I Am Not a God!

Long ago, Arthas slew King Father, while the Scourge ravaged Northrend. Now Mordred bombarded the Emperor, and Orbital Bombardment ravaged Nightfall Star.

Both sides had a prince, and both faced their father. The only difference was that Mordred still had Vulkan, his good brother, on his side. Two sons against one—it was practically Filial Piety at its finest.

Yet this seemingly suicidal rogue strategy was not something Mordred had come up with on a whim. It had been the result of meticulous calculations.

After all, Mordred's regeneration was freakishly fast, and he also had mobility skills. As long as he was not annihilated instantly, he could piece himself back together even after being blown apart. Mordred even believed that he could slowly revive after being vaporized.

As for Vulkan, there was even less to say. That black uncle was even more absurd than Mordred, who at least paid some attention to the basic laws of physics. He came with Resurrection Armor built in!

As long as the Lance fell, the length of their health bars meant they absolutely would not die. It looked like mutual destruction, but in reality, it was just a bored top-laner's casual health trade.

Of course, this was probably a trick only Mordred and Vulkan could pull off. At most, the future Lion King, who would learn Forest Walk, could be added to the list. Otherwise, anyone who tried it would have to be an idiot.

However, no matter how carefully he calculated, Mordred would never have imagined that some bastard with nothing better to do would disguise himself as a vagrant and play Blood Game with him. Even more absurdly, that idiot was his father—the Emperor.

Under the violent explosion, Vulkan, who had taken the impact head-on, was carbonized on the spot. Mordred, who had been flashing around frantically, did not escape either and was completely swallowed by the blazing fireball. Only a curse that rang across the wasteland remained:

"AMINOS!! Yellow Skins."

By contrast, Tom aboard the Abomination Exemplar waved his arm proudly and shouted some nonsense about not disappointing his father.

The Four Merchants clicked their tongues in amazement at the spectacular sight. When they saw The Cursed emerge from the explosion with a bucket of Big Mo Sauce in his left hand and half of Vulkan in his right, his hair burned to a crisp, they became even more excited and shouted, "This is exactly what I wanted to see, Kiya!"

No one knew what the Emperor was feeling at that moment, but when Laan saw the black-faced Golden Giant standing before him with an unfriendly expression and covered in soot, he was genuinely afraid.

As a member of the Primarch Stretcher Team, Laan was already used to his boss being beaten half to death. The moment the shockwave subsided, he had rushed to the explosion's center, ready to gather up the pieces according to plan.

Then he ran into the Emperor.

"Uh, Your Majesty! Can we make peace?"

"You can't be joking."

Without the slightest hesitation, the Emperor grabbed him by the head. Golden light flared instantly, and a Psychic Teleportation brought them aboard the Emperor's Dream, which was hidden on the far side of the planet.

Seeing that Emperor had no intention of taking his life, Laan, who was making his second trip there, became very obedient. He followed behind the Golden Giant and began pretending to be dead.

The enormous laboratory where the Emperor arrived was filled with countless researchers rushing about and fiddling with bizarre devices Laan could not understand.

The Emperor casually opened the Incubation Pod marked Eighteen, stuffed the charcoal-grilled Vulkan inside, then poured Mordred Sauce into Incubation Pod Number Two with an expression of disgust.

Watching Vulkan rapidly recover as he floated up and down in the nutrient fluid, the Emperor could not help but sigh in relief. As one part of his grand plan, not a single leaf of Clover could be lost.

As for the mutt beside him, the Emperor did not worry about him at all. Perhaps even if he himself kicked the bucket, this Rebellious son would not perish.

Even so, the Emperor did not believe that he was the main cause of this farce. Instead, he began wondering whether letting Mordred loaf around in Serenity had been a waste.

With that thought, the Emperor turned his gaze behind him and stopped the dog, who was trying to sharpen his teeth with the Separator. He had come up with an interesting idea!

"I'm hungry. Go make me dinner. If it doesn't taste good, I'll make dog-meat Hot Pot out of you!"

Half an hour later, the two fully revived Golden Giants were brought to the dining hall by the Adeptus Custodes. The first thing they were treated to was the usual father-and-son reunion routine.

Basically, the Emperor said things like, "I'm your father, you're my son, you must join me in the Great Crusade, and restore humanity to greatness."

There was not the slightest bit of substance to it. It was nothing but a one-sided ideological lecture. Yet even such a crude method of drawing grand blueprints managed to bamboozle the simple-minded Vulkan until he lost all sense of direction.

Mordred alone had no interest in it whatsoever. He and the dog lay on the table, burying their heads in their food while muttering about how the Yellow Skins lacked virtue and how even his own Ogryn were less troublesome. The Emperor was so irritated that he wanted to beat him up again.

"Second Brother, stop saying that. Father must be testing us. You have to understand his good intentions!"

"What? You call that a test? Did you forget how hard he beat the two of us just now? And now you're defending him? So I'm the only bad guy here?"

"Little brother, haven't you noticed that this Yellow Skins is manipulating you? His eyes are practically glowing like light bulbs. Are you even awake?"

In just a few sentences, Vulkan had already become one of the Emperor's die-hard loyalists. He called him "Father" this way and "Emperor" that way, completely forgetting his good Second Brother, with whom he had been chatting so happily moments ago.

No wonder Vulkan had such a good reputation. If it had been anyone else, Mordred would have rushed over to give him some physical education. It was a tradition of House of Huo.

"Fine, Old Man Huang, so this is how you want to play it? Do you think you're a god? One day, you'll regret this. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"I Am Not a God! I am the Emperor! I am never wrong."

The Golden Giant remained stubborn to the extreme. Mordred even suspected that when the universe perished, two mouths would still be floating in the void, and one of them would be his.

When words failed, the Emperor believed that Mordred, as someone who understood the truth, should agree with him. Mordred, however, thought Old Man Huang was courting death. Vulkan was one thing, but if it had been any other primarch, things would eventually have exploded.

The two quickly went from disagreeing over ideals to a verbal dispute, cursing each other so viciously that it left a deep psychological scar on the honest black uncle who had behaved properly all his life.

"Yellow Skins, the only reason you were born tens of thousands of years before me is that you're older. With your conduct, you still want to restore humanity to greatness? Do you even know how to govern the people?

"Bah! You don't know shit, you Roman She-Wolf. Did you sell your brain along with your junk?"

"You know how to govern? You made Serenity as solid as an iron plate in two years and even sent little gifts to the front lines. What are you planning? Don't think I don't know your little secret."

"Stop arguing!"

"Shut up!" ×2

"What right do you have to speak? As your father, educating him is only natural!"

"Bullshit! My father died long ago. And you, Vulkan—I hate fence-sitters most of all. Get lost!"

Vulkan stood frozen after being reprimanded by both of them at once. One was a father harboring grand dreams, and the other was a gentle, friendly elder brother. He could not persuade either of them. How had things suddenly turned into this?

In the end, Laan, who had the most common sense among the four, could not stand watching any longer. He pulled the bewildered Vulkan into a corner.

"Forget it. If you keep butting in, I'm afraid they'll turn around and beat you up together. Things have come to this, so let's eat first!"

Looking at the food stuffed into his hands, Vulkan sighed and immediately bit into the bread. He turned his grief and indignation into appetite and began devouring the food desperately alongside the dog.

"Delicious!"