Late at night, for many people in Calimport, was not a time for sleep.
Quite the opposite!
It was the most active and intense time of their day.
Especially in the vast, intricate sewers beneath the city, where hundreds of Skaven had gathered to besiege a group of Kuo-toa who were likewise hiding in the sewers.
They were intelligent amphibious creatures with fish-like heads, bodies covered in multicolored scales, atrophied limbs, and webbing between their fingers and toes.
They often lurked in the sewers of port cities or attacked and occupied small coastal fishing villages, turning them into their own territory.
But today, these creatures, regarded by coastal residents as a tremendous menace and plague, were suffering a devastating catastrophe.
Although the Kuo-toa had better weapons than the Skaven, who relied only on overwhelming their enemies with numbers,
and even had a Cleric constantly casting Divine Magic,
they were still driven back again and again beneath wave after wave of assaults.
Some Murloc corpses had even been bitten and torn to pieces by frenzied Skaven, exposing the muscles and bones beneath their scales and skin.
When the last Kuo-toa Cleric was hacked to death in a flurry of blades, the victorious Skaven immediately raised their hands and let out a bloodcurdling cheer.
The dark red bloodstains on their gray fur and the flesh caught in their mouths and teeth all testified to their madness that night.
Without question, among the many Lycanthropes, Skaven were among the least renowned for their combat prowess.
Yet at this moment, they had become unusually savage and bloodthirsty.
The reason, of course, was the figure standing atop a small hill piled from countless Kuo-toa corpses.
One of his eyes was blind, only half his tail remained, and his left ear bore a small notch. But his gaze was fiercer than that of the others, making it clear that he was the leader of the entire Skaven tribe.
He sliced off the Kuo-toa Cleric's head with a curved blade, raised the bloody fish head high, and shouted, "My dear brothers and sisters!
Today, we have made history!
A history Calimport has never seen before!
Under the guidance of the great God of the Hunt, we have conquered every corner of the sewers!
Whether it was those Werewolves who looked down on us, the Trolls who treated us as food, or these foul scaled fish-men, all of them have fallen beneath our feet.
Glory to Malar!
I declare!
From this moment onward!
The Skaven will establish our own Kingdom in Calimport's sewers!
No one will ever be able to order us around again!
And I promise you, this is only the beginning!
Next, I will lead you back to the surface and teach those Thieves' Guild leaders to respect us through our actions!
Otherwise!
We will cut off their heads and offer them as sacrifices to the Beastlord."
"Woohoo!"
"Well said!"
"Thanks to the blessing of the great God of the Hunt, Malar!"
"From now on, the sewers belong to the Skaven Kingdom!"
"That's right! Anyone who dares enter without permission, we'll kill them!"
"The Thieves' Guilds of Calimport must learn to respect us!"
"Lanni! You are our king!"
For a moment, the surrounding Skaven howled madly as though pumped full of stimulants.
Especially those standing in the front row, whose eyes brimmed with worship for the Skaven leader called Lanni.
It was precisely because of this almost fanatical atmosphere that no one noticed a pair of eyes in the shadows nearby, watching everything that had just happened.
He was none other than Bernice, Aipuke's master assassin.
These Skaven have actually thrown themselves into the embrace of Malar, the God of the Hunt?
No wonder they suddenly became so mad and bloodthirsty.
But who exactly is this Lanni?
Why do I have no impression of him at all?
Bernice muttered in a voice only he could hear.
But when he saw the Skaven begin piling up the Kuo-toa corpses they had killed, apparently preparing for some bloody sacrificial ritual,
he did not dare remain to observe any longer. Instead, he turned and retreated toward the sewer entrance.
After all, no one knew whether some terrifying creature might be summoned during a sacrifice to such a Chaotic Evil deity.
If they happened to summon a creature capable of seeing through invisibility, then no matter how skilled one was at stealth, one would be exposed in an instant.
One of the most important reasons Bernice had survived safely in Calimport until now was that, unlike other Rogues, he did not possess excessive curiosity.
An hour later.
A circular room on the second underground level of the Thieves' Guild.
Aipuke, dressed in silk nightclothes, sat in his own seat and quietly listened to Bernice's report, continuously rubbing his plump, springy chin with his fingers.
After a long silence, he finally frowned and asked his magical adviser, "Aren't Malar's followers usually active in remote forests and wildernesses?
And I heard that those who call themselves the Blackbloods utterly despise Skaven living in city sewers.
Why would there be a Skaven who worships Malar in Calimport's sewers?
This is far too strange!"
"Malar is the shared faith of all evil-aligned Lycanthropes.
In theory, Skaven could absolutely become followers of the God of the Hunt.
But what I find incredible is that this Skaven leader called Lanni is actually ambitious enough to establish an underground Kingdom in the sewers.
That is something no Thieves' Guild in all of Calimport can tolerate."
The middle-aged Wizard Kulang pointed out the issue from a professional perspective.
As everyone knew, Calimport's sewers formed an intricate underground network extending in every direction.
Many Thieves' Guilds used them for smuggling operations or to establish black-market bases for buying and selling stolen goods.
That meant the sewers were shared; no one could monopolize them.
Otherwise, it would be an open declaration of hostility toward every guild besides one's own.
"Hmph! It seems someone made promises they had no intention of keeping in order to trick these Skaven into serving them.
But it doesn't matter!
Since others can use them, so can I.
Bernice, deliver a letter to that Skaven leader called Lanni.
Tell him I wish to meet him tomorrow at midnight at the sewer entrance on the city's southern street."
Worthy of being the leader of a Thieves' Guild, Aipuke saw through the essence of the entire matter at once.
Since the Skaven had become a blade in the hands of someone with ulterior motives, why could he not become the master of that blade?
None of them had any intention of honoring their promises anyway, so he could simply offer an exorbitant price to tempt the Skaven into changing sides.
"Understood. I'll make sure the letter reaches him."
The assassin vanished into the shadows once more and left without a sound.
After he had gone far away, Aipuke continued, "Kulang, how many rats have we caught for Lord Soros now?"
"More than two thousand, roughly. You know how incredibly difficult these things are to catch.
And once their numbers reach a certain point, they start killing one another and gnawing on their own kind's corpses.
Our people have had to use wire to separate them one by one inside the cages, feeding them food and water at regular intervals."
At the mention of those rats, the middle-aged Wizard immediately could not help complaining.
Whenever he thought of the densely packed rats in those cages, goosebumps rose all over his body.
"Hahaha! I'm growing more and more eager to see what tricks Lord Soros will play with these rats. You know, I've always been fascinated by magic, but I simply lack the talent for it..."
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