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

Chapter 888 [330] Despite All Efforts, Defeat is Impossible

The sky is tilting.

Earthquake.

The singularity of time and destiny falls here, plunging into deeper layers of spacetime and dimensions. Amidst the overlapping layers of destiny, the observer, breaking through uncertainty and barriers, lands at the anchor point—

Caliban.

According to the normal timeline, at this moment, Caliban in the main timeline should no longer exist; he should have become a meteorite fragment floating in the void as early as 261.M31.

In the official Imperial history, Caliban was destroyed in 261.M31 due to internal strife within the Dark Angels Legion.

But at this very moment—Caliban is right here, the forests on the planet's surface are lush and green, a gentle breeze blows, and the roars of those giant beasts echo in the depths of the forest. In the human settlements, the factories forged by the Cult of Mechanics roar, everything is just as it was in the beginning, everything is as usual—except for the falling heavens and earth, and the "Ouroboros" that dwells deep beneath Caliban.

No, the ouroboros may have changed. It is the only thing here that is changing. The artifacts left behind by the ancient saints are not things that can be observed or described with the naked eye. This strange creation is more abstract. It dwells in higher dimensions, more dimensions. It is Caliban, or the spatial dimension in which Caliban dwells.

Now, the snake has been awakened.

It is slowly wriggling, devouring its tail, wriggling ceaselessly through space and time.

Multiple destinies and timelines have fallen here, becoming the magnificent scales on the giant serpent. Each scale flashes with brilliant colors amidst the flowing light, a riot of colors, each scale a destiny, each scale a truth.

Every single one is reality.

But in reality, there will only be one—only one.

A future that will be won.

At least Neos firmly believed so.

Even though he is no longer himself.

But Hades will always be Hades.

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

How should you address Him?

Hades, the psychic devourer, an unfortunate intruder, an anchor of time and destiny, the close friend of Mortarion, the fourteenth son of the Emperor, the first commander of the Death Guard, the Death Guard's record holder in the arena, the Great Devourer of the Dining Hall, the Chief Technical Sergeant of Mars, the agent of the Omemesia on Earth, an artificial monster, the top of Robert Guilliman's list of talents to steal, Angron's savior, the last one to believe in Magnus, the Primarch of the Sons of Hades Chapter, a close friend of the Emperor, the genetic father of Black Butcher, the alien friend of the Fearless Tarasin, the Great Devourer who sought common prosperity, the leader of the Greenskins...

How should you address Him?

Its base color is that of a sculpted star god that devours everything, the most feared existence in the warp, a true black hole of dimensions and destiny...

How should you address Him?

Hades.

He is Hades.

King of the Underworld.

That's right, He is Hades, above the gods, a fallen being from the higher dimensions and narratives, whose status surpasses that of the gods.

There was an opportunity in this galaxy—Pluto could have never existed.

But time and again, whether by accident or human intervention, objective or subjective, lucky or unlucky, it was mostly greed, more often a matter of luck, more often dragging the gods down to hell. Step by step, He finally reached the highest level, just one step away from the supreme throne. That last small step—it was just a tiny bit short.

A true destroyer descended upon the world, and everything ceased to exist.

Just one small step away—of course, the situation might not be that critical—this was the Emperor's explanation. After all, Hades had also reached the critical point before, but time and time again, he had managed to pull back from taking that step.

This time it was just a little closer and a little more critical than before.

After all, Hades has now ascended to the final divine position, and there is no shortage of divine powers here. Tzeentch and Slaanesh are bound to Caliban's anchor point, their fate and dimensions are falling together, and they urgently need a god to truly grasp His authority from this chaotic and grand stage.

Becoming a god requires timing, destiny, the world, and the assistance of other dimensions.

Now, with the right time and place, and all in place, even if Hades does not ascend to the divine throne, the forces in this chaotic world will elect a new god—perhaps Tzeentch, perhaps Slaanesh, or perhaps a new supreme god.

This is the end result that emperors built step by step, son by son, from the courage of having nothing and the greed of wanting everything.

Perhaps at this moment,

The outcome is already decided.

The Lord of Change and the youngest prince were too preoccupied to care for themselves—within the subspace, no one could defeat a fully-formed Hades. The situation was obvious: if faced with a Hades who had completely gone mad, at least one Chaos would need to be utterly "crushed."

This leaves only the outcomes the emperor described: a small win, a medium win, and a big win.

With a small victory, Chaos and the Subspace combined their full strength to fight against Hades, but both sides suffered heavy losses and fell into a period of complete weakness.

In the end, Hades went completely mad, devouring everything—all things were plunged into eternal silence, everyone died together, and the Emperor's desired ending was reached: "No one will have an easy time."

A great victory, the birth of the ouroboros encompassing all things and causes, the imprisoned god.

Now, even though big wins are difficult, medium and small wins seem to be a foregone conclusion.

Let's see what happens next—how fate chooses, how people choose, and how Hades chooses.

Will He choose to have nothing—or have everything?

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

Blue feathers fluttered in the air.

9

At the beginning of the octagonal chaos, the first countdown to the zeroing of fate, at the beginning of the chaos of all things, amidst the struggle between the fearful dead and the ancient sages on the Great Dao, a strange blue light appeared, and the first laughter echoed loudly in the subspace, announcing the return of the first god, announcing that fate had entered the countdown, announcing the curtain rising, and announcing the start of the script.

How joyful He was, how laughing He looked upon the world in turmoil, with fools, mediocres, and wises troubling and worrying themselves. The first stroke of the book written by the Highest Heaven laid the foundation for the story's ending and direction.

8

A reckless warrior sits on the Blood Throne—unaware of his origins and his fate—a barbarian who knows neither truth nor destiny, nothing more.

7

The fat man, who prided himself on being eternally stagnant and corrupt, sighed and lay down deep in the garden—how absurd, eternity is nothing more than the most insignificant reward from the gods, yet this foolish fellow regarded it as a treasure.

6

This is a dangerous number.

It is very similar to the number He represents, and there are countless connections between them. Someone with ulterior motives might try to manipulate it, but the Lord of Change will take precautions in advance.

He lost.

Slaanesh, who was shattered before Comoros, reappears in the world—in the chaotic flow of time and space, He is both whole and broken. Dancers appear and disappear beneath His serpentine body, singing wildly before being completely shattered, singing songs of greed and fear.

As the silken ribbons cascaded down, the sacrificed offerings had long since vanished, and the Primarch, immersed in the Youngest Queen's reward, had turned into a pool of blood, allowing the gods to run rampant upon it—but the gods were also no longer in control of their own destiny. The intact Youngest Queen, the shattered Youngest Queen, and the Youngest Queen who was giving birth to the Eldar Death God—an indeterminate superposition of states descended upon the gods, the best portrayal of the current chaotic spacetime and fate.

Slaanesh's soul and psionic state were extremely chaotic, no longer complete and concrete, but fragmented. His sixth ring was so disordered that it was indistinguishable, and was closer to the state of warp turbulence, although a bright purple light still flashed across it.

This is extremely disadvantageous for the ever-changing ruler.

He could sense that Slaanesh's power, after being shattered, was even more aligned with Him—aligned with the 9th-ranked deity. Those powers surged toward Him—and He went toward that power as well. Spiritual energy and soul have always interacted in a two-way manner.

But at the same time, that broken, massive amount of psionic energy, with its extremely weak resistance yet abundant psionic energy, also attracted another being.

The descending Hades.

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

Amidst a cacophony of sensory noise, amidst a pitch-black blur,

Hades ultimately chose to charge forward—he didn't choose the scythe because he was worried about friendly fire—Motalian was obviously there too, and he couldn't afford to accidentally injure his own allies.

For some reason, he felt increasingly unable to control his power, like a skilled shepherd who could no longer easily drive his flock with his cane, but he still rushed forward toward the surging psionic energy.

! ! ! ! !

Amidst the deafening roar, Hades heard a piercing scream so sharp it made him feel as if blood was flowing from all seven orifices, yet it was as if nothing had happened.

He became even more agitated, hungrier, and more energetic.

Those psychic energies he couldn't discern shrieked and struggled in the Dark Sea, writhing and howling like dying caged beasts, wildly thrusting out their claws and fangs—Hades sensed that these struggling psychic energies were extremely powerful, unimaginably powerful.

Is this really the power that a Slaanesh could possess?

Hades was momentarily confused, but he immediately dismissed the thought that Slaanesh was a genuine Chaos God—he shouldn't have—that Slaanesh wasn't actually that strong and that something else might exist.

Even though Slaanesh is much stronger than Hades imagined, Hades himself seems to be stronger than he thought. Those powerful psionic forces, capable of destroying parts of the galaxy, can only struggle helplessly and futilely beneath the Netherwaters, trying to attack him, but are easily disintegrated by the ceaseless flow of water.

But in reality, Hades did indeed have the idea that Slaanesh wasn't that strong—as if he had easily crushed the youngest queen, as if he had already stepped onto a higher level.

Hades felt somewhat out of control. Above the struggling beast, the Netherwater was an unstoppable, unstoppable guillotine slowly descending. He had already begun to use it spontaneously before realizing that he possessed absolute power—the power from his "future self".

But he still hesitated, feeling something was amiss—if it were Hades now, he probably wouldn't have hesitated like this—after all, he himself had fallen into the gap between illusion and reality.

So Hades paused for a moment, before succumbing to sheer hunger again. A chaotic sword flashed before his eyes, and he blinked, calling out uncertainly,

"Motalian?! Did I type Chaos wrong?!"

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

When Mortarian heard that shout, he almost rolled his eyes back and returned to the embrace of the warp.

Oh, no, it's uncertain whether there's even a subspace here anymore. If someone dies now, they'll probably just go wherever they want.

However, [Motalian] insisted on not completely losing consciousness. The reasons were twofold: first, he did not want to fall into a coma, and second, Luo Jia was holding his hand tightly—golden light was faintly flickering.

It's not the right time yet.

The Primarch silently watched him and shook his head.

Beside them, the falling Black Sky was already entangled with Slaanesh, but the outcome seemed to be indisputable. Slaanesh, whose struggles and screams were enough to make the Primarch's soul tremble, was nothing more than lambs waiting to be slaughtered on a glittering silver plate in front of Hades.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Yaolan was being continuously pulled up into the higher heavens by the warp currents stirred up by Slaanesh, and then led to fall into that pure darkness—that equally dark, only more filthy, God-Emperor's Land was also pushing hard, pushing Tzeentch into that great black sky.

The outcome is decided.

The game is over.

Mortarian thought to himself, anyone who saw this scene knew it was all over, all over, everyone was falling into the underworld hand in hand—but for Mortarian personally, it was a pretty good ending, and even better, he seemed to hear Hades calling him.

Although he did not see his unfamiliar friend, there was only darkness, only darkness, the dark sky hanging down, greedily and impatiently rushing down, with the feeling of wanting to devour everything.

This was certainly not the friend he knew—[Motalian] thought to himself, the Hades he knew had never been so terrifying and greedy.

But then he realized that it might not be like that.

Hades, as he knew him, seemed to have always been like that, except that his arrogant and conceited ambition was always buried deep in his soul and was never openly displayed by the young man on his sickbed.

But in reality, Hades has always been like this.

His madness and greed remained constant. On the steps toward higher heavens, he always desired goals that were unattainable for ordinary people, and he was never willing to lower his bottom line. He even tried to teach the Barbarosians what a normal and happy life was.

Trying to help others on Barbarossa, trying to teach normal people, is crazy enough—but that's not all, he even tells them part of the truth.

Here, all of this becomes even more apparent: his desire for humanity and for the empire—the grandest, most detached from instinct and base desires—is externalized as appetite.

Perhaps so. [Motalian] didn't know if his wild thoughts were correct, because a sudden "Motalian!" interrupted his thoughts and almost sent him away.

Perhaps it was just a hair's breadth away, but Luo Jia pulled him back.

He's here.

That's what the bald guy said.

Everyone knows Hades is here. Mortarion's eyes are practically rolling to the sky. Now, no one can ignore Hades, who's currently feasting—it's as if he's going to swallow the entire Warp whole.

As if sensing his thoughts, Luo Jia shook his head mysteriously, and the original body stretched out a hand and pointed at the King of the Underworld in the sky.

I'm talking about that person, him.

The Primarch said, looking firmly at Mortarion.

+He will try to devour Slaanesh first—at which point Tzeentch and the Black King will also fall into the underworld, but that's not the point. The point is that we need to awaken His sanity after He has devoured most of those Chaos Gods, so that He will voluntarily remove His blindfold. +

An eye mask? Where did this eye mask come from—this bald man is completely insane.

But Luo Jia only squeezed his hand tightly, then let go, and the Primarch waved at him.

I need to go help Black King with the preparations.

Luo Jia said,

+Ensure the Ouroboros's successful revival—Motalian, remember, after falling into Hades' realm, you have a 50% chance to call out to Him. You must awaken him, understand?

Why not let another version of myself come?

This seems to increase the chances of victory.

+……+

He will.