Time to Get into the Plot

Chapter 4: Time to Get Into the Plot

An unnamed hillside on Barbarus.

Hades stood still, staring intently at the figure in the pale mist. For a moment, he felt they made eye contact, even through the fog. The gaunt, tall figure was staring intently at the first of its kind it had ever seen.

The master of a garden in the Warp was muttering in dissatisfaction. The fate it had carefully brewed seemed to have developed some discordant notes, but they vanished in an instant.

It grumbled, scratching a pustule on its chin, bursting it with a squirt of yellowish-white pus that improved its mood somewhat. Perhaps the unpleasant taste it had sensed was just a fragment of a nightmare.

It continued to stir its cauldron, where countless exquisite diseases and plagues danced and sang, praising its benevolence.

It would get what it wanted.

A new, uninvited guest seemed to have arrived on the stage of the Chaos Gods.

But clearly, this guest's first appearance had no audience.

A blue figure chuckled. Wait, was there really no audience?

Hades hesitated for a moment, but he didn't plan to call out directly. The puppets were still on their way, and there was still time. He turned and rescued the remaining people from the carriage.

Firstly, to save them, and secondly, to use them as cover, to delay the puppets.

Hades thought darkly.

Most of them were doomed.

The people ran out, and Typhon spotted Mortarion's castle. He fled in desperation, running madly towards it.

Led by him, the others also began to run towards the fortress. Most of them didn't have gas masks and couldn't survive outdoors at this altitude.

The crowd began to move towards the castle, and the mindless puppets also changed their course.

Hades took advantage of the chaos to quietly retreat to the rear of the truck. He grabbed his crossbow and started aiming.

He was confident that his gas mask was enough to withstand the poisonous gas here.

The puppets followed… Several times, Hades found opportunities to land a headshot, but he didn't take them… timing. He was waiting for the right moment.

Just like in the original story, Typhon started shouting at Mortarion.

"Who are you?"

He cried out, half-sobbing, half-wailing.

"Lofty and detached, watching from the sidelines? You saw us! You could have helped us!"

The faster puppets had already started trying to attack Typhon. The leader was clearly in a tough fight, struggling and waving a rusty dagger on the muddy ground.

The others had either been poisoned by the gas and lay unconscious on the ground, waiting only for death.

The rest, like Typhon, were engaged in combat with the puppets, but lacking combat experience, they were quickly torn to pieces—

Typhon was also quickly knocked down. His psychic talent was only enough to keep him alive a little longer.

The surrounding puppets encircled Typhon, apparently intending to tear off his limbs.

Hades aimed, but he hesitated to pull the trigger. He was waiting.

Waiting for Mortarion to decide to resist, waiting for Mortarion to decide to save Typhon.

Otherwise, none of them would escape.

"Save us! Stranger!! You can help us!!"

Hades knew that Mortarion was currently undergoing an extremely intense internal struggle.

Several gunshots rang out, and the puppets fell to the ground. The figure in the fortress was holding a musket.

Success, Hades thought, the corners of his mouth turning up.

Seeing Mortarion raise his musket to help the humans, the puppets stationed in the castle roared in anger. They were Mortarion's subordinates, and also his jailers.

They picked up their weapons and charged towards Mortarion.

The main force of the slave-hunting party also aimed at Mortarion.

Mortarion jumped down from the towering battlements, the Primarch landing heavily, creating a shockwave.

He pulled out a long whip made of iron chains, swinging it with a roar. Each lash was accompanied by minced meat and blood.

Mortarion moved through the puppet horde with a combination of madness and composure. Like a lone wolf suppressing a flock of sheep, each run and passage divided the puppets, breaking them into smaller groups, then tearing them apart.

At first, the puppets could rely on their numbers to suppress Mortarion, but as time passed, the battle gradually turned into a one-sided massacre. Mortarion was clearly bloodthirsty, attacking recklessly, even giving up some blocking opportunities to gain more kills.

Compared to the rampaging Mortarion, Typhon was struggling. He held his gas mask tightly, wielding a knife in one hand, and fending off the puppets attacking him.

Hades, meanwhile, was hiding in the truck, firing cold arrows. The lack of puppet attention meant precious time to reload. Hades aimed and shot as much as possible, providing assistance to the two frontline melee fighters.

The arrows flew silently, each a headshot!

He successfully killed three puppets that were trying to sneak up on Typhon, and repeatedly broke through the puppets that were trying to attack Mortarion, providing Mortarion with the opportunity to attack rather than defend.

As the last arrow was nocked by Hades, and then shot through a puppet's head, the massacre gradually came to an end. The ground was covered in minced meat and puddles of blood, twisted limbs struggled and twitched, and the few remaining puppets were routed, running towards the higher slopes.

Typhon and Mortarion still had a few puppets to deal with, but they were no longer a substantial threat. Hades emerged from the cover of the truck and quickly ran to where the small escort vehicles were.

He opened one of the small vehicles and managed to start it.

Then he turned his head and beckoned to the last remaining humans—unbelievably, these lucky ones had survived the gas and puppet attacks.

"Get out of here!" Hades shouted at them. The people ran over quickly and climbed into the vehicle.

"Kid, aren't you coming?"

Hades glanced at them, "No, I'm not leaving yet."

When the odds were in his favor, Hades liked to gamble.

They didn't try to persuade Hades again. The gray vehicle moved slowly, heading towards the valley.

The vehicle was slow, but it was enough to get them safely to the bottom of the valley.

He found another medium-sized truck to use as a getaway vehicle. He got in, started it, and quickly drove it a little further away.

Hades got out of the truck and ran back, continuing to search and modify the vehicles. He found a wrench, and then used it to smash open all the fuel valves of the small vehicles he could find. Fuel gurgled out, quickly covering the entire stone ground.

After doing all this, he refocused his attention on Mortarion and Typhon. It looked like their battle was over, and they were arguing with each other.

In his previous life as a shut-in, Hades couldn't understand or do this kind of magical behavior, but he expressed his respect, after all, this was a world where thoughts and beliefs truly had power.

But, brothers, stop chatting, Mortarion's foster father is about to come down and kill you!

Hades took a deep breath, his gas mask creaking as he did so.

"Typhon! Calas Typhon! And the friend over there! Are you running or not?!"

"The Aliens are about to come down! It'll be too late if you don't run!!!"

The strange atmosphere of "what is the meaning of life" and "should we even be alive" disappeared. They both looked at Hades in surprise, wide-eyed.

Hades waved at them.

At the same time, horns sounded from the top of the mountain, the horn calls of the Overlords launching their attack.

Typhon anxiously said something to Mortarion again, but that big brother Mortarion still stood there, unmoving.

Hades knew what Mortarion was thinking. In his life of imprisonment, there had only ever been the options of "kill my foster father, or I die," but the sudden appearance of Typhon and Hades gave him the option of "escape."

It was like someone who had been playing a game since birth, a game where you could only choose a or b, but suddenly someone ran over and told you that you could actually pull the plug and choose not to play.

You can choose not to play.

Mortarion had never encountered such a choice. The idea was beyond his inexperienced brain, frying his CPU.

Damn it, stop spacing out, you two.

Hades could see puppet soldiers starting to run down from the top of the mountain.

"Hurry! You two!!! There's no need to die here!!! A green mountain is always there, don't worry about running out of firewood!!! If we run today, we'll be heroes again in a few years!!"

He saw Typhon half-dragging Mortarion towards him. At first, they were just staggering along, but then they broke into a run.

Hades got into the truck and started the engine.

"Get in!"

Mortarion jumped into the truck bed, pulling Typhon in with him.

The moment they got into the truck bed, the engine roared, and Hades immediately entered his Initial D mode, flooring the accelerator.

At this moment, Mortarion's foster father's roar came over with the power of the Warp.

"Face me, child, or we are through!" For a moment, the ghoul's hollow shriek seemed to echo from all sides of the narrow mountain cliffs. "Do you hear me, you little bastard? If you dare to run, I will make sure you die without a burial! Abandoning me is abandoning your life!"

"I was no different from a dead man to begin with!"

Mortarion shouted. He crouched in the truck bed, raised his pistol, and began to aim.

"Until today!"

The bullets roared out with all his anger, blasting towards the group of vehicles. Bright yellow fireballs instantly erupted, devouring everything in a roaring blaze over the spilled fuel!

Those gray, low vehicles, the ugly stitched-together puppets, the fortress where he had once lived... all the past was swallowed by the raging flames, reflecting in Mortarion's pupils.

Mortarion cursed and fired wildly at the fortress, Hades even felt like he was trying to shoot the air there.

Then Mortarion stood up in the speeding truck and threw the pistol hard towards the flames, the pistol drawing a perfect arc in the air—

Then he took off everything on his belt, cursed softly and frantically, and threw it all out.

Finally, Mortarion shouted in the direction of his past, "Fuck you!!!"

Haha, a Primarch in his rebellious phase.

Although he felt sorry for the pistol that was thrown away, he had to admit, this rebellious behavior looked pretty cool.

Hades thought, feeling a little relaxed now that they had escaped the crisis.

He whistled and burst out laughing.

"Cool!"

The three individuals, each with their own thoughts, rushed towards their stage with their respective destinies.

These past few chapters have heavily borrowed from "The Buried Dagger."

I sincerely apologize for this; I couldn't think of better phrasing, and quoting the official text gives it a stronger sense of "predetermined fate."

If there is any infringement or discomfort, I will modify or remove this text.

On a side note, in the official lore, Mortarion and Typhon give off the vibe of a deeply tragic young girl who's spent the first half of her life being tricked by a shrewd boy.

Mortarion trusted Typhon so much that even the voice in his head was, in his mind, Typhon's voice.

Mortarion was completely won over.