Emperor's Bane

Chapter 942 Comoros (12)

For young Asdubal-Victor, every day of living in the Comoros was unremarkable.

He hated the city.

I hate its chaos, narrowness and filth.

I hate those towering, dark spires and the bottomless, blood-red abyss.

I hate the swarms of planes roaring overhead and the bustling port beyond my sight.

He hated everything he saw every day.

The streets and alleys are forever flowing with blood; the arenas are filled with the sounds of fighting and shouting that never cease; ancient families fight each other for those dying stars; countless cruel deeds permeate every vein of this city; all the horrors and pain that the world can experience grow rampant in the deepest, most malignant labyrinth of the internet, as if the concept of hell has been brought to life on earth.

Victor hated them.

Because he absolutely loved it all.

This madness, this bloodshed, this endless hedonism and self-destruction.

He loves them so much.

But they just didn't belong to him.

In the narrow passages beneath the tower, betrayals and murders unfold every day. In the free realm outside the Dark City's borders, the power struggle between the main city and the satellite districts has continued for millennia.

So much beauty, so much bloodshed, yet none of it had anything to do with Victor.

He was not the one who stood atop the tower, watching the masses below the smoke layer slaughter each other.

It wasn't him who sat on the throne, sending all those fools who called themselves consuls and emperors to their coffins one by one.

The blood-red feast in the clouds did not belong to him; it belonged to the Hillian, the Krach, or the Ilitian, those ancient families that had been passed down for millions of years, names that already carried considerable weight during the Eldar Empire: some of them were fortunate enough to escape the hungry screams and still firmly hold power in their hands to this day.

The council composed of these noble families, along with the arrogant priests known as the Sun Cult, are the current kings of Comoros. After their fall from grace, they have ruled this net-path city, and no one can break the cold-blooded hierarchical system that has been passed down for thousands of years.

Asdubal, of lowly birth, was just another slave destined to be sacrificed in the city of Comoros during the Eldar Empire era. He died silently and namelessly, only to be fortunate enough to encounter the newly awakened God of Thirst at the moment the sacrificial blade sliced ​​across his neck: that scream that resounded throughout the galaxy and the warp instantly reaped the already rotten souls of all the priests and onlookers on the altar, but left only the young and lowly Viktor.

Ironically, as a slave, his impressions since birth were nothing but beatings and humiliations, with no room for indulgence and pleasure. But when he saw how his life was saved by the catastrophe that destroyed the entire Eldar Empire, Victor believed that being an unknown slave and a pawn was definitely not the final position that fate had arranged for him.

He is destined for even greater achievements.

With this sleepwalker-like confidence, Victor stepped into the chaotic streets of Comoros.

No one cared about his former status as a slave anymore. The Great Fall destroyed everything in the former Eldar Empire, but it didn't completely destroy everything: even though he was now free, Victor was still confined to the bottom of the social order, becoming a thug and henchman that could be seen everywhere on the streets. He was never taken seriously by those so-called noble kin, let alone allowed to enter their circle.

Those high-level power games, those intoxicating conspiracies and battles, that bloody pleasure of treating everyone as pawns: none of it concerned him.

But from the very first day he stepped into the streets of Comoros no longer as a slave, Victor fell hopelessly in love with the city’s madness: he was more cunning and treacherous than anyone he had ever met, more dependent on Comoros’s darkness, and more eager to devour all the conspiracies in his heart.

He could have done all of this; he had the ability and the qualifications to do it.

If not for his tragic background, he would have been relegated to the shadow of ordinary people, gazing up at the almost infinitely expanding skyscrapers from the dirty streets.

They should have been his.

They can be: his/hers.

As the thought arose in his mind, wicked fantasies began to gnaw at his despicable heart: Asdubal finally learned to hate the city.

He hated the city that had given birth to him.

One day, he will conquer it, destroy it, kill all those unworthy to sit on the throne, and use every means to erase those rulers far away. Finally, he will summarize and reorganize Comoros and everything related to it until it becomes what he envisions: until it becomes a true ghost city, a den of demons.

He won't stop until he does.

He will eventually become the supreme ruler of this city, even if it takes an eternity.

And he will eventually climb step by step to the top of this cold-blooded hierarchical system, and then tear it to pieces with his own hands.

For centuries, Victor had been working tirelessly towards this goal, but he never imagined...

------

Perhaps the day of destiny will come sooner than we imagine.

------

As mentioned before: it was just another unremarkable day in Comoros.

That was originally the case.

But from this day forward, it will be remembered forever.

Because on this day, the fate of the entire Comoros and everyone in it will undergo a dramatic change.

Especially Victor's.

In the centuries since he escaped slavery and arrived on the streets of Comoros, Victor has been relentlessly fighting and climbing the ladder of power. The boundless chaos caused by the Great Fall is his best stepping stone. Every day spent in the midst of intrigue and constant vigilance has honed his shrewdness and courage, transforming his innate cunning into the exquisite moment when all his rivals are torn apart.

For hundreds of years, he had been under the banner of the first street tyrant, building his own small gang through threats and bribes. He gradually grew stronger until he finally swallowed up his boss, killing him and taking over his territory and wealth. Using this as a base, he expanded into the surrounding black kingdoms.

He killed countless street thugs like himself, groveled before the highest-ranking power families, and built his own impregnable fortress in the deepest alleys. It took him all the time after Victor's arrogance and downfall to rise from an unknown gangster boss to a mid-level figure who could be occasionally mentioned in the highest-level meetings.

His territory grew from a narrow street into a significant part of the Comoros dark network. He defeated all the shadow emperors who could stand on equal footing with him, and gradually became the primary target for those arrogant big shots when choosing partners. He even set his sights on those impoverished small families, and after gaining their tacit approval and encouragement, he devoured them completely, leaving no trace.

He climbed step by step, becoming a big shot in the eyes of those at the bottom, even though he knew that there was a thick barrier between him and real power, a barrier connected by blood and family, something Victor could never have in his life: from then on, the time it took for him to take each small step forward would be measured in hundreds, thousands or even longer units.

Realizing this is incredibly disorienting.

Victor was no exception. He locked himself in his favorite safe house, spending his days with his inner turmoil and scheming: through the window of this small, shadowy room, he could see the black spire belonging to the Hillian family, where the most volatile and greedy governor of the entire Comoros lived, and who was also the one Victor loathed most among all the old nobles.

Nothing fueled Victor's fighting spirit more than seeing this bastard's luxury and power: that's why he dared to set up the safe house here.

Looking back, Victor almost wanted to kiss himself for making that decision.

He absolutely loved the arrangement.

Fate must be on his side.

Because it was in this narrow old lair that he witnessed the fall of the Hillyan family.

Oh, those ancient noble bloodlines, who once witnessed the glory of the War of Heaven, and who once followed the Phoenix Gods to challenge the mad Kane: who could have imagined that their legend would end on this ordinary day, that it would end with the human army, filled with greed and rage, breaking through the Web Gate above Comoros?

Gods above.

What a wonderful day.

------

Victor was perhaps the first person in all of Comoros to realize that something was amiss.

Contrary to popular belief, although Victor is technically still just a street thug, albeit one who has made a remarkable success of his career and become the uncrowned king in the eyes of all street thugs, things that are theoretically unrelated to him, such as politics and diplomacy at the highest levels of the Comoros, are what Victor has always been most concerned about.

This is why he studies the Web Gates that hold the lifeline of Comoros more deeply than most people, and understands their operation in great depth: because he knows that what comes out of the Web Gates may not only be slaves and wealth that bring life to Comoros, but also a large army determined to completely destroy this dark city.

However, before this, Victor had never imagined that this army would be composed of humans.

He always believed that the one who wanted to completely destroy Comoros would be another member of the Dark Eldar.

Although Comoros was already one of the most important cities in the Webpath during the Eldar Empire era, and its survival in the Great Cataclysm made it the most important transportation hub for the Eldar in the Webpath, this did not mean that Comoros had become the only dominant power. It was still surrounded by countless enemies and challengers.

The biggest challengers are the autonomous city-states that are dependent on the port city of Comoros.

These autonomous city-states date back to the early days of the Eldar Empire, and their rulers were families who preferred to rule their own territories rather than fight for power within the cities of Comoros. But this did not mean they were indifferent to the wealth of the Comoros capital and the title of supreme overlord.

The ambitions of rulers like the consuls of Keliseles or the emperors of Sadom to invade Comoros and seize its wealth and power were well-known: especially Eliak, who called himself the emperor of Sadom, who possessed the most elite army in the entire Greater Comoros region, and only the united noble council of the Comoros capital could barely contend with this ambitious conqueror.

But how could these Comorian nobles truly unite as one? When there are no enemies, these narrow-minded people would rather see their entire families wiped out.

Unity?
Perhaps this trend existed tens of millions of years ago.

In other words, Comoros at present is not the incredibly vast entity that outsiders perceive it to be. Although the sheer size of its main city alone is so immense that it needs to be measured in light, the outermost, labyrinthine satellite districts, private territories, and other semi-independent port cities, while broadly considered part of Greater Comoros, do not actually fight alongside the capital of the Network Road.

On the contrary, the vast majority of them would have been happy to see the real Comoros destroyed.

When foreign enemies come, they will not be reliable allies.

Even the nobles and cults within Comoros, who are already accustomed to vying for power: if the war doesn't expand to the point of destroying the entire Dark City, then don't expect these bastards, who have been around for thousands of years, to put in their full effort in "someone else's battle" before the flames of war reach their respective core territories.

Having seen through this, Victor began to observe and learn from the network gates that led directly to the main city of Comoros, and remained constantly vigilant against a large army emerging from them to seize the dark city that he had long considered his own.

At the same time, he also vowed in his heart that if he were to seize power in Comoros one day, he would stop at nothing to annex all the autonomous cities and transform Comoros into the city of his dreams: a massive, evil, and unfathomable galactic metropolis, a Netway royal city that no competitor could rival, and the sole representative of the entire Dark Eldar.

While the network portal next to the Hillian Spire suddenly began operating at full capacity, Victor was in his safe house, planning this future strategy.

But soon, he raised his head.

Because the mole he had planted long ago at the entrance to the net gate suddenly sent him a message.

"The outer guards of the Netway Gate were killed?"

Victor frowned.

He did not doubt the authenticity of the information: the spy could not possibly find the antidote to the deadly poison in his stomach.

However, in the next few minutes—a brief moment when almost nothing could be done—a series of strange messages came back, forcing Victor to begin to doubt the reputation of the Bloodlings.

"Not just the outer guards: even the guards stationed in the core area have been killed?"

Victor was somewhat stunned.

For a city like Comoros that constantly needs external supplies to maintain its operation, the importance of the Network Gate is self-evident. Those guarding it are naturally the elites of various ancient families: especially the elite soldiers stationed in the core area, many of whom are [True Blood]. Even now, Victor does not have absolute confidence in defeating them in a one-on-one fight.

But now, they're dead?

So easily?

A bead of cold sweat trickled down Asdubal's scarred neck.

His cunning mind raced, calculating the distance between the outer perimeter of the network gate and the core area, the number of guards stationed there, and the time intervals between messages.

It's incredible.

If his calculations were correct: the elite soldiers guarding the gate of the network passage not only failed to stop this unknown intruder, but judging from their speed of advance, they couldn't even delay the opponent's progress. This was not a battle at all; it was like absentmindedly swatting flies around them as they advanced.

Who could possibly do such a thing?
There is absolutely no such powerful being among the Dark Eldar.

Reality gave Victor no time to think; everything happened in the next few minutes.

After the guards were slaughtered, the last defenses protecting the gates of the net passage failed: the safety device, which had proven in hundreds of battles to withstand direct fire from the main guns of warships, disappeared silently despite being activated, as if it had been casually knocked to the ground by a giant.

Hundreds of Void Raven bombers and Razor fighters flew out in formation from both sides of the entrance; they were the elite forces maintained by the various families of Comoros. But the time between their mass exodus and the news of their annihilation was not even enough for Victor to sit down at his desk and go to the window.

After the fleet was destroyed, the next thing to fall was the electromagnetic pulse trap guarding the gate. Thirty-six Death Reapers, enough to paralyze a warship, turned into boiling sparks outside the field of vision in the same instant. The nameless intruder tore off the last barrier that Comoros used to protect itself. Its will was like a sharp spear, piercing through the road leading to the Dark City without reservation.

The wisdom accumulated over thousands of years by the Eldar Empire crumbled like thin ice in spring before an invincible powerhouse. At the very top of the Hillian Spire, the net gate, adorned with luxurious decorations and the skulls of countless races, was firmly grasped by a giant hand.

Clench, knead, tear, and reassemble.

This nameless hand paid no heed to the Webgate, which Comoros considered the source of life. It did not seek to strike the skies of the Dark City through this most convenient means; it harbored a far greater ambition: the Webgate was placed on an unseen altar, and through unimaginable power and warp magic, Comoros's seekers longed to summon something more useful to them.

The narrow gates of the net tunnel, which were only for fleets to pass through, were still too cramped for the large army; they longed for a wider road.

They yearn for a full-scale invasion of Comoros.

Although he hadn't witnessed it firsthand, and although he still didn't know who the intruders were, Asdubal had already figured it out without any instruction when his mole breathed his last and announced that the entire network gate had been completely torn apart.

Standing by the window, Victor looked up.

He saw it.

Right above countless towering spires.

Like a god summoned: the eternally dark sky of the Dark City was opened.

The gate to the internet has vanished.

Instead, a silver sun appeared.

It was the largest celestial body Asdubal had ever seen in his hundreds of years of life. The dying sun of the Comoros was as fragile as paper before it. Its shadow covered the entire region ruled by the Hillian Spires. Over a range of more than 380,000 kilometers, the thorny skyscrapers and spire docks humbly bowed their heads, while their masters and servants looked up in bewilderment at this unprecedented miracle.

The same goes for Victor.

He, along with tens of millions of pupils, witnessed the spectacle on the silver sun: countless shimmering flames transformed into dragons, their silver color radiating a blinding light like the sun itself, causing the creatures living in the dark city to close their eyes involuntarily. These flames grew upwards like plants vying for sunlight, intertwining, tearing at each other, and merging, ultimately giving birth to a colossal figure high above the sky.

That was a... goddess.

That's the only way Victor could describe it.

She is larger than any planet, more dreamlike than any world, and more beautiful than anything in the galaxy.

Victor couldn't see her face clearly, shrouded in a mist that even the gods couldn't penetrate, but he could see countless silver threads spreading out in all directions, binding the chaotic sky of Comoros like sharp spider webs. Her slender figure blurred amidst a flurry of shrill screams, a presence that instilled fear in every member of the Dark Eldar to the very core. But what was truly unforgettable were her eyes, those deep blue pupils, more profound than the vast Milky Way.

She was looking at them, looking at everyone in Comoros.

What a look that was!

Thirst, greed, contempt, hatred, disdain, mockery, calmness, murderous intent...

Even the prisoners howling under the Bloodthirsty Man's whip, even the most spectacular arena duels Victor had ever witnessed, had never before revealed so many, so complex, and so beautifully vicious emotions before him, as if his insides had been ripped open: for a moment, he did not know whether to admire this beauty or succumb to the fear and trembling deep within his heart.

Until she ended it all.

Until that day, the "god" in the sky slowly closed his five fingers towards every patch of black earth that she could see.

"!!!"

Fear! Trembling! Trembling!

Even when he was sold into slavery, even when he was kneeling on the altar with the priest's blade about to slit his neck, Victor had never felt fear so acutely as he did now. He then realized that his feet were soaked, and large amounts of cold sweat were pouring from the back of his neck and back, dripping onto the expensive carpet like a rushing waterfall.

The moment he saw her, his biological instincts were already screaming a death knell.

That innate malice told him just how close he was to utter destruction.

Without any hesitation, Victor propelled his legs, which were already stiff as stone, and stumbled toward the basement at the far end of the room, completely ignoring the fact that his favorite vases and murals were carelessly tossed on the floor.

escape!
run!
The further away the better!

Without any reason, without any thought: Asdubal's instinct screams endlessly.

Just as he was humiliated and hid in the basement, locking the door—a door strong enough to withstand a nuclear explosion—he was about to escape.

Far away, in the distant horizon, beyond the sight of countless dark spirits, whether bewildered or greedy.

The silver-white goddess first pulled her clenched fist back slightly, then slowly swung it out, casually spreading her five fingers at the same time: as if throwing the mockery in her heart into this incurable abyss.

The silent gaze transforms into a sharp sword, leaving no darkness untouched wherever it passes.

For Comoros

And so, destruction came.

(End of this chapter)