Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 484: A war blacksmith who doesn't want to be a skull-cutting champion is not a good pharmacist -
As everyone left Huron's palace and hurried back to their respective camps to prepare for the upcoming Skull Harvest Feast Competition, Honso deliberately walked slowly at the end.

Vannus thought his confidence was unfounded, and the Warsmith just winked at his companion.

"Just watch," he said.

When they began to pass through the only door in the lobby square made of the wreckage of all the spaceships defeated by the Pirate King when they came in, and could see the stairs going down the mountain, Wannas was almost ready to taunt Hongso - of course, he planned to take him to visit the camps of each opponent in their next game based on the information he had heard after mocking the war blacksmith - this kind of spying behavior was allowed before the game started.

Because this final preparation time is the best opportunity for every warlord and pirate leader to win over the most powerful lone wolves or smaller teams that have been watching, they will work harder at this time to show the strength of their team and the bravery of their soldiers to every visitor passing by.

As their boots began to travel the last leg of the journey, an order was issued from deep within the palace: the Blackheart King wished to summon the Warsmith from Medlengard alone.

"It's okay." Honso smiled and told Vannus, who looked a little worried, "You don't have to wait for me here. Just go to the camp and keep an eye on Grendel."

"Don't show off your eloquence too much, Honso." The son of Clarks nodded and began to walk down the mountain. "I don't want to be notified to collect your headless body next time I come here."

"Oh, why do you say that?"

Wannas walked down the slippery and steep steps, raised a hand and showed Hongsuo his back. "The thorns on the throne of Tyrant Badab are decorated with fresh skulls harvested every year. Go quickly and don't let the owner of this place wait too long."

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After a while, the Warsmith found himself back in the audience hall in the palace, but this time there were only him and Huron in the throne room, and Huron's attendants were replaced by several officers.

Two of them were particularly alert to the visitor's body language. One of them had an eye-catching ancient mechanical servo device and an equally oversized conversion beam gun mounted on his shoulder. Hongsuo's eyepiece marked the ancient device as "Nebula Array: To be Repaired". He was wearing fine power armor, and a pair of serpentine metal whips were wrapped around his wrists, snapping at the lonely visitor with their sharp whip heads raised like living things. The other man's appearance was severely blurred by the power of the warp. The objects stored under the ceramsite steel mask and the power armor had frequent exchanges with the whispers of the warp. The outlines of what Hongsuo saw with his naked eyes and his medical eyepiece were completely different.

"Honso." Luft Huron spoke again. The war smith bowed respectfully to the throne but still did not kneel on one knee. This made the warrior holding the ancient relic beside Huron snort coldly, and two long metal whips rushed towards the war smith at two tricky angles along the ground at lightning speed.

"Aha. Neural whip. Very sophisticated for what we have here... I mean, extremely impressive in terms of inflicting maximum pain with almost no marks on the flesh. I imagine your little pair of cuties has produced quite a few well-behaved and docile slaves."

Huron watched the scene in front of him with great interest. The War Blacksmith obviously had no intention of keeping a low profile in such an occasion without any competitors. He reached out and grabbed the two metal whips, which theoretically would cause extreme nerve pain to the opponent as long as they came into contact with them. He did it as lightly as if he had grabbed two snakes by their vital points, and began to give a long analysis of their manufacturing process, materials, and working methods.

"Valthex, it seems you have met an opponent." The Red Corsair King turned to the dimensional blacksmith beside him and one of his few most trusted deputies, Amenus Valthex.

He was the former Forge Master of the Astral Claws, the Forge Master, Huron's personal armorer, and the one who escaped into the Maelstrom with his master's almost cooked body after the Battle of Thorn Palace; and after that, Valthex worked hard for seven days with the Chapter's pharmacists Gareon and Valier, using bionic machinery and life support systems to rebuild Huron's melted and cooked half of his body as much as possible, and witnessed his master recover from death on the eighth day, and watched Huron put on his broken armor again and stand up after the twelfth day, announcing that the Red Corsair would be born from the ruins of the Astral Claws.

With such a resume, he was undoubtedly one of the few people in front of Huron who could communicate with his master in a relatively trusting relationship.

So now Valthex was trying to pull back his whip in anger, but he found that this rude visitor had no intention of letting go. In this case, the alchemist master was not an easy character to deal with, so he opened fire with the super-power conversion beam gun on his shoulder.

As we all know, the working principle of the conversion beam can be simply explained as the antimatter particle directed energy beam it emits will cause the annihilation effect of positive and negative matter in the target. And as a beam energy, its power will become stronger as the distance of the target becomes farther, until the beam finally reaches its critical failure range. Through a dedicated plasma power reactor with strong enough energy, a stable launch base, and a long enough charging time to open the atomic bonds and stimulate the energy stored in them, the conversion beam can penetrate and destroy organisms, vehicles, or almost any matter.

Simply put: it is a kind of Dark Ages technology, which is not easy to build and very few remain. It has no disadvantages other than the time and energy required to prepare and is an antimatter weapon that cannot destroy matter. So Hong Suo should have been blown up into a firework in front of the Black Heart Throne after being hit safely at such a close distance. As long as he is still a being that exists, there is no second possibility.

But nothing happened.

Hong Suo, who should have been destroyed and burned along with his power armor by the ultra-high temperature energy brought about by the annihilation of matter, still stood where he was, looking at the alchemist's neural whip with a naked look that was very familiar to scientific researchers, and at the same time looking at his power armor - the ancient heritage device behind it.

"I am really surprised, sir, your place is truly blessed with natural resources and outstanding people."

Valthex raised his hands in shock, "This is impossible!!!" the Red Corsair's Alchemist Master shouted crazily. The Chaos Astartes, who was once known as one of the most talented scholars still alive with the most knowledge and talent in Astartes manufacturing technology, raised his hands, "This is impossible!!! This does not conform to any known facts! This does not conform to any known conclusions! Even in the subspace this cannot happen!!! This is impossible!!! This does not conform to the foundation of the universe!" "Nothing is impossible, why don't you ask your companions beside you?"

At the same time, the wizard who had been silent beside Huron made a choking sound, and a white-gold mist began to break through the surface and spray out from every gap in his armor with almost an angry emotion, reminiscent of some huge shellfish being steamed in a steamer. The wizard grabbed his throat and howled on the ground, rolling over without any mystery, and the ceramic steel made a loud noise when it hit the exquisite mosaic marble floor.

"Oh, that's a pity. It seems that the Lord I believe in doesn't like you very much. But it doesn't matter. As long as you stop spying in time, the backlash won't be very serious." He smacked his lips and introduced it with a little regret. "After all, this is an anti-psychic field made for some kind of battlefield emergency rescue scene. In order to avoid accidental injuries, it does not have an instant death effect."

Honso finally mercifully released the two neural whips. "Lord Valserx, your creation is quite exquisite. Its working principle and effect remind me of Fabius Bile's Staff of Pain. The materials and structures are different, but they have the same effect. I guess this is... some kind of convergence of designs between brilliant scholars?"

"Have you met Fabius Bile?" The Blackheart King raised his mechanical right claw to stop his chief alchemist and dimensional blacksmith from speaking.

"Well...actually, more than just seeing it." Valserx stopped at this time and began to pay attention to Hongsuo's statement.

"Fabius Bile, former pharmacist of the Third Legion, Master of Clones, Gene Ancestor, one of the largest sellers of gene seeds and warriors in this galaxy. He is my creator, and I am the product of his experiments on Astartes genes. This is no secret in the Eye of Terror, and many people know it." Hong Suo made a friendly hand gesture, "Since I was born in his laboratory, it is not surprising that I have met him or learned something from him, right? I am very good at dealing with the physical conditions of Astartes, especially various battlefield injuries, including old injuries, and situations where the warp energy is too active."

"But you came as the warsmith of Medlengard, not as an apothecary. Although we are indeed in short supply of apothecaries like you claim." The Blackheart King pointed out, his pet Hamadrya now curled up again, hiding behind the huge and sharp iron halo on the Huron backpack and secretly looking at Hongso. "And you have also received an invitation to the Skull Harvest Feast. If you originally planned to use your medical skills to join me, or find a job here, you can't quit halfway now, which will ruin this feast and my rules."

"My lord with a sharp gaze, I cannot hide my humble vision from you in the slightest." Obviously, when the War Blacksmith wants the other party to be happier, his words can be quite comfortable. At least after these words were spoken, Huron's tattered face and the pus suction flow rate between his bionic prosthesis showed that he was very satisfied with Hong Suo's address.

Honsou turned to the Master Alchemist, who was angrily helping his colleague up and glaring at him. "Of course, I will present the champion's skull to you after I win the skull harvesting competition, but I just want you to know," he said, "that after I win the championship, I want to ask you for a position as your pharmacist as my reward. I am eager to work with these talented experts around you to better take care of your health. I think you have seen the actual effect of the warp suppression I have shown you."

The Tyrant Badab seemed to be smiling, but it was hard to tell because he had no lips and his face was severely deformed due to burns and contractures, and the rough cutting of the flesh during treatment. "Although I have always believed that as a pharmacist, no one's martial arts can surpass my loyal old friend Valserx, but if you can really win the championship of the Skull Harvest Feast, I can promise you this opportunity."

"Your majesty and generosity, as well as your curse and terror, will spread to every corner of the universe. My lord, please allow me to take my leave and prepare for my game."

Apparently this flattering answer from the Red Pirate's battle cry put the Blackheart King in a good mood again, so Hong Suo took his leave again and left the New Thorn Palace along the same route he came.

When the heavy carved bronze door of the throne room was quietly closed by the slaves, Huron sat on his throne without moving.

Then, the tyrant of Badab let out a shocking cough of pain from deep within his body, followed by a series of wheezes, thick with phlegm and the hissing sound of pus in his lungs, "When will Gareon land?"

Then there was another series of earth-shaking coughs, and some pus and blood were stuck in his overused throat. Newly necrotic tissue fragments adhered to his trachea and larynx. Valserx hurried over and carefully did a temporary cleaning for him.

"The Corpse Lord has already departed from Hell's Iris and will land on the helipad in three minutes. He said before that he would arrive a little later this time because the mutation of the new batch of gene seeds is still beyond expectations."

"Okay. Let's wait for him to come. What do you think of this man who claims to be Fabius's disciple? Valserx. His power seems to be very unusual."

"Master!" The Master of the Furnace and the Master of Alchemy issued a warning. "Your body, sir, is not something that can be maintained by some random pharmacist. Besides, I think Garen will be very unhappy to hear this news."

"I know, old friend. But if he really has some new technology from the Master of Clones, perhaps he can make up for some of the technological fragments we are in urgent need of." The Blackheart King turned to another servant beside him, "My wizard, Soul Eater, what did you feel just now?"

"..." Garlon Soul Eater, one of the most powerful wizards of the Red Pirates, was staggering in shock, "The protected person, and his god... is very..." He swallowed, "It's like the feelings of the four supreme gods mixed together, but even stronger... How did he manage to make such a being bless him?! Theoretically, such a being would never be interested in... 'protecting' humans!"

Huron and Valserx looked at each other.

"I am looking forward to what kind of surprises the next game will bring me, old friend."

(End of this chapter)