.

However, before the ends of those arcs could touch the fragmented star god that was taking shape with a shriek, hundreds of similar beams of light of varying sizes rose from different directions across the continent. The silent domain of death was suddenly torn open with a violent rift, and deafening screams of pain spread out in layers within the previously silent domain. The ashes that were originally drifting down quietly were shaken apart, creating visible ripples in mid-air.

The Death Guards closest to the landing point of the Star God fragments, those behind cover, were instantly blasted away by the air pressure, suspended in mid-air like rag dolls. Countless fine dust particles sprayed out from the gaps in their armor, as if a person had been directly shattered inside the armor, gushing out a fountain of blood.

boom!

The Death Guards, thrown back by the shockwave, crashed heavily to the ground. The blinding white light illuminated their motionless bodies, as if veiled in white gauze. Within the encirclement of corpses, countless fragments of the Star Gods screeched as they rose from the ground, trying to devour and merge with each other.

But Death Guard will not allow outsiders to succeed so easily.

Countless boots trampled over the silent corpses thrown to the ground. Psionic missiles and fire support, already prepared, poured down like rain. The Death Guards at the forefront drew their scythes with a dim, grayish light. The great Primarch Father and the High Heavens descended with power and blessing. They charged into the chaotic storm of light that could have directly torn apart armor and human bodies, tearing the "flesh and blood" of the Star Gods with their scythes.

Slightly behind the first line of defense, the "corpses" that had just been thrown into the air seemed to stir again. On the ground, as if the thick layer of ashes had come to life, strands of ash seeped into the gaps in the armor. Then, the death guards slowly and silently rose from the ground again, and their comrades charging beside them would occasionally lend a helping hand to these people who had just been revived.

They fell, rose, fell again, and rose once more. There were no desperate roars, no battle cries of unwavering faith, no dying sobs; they simply fell and rose silently, like warriors devoid of any will of their own.

But perhaps only the Death Guard and Mortarion know that beneath each suit of armor lies a unique individual.

However, they don't show these things on the battlefield.

The meteor shower on the horizon continued, even growing more intense. Looking up, the breathtakingly magnificent monster was shattering under the sliver of a dark green crescent moon, tearing off huge pieces of light that fell toward three different planets.

The Endless One, Tarasim, continued to hold on. The first wave of attacks was effective, tearing the outer beings apart bit by bit. Afterward, the Endless One released some Star God fragments that it had no time to deal with, leaving them to be handled by the human empire on the planet.

Humanity needs to further shatter and imprison the fragments of the Astral Gods torn apart by the wrath of the Dead, or simply allow the Warp to weaken their power. This is the least desirable and least efficient method, but it is the only way when they have lost their colossal weapons and Pluto is still asleep.

If an empire on a planet is defeated and its altar is shattered, the entire planet will undergo a massive self-destruction. Subsequently, the second armies of the Mechanicus and Hades, which have been lying in wait in the vicinity of the star god, will directly use various ultra-long-range strike weapons based on the physical world and the abilities of the star god to resist on the second front. At the same time, a portion of the army will directly jump to the shattered planetary plates to continue to hold back the fragments of the star god on the broken continent as much as possible.

If the Imperial First Front collapses completely, then the Mechanicus and Hades, along with some of the remaining legions, will take the lead on the Second Front. If the Second Front collapses, then the next front will shift to the Imperial and Chaos Empires, who are currently fighting amongst themselves. The baton against the Star Gods will undoubtedly be passed to them—whether they like it or not, they will become the Third Front.

If the third front collapses, the Astragalus, which is currently retreating in an orderly manner, will continue to hold the line with the assistance of the remaining Mechanicus, becoming the last line of defense—they will hold out and stand their ground until Hades awakens, or until Hades is successfully transferred to a safe star system.

If Hades awakens, or if he moves to a safe location, the people on the last front will become the largest remaining military force of the empire.

The key to victory did not lie with the Empire. They knew clearly that their strength was merely a drop in the ocean, like a blade of grass hanging precariously on the edge of a cliff just before they plunged into the abyss.

The ones who truly oppose the outer beings of the Star Gods are still the Endless Ones and the Fearful Ones.

If at this very moment, an eye were to look up at the starry sky, it would witness that tragic scene: the culmination of millennia of wisdom and technology, an unrepeatable marvel of civilization, ship after ship rushing outwards like moths to a flame, utterly disrupting the entire starry sky, like a child's unrestrained scribbles, lines and colors scrambled by chaotic rules, a complete mess.

Like a vibrant Picasso painting, Guernica, an endless entity formed by intersecting lines opens its eyes—the same intersecting lines that constitute its people—pointing angrily at a white sphere of light composed of sharp lines, teardrop-shaped dots falling onto its flat face.

The scene was perplexing, yet it still deeply moved everyone who gazed upon it. If a wise man were to witness this, he would weep for the lingering echoes of this battle in heaven.

But now—no one is watching there, no one is witnessing the final history of the fearful, no one is recording the last stroke written by the endless. Everyone is fighting on their own battlefield, everyone is running around, everyone is hurriedly trying to write the next sentence of their own life, everyone is walking in their own history, and no one knows whether the next sentence ends with a comma or a period.

All that remains is the continued wailing.

Death is howling.

Perhaps it shouldn't be called a hiss, but rather a vibration caused by some kind of gas or force being ejected from a body under high pressure. A sharp, bright yellow that is out of place in this gray and white world overflows, like a balloon filled with bright yellow oil paint bursting inside Death.

The bright yellow liquid splashed out from the dark crevices of the white bone helmet, and instantly spread from the center of the altar as if it had a life of its own, as the thief who had once stolen the seat of the gods entered the temple once more.

On the rapidly changing altar, the largest fragment of the Star God did not fall. Instead, it struggled and roared in mid-air, rising into a huge phantom image, like a sun descending into the sky.

And it was roaring.

The spherical star god was struggling to gather its power into the most suitable shape, but was forcibly interrupted by an external force. From the top of the fourteen black stone towers, the mist was like iron locks, giant hands, and scythes. Death threw out his weapon, shattering the outer forces' plans to restore the structure time and time again.

Those fragments that were forced to separate and could not merge into the outermost part of the largest block angrily clashed beside the strangely shaped, bright object. Space was pierced in an instant, but was then forcibly closed again by the gushing subspace. The entire area formed an absolute negative pressure of psionic energy, and a vast turbulent flow of psionic energy poured into it, disappearing without a trace like a mud ox entering the sea.

But he must continue to pour power and psychic energy into it, vying with the Star God for control of the entire sky. If it is not filled with psychic energy, then the Star God will have absolute control, and the rules will be rewritten.

In a battlefield, if the empire does not occupy the rules there, then the rules will be controlled by the enemy.

Even though the immense overdraft left Death feeling weak and dizzy, it felt its blood and soul dripping onto the ground, endlessly draining its strength from some enormous vortex of emptiness.

But it will never fall easily.

The same feeling of utter exhaustion, as if there was only one drop of blood left in the body, was something Death had experienced countless times before, in the Misty Starfield, in the Garden of Nurgle, in Terra, on Mars, and in Barbaros—it was already used to it, but it did not make it any better.

Mortalian felt the death emanating from its offspring, then rejected them one by one. It felt its own death—the good news was that it could also reject its own. It returned, with only seven drops of blood left in its health bar.

If Hades were to witness this scene, he would likely be dumbfounded. Unlike Hades's direct and brutal approach, this is quite different.

Mortarian's mechanics involve consuming mana to resurrect without cooldown or limit on the number of times. Each resurrection leaves him with a fixed seven health points and triggers the passives "Tenacity" and "Deathrattle". The "Tenacity" passive doubles the difficulty of defeating him for each subsequent health point lost, while the "Deathrattle" passive restores half a health point with each breath. In other words, as long as the mana bar is active, Mortarian will never die, will always resurrect, and will become increasingly difficult to defeat each time.

Under certain circumstances, once the subspace conditions around him meet the "celestial phenomena" requirements, Death will enter a forced ascension phase. The fruits of the Spirit Race that he once stole will overflow from his wounds, bringing new power and thunder.

If it weren't for the forced control abilities within Nurgle's Garden, Hades couldn't imagine how anyone else could fight such a bugged being—but as it turns out, there are quite a few unreasonable old monsters in this galaxy. The Outer Ones are rapidly consuming the entire warp, and the Celestials' inherent abilities are causing the surrounding warp to shrink rapidly. The psionic ocean is beginning to retreat in the face of the raging flames.

This is equivalent to reducing Mortalian's mana bar. Although it's not as drastic as Hades, which completely wipes out the mana bar, it's still enough to fight against Death in the face of such a huge power disparity.

Mortalian felt himself trembling as three more meteorites, no less massive than the largest fragment of a star god, fell from the sky.

What's truly terrifying about the Outer Ones is their sheer size. Their immense size brings about an absolute quantitative change. Fortunately, those horrific disasters, beyond human comprehension, were stopped by the resolute figures of the Endless Ones and the Fearful Ones. They only need to face the fragments of the Outer Ones. Once the fragments are broken to a certain extent, some of the Star God's skills become unusable. But even the shattered fragments are enough to act like a heavy hammer, striking the current human empire's battle lines.

Mortarian trembled as he looked up at the sky and saw that the remaining two stars were still holding firm, unbroken.

Therefore, he could not possibly be the first line of defense to break.

He will be the last line of defense—he and his Deathguard will be the first and last line of defense.

Chapter 864 [306] Who will fall first?

To my life, a life of constant loss, constant compromise, and constant bowing down.

However, resistance is valuable, and freedom is valuable.

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

The black flames dripped from the cracks in the sinister face of the traitor, burning fiercely.

Previously, fourteen daggers had pierced the body and soul of the chief rebel, desperately burrowing deep into his soul like living leeches.

The psionic energy was forcibly extracted, not as if it were sent out voluntarily, but rather like blood drawn out under high pressure, flowing out along the sharp blade of the dagger, gurgling out like a stream, and then flowing into the pulsating concave runes of the altar, causing a wildfire of black flames.

Only the first rebel, Mortarian, is here alone.

The black flames burned fiercely, and the highest heavens twisted and roared here. Three kinds of red, green and purple flames leaped on the earth, mixed with the black flames, and flared with the breath of the original body.

Countless white meteors shrieked as they plummeted from the sky, carving terrifying fissures across the heavens. As the stars crashed onto the earth, they created massive craters and erupted into towering fountains of stellar energy. Violent turbulent energy surged toward the horizon, twisting and contorting into spherical shapes.

Those individuals possess life.

The fragments of the star god scattered in the air wanted to merge with each other, but this was not an easy task. Black flames rose up, and the white fragments that were about to connect with their threads were touched by the flames and then withdrew as if in pain.

Compared to the High Heavens of Mortarion, the god of death, and Guilliman, the ruler of the Empire, the warp here is far more chaotic, almost entirely a state of pure energy, with more concrete images vanishing into some kind of flame-like warp turbulence.

Two lines of fate are converging.

The First Rebel was so aware of this because he felt his psychic power slowly increasing, as if he had received a signal from the main world—this was not a bad thing for him at the moment. The First Rebel desperately needed power, otherwise he would die, dying under the radiance of the Star God.

In all honesty, he did not want to be defeated before his other self, even though, unlike the other Mortarion, the First Rebel did not have an army, and his soul had even signed more than one treaty.

But he held his head high, unwilling to fall before his other self.

Therefore, the First Rebel is mobilizing everything at his disposal, feeling that he is accelerating the approach of two destinies, as he is calling upon power from another world.

The subspace here is even more chaotic, mixed with spiritual energy different from this world, making the High Heaven here extremely unstable, like a monstrous wave stirred up by a tremendous force.

No psionic individual could cast spells in such a chaotic psionic environment, to manage the chaotic, clashing, and shrieking psionic currents, and to mold them into the shape they desired—no, that was impossible.

But this does not mean that the current psionic environment is bad.

This was exactly what the First Rebel wanted to see. Since he was injured and unable to meticulously shape his psionic energy into a weapon to attack his enemies, he simply stopped shaping it and instead stirred up the warp, letting it become chaotic on its own.

In such a chaotic environment, the psionic tsunami crashed and pounded against the Star God fragments, shattering those fragments that desperately wanted to stabilize and merge, and then swept away by the psionic waves once again.

In Mortalian's Introductory Numerology course, psychic disorder is simply described as an exponential growth model, and a qualified psychic master should learn how to maintain the stability of himself and the psychic environment around him in order to cast spells more effectively.

If psionic energy begins to become disordered—although its effects are extremely weak at first, it will accumulate rapidly like an avalanche in a very short time and bring about a series of chain reactions that cannot be stopped spontaneously.

At this moment, the High Heaven surrounding the First Rebel was in a state of chaos. The First Rebel even kept adding fuel to the ever-burning fire. The spiritual energy of the two Fate Lines rushed in, but because of their different Fate Lines, they could not merge with each other. After colliding with each other, they became more and more violent.