How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 416: Meaningless (V)
When Lot shouted "I surrender", his mind wasn't actually working.

Although he did have the idea that "being alive is good, and dying doesn't matter" because his previous experiences were really boring, but people often change their minds when faced with the shock of death - especially when faced with such a very subdimensional way of death,
After seeing these mummies wrapped in cloth strips and shapeless ghosts, Lot had no doubt that if he died here, then after his death, his body and soul would be split into two, joining these troops who had been dead for who knows how long in eternal pain and torture.

Being drowned in the sand by monsters like before was one thing, but watching yourself being used as a beast of burden after death was another. Accepting the former did not mean accepting the latter, so Lot fled sincerely when he turned around and ran for his life. When he saw the group of people in front of him again, he surrendered without hesitation: after all, we were all Chaos warbands, and "jianghu morality" was something that only commanders with a solid foundation were qualified to talk about. For a Chaos soldier like Lot who was displaced in the Eye of Terror, it was not a very surprising thing to slack off in one company today and jump to another company tomorrow - as long as you have a clever enough tongue to keep yourself alive and well under this kind of behavior that is very untrustworthy at first glance.

Lot didn't think he had such a clever tongue, nor did he think he could provide the other party with satisfactory information as he had promised before, but he didn't mind trying his luck. At least, in that moment when he didn't have time to think about it in detail, he thought it might be better to die in the hands of at least some humanoid creatures than to die in the hands of those subspace things behind him.

But two seconds later, he regretted it. This was not because he finally remembered what brilliant and outrageous achievements the followers of Slaanesh had in torturing the living, the half-dead, and even the souls of the dead, but because he noticed that the staff held by the mortal whom he initially identified as a "Chaos Wizard" had a clear Imperial Sky Eagle on top.

The good news is that he will not die at the hands of those warp creatures that have been chasing him. After hearing Lot's "surrender declaration", the mortal immediately patted the terrifying beast beside him. Then, the monster immediately opened its slender mouth full of sharp teeth and spewed a breath of black and red flames that were very similar to its own color to the front of the team. Lot was frightened by the flames and couldn't help jumping and flying into the team. Then he was immediately pressed to the ground by the huge Astartes wearing the Indomitable Terminator, and the unactivated chainsaw sword hanging under the power gauntlet was placed between his neck. He didn't see what the breath burned, but after a few seconds, the temperature in the corridor obviously rose again, and the footsteps of the mummies and the mournful whimpering of the ghosts soon disappeared. This clearly proved that Lot didn't have to worry about his life being ended by those things for the time being.

The bad news is that his life is still likely to be ended by something else - such as the huge chainsaw sword that has almost pressed the serrated blade of the single-molecule chain blade into the skin of his neck. As long as the owner of the chainsaw sword has a thought, the switch that connects this ferocious weapon and the power armor to the nerve conduction will be turned on, and Lot's head will say goodbye to his body in the splatter of blood and flesh.

"I don't think we need to keep him." The man spoke inside the Terminator helmet. After the voice changer, his voice seemed even more terrifying than the whimpering of those dead souls. "If you really have something to ask, then ask it quickly."

This was not said to Lotte, and it naturally contained some meaning of "We will kill him after you finish asking questions." Lotte did not deny this natural choice. If he were in the other's shoes, he would make the same choice. But obviously, the person who occupied the leadership position in this team did not think so.

At first, Lot took it for granted that the "Emperor's Child" with the largest body and the most gorgeous armor in the team was the leader. But in fact, the voice that responded to this sentence that was obviously providing advice to the leader was a quite young female voice: "Don't be so impatient and only think about solving problems by killing, Nasir. Although he is an enemy, he is still a life after all."

The man who had the chainsaw sword stuck in Lot's neck immediately became visibly annoyed. But strangely, facing a mortal girl who could flatten the other person with just one hand, the Astartes wearing Terminator armor did not even say a word of rebuttal, but just remained silent in obvious annoyance.

Then, another person spoke up: "Although, this time I think A-Nasir is right. I really don't want to have another guy who betrays so easily in the team."

Lot couldn't see who was speaking, but from the direction the voice came from, it should be the shorter Emperor's son. He agreed with the other party's logic and should have been able to accept his death calmly, but unfortunately, at this time, some of the little stories about Slaanesh that he had heard from others in the past surged up from the depths of his memory and attacked him. Therefore, driven by this desire to survive that was slightly different from the literal meaning, he spoke in panic: "I swear, I will never stab you in the back! If I hadn't happened to meet you, I would have died. This is a debt I owe you, and I will definitely pay the corresponding price for it!"

"What are you going to pay with?" The man in the Terminator armor was amused by this and asked back unhappily, "Do you have anything valuable or information on you? In the end, you will have to pay with your own life."

Obviously, Lot did not hold a high position in the Iron Warriors. Anyone with eyes could see this from the shabby power armor he had put together. Obviously, the other party judged that he had no talent and could not have any important intelligence that only existed among the command level. This was indeed true, but in such a negotiation that concerned his life, Lot could not let the other party see this so easily.

"I really do know something!" he said eagerly. "When the Primarch was briefing Commander Tolamino, I was in a corner -"

"He lied." The Emperor's son with more gorgeous armor walked into Lot's sight and looked down at him from top to bottom. The man's helmet was surrounded by fine reliefs and his expression could not be seen. His calm tone could not tell his attitude. "He has received almost no training and is very bad at controlling his emotions. But I guess-"

He turned his head again, changing his sight from vertically downward to sideways and downward: "—You don't actually care whether he's lying or not, right?"

"I really don't care," the young woman's voice replied. "Although the reasons he gave are different, I do think that as long as he still has some basic judgment, he shouldn't stab us in the back. Nasir, I won't ask you to let him go immediately, but at least let him sit up so that it will be easier to talk."

The huge Emperor's Child disappeared from Lot's sight. The man in the Terminator armor snorted and reluctantly took the chainsword away from his neck, leaving a slightly stinging blood mark in its place. Lot unconsciously exhaled lightly and slowly sat up in his place. During this time, a huge chainsword was waving threateningly to one side of his sight, and the shining Shanabar long sword on the other side of his sight also made his hands stay well away from the weapons on his belt.

Under these clear threats of force, Lotte could do nothing but stay where he was. After he breathed a sigh of relief because he had saved his life for the time being, he was finally able to take a closer look to see whether the petite mortal in front of him was round or flat.

Firstly, because it was so eye-catching, Lot had noticed before she was pinned down that the pattern on the top of the long staff in her hand was the Imperial Sky Eagle; secondly, the person holding the Sky Eagle Scepter was indeed young, matching her voice, so young that Lot felt that if she were a boy, she might be able to participate in an Astartes transformation operation; thirdly, judging from the Iron Warriors' extensive knowledge of mechanical equipment (with and without Chaos), the armor on this little girl should indeed have no defensive power; finally, the monster that looked very much like the Warp and whose shoulder height was almost the same as Lot's had been quietly sticking behind her, and it seemed that it really only obeyed her orders.

In summary, even if Lot did recognize the Sky Eagle on the top of the opponent's scepter, he still did not change his previous judgment of the "Chaos Wizard". After all, the chaos in the entire team could not be offset by a mere Sky Eagle Scepter.

He looked at her warily, memorizing some invalid data in his mind, to prevent the wizard from using psychic power to flip his mind without him noticing. But in fact, the little girl did not do so, she just looked at him briefly and then spoke:

"Anyway, now it's like this: we don't know why you were left alone from the main force, but you are indeed trapped in this temple, being chased by the undead and mummies, and when you saw us, you shouted to us 'I surrender' out of the desire to survive. From my shallow understanding of the Iron Warriors Legion, after these experiences, even if you return to your original organization, I'm afraid it won't be a good result. What do you think?"

Lot looked at the Sky Eagle Scepter in the hand of the speaker, then looked at the two Emperor's children beside him, sneered, and chose an angle he thought would not go wrong to refute: "However, after taking a closer look at your team, I don't think anything good will come of me being here."

The chainsaw sword at the edge of his vision waved menacingly: "But you don't have a choice."

"I think 'good results' is a relative question. But now, I think no one wants to talk about such philosophical things." The little girl said, "I can give you two guarantees: First, during our exploration in the temple, you will not die for no reason because of the need for consumables. This situation does not include the situation where the team encounters the enemy normally and then you die in battle because of bad luck. I can only guarantee that no one will deliberately send you away. Second, if you are still alive after the exploration, I can use my authority to ensure that you die cleanly in the subsequent trial. What do you think?" After hearing this, the Emperor's son with a normal body shape who was ghostwriting on the other side couldn't help but say: "What kind of guarantee is this?"

But strangely, after thinking for two seconds, when Akurdona finished speaking, Lotte nodded decisively: "Deal. What do you want to know?"

"You really agree?"

"What else?" Lotte snorted self-deprecatingly. "Of course I want better terms, but I can't afford the price, and you easily exposed my bluff. The terms I can get now sound like a fair deal."

"Fair?" muttered a voice from the Terminator armor. "I'd say this is an overly lenient deal."

"Nasir, I know what you mean is 'this is unnecessary'." The little girl continued, but she stopped here and turned to Lot, "I ask without any hope, when the Iron Warriors were stationed in the temple, did you see the master of this temple?"

"No." Since his lie was exposed as soon as he raised his intention to bluff, Lot thought it would be safer to answer truthfully at this moment: "I just heard that this was arranged by the Primarch. However, we did receive an order from the master of the temple, forbidding us to make too much modification or destruction to the original structure of the temple when deploying the defense. I think our commander, Lord Tolamino, should be able to meet that person directly."

"...Just for the sake of asking, where should we go to find this person you mentioned?"

"He always stays in the throne room of the temple. But actually, I don't know where the throne room is. I can only walk to the vicinity of the pyramid and let the master's personal guards be responsible for the communication."

"That's useless." The little girl sighed lightly and didn't dwell on this topic at all. "Then let me ask you another question that you can definitely answer: Why are you being chased by so many undead ghosts and mummies?"

Lotte, who had been trying his best to control his body language, suddenly turned into a defensive posture under this question: "Why are you asking this? If you want to laugh at me, you can always laugh."

"Yeah, I can always laugh, so there's no need for me to ask you more about this." Fujimaru Ritsuka sighed again, "I want to ask, before being chased by these things, did you encounter--"

"——I was wondering why my lovely undead were so frightened that they forgot their orders and ran away." Another female voice suddenly interrupted the conversation. No one was seen, but her voice was simply projected between the walls of the corridor. "It turned out to be Amit. It is natural for the dead without a commander to be afraid of such a manifestation of judgment."

While the others were looking around for the source of the sound, Lotte realized what the little girl wanted to ask and muttered in a low voice: "I didn't encounter anything, but there was indeed such a voice speaking to me at that time."

"That voice has sounded again. The information you provided is still useless." The Terminator armor named "Nasir" also rumbled, "I think you are useless."

Someone should have spoken up to stop Nasir from speaking without thinking, but unfortunately, that person wasn't paying attention to his own team.

"Nitocris." The little girl, who couldn't find the exact location of the person who was speaking, stared at a point in the darkness deep in the corridor and unconsciously called out the name of the owner of the voice that appeared out of nowhere.

"So you recognized me, that's right." The voice continued, "If it was an exact copy of my ally made from the remaining data on the Storm's Edge, then it makes sense that he has the relevant memories, or can simply enslave Amit and the Space Sphinx cub."

The girl was visibly stunned by this. She immediately turned around, facing a random person in the team, pointed at herself and whispered, "Am I a stand-in?"

No one had time to pay attention to her words, because the voice that appeared out of nowhere continued: "But no matter what, you stole the identity of Pharaoh's ally, the gift that Pharaoh once gave her, and dared to return to Pharaoh like this - it's totally disrespectful! You are sentenced to death! There is no point in saying more, execute it immediately!"

As soon as these words fell, the corridors and the ground inside the temple began to shake. The roads and mechanisms began to change like wax that melted and was reshaped. The whimpering of the dead and the footsteps of mummies could be heard from afar again. Almost at the same time, Amit and the little sphinxes began to roar in annoyance. Even though the ground was still as unstable as the waves, they tried very hard to drag the person closest to them, trying to take all the members away from their original positions.

"Can't we scare those things away again?" Pegasus asked without much hope. "If not, I think we can just kill them all. Apart from the problem of their nature, these things don't seem to be very strong."

"Indeed, they are not very strong, but there are many of them." Fujimaru Ritsuka only half agreed, "Considering the limited physical strength, mainly my limited physical strength, I suggest that we leave first."

She turned around and pointed at Lotte, who had stood up on the unstable ground. "You come with us, too. Be careful not to get separated from us, or you will really die."

(End of this chapter)