From Skaven to God of War

Chapter 24, Twisted Chains
The selected ratmen will be trained to become rat warriors. This was previously done by spear rats, and the conditions that rat warriors can obtain are much better.

Compared to the literal treatment of slave rats, rat warriors receive standard civilian treatment, but compared to other races of civilians who farm, rat warriors need to fight.

Moreover, you cannot retreat in every battle. If you retreat, you will be beaten into slave rats and taken away. Conversely, if you do not retreat and survive the war, you can obtain blood mushrooms. In theory, in the continuous battles, the longer the ratman warriors live, the stronger they will become with the continuous supply of blood mushrooms.

But in fact this depends on the rat lord who commands them.

Because they are treated better and can get blood mushrooms every once in a while, these rat warriors are not that addicted to blood mushrooms.

Brings up a problem.

These ratmen warriors are the least pious group among the ratmen under Du Yuan.

But even if the rat warriors are not pious, the meaning of their existence is to contribute to Du Yuan and fight for Du Yuan, the supreme god. They either die in battle or become the most humble slave rat after retreating. There is no other choice.

This is the second link, the second link of the ratmen’s distorted social status, and the third link is the ratmen priests and ratmen lords.

The ratman priest is the most pious ratman who has awakened the priest magic, while the ratman lord is the ratman who has demonstrated extraordinary talent. As the rulers of the ratman group, both parties not only obtain sufficient supply of blood mushrooms.

One can even obtain some special rations, those two-colored blood mushrooms that grow near the altar, which have more residual flesh and blood essence but are contaminated by the resentment separated by the blood-colored aura, and are half red and half black.

This kind of blood mushroom has some other functions compared to ordinary blood mushrooms. It can stimulate the spirit of the rat people, and through this stimulation, the wisdom of the rat people can be improved.

Only ratman priests and ratman lords are qualified to use this special two-color blood mushroom. The higher the proportion of black in the two-color blood mushroom, the stronger the stimulating effect on the mind.

And because it grows near the altar, at the end of Xiaochun's spreading root system, the remaining blood and flesh essence in it is more and better than that of ordinary blood mushrooms.

Long-term use can even make the ratmen appear with a faint aura of power, like a degraded version of the aura of fear, which can better control the ratmen.

But these are not without cost.

After all, the reason why the blood mushroom turned black was because it was contaminated by the resentment that Xiaochun separated from the blood-colored aura. Being stimulated mentally by this resentment for a long time would bring about a very obvious change.

Crazy.

The rat priests, spear rats, and even white rats under Du Yuan all showed varying degrees of madness and distortion in their personalities.

This may explain why evil gods are always so prone to madness and even actively self-destruction.

As the pinnacle of ratman society, the twisted chain ends here with the ratman priests and ratman lords. As the top group influenced by the blood mushrooms, the devout go crazy, while the unbelievers become violent and suspicious.

There is only one thing in common among them, they all cannot live without blood mushrooms, which means they are destined to return to Du Yuan's command no matter what. They look up to Du Yuan greedily or devoutly, and offer endless sacrifices to Du Yuan in exchange for the gift from the gods and the swaying bright mushrooms.

For myself, for the blood mushroom, for the twisted desire, and also for God.

The establishment of this twisted order even used only two forms of blood mushrooms. For the rats, the ordinary blood mushrooms and the two-color blood mushrooms were the most important. As for the third form of blood mushrooms, the black blood mushrooms, not many rats were willing to try, or in other words, not many rats were willing to take the initiative to try.

The closer to the altar, the blacker the blood mushroom will become, until it crosses a limit and completely completes the transformation. The bright red color on the blood mushroom turns into pure black. At this time, the blood mushroom is no longer suitable for direct consumption. The ratman who eats it will instantly have his brain damaged by the resentment in it, followed by irreversible flesh and blood deformation.

It manifests as hyperplasia of flesh and blood, enlargement of body size, increase of strength, and acquisition of powerful regenerative ability.

It transformed into a crazy and terrifying monster.

However, not every ratman is qualified to experience such drastic changes. White Rat once conducted experiments on slave rats, but no matter how the amount of black blood mushrooms was diluted, the slave rats that ate them would directly turn into a blood and flesh balloon due to the expansion of their flesh after exceeding a certain limit, and explode with a bang.

And if you feed it to a ratman warrior, as long as you control the amount, you can get a crazy giant rat that is two or three times larger than an ordinary ratman.

This was also the existence that the Lizardman Lord had encountered on the battlefield before.

However, Bai Shu felt that these two uses were too much of a loss, because the appearance of black blood mushrooms was not easy and was extremely rare. After such a long time, only three were born, and two of them were born at Du Yuan’s first grand sacrifice.

Whether it is creating a flesh bomb or creating an ordinary crazy giant rat, it is a huge loss.

Unless you set your sights on some stronger and more qualified guys.

At this time, the spear rat, which was particularly deformed, had its strength increased several times and even retained some simple wisdom, and was a standard work in the eyes of the white rat.

Yes, the spear rat that ate the black blood mushroom did not die, and even retained some shallow wisdom. Unfortunately, it was of no use. After losing most of its wisdom, it was destined to become only a tool, a tool driven by the ratman priest with berserk magic.

Bai Shu didn't understand why there was such an obvious difference in the effects of the black blood mushroom on the three types of ratmen, but this did not affect his grasp of the key points at all.

I believe that in the near future, black blood mushrooms will become a special supply for rat priests and rat lords, specifically for those rat priests and rat lords who he thinks are not suitable for existence or who have betrayed him.

Du Yuan was able to guess some reasons. Perhaps because of their foundation and resistance, the slave rats were too weak to withstand the catalysis of the black blood mushroom.

As the ratmen warriors eat a lot of blood mushrooms, they can barely withstand the catalysis of the blood mushrooms as long as the dosage is appropriate, but they will fall into madness.

The ratman priests and ratman lords who eat a lot of two-colored blood mushrooms, while their bodies can support it, have a certain resistance to the resentment in the blood mushrooms, so they can retain a certain basic wisdom.

It has to be said that by chance, Du Yuan really created a treasure, although he didn't know why such a sunny and magical card turned into such a twisted and evil thing.

Or maybe the rats under his command that used blood mushrooms were really too evil.

But no matter what, the potential and value of the blood mushroom are unquestionable. If you use it as the foundation, you only need to grasp the blood mushroom firmly, which is equivalent to grasping all the ratmen.

(End of this chapter)