Grandfather's Surprise Sauce

The front line was a plain paved with skulls and rotting flesh.

Khorne's daemonic legions surged out of enormous spatial rifts like a boiling torrent of blood. Bloodthirsters swung their massive brass axes, each step leaving burning footprints in the earth; Bloodletters let out piercing shrieks, their claws hungry to rend enemy flesh; Flesh Hounds raced across the battlefield like scarlet lightning, chasing anything that moved. Their purpose was simple-kill, spill blood, and offer their enemies' heads to their Blood God.

Nurgle's legions spread from the depths of the Garden of Nurgle like a slow but unstoppable plague. Great Unclean Ones lumbered forward, every breath spewing swarms of Plague Flies into the air. Plaguebearers chanted hymns in praise of decay, commanding ranks of bloated plague zombies as they shambled toward the enemy.

Between these two world-shattering forces were countless Nurglings, surging like a green tide.

The Nurgling Gang had been swept up in that tide as well, deployed to the very front of the battlefield.

The surrounding Nurglings displayed their usual innocent yet cruel "joy." They treated this bloody war as a grand new game. They chased Khorne's artillery fire, trying to catch the whistling "burning rocks" in their mouths; they curiously poked the corpses of Khorne daemons on the ground, then squealed in amazement at the red blood flowing from them, so different from their own.

They were perfect cannon fodder, because they had no idea what "fear" meant.

But Liu Zhipeng did.

He hid behind an enormous rotting mushroom, feeling every tremor of the earth beneath his feet and listening to the distant sounds of flesh being torn apart. His very soul shook. He knew better than any other Nurgling that once that red torrent came crashing through, a little creature like him would be trampled into a puddle of pulp in an instant, without even a trace left behind.

"Boss! What do we do now?" Boji came up beside him, excitedly wagging the single horn on Boji's head. "Should we charge in and play the 'bumping game' with those red guys? They look really tough. It'll be loads of fun!"

"No," Liu Zhipeng said, his voice remarkably calm amid the jubilant din around him. "We're not playing the 'bumping game.' We're going to play something more interesting."

He began issuing orders, which were quickly relayed to every Nurgling in the gang through Screamer and several other core members.

To other daemons, his orders would have seemed utterly incomprehensible.

Instead of letting the Nurglings charge into the main battle, he had them gather materials on-site and begin an enormous "construction project."

Step one: dig.

He directed the Nurglings to use their feeble "little hands" to dig furiously into the plain of rotting flesh. Though weak, Nurglings were numerous and tireless. Before long, an enormous network of trenches quietly took shape along one side of the battlefield.

Step two: collect.

He sent members of the logistics team deep into the battlefield, risking their lives to collect special "materials"-the corpses of slain Nurgle daemons. These bodies, especially those of Great Unclean Ones and Plaguebearers, contained Nurgle's divine power at its most concentrated and potent.

Step three: mix.

He instructed the Nurglings to drag the collected daemon corpses into certain junctions in the trenches. Then he ordered every Nurgling to do one thing over those bodies-vomit and defecate.

A Nurgling's body was itself a miniature plague factory. Their vomit and excrement were the most common "building materials" and "fertilizer" in Nurgle's Garden, filled with corrosive fluids and countless plague bacteria.

Thousands upon thousands of Nurglings carried out an unprecedented act of "collective creation" over the remains of those greater daemons. Soon, they had produced a nauseating mixture: a viscous liquid with a rainbow-colored oily sheen that gave off an utterly foul stench. It combined the stickiness of Nurgling excrement, the virulent poison and corrosiveness of Plaguebearers, and the endlessly regenerating, tenacious "vitality" within the corpses of Great Unclean Ones.

Liu Zhipeng named this mixture "Grandfather's Surprise Sauce."

Step four: set up.

He had the Nurglings carefully pour this "surprise sauce" into every corner of the trenches, then cover it with a thin layer of loose earth for camouflage.

Once everything was done, he ordered all the Nurglings to hide behind the trenches and begin shrieking provocatively in unison. Their cries imitated the victorious roars of Khorne daemons, but with a comically off-key twist that made them sound like mockery.

Khorne's daemons were all hot-tempered warmongers. Their thinking was even simpler and more direct than that of Nurglings.

Their logic went like this: enemy = kill! Mockery = kill twice as hard!

Before long, a Khorne patrol made up of Flesh Hounds and Bloodletters was drawn over by the strange taunts. Following the sound, they charged toward this seemingly unremarkable patch of ground.

Then they rushed headlong into Liu Zhipeng's carefully prepared "trap."

The Flesh Hounds in the lead instantly broke through the camouflage and fell into trenches filled with "surprise sauce." The thick liquid immediately wrapped around their limbs, immobilizing them. Then its potent toxins and corrosive properties began eating away at their skin and muscles, making them howl in agony. Worse still, the liquid seemed alive, burrowing through their pores and planting Nurgle's "seeds" in their flesh.

Seeing their companions fall into the trap did not make the Bloodletters behind them wary. Instead, it provoked an even more savage fury. Roaring, they tried to leap over the trenches and tear apart the little green bugs that had dared to toy with them.

But waiting for them was the "bombardier" squad hiding behind the trenches.

Countless Nurglings poked their heads out from behind the trenches, aimed their ripest, fullest pustules at the airborne Bloodletters, and detonated them all at once!

"Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!"

A "pus shower" filled with corrosive fluid drenched the Bloodletters from head to toe. Although the pus could not inflict fatal damage on the thick-skinned Khorne daemons, it was profoundly insulting. It made the tough hides they took such pride in itch and hurt, raising pustules that constantly oozed green fluid.

For a Khorne daemon who revered pure violence and glory, this felt worse than being killed outright.

The little patrol was soon battered into a miserable state by this combination of "trenches + traps + ranged bombardment." In the end, they could only retreat in panic, leaving behind several companions' corpses that had been completely devoured by the "surprise sauce."