Warhammer: Don't Call Me the God of All Machines

Chapter 804 The Tragedy of Mortals
The space around the Ghoul Cluster appears to be colder than the space around other star systems.

This barren region, infamous throughout the galaxy, has given birth to countless races of all kinds.

They lived and multiplied here, fighting each other, all for a chance to survive.

If it weren't for the powerful rise of the Kork orcs and the Ork orcs, this place would probably still be a chaotic land of death even ten thousand years later.

Olivia Lewis is not native to the Limitless Starfield; her homeland is a military fortress world called Cardia in the northwest of the galaxy.

People born into this military world all have extremely distinctive physical characteristics: every Cardian has captivating pinkish-purple pupils.

This is inextricably linked to their home world being close to the Cygnus X anomaly, though most people would prefer to call it the Eye of Fear.

Since the end of the Horus Rebellion, Azerkel Abaddon, the first company commander of the Sons of Horus, led most of the rebels to retreat into the Eye of Terror.

Abaddon, based on the Eye of Fear, constantly launched attacks and harassed the nearby Imperial world, and Cardia naturally became the Imperial's bridgehead against the Chaos rebels.

Imperial Commander Robert Guilliman personally ordered the construction of a defensive line stretching hundreds of light-years around the Eye of Terror, and the location of Kadia was the most crucial part of this defensive line.

Olivia belongs to the 212th Armored Regiment of the Cardinals. She is not an Astronaut soldier, but a rather rare medical nun.

The medical nuns are a non-combat force within the Order of the Nun. Unlike the crazed combat nuns, they are not capable of slaughtering human enemies on the battlefield with bomb guns and chainsaws.

As their name suggests, the medical nuns provide medical services to all citizens of the Empire, and she is serving in the 212th Armored Regiment of Cadian, making her, strictly speaking, a military doctor.

Originally, the 212th Armored Regiment was summoned by Commander Luther, the Dark Angel, the supreme commander of the western front of the Empire, to intercept the Ork invaders advancing westward.

But perhaps the warp played a trick on them, because this Cadian reinforcement force, which was originally going to fight on the western front, ended up in the eastern part of the universe near the Limit Starfield after a long warp journey.

That area was quite close to the edge of the Milky Way, and even the light from the star torches was unusually faint.

The isolated and helpless 212th Armored Regiment of Kadia was quickly discovered by the Ork warships.

After a bloody battle, most of the Khadian Astral Army was killed by the Ork, with only a small number surviving as prisoners.

At this moment, Olivia, along with her few comrades and some human civilians captured from other planets, were imprisoned in the cargo hold of an Ork spaceship.

On the ten-kilometer-long warship, hundreds of thousands of ordinary prisoners were held in densely packed cells.

The green-skinned orcs' warships had virtually no sanitary facilities to speak of, and the level of environmental deterioration was, as one can imagine, extremely poor.

The mortal prisoners were treated like animals, crammed into cages made of rusty steel.

To accommodate more humans, the orc mechanic even stacked the cages together, creating a layered, three-dimensional structure.

The excrement of the mortal prisoners on the upper decks would seep directly into the lower decks under the weight of the warship, creating a stench that would drive any human to the brink of madness.

They had nothing but a pitiful amount of drinking water and just enough food to keep them from starving.

There is no hope for the future, only utter despair and darkness.

For these already miserable human captives, the most terrifying thing was not the fierce-looking, muscular Ork.

These greenskins are usually only interested in fighting; they're either fighting or on their way to fight all day long.

They disdained to lay a hand on the weak and powerless shrimp prisoners; it was utterly pointless.

On the contrary, those seemingly lewd and skinny little devils, when the Ork are not around, have an endless variety of ways to torment humans.

The fart spirits are almost at the very bottom of the Orcish food chain.

They were lowly slaves to the orc boy, and it wouldn't be a problem to crush a few of them at will.

But in the presence of human slaves, they became the supreme masters.

Just as the ancient wisdom of Terra has been passed down: the ones who oppressed the people the most were not the Japanese invaders, but the traitors who followed them.

The bullied Orcs, after sending the green-skinned boy away with a forced smile, would immediately vent their anger on the human prisoners.

When they whipped their human captives with blood-stained whips until their skin was torn and they were barely clinging to life, they would drag them away.

Then the fart demon would skin and dismember it in front of the other prisoners and feast on it.

Those green-skinned orcs also eat human captives, but they don't spend too much time torturing them.

Farting creatures love to gnaw on flesh from non-lethal locations. The sense of accomplishment and mental pleasure they derive from feeling the food struggling and wriggling in their mouths is even more satisfying than the act of eating.

Olivia was completely numb. She had long since run out of tears, and even as the farts devoured one brethren after another in front of her, she couldn't shed a single tear.

Being born in this era and this universe is the harsh reality that every human being must face.

You either eat others or be eaten by others.

She didn't know where the slave ship was headed; she only knew that her end would be death, it was just a matter of sooner or later.

As a nun of the state religion, all she could do was recite the Emperor's Word and pray to the Emperor for salvation.

She no longer hoped to escape alive; her only wish was to die a dignified death, to die with dignity as a human being.

The Ork seem to want to use these captives for some unknown purpose, so they strictly forbid human captives from committing suicide.

If one person commits suicide, the other prisoners in the same cell will suffer horrific torture.

The only thing the nun still cherished was a war orphan she had found and adopted.

This is a very young child, who looks to be no more than five years old.

Olivia encountered him on the slave ship, while his parents had long since disappeared, and it was unknown whether they had been killed.

This young child has not yet experienced the beauty of this world, yet he is already trapped in the most terrible hell.

It would have been better if he had been born in a more peaceful region, but he was born in a frontline area of ​​the war against the Ork.

All he could do was cling to the nun's leg and watch with fear as one adult after another was taken away and never returned.

"Will we be alright, sister?"

Will the Emperor protect us? Does he really know us?

The child's question was heartbreaking, and the nun couldn't say no, even if it meant lying against her own beliefs.

Olivia gently stroked Andrei's dirty face with her rough, chapped hands.

"We'll be fine, at least you'll be fine before I die."

The other people around her, like walking corpses waiting to die, looked at the nun with confusion, fear, anger, and mockery in their eyes.

There was no salvation, no miracle, and the emperor did not come to their rescue.

The Lord of Mankind is such a sublime being, how could he possibly waste his time on such insignificant mortals?

"Why did you lie to him, nun? Tell him the truth."

Even the cruelest truth is better than a sweet lie.

Beside a metal railing, leaning against a strange man whose entire body was covered in bandages, even his head was wrapped up, with only one eye showing, he was making sarcastic remarks.

"Hey kid, we're all going to die. Even if we're not eaten by those bastards, we'll be worked to death in their slave factories, and then our bodies will be dragged to the fields to be used as fertilizer."

"The people you see right now, whether they are men or women, old or young, will eventually become bones buried underground."

"We are no different from each other, since the ending is the same anyway."

Olivia glared at him, but said nothing.

The veteran is right; she is lying. She has violated the principles of honesty, kindness, compassion, and empathy of the State Religion.

The five-year-old child seemed to understand something already; he simply held Olivia, as if he could draw strength from the nun.

If the other party hadn't been injured like this, Olivia would have insisted on letting them experience her punches and kicks.

Although medical nuns are non-combat units, they are still nuns.

They undergo military training just like the Battle Sisters, but not as rigorously as their sisters.

After all, as long as the enemy is killed, our own people will not be injured, and our medical mission can be considered completed.

Moreover, the medical nuns possess extensive knowledge of human anatomy and alien anatomy.

They were so adept at attacking vital points that they could quickly render their enemies incapable of resistance, and could stab them dozens of times without endangering their lives.

"Cough cough." The old soldier, whose body was wrapped in bandages, coughed. Because the medical bandages had not been changed for so long, his body had begun to emit a putrid smell like a corpse.

He seemed pleased with Olivia's reaction, and the twitching muscles made him wince in pain.

"Boy, straighten your spine. Even if you die, you should have the backbone of a human being."

"How can a man be protected by a woman? Even if you're still young, you're still a little man!"

The veteran's voice rang out, and little Andrei immediately released his grip on the nun, striking a brave pose.

This adorable little guy immediately brought smiles to the faces of the other human prisoners, providing one of the few moments of relaxation in their miserable prisoner lives.

However, the human voices soon attracted the attention of a farting spirit.

This grotesque green alien has a huge, spherical head and wide, broken ears. Its skinny legs clearly show dry muscles and bulging veins.

Beneath its narrow, sharp nose lies a ferocious jaw, filled with sharp, venomous fangs, resembling that of a shark.

The man held a serrated dagger made from scrap metal, with congealed bloodstains visible on it, giving it a dark luster.

He was spewing curses in the language of the Greenskins, and his scarlet eyes were flashing with alarming malice and greed.

He spotted the human child behind Sister Olivia, and his mouth immediately watered.

The enormous nose gave the farting spirit an excellent sense of smell; he could even smell the smoky aroma of fresh, tender flesh and blood of shrimp larvae roasting over a raging fire.

Although the green-skinned orcs strictly forbid killing prisoners, the farts won't behave themselves when there's no supervision.

Thinking of this, the fart spirit brandished his rusty dagger and opened the cage door.

This alien, which cowered in front of the green-skinned boy, was incredibly arrogant and domineering in front of the human prisoners.

Fartings are actually very short; even when standing upright, they only reach the height of an adult man's abdomen. Usually, they can only threaten humans when they form a large number of them.

The little devil charged straight at Andre, who was being protected behind her. The nun's expression changed drastically, but she gritted her teeth and still stood in front of the child.

The filthy beast spewed foul-smelling saliva and looked at the aluminum figure in front of it with obvious impatience.

Unlike many human literary works, goblin creatures like fart spirits do not have reproductive organs and are not sexually interested in other races.

He just felt that these aluminum figures were too greasy and lacked chewiness.

The two lumps of fat on a shrimp-shaped aluminum man's chest are utterly useless, far less adaptable to war than solid muscles.

The farting demon let out a sharp howl, and the nun could only protect the child, but dared not resist.

She knew that even if she could easily snap the neck of the alien in front of her, its death would provoke the wrath of even more green-skinned orcs.

By then, more than just one or two people will have died.

She didn't want her child to die, nor did she want others to die with her; she couldn't possibly do something like that of a hypocrite.

Faced with this dilemma, Olivia gritted her teeth and decided to trade her life for Andrei's.

She expressed her desire to replace the child with herself, but the sly little devil's eyes darted around a few times before he slapped her so hard she fell to the ground.

With tears welling up in his eyes, Andrei tried his best to appear intimidating, but this only made the little devil giggle.

The little shrimp's acting was terrible; hopefully, it will be just as bad when we eat it.

But just as its filthy claws were about to touch Andrei, the old soldier, whose body was wrapped in dark red bandages, rushed out from the ground like lightning.

He punched the asshole hard in the ribs, then grabbed him by the neck from behind, kicked him so hard that his knees bent, and then locked his throat with his arm, knocking the rusty dagger to the ground.

Killing a fart-lover is easy, but what are the consequences?

The veteran didn't want to kill the perpetrator; he wanted to use violence to provoke the perpetrator's anger.

The fart-spirit might be smarter than the average orc boy who only knows how to fight.

However, because they are too fond of pondering problems, they are easily distracted by unexpected situations, thus forgetting what they originally wanted to do.

After giving the farting devil a severe beating, the seriously injured veteran finally released the farting devil who was about to suffocate.

"You green-skinned bastard, look at me, look me straight in the eye!"

The old soldier had only one eye left, yet he remained defiant.

The little devil looked at the shrimp warrior in front of him with apprehension; he was almost about to meet his second brother, the one who caused trouble.

"Only weaklings and cowards would want to eat children. Are you a weakling and coward?"

The veteran continued his provocation, and the bullied brat, who was usually treated with impunity, suddenly became enraged. "I'm not a coward!"

"I'm going to eat you! You're a shrimp warrior, and if I eat you, I'll be a green-skinned warrior too!"

The bastard screamed and rushed over, stabbing the old soldier directly in the abdomen with his rusty dagger.

From a veteran's perspective, this was a failed stabbing attempt; most likely, the attacker didn't manage to stab the opponent before being blown in the head.

But instead of dodging, he calmly faced the blow.

The sound of a rusty dagger piercing flesh was dull and hoarse; one could even hear the rough blade scraping against internal organs and rubbing against bones.

The veteran groaned, and the bandages, already soaked in blood, became stained with blood once more.

He gave up resisting, while the fart spirit, having defeated a powerful enemy, was overjoyed.

He even began to wonder if he had received a blessing from Brother Gao Mao and was starting to evolve into an orc boy.

"Eat him! Eat him!"

Greed flashed in the scoundrel's eyes, and then he grabbed the old soldier's hair and dragged him out of the cage.

Little Andrei watched helplessly as the old soldier who had been teasing him was dragged away; his abdomen had been ripped open by a dagger, and the pain rendered him speechless.

Even at a young age, he had already realized one thing—the other person was dying in his place.

He was scared, terrified, and ashamed—emotions that a five-year-old child shouldn't have.

But in the face of life and death, he awakened and realized things far too early.

Olivia knelt on the ground and hugged Andrei's trembling chest, feeling the rapid beating of his little heart.

She understood that the veteran was smarter and braver than her.

She couldn't imagine how the veteran was slowly devoured alive by that lowly beast; every time she imagined such a scene, it was a form of torture and blasphemy.

The fart demon and the old soldier had both vanished. There were no more rustling gnawing sounds or painful howls; everything was so quiet, as if everyone had died.

After a long while, the inhuman footsteps sounded again, and Olivia tensed up once more.

Could it be that the beast, having finished torturing the veteran, wanted to continue venting his vicious desires?

However, what appeared before them was a snot spirit that was even smaller and more immature than the fart spirit.

He looked almost the same size as Andrei, with skinny limbs devoid of any muscle, appearing completely sickly.

Snotty people are even lower in status than fart people.

When the fart spirit gets angry, it can bully human captives and the snot spirit, but when the snot spirit is bullied, it can only vent its anger by eating mushrooms in the ground.

They were so cowardly that they didn't even dare to bully prisoners of war.

According to Olivia's observation, the snot spirits' most frequent jobs were cultivating fungi and mushrooms for higher-ranking orcs and cleaning the decks of warships—all jobs with absolutely no status.

Many snotty-nosed creatures are even eaten as snacks by their pet Squiggs or by green-skinned boys when they are in a bad mood.

"Am I going to be insulted by that snotty-nosed guy this time?" the nun lamented to herself.

However, the snotty person did not show any malice.

He dragged the rusty dagger that belonged to the fart spirit from behind him, gestured that he had killed the fart spirit, and then the human also bled to death.

"You killed the fart demon and then buried the human remains?" Olivia used her imagination to probe the meaning behind the other's words.

The snotty spirit nodded, then gestured for him to hide the dagger and dispose of the fart spirit's corpse.

Olivia stared blankly at the snotty creature, not understanding why this alien would help humans.

Did they see humans being bullied by fart demons and remember their own tragic experiences?
For some reason, when Olivia looked at the snotty-nosed man's thin, hunched body, she always felt that he wasn't as insignificant and lowly as he appeared.

However, despite this minor incident, Olivia and the others' fate remained unchanged.

Thousands of slave ships converged on a deadly world called "Gorgon Anvil".

Thanks to the combined efforts of countless skilled technicians and master technicians, this once dead world now boasts many more green-skinned creations.

When Olivia looked down at the world through the observation hole, she could even see the countless chilling totems made up of cages and execution grounds, resembling the laughter of a clown.

The orcs hollowed out the planet's massive mountains and built cages within them capable of holding billions of people.

They designed a food transport system similar to a conveyor belt to deliver "food"—a mixture of swill and animal feed—to the people in each cell to sustain their lives.

The orc slave ship that Olivia was on broke through the atmosphere with a suffocating feeling of being on the verge of disintegration.

The rudimentary heat insulation system even caused those humans who got close to the warship's armor to be charred by the high temperature.

The intense heat generated by atmospheric friction caused the nun to sweat profusely, and she felt as if her hair was about to deform and twist under such extreme heat.

She could only hold Andrei tightly, close her eyes, and pray to the benevolent emperor.

"Perhaps falling here would be a good ending."

"Being burned to death is better than being tortured to death."

As the terrifying tremor gradually subsided from the metal deck beneath their feet, they had entered this world meticulously crafted by the orcs.

Olivia and the other human captives were taken to different cages and imprisoned by the Green Boys. Then the slave-catching ship took off again to continue searching for new human slaves.

Little Andrei followed closely in the nun's footsteps; the crowded throng could easily separate the two in the blink of an eye.

Having endured the nightmare of life on the slave ship, his nose had become numb to the stench produced by the fermentation of the crowd.

But when he arrived at this anvil, he could smell even more disgusting odors.

Little Andrei was horrified to discover that the green-skinned orcs were throwing human slaves and mushrooms into the boiling cauldron.

He instinctively wanted to vomit, but apart from a little bit of acid, he couldn't vomit anything.

Countless human cries, screams, pleas for mercy, and curses echoed in my ears. The overwhelming noise intertwined and wove together the most vicious noise in the world.

Olivia could no longer hear what the humans were saying; she had even lost her hearing for a time, and felt as if the whole world was buzzing like flies.

Olivia huddled on the rusty metal floor, her nostrils filled with the stench of excrement mixed with rotting flesh.

The thirty-seven survivors were herded into a new cell, which had originally been the fuel filter compartment of an orc warship. The radiation burn marks left on the walls caused everyone's skin to begin to fester.

Why would these barbaric greenskins send people here, even if it means crossing half a star system?

"It's a trap."

"A trap set for the empire."

The nun pondered for a long time but couldn't grasp the point. However, when she suddenly heard other prisoners still desperately calling for the Emperor and yearning for the salvation of the Angel of Death, she immediately understood.

And just as she had guessed, not long after, many green-skinned orcs carrying similar camera-like devices appeared to film their miserable situation.

These greenskins patiently searched for the most miserable human prisoners, then exaggerated their plight.

They were extremely serious, as if they were filming a masterpiece that would be passed down through generations.

Their films sometimes focus on individuals, and sometimes they show the entirety of the anvil, but they all share a common theme: the plight of humanity on this planet, and the inhuman suffering they endure.

An information storage device large enough to fill an entire warship was delivered to Thomas Edison, the warlord of the Evil Moon.

The finance minister, who had been assigned by warlord Zach to handle the matter personally, finally nodded in satisfaction.

He placed the mushroom cigar he was holding in his mouth on the gold stand next to him and exhaled a smoke ring with gusto.

“I have heard an old saying about silver: ‘The best strategy is to attack the enemy’s plans; the next best is to disrupt their alliances; the next best is to attack their army; and the worst is to besiege their cities.’”

"Don't fight and kill, that's not good."

"The real skill is being able to solve problems with strategy."

The evil moon boss leaned comfortably against his Schug leather seat.

He straightened his legs, and immediately several sycophants understood their leader's meaning. They swarmed forward and began to carefully polish the gleaming golden armor with their tools.

They treated it as if it were a precious work of art, meticulously polishing, waxing, and even painting it.

After a set of maintenance procedures for the armor was completed, another group of sycophants swarmed around, this time targeting Thomas Edison's imposing fangs and facial cleansing.

The leader of the Evil Moon, enjoying the meticulous service and marveling at the beauty of money and status, then waved his hand, signaling the orc boy who came to report to do as he was told.

“Go find ten thousand of the most miserable people on Brother Gao’s anvil, have them board a ship with this ‘gift’ we’ve prepared, and go find the big green guy.”

"We hope that Vulcan will like our gift."

……

Little Andrei felt the world was changing too fast. He had just been sent to a terrible world of death and imprisoned in a stinking cage to die when he was selected by the green-skinned boys who came to screen him.

The green-skinned orcs declared that they would select some lucky humans and send them back to the human world to demonstrate the mercy of the Ork race.

Countless people, who had been tormented and numb, rekindled their hope for life, and everyone was desperately fighting for that chance to survive.

However, the green-skinned orcs chose little Andre because he was a human child, which would be more likely to touch the hearts of human warriors.

Andrei desperately wanted to leave with Sister Olivia, but the green-skinned orcs completely ignored him.

He could only force himself to separate from the nun. He still remembered that when the green-skinned orcs were choosing suitable slaves, it was Olivia who was pushing him desperately from behind.

"Let's go, Andrei!"

"Go back, go back to the Empire! Survive!"

When he boarded a green-skinned orc warship again, the little Andrei, who was like a walking corpse, still had the nun's voice echoing in his ears.

The engine spewed out scorching flames, and the familiar vibration returned, but this time Andrei was all alone.

He felt as if he had been in space for a long time, but due to the lack of reference points, he didn't even know how much time had passed.

"Sister Olivia, I miss you so much..."

Five-year-old Andrei didn't know whether he missed his mother or his sister; he only felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his heart.

Until many Imperial warships surrounded their green-skinned ship, the tall Space Marines launched a boarding maneuver and successfully seized control of the Orc ship.

"Reporting, Company Commander, this is not a Greenskinned Orc troop transport ship..."

"The vast majority of people on the ship are humans."

The Salamander Space Marine in charge of boarding the ship sounded unusually hesitant on the communications channel.

"This is an orc spaceship that transported human slaves. We also discovered an information storage device that occupied half of the ship's cabin."

The Salamander Tech Soldier cautiously connected a local area network Thinker computer to the database that the Greenskin Orcs had placed on the ship.

The other side seemed to have anticipated the current situation, and the technical sergeants were even able to directly locate the socket that matched the Imperial data cable.

The salamanders were extremely wary of the strangeness of it all.

Several green arcs of electricity flashed across the screen of the Thinker's computer.

Immediately, a warlord of the Evil Moon, with a golden chin and a cigar dangling from his mouth, appeared before the Space Marine.

The salamander suppressed the urge to smash the orc with a slingshot, while the orc warlord on the screen began to speak a series of fluent High Gothic words.

“Shrimp, canned goods, we Orcs have imprisoned billions of silver in the Anvil of the Goths.”

“They cry out in anguish every day, weeping and calling your names, begging you to come and save them…”

"The spatial coordinates of Brother Gao's anvil are at the end of the video. I'm just telling you a fact. As for the choice, it's up to you."

The leader of the Evil Moon didn't waste any words. After he finished speaking, countless storage devices in the database began to play the images.

The mountain of human corpses piled up on the anvil, along with human prisoners struggling to survive, suddenly appeared on the screen.

Some green-skinned orcs were hunting and toying with human prisoners; some orcs were cooking and feasting; and some orcs were urinating on captured imperial statues and even forcing human prisoners to do the same.

The salamander warriors fell silent.

They stood frozen in place, like statues, as if encased in ice, silently watching the video footage playing at an accelerated pace.

"Report the situation." The company commander's voice rang out again in the communications channel.

"I need to inform the Primarch about how to exterminate these beasts," came the chilling reply from the salamander's loudspeaker, as menacing as the eruption of Nocturne's fiery earth.

(End of this chapter)