Extra: Warp Game Room?

Extra: Warp Game Room?

Warp, game room?

.

It seemed to be a patch of pure black space, with no telling how high it was above, how deep below, how wide to the left, or how vast to the right.

A stereotypical game room floor, paved with black-and-white squares, abruptly appeared within this space.

A white lamp dangled unsteadily from the blackness overhead, its pale light monotonously spilling across a circular area.

Upon the black-and-white tiled floor stood an ordinary reddish-brown four-legged round table, neatly covered by a black velvet tablecloth. Countless chess pieces, too numerous to count, of every size, were arranged across it in orderly ranks.

No one moved the pieces, yet they shifted on their own, each following its own rules as it changed positions on the board.

Every second, countless pieces vanished. Every second, countless new pieces appeared.

.

Originally, the space had been utterly silent.

Then suddenly, as though in the span of a blink, five figures were already seated around the small table.

One was enormously fat, yellow-green pus endlessly bubbling and flowing from His huge belly. His chair was woven from sturdy vines; one half was teeming with life, fleshly flowers joyfully exuding pus and filthy water.

The other half was withered and dead, absolute death and silence clinging to the vine branches.

Yet if an outsider had observed closely, they would have seen the two sides constantly changing. One moment, one half would be dead; the next, it would brim with life.

His pus splashed onto the round table, and the foul-smelling fluid soaked the nearby tablecloth.

Yet the others at the table turned a blind eye to such disrespect.

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Another flickering, ever-changing being "sat" upon a crystal chair that constantly shifted as well. At one moment, tentacles extended from His body; the next, they turned into avian beaks that chirped and shrieked.

The only constant was the blue glow, sometimes dim and sometimes bright, sometimes deep and sometimes pale.

The crystal chair continually changed, flashing with bizarre and dazzling light. Sometimes its shape became so strange that it could hardly be called a chair, yet the being seated upon it could always find a suitable posture to "sit" on it.

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An enraged red radiance roared. The chair formed from countless piled skulls was plated with fine brass. Compared to the seats of the other figures, this seat made entirely of skulls was somewhat crude.

But He liked it.

Beside the chair, a battle-axe brimming with violent aesthetics had been cleaved directly into the floor.

Countless streams of blood constantly burst from between the skulls. Slaughter, destruction, beheading, combat—He, who governed justice and brutality, continuously growled furious words.

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Beside Him sat a graceful figure who twisted ceaselessly. Strange purple light shimmered across His scales, perfect and uncanny, accompanied by pleased hums and soft songs. His serpentine body coiled around the chair, and from time to time some part of His tail abruptly tensed or relaxed, followed by a conspicuously sudden moan.

The chair beneath Him was the ultimate work of art, engraved with every pattern countless artists could imagine over the course of their lives. Perfect. Enchanting.

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These four occupied most of the round table. Green fluid, blue light, blood, and lust-water—the symbols of their domains—spread from their seats, slowly seeping into the black velvet cloth and gradually corroding the pieces upon it.

Compared with the four who spread themselves so freely, the last remaining figure occupied the smallest space at the round table.

Yet that could not conceal his nobility.

He wore a white robe, pristine and without a single ornament. Beneath the simple linen was the most perfect, powerfully built body humanity could imagine, his muscles vigorous yet aesthetically proportioned.

Though the four at the table openly ignored him, though he occupied the least space and could even be called cramped, he still sat with unhurried composure. His golden chair glimmered discreetly.

On the round table, beneath the white light, above the chessboard, twenty-one pieces stood noticeably taller than the countless others. Their exquisitely carved patterns shone without light, drawing the gazes of the four figures present.

At present, however, most of those exquisite pieces had been gathered into the arms of the most inconspicuous player. The four gods each shook their heads and blinked in dissatisfaction.

Greedy people had to pay a price.

A contract was not the same as rules. Breaking a contract required them to personally bestow punishment.

However, the board's developments changed endlessly. The time had not yet come, and the story had not yet reached its climax.

On the board, near the domain of Death and decay, an exquisite piece carved as a figure holding a scythe stood proudly, moving slightly according to its own rules.

Beside it, Grandfather Nurgle placed down a rotten, misshapen piece. The two had been constantly fighting since the very beginning, their tiny, exquisite duel continually making Grandfather Nurgle laugh.

But at some unknown point, one of the tiniest pieces nearby suddenly grew a little larger. Naturally, this did not escape the gods' notice.

At first glance, this piece looked exactly like the other smallest pieces, merely an ordinary piece with nothing eye-catching about it.

But if one paid it a little more attention, one would discover a black dot upon it.

Was it a Blank? The gods had always despised such darkened pieces.

But upon closer inspection, the black dot on that piece was actually a tiny hole.

No one knew where the deep little hole led. It was an infinitesimal point, yet it seemed connected to another infinitely vast and boundless space.

Nurgle muttered. He, who governed stagnation, had always disliked these little things that appeared from time to time.

They appeared extremely rarely and were often overlooked.

According to the gods' tacit understanding, these little things that might threaten the entire world ought to be eliminated immediately.

What was more, this irritating fellow was right next to His favorite piece.

He began rearranging the board, but conflict erupted at the distant boundary between Him and the Lord of Change.

Annoying fellow.

Nurgle, who governed stagnation, and Tzeentch, who governed change, were bitter enemies. They often went to war against one another.

While Nurgle and Tzeentch struggled against each other, The Emperor continued calmly advancing his pieces.

At last, he arrived.

The exquisite piece holding the scythe and that inconspicuous little piece appeared in his hand at the same time.

He did not erase the little piece immediately.

"Oh—no way?"

Slaanesh exaggeratedly twisted His body, His face contorting as though He had made the most exaggerated expression He could imagine.

"Are you going to alter those little agreements between us?"

"You can't keep pulling these little tricks!!! They do this world no good at all?!!"

The red figure erupted in fury.

The blue figure let out a shrieking howl of wild delight.

"See? I wasn't the first one to alter the agreement?!"

"However."

A wise and cunning gleam flashed in His eyes.

"If you insist on doing this, then we can alter the agreement as well."

"It was obviously you who wanted to play. Have you forgotten what happened back then?"

Nurgle glared at Tzeentch in displeasure, that damned blue bird.

"Exactly, you were obviously the one who wanted to play! It was you every time?!"

Slaanesh threw Tzeentch a seductive glance. He did not dislike such little tricks. Though dangerous, they brought Him a different kind of pleasure.

"Other than you two, none of us would deign to play such boring and risky schemes!!!"

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Seeing that the Emperor still stubbornly held the piece, they did not press the matter further. The Lord of Change extended a "hand" and slapped the table.

The agreement was rewritten.

A change occurred in the smallest corner of the game board.

No one paid attention. The Four Gods resumed their clamoring and quarrelling, returning to how they had been before, as though the scene just now had not drawn much of their attention.

The Emperor seemed to have been neglected once more, but he remained unhurried and composed.

.

Behind him,

the fool who had crept through the darkness beyond the lamp silently entered. The loser of the previous game had long since been mocked away from the table by the Four Gods.

From somewhere unseen beneath the table, He handed two pieces to the Emperor.

His twisted smile was filled with resentment and fury.

The Emperor smiled.

Fun fact: the protagonist's name—Hades—is the Underking from ancient Greek mythology.

He governed the underworld, death, and suffering. He symbolized the souls of the dead.

At the same time, he did not really handle much.

He was often confused with Death by others.

There was no game room in the Warp, so this chapter did not exist. None of the above took place anywhere. It was all made up.

Also, heaven and earth bear witness: I casually picked the protagonist's name from some foreign baby-name website. Only after reading the comments and looking it up did I realize there were so many coincidences!!! When I gave him the alias "departed soul," I had absolutely no idea what his name meant!!! Fuck, could Tzeentch have his eye on me?!