Three Lives That Shouldn't End

Hades tightly gripped his dagger, waking up amidst a series of jolts and people's cries.

He shook his head, his consciousness gradually clearing.

Just moments ago, he had passed out from sheer exhaustion.

The wagon holding the captives was still moving forward slowly. Based on the slope, Hades deduced that they were climbing mountainous terrain—and had already reached mid-to-low altitudes.

The night of Barbarus was ending, and the puppets that had finished hunting slaves were delivering them to the alien lord's fortress atop the high mountains.

Hades gritted his teeth. Crawling inside their completely enclosed cage, he pressed himself against the floor and tapped on it, searching for the weakest spot in the enclosure.

Yes, he was going to escape. Even without a shred of hope, even with the vast disparity between enemy and foe, as long as Hades had a single breath left, he would never accept his fate.

He would never accept his fate.

Even if captured, he could struggle with his limbs to find a way out; even if his limbs were broken, he could tear at the enemy with his teeth; even if his teeth were knocked out, he could stare them down with a defiant, contemptuous gaze, spit a mouthful of blood, and tell them that Hades never accepted his fate!

There was only one chance to escape, and it had to be now. If time were allowed to march on, the slave convoy would climb to even higher altitudes—up there, the poisonous gases of Barbarus were far deadlier, and the crude homemade gas masks the people wore simply could not withstand them. They would die struggling in a few minutes of agonizing asphyxiation.

Lacking information on the mountains, Hades could only decide to break the cage open first. Matters had reached this point; he would just have to play it by ear and take things one step at a time.

In the cramped, enclosed space, people wailed and wept. Hades squeezed past the people around him, tuning out all other noise. He tapped the floor, concentrating fully on finding the weakest spot.

--Finally, he found it.

He shoved aside a sobbing old woman sitting above him (though she looked very old, she might only be thirty). That person completely ignored Hades; most of the people in this cargo hold had already been consumed by fear until nothing was left but tears.

He pulled out his dagger and began to gouge the floorboard. The poisonous gas did him a huge favor; the floorboards, long exposed to the toxic environment, were not as hard as they looked, and Hades quickly carved out a small pit.

Higher concentrations of toxic gas drifted in through the small hole, and Hades saw hope—it was small, but it was there.

Yet it was still not enough.

Hades frantically kept digging for his life. The scraping thuds of the excavation and the poison gas seeping in from the outside slowly wafted up from beneath him.

As he worked, the crying inside the carriage gradually ceased. These villagers, who had spent their entire lives hiding and weeping, broken and tormented by fear, stared blankly at Hades's actions.

They seemed not to have processed what Hades was doing, but at the same time, they realized—

Now was the time they could still struggle.

A lean, wiry young man crawled out from the crowd. He was dressed in rags and had a cunning face.

He half-knelt and crawled to Hades's side, patting him on the shoulder.

"I'll help you."

Hades was stunned. He turned back to look at the man and found his hands completely empty.

"You don't even have a little knife, how do you plan to help me?"

The young man froze. He lowered his head and spoke, as if having made a heavy decision.

"I am a psyker."

A buzzing sound filled Hades's head. Living, adult, able-bodied psykers on Barbarus were practically nonexistent.

A thought flashed through Hades's mind like lightning.

"Are you Typhon? Calas Typhon?!"

The other man nodded bitterly.

"What? Even now, do you still look down on a freak like me?"

Hades instantly shook his head. He looked at Typhon with firm, blazing eyes.

"No, I believe you. Let's escape together."

"I just... didn't expect to run into you here..."

Hades carefully chose his words, hoping as much as possible not to hurt Typhon. After all, Typhon could be considered a key figure in the Warhammer storyline.

What's more, he needed to borrow Typhon's psychic power to escape this place.

Calas Typhon, who was he?

Calas Typhon, the true leader of the Fourteenth Legion (cough, no), First Company Captain of the Fourteenth Legion, Mortarion's former close friend, the despicable turncoat, the filial son who engaged in mutual beatings with his father, ■■■■■, a psyker born to an alien father and a human mother.

His most famous feat was single-handedly sacrificing the entire Death Guard.

In the original plot, Calas Typhon was Mortarion's close friend on Barbarus. Inspired by him, Mortarion escaped the imprisonment of his alien adoptive father and successfully reached the human settlement at the foot of the mountain.

Afterwards, Mortarion and Calas Typhon together formed and led the rebel army (though mostly formed by Mortarion).

It could be said that Calas Typhon was Mortarion's guide into the human world.

Mortarion showed great tolerance and indulgence toward this human he was seeing for the first time.

This ultimately led to Typhon, now of the Death Guard, turning traitor and repeatedly committing rebellious acts, yet still avoiding being chopped to death by Mortarion.

In the end, the poor judge of character Mortarion had his entire Legion directly sacrificed by Calas Typhon—just another day of wholesome parent-child bonding.

And Typhon appearing here could only mean one thing.

In the original work, Mortarion and Calas Typhon's meeting began with Typhon escaping from the slave-catcher wagon.

In other words, Mortarion was about to make a heroic drop-in shortly, and Hades had a high probability of surviving this wave!!!

He could run out!

As for soon meeting Mortarion, Hades felt indifferent. Surviving and staying alive right now was the most important thing!

Forget about the betrayal centuries later; if he didn't run now, he was going to be an alien BBQ!

Hades sidestepped to make room, signaling for Typhon to begin his psychic performance.

Come on, Typhon, show everyone a trick!

Typhon frowned tightly as eerie white light gathered in his hands—

Good, sigh, damn it, go—

The white light suddenly dimmed.

"It shouldn't be like this, I feel like my connection to the Warp has been weakened..."

Typhon muttered to himself in a low voice.

Hades stared at him. Big brother, can you cut it or not? Are you going to pull this off or not, big brother?

Yet what they didn't know was that it was precisely Hades's Blanks-like constitution that blocked Typhon's connection to the Warp.

Perhaps they should be grateful that this constitution of Hades's could grow alongside him. Right now, Hades was still a child and extremely weak, which meant he could only weaken the Warp connection.

And it was precisely this slowly growing constitution of Hades's that kept Hades from associating himself with being a Blank at first. After all, in his memory, because Blanks were like black holes in the Warp and constantly, unconsciously, and slowly devoured the souls around them, any creature with a soul would instinctively loathe them.

Blanks belonged to the category of being universally despised, and some people would even try to hunt them down out of an inexplicable hatred.

It was precisely because of these perceptions that Hades didn't immediately suspect he was a Blank.

If a psyker dared to attempt using psychic powers near a powerful Blank, there was a high probability they would explode and die on the spot.

However, Hades knew none of this for the time being.

He was speechless as he watched Typhon inch backward bit by bit, looking as if he were gathering strength to unleash a massive ultimate move.

As the distance between the two of them widened to a certain gap, the white light instantly became dazzling. Through his breathing mask, Typhon shouted at the top of his lungs,

"Get back!!!"

The dazzling white light instantly swallowed the cramped cage. The psychic-induced explosion slammed into Hades, and the huge psychic shock even overturned the wagon, sending them tumbling down into a mountain ravine along with it.

When the white light vanished, a massive breach stared back from the floorboards.

Poison gas surged in with a bang. Typhon was the first to scramble half-rolling out of the breach; he instinctively retched, but did not immediately run off. Instead, he turned back and hauled Hades out.

Hades could now see the surrounding situation. They were currently on a mid-mountain slope, and besides a fortress, the surroundings consisted only of rubble and withered grass.

The tumbling just now had caused them to fall into a small ravine. A bit higher up the slope, the slave hunters' small escort vehicles slowed down and came to a halt, the lord's puppets screeching at one another as they disembarked and attempted to rush toward this spot.

Further in the distance stood a fortress, its tall walls looming oppressively in the thick fog, making the castle feel less like something meant to protect anything and more like a prison holding something back.

Enveloped within those mists, upon the battlements of the castle's outer wall, stood a tall, thin, withered silhouette—

It was Mortarion.