The Rotten Crown

Cheers erupted from the Nurgling Gang's position, deafening in their intensity. The members climbed out of the trenches, dancing and celebrating this "great" victory. This new "game" brought them greater joy than any Bumping Game they had ever played.

Liu Zhipeng watched it all, knowing this was only the beginning.

His goal was far more than simply repelling a patrol. He intended to send that lofty Blood God a "grand gift" he would never forget.

Over the following days, the "Bubblegum" Gang's performance art began spreading across the entire battlefield.

They were no longer content with passive defense. Liu Zhipeng began dispatching squads to take the initiative. Their purpose was not to fight, but to "cause trouble."

They infiltrated behind the Khorne legion's lines and smeared Surprise Sauce over the Khorne Demons' weapons and armor. Weapons forged from brass and steel, covered in runes of slaughter, swiftly rusted and decayed after touching the liquid, becoming heaps of useless scrap.

They hurled "water balloons" made from beast bladders and filled with Surprise Sauce into the barrels of Khorne's war machines—the Skull Cannons. When the Skull Cannons fired, they no longer spewed burning skulls, but huge globs of sticky, foul-smelling liquid that splattered all over their own troops' faces.

They even turned their attention toward the Khorne legion's most vital strategic target—the skull altars used to sacrifice to the Blood God.

They secretly drew all manner of absurd graffiti upon the mountain-like piles of skulls. Using pus in different colors, they painted smiling faces and little flowers on the skulls, even scrawling the crooked words, "Grandfather loves you."

When Khorne's Demons saw the next day that the offerings they had painstakingly gathered for the Blood God had become a heap of colorful "artworks" dripping with mockery, they collectively went mad.

This humiliation kindled their fury more fiercely than any battlefield defeat. They began searching desperately for those damned little green bugs that had blasphemed their faith.

And that was precisely the outcome Liu Zhipeng wanted.

In this way, he successfully drew a large portion of the Khorne legion's attention away from the front lines. Like a masterful matador, he used a red cloth steeped in insult to lead the furious bull called "Khorne" by the nose, making it futilely expend its strength and rage upon the battlefield he had prepared.

His reputation began spreading through Nurgle's legion.

At first, the higher-ranking Nurgle Demons paid no attention to these Nurglings "messing around" on the battlefield. But once they noticed that the pressure on the front had greatly eased due to the Khorne legion's inexplicable "distraction," they began to take notice of this unusual Nurgling force.

They did not understand his tactics, but they saw the results.

Liu Zhipeng and his Nurgling companions had used the lowliest lives and the most absurd methods to thoroughly disgust their eternal enemies.

And Liu Zhipeng's ultimate target was the commander of the Khorne legion on this battlefield—a Bloodletter named Kabanha. He was a legendary existence, a great champion who had won glory for the Blood God in countless wars.

Liu Zhipeng knew that only by leaving a few of "Grandfather's surprises" on this being as well could his performance art truly reach its climax.

He began devising an even madder, bolder plan. A plan that required every member of the gang, even himself, to wager their lives.

He would present this Bloodletter with a one-of-a-kind coronation ceremony, brimming with "love" and decay.

Kabanha, the Blood God's favored child, the incarnation of brass and fury. His very existence was a massacre of life. When he descended upon a battlefield, even the air burned beneath his boundless rage. At this moment, the great Bloodletter stood at the height of his fury.

He did not care about victory or defeat on the front lines, nor did he care about the advance of those foolish Nurgle Demons. He cared about only one thing—those damned, blasphemous little green bugs.

His weapons had been smeared with sticky excrement, his skull altars painted with ridiculous little flowers, and his Vanguard legion harassed into losing all interest by cheap little tricks. To a Khorne champion who valued glory and pure slaughter more than life itself, this was an intolerable, shameful disgrace.

He swore that he would personally grind those bugs into the lowliest dust and use their souls to wipe the stains from his war boots.

And Liu Zhipeng had been waiting for this very moment. Like the most patient hunter, he waited for the most savage beast to charge straight in.

"Does everyone understand?"

Inside a cave formed from enormous intestinal tissue, the gang's core members gathered together. Liu Zhipeng's voice passed through his constantly bubbling mouth to every member.

"Got it!" Boji was the first to respond. Excitedly jabbing the ground with the horn on his head, he said, "We're going to put the prettiest 'crown' on that biggest red guy!"

The other Nurglings chirped in cheerful agreement. In their simple minds, this was merely another novel and amusing game invented by their Boss. They had no idea that the price of this game would be all their lives.

As Liu Zhipeng looked at their innocent faces, a complicated emotion flickered through his heart. He was using them—using these child-minded creatures to carry out his malicious revenge and pave the way for his reincarnation in the next life. But perhaps that was the essence of Chaos: grand concepts realized by the lowliest lives, while those lives themselves knew nothing of their own mission.

"Good." He pushed aside his stray thoughts and continued his instructions. "Remember, when you see Big Guy fall, that is the signal. Before then, no matter what happens, you must stay in your 'mud pits' and keep the Surprise Sauce ready."

The "Big Guy" he referred to was a Great Unclean One from Nurgle's legion named Gragg the Vomiter. This Great Unclean One had already suffered severe wounds in an earlier battle and moved sluggishly, making him the target Kabanha was most likely to hunt first. Liu Zhipeng's entire plan revolved around this Great Unclean One's final fate.