You Must Grow Strong-And Quickly

The royal palace kitchens. Champion Swordsman leaned against the wall, freed from the nerve-racking battlefield and enjoying a rare moment of rest.

A throne attendant had come by earlier and told him he would not be needed in the battles ahead.

His current duty was to protect the master he had sworn allegiance to as a member of the private guard.

Harlan was somewhat surprised by King Norwick's order, but he did not question why he had been transferred away from the battlefield.

A king's orders always held deeper meaning. All he needed to do was wait until the moment came to fulfill his duty.

Before him was the figure of his oath-master, busy at the cutting board. He was skinning and gutting the Ork piece by piece, separating different parts into ingredients suited for different cooking methods.

Harlan was a focused man, focused on achieving victory.

Doom was focused too—focused on how to cook Orks into delicious dishes.

What amazed Harlan most was Doom's superb control over his body. His hand holding the knife did not tremble in the slightest. The marbled meat between the Ork's abdominal muscles was cut into slices as thin as cicada wings.

"Would you like to try some?"

Doom drank a bowl of thick soup stewed from an Ork's skull, an expression of enjoyment on his face, and asked whether the private guard was willing to taste it.

There were no moral objections to eating intelligent species in Nul.

In the distant past, during humanity's glorious age, the empire built around Nul had once exterminated an alien species simply because they tasted good.

As Doom's oath-guard and a vassal of the Norwick royal family, Harlan was close to the royal family and did not refuse.

Personally, his carefree nature also made him willing to sample the taste of Ork.

During the wars in the wastelands, Orks had plundered everywhere and eaten no small number of wasteland tribes.

The clear soup entered his mouth, and Harlan's eyes lit up. He could not help nodding to show that it tasted excellent.

Only a little salt had been used as seasoning, perfectly drawing out the savory sweetness of the Ork meat. The earthy fragrance of mushrooms blended with the aroma of meat into a wonderfully rich scent.

"Try this one too."

Doom rolled up a translucent piece of meat from the abdomen, dipped it in sauce, and held it out to Harlan.

Harlan swallowed it in one bite. After being chilled, the delicate fat melted in the warmth of his mouth, mixing with the tender meat. It was utterly irresistible.

He closed his eyes in enjoyment and gave Doom a thumbs-up. He could not help thinking that if he did not become a warrior in the future, he could become a cook and conquer others with flavor.

Seeing Harlan's look of enjoyment, Doom could not resist either. He rolled up a slice and swallowed it in one bite.

As soon as the flesh reached his stomach, his expression changed wildly. His body shuddered violently, and he instinctively clutched his throat before spitting out the piece of meat.

Doom exhaled a foul breath through his nose, braced himself with both hands against the cutting board, and shook his head repeatedly to stay conscious.

Harlan's expression changed. He hurriedly spat out the meat, thinking the Ork flesh contained some unknown poison.

He quickly placed a hand against Doom's chest. As he felt Doom's physical condition, he prepared to call someone in.

His expression was extremely grim. He had been serving as a guard for less than two hours, and if anything happened to his oath-master right in front of him, it would be a disgrace he could never wash away.

"Haran Ogilvy!" Doom called the guard's name in a clear voice. With his head lowered, he raised a hand to stop Harlan from calling for help.

"Three days ago, didn't you knock down an Ork with your left foot and stun it by striking it with a guard's spear?"

Harlan did not wonder why Doom was asking. A guard's duty was to obey. He quickly recalled his movements at the time, confirming whether they matched Doom's description.

"Yes!" he answered with absolute certainty. He even let go of Doom and reenacted how he had captured the Ork.

After receiving the affirmative answer, Doom waved his hand to indicate that he was fine.

Just moments ago, the instant he ate the slice of raw Ork meat, fragmented scenes had surfaced in his mind—images he experienced as though he were there himself.

A tall warrior in white armor kicked him. Then, as the warrior raised his spear and swept it across, his vision went black. When he woke up, he was already inside a cage.

The impact of the memories came quickly and went just as quickly.

Doom broke into a smile and said to the puzzled Harlan, "I seem to have acquired an incredible skill. By eating flesh, I can learn the memories of the one being eaten."

"Does it put any strain on your body?"

Harlan did not ask much about the Son of Heaven's Descent's supernatural ability. Everyone had their own secrets. Instead, he was concerned about its effect on Doom's body, since Doom's expression had looked terrible just now.

"No." Doom gave him a bright smile and pointed to his head as he explained, "It was only my brain's stress response to receiving foreign information for the first time. It won't happen again."

With that, he picked up a large chunk of untreated Ork flesh and chewed and swallowed it in huge bites. No stress response appeared this time.

"Your Highness." Seeing that Doom was fine, Harlan nodded and exhaled a breath of relief, suppressing the tremor in his heart. Then, with an unusually solemn expression, he said to Doom, "That talent is dangerous."

"Why?" Doom asked in confusion. On the battlefield, such an ability was lethal to his enemies.

As long as he ate an enemy's flesh, he could learn the enemy's movements and even their deployment of forces. It was unquestionably a powerful ability.

"I'm not talking about the battlefield." Harlan shook his head as he looked at Doom. "You should be able to figure it out."

"Our comrades." The smile on Doom's face froze. With Harlan's reminder, he realized how terrifying his ability truly was.

Everyone harbored more or less darkness within them, secrets they were unwilling to face.

Once people learned that someone could obtain the memories carried in their genes by eating their flesh, even the closest comrades-in-arms would develop an insurmountable barrier in their hearts.

How could they trust someone and dare to bleed in front of him?

"I will keep this secret and never mention it in front of anyone." Harlan spoke sternly to Doom. "I hope you can keep your own secret as well. Do not reveal it to anyone, and use it with restraint only when necessary."

Doom nodded solemnly, understanding the Champion Swordsman's painstaking concern.

"At the same time, I need to warn you." Harlan spoke again, cautioning his oath-master. "Use this ability as little as possible."

"Taking in too many memories from other people or other species will inevitably stain you, no matter how you adjust yourself and cleanse your heart afterward."

"As a warrior, if you draw your sword and your memories cause you to feel emotions different from those you should have, cracks will appear in the walls of your mind, and the sword in your hand will no longer be as sharp."

"I will remember your teachings, Haran Ogilvy."

Doom listened and firmly engraved Harlan's words in his mind, absorbing the precious experience the Champion Swordsman had accumulated through decades of warfare.

Champion Swordsman Haran Ogilvy was also known as the Duelist.

He was a powerful warrior whose duty was to find the enemy's champion on the battlefield, issue a challenge, and engage in a duel between champions.

He had remained alive after serving as a Night Watcher for decades. His opponents, meanwhile, had all vanished in duels against him.

Doom asked Harlan to tell him more about his experiences on the battlefield. He listened attentively, voicing his admiration from time to time.

"Your Highness."

As master and servant were deep in conversation, an inner-court maid interrupted them. "Queen Daisy asks you to see her and accompany her in seeing off King Norwick."

"So soon?" Doom asked in surprise. He had thought his father would stay longer, but he had not expected him to leave again after less than a day.

"You don't know how chaotic the battlefield is."

Harlan knew why King Norwick was leaving. "The Orks have been gathering and growing stronger even as they flee."

"Not only are we hunting them, but the knights have joined the purge as well. The Orks are also fighting among themselves. Someone has to remain behind and direct the battlefield."

Doom knew that he had descended from the heavens and destroyed the Ork elites, but millions of Greenskins still rampaged across the land.

They had merely lost their leaders. They were not completely incapable of resistance.

Aside from the thousand warriors left behind, every other warrior had joined the encirclement and extermination, tirelessly destroying the Orks' living forces.

Doom shook his head. Committing such a powerful elite force as the Night Watchers to an endless war of attrition was truly an immense helplessness.

The Gate of Conquest. Every time the Guardian Domain went on an expedition, it departed from here.

Doom, Queen Daisy, and his second elder brother stood beside the Gate of Conquest with the crowd seeing them off, waiting for King Norwick's army.

"Where's Big Brother?" Doom quietly asked his elder brother beside him, Flano Norwick.

"He's practically working himself to death," Flano whispered back. "All the logistics for the army have been placed on his shoulders."

Just as Doom was about to ask for more details, Queen Daisy gently tugged at her sons' clothes. "Silence!"

Before the sacred and solemn Gate of Conquest, everyone bowed their heads. Some of the warriors who departed from this place were destined never to return.

Norwick walked at the front. When he reached Doom's side, he suddenly stopped.

He picked up the bewildered Doom and whispered in his ear, "You must become strong. Become strong quickly. We don't have much time!"

After saying that, he put his son down and looked at him with a complicated expression. In the instant their eyes met, Doom saw a worry he had never seen before.

As he watched the expeditionary force depart, Doom clenched both fists tightly. His eyes flickered, and no one knew what he was thinking.