Warhammer: Black Emperor

Chapter 417 William of the Wood Caste

On its way to Mandeville, the Shadow of the King Power met with Navigator leader Eden Wiescher in his private office.

Eden wears magnificent jewels on his forehead to cover his third eye.

The Primarch keenly noticed that his body had already shown some obvious signs of mutation.

His skin was slightly pale, and there were scale-like plates on his wrists, hidden in his sleeves.

"Eden, what do you want?"

"Lord Ninglu, the alliance between the Visher family and the Legion is the envy of many other navigators, who hope to establish cooperative relationships with the Legion to varying degrees."

"I am conveying their request to you and inviting you to visit Uranus."

Within the solar system, there are two large stargates: the Elysium Gate on Uranus and the Hades Gate on Pluto.

After the Great Expedition began and Uranus's settlements and satellites were incorporated into the emerging Empire, Voidships frequently entered and exited the Warp via the Gate of Elysium.

The Navigator families established their new territories on the twenty-seven moons of Uranus. Compared to the precious land of Terra, the new territories offered more space and made it easier to conceal the secrets hidden beneath their glory.

Nimrod originally planned to go to the solar system to have some members of the treasure-hunting team join the legion and play a role in the future Battle of Gadinar.

After a moment's thought, he agreed to Eden's request.

“I would love to be a guest of the Navigator family.”

"I will immediately plan the route and guide the Shadow of Reign to the Solar System." Eden bowed slightly, then quickly left.

On its journey to the Solar System, the Shadow of Reigns travels through the Gadinal system, near the main star of Gadinal.

William Wood strode across the wilderness. He was nine years old, dressed in tattered clothes, and had only a rusty dagger in his hand.

Every person in Gardiner has their destiny determined from the moment they are born.

Their caste determines their fate, their social class, their occupation, their food, everything about them...

Wood has been a working caste for thousands of years.

Thousands upon thousands of Woods were workers, without exception.

But William was unwilling to accept this fate, and the images that kept flashing before his eyes drove him to become a defector.

He knew that from the moment he left the dilapidated shack, he had only himself.

His caste, and the higher caste lords, could not tolerate him.

Once caught, his parents, his relatives, no one will tolerate his deviant behavior; death is the best outcome for him.

The punishments he was told about, such as being soaked in medicinal liquid and then being bitten by ants, and being skinned alive, were all punishments he was told about as soon as he learned to speak. These were all punishments for daring to challenge the hereditary system.

William bit his lip, giving himself a warning.

The area between chemical plants B-12 and B-13 is filled with waste, and I must find a hiding place.

No, one hiding place isn't safe enough; you need at least three, like a cunning rabbit with three burrows.

Wait, how did I even know the phrase "a cunning rabbit has three burrows"...?
The Wood caste is a working caste; they are not qualified for education. Each Wood only needs to master numbers and the bold text in the operating manual.

The phrase "a cunning rabbit has three burrows" is clearly not something Wood would use.

William ran while breathing heavily.

He was breathing heavily, but he dared not stop, so he could only try to distract himself by thinking about other things.

A picture suddenly flashed through William's mind.

A gray figure, dripping with mud, rushed over at high speed.

William then felt a strong wind whistling behind him, and a strange chemical smell wafted over him.

William, who grew up in a chemical plant, was already used to the smell of chemicals, but he was certain that the smell that suddenly invaded his nose was not the smell of any single chemical agent.

It was the smell of a mixture of chemicals and residue, a similar odor to that of child laborers like him, whose bodies were still developing, who were responsible for cleaning the sewage channels. William's clothes clung to his back, his body soaked with cold sweat.

He didn't have time to think it through; his body instinctively rolled over.

The sound of clothes tearing, followed by something sticky, slapped onto his back.

William felt a piece of skin being ripped off his back as he tumbled and crashed awkwardly onto a mountain of piled-up chemical dyes.

The roar was no longer suppressed; the gray figure pounced again and again, stirring up waves of garbage.

William rolled over repeatedly, his body crashing against the messy, irregular mountain of garbage, his whole body aching.

But William ignored the pain; as he rolled around, his mind raced, trying to think of a way to save himself.

Suddenly, everything around us slowed down.

As William landed on his back, he finally saw the gray figure clearly.

Overall, he resembled a hyena of the wilderness, but covered in mud as if he had just been pulled out of a chemical pit.

A strange, nauseating stench emanated from his open, foul-smelling mouth.

A cold glint flashed in William's eyes. He pushed off with both arms and sprang up, charging towards the hyena.

He guessed that the rusty dagger he picked up along the way during his escape was unable to pierce the hyena's "chemical mud armor," and could only risk trying to attack its vulnerable eyes.

William plunged the dagger deep into the hyena's left eye. The shattered yellow eye, along with disgusting fluid mixed with blood, splattered all over his right hand.

But William was shocked to find that the hyena continued its movements, its claws reaching for him.

[That bastard is really tough; he's still alive.]
William tried to dodge, but the hyena was faster.

I don't want to die! I'm not reconciled!
Is the working class forever condemned to a predetermined fate?
Just as the hyena's claws were about to touch William's body, an invisible force surged within him.

With a bang, the claw struck the psionic field and was immediately bounced away.

Although William didn't know what had happened, he reacted quickly, having survived the ordeal, and forcefully pulled out his dagger, stabbing it into the hyena's other eye.

Once, twice...

He was so exhausted that he collapsed on the garbage heap with the hyenas, mud covering his entire body.

William lay helplessly on the mountain of garbage, panting heavily.

After a long while, his stomach growled, and he staggered to his feet, finding the dagger in the hyena's carcass.

William used both his hands and his dagger to scrape away the mud and search for the hyena's flesh.

……

In October 852, in the Solar System, the Shadow of Reigns leaped out of the Gate of Elysium.

Dust clouds filled the space of the Gate of Bliss, and in the open space of about three thousand kilometers, rows of tiny particles were shimmering.

Ninglu stood at the viewing window with the protective shield open, gazing at the gray matter drifting in the void. Unlike their appearance, it shimmered with a spiritual light, and a term involuntarily came to mind.

[Siren's Dust.]
Ninglu knew that for hundreds and thousands of years, starships that entered the subspace from this place would produce and leave behind a drifting, soft gray substance when they left the present world.

The Navigator family and the Jupiter clan have a special name for it: Siren Dust.

There is a story circulating among them that gold prospectors once tried to collect this dust, but after actually touching it, they lost interest in all other materials.

Whether true or false, this dust always lingers here, slowly circling within the cosmic realm of the Gate of Bliss, like the wisps of smoke encased in a glass sphere.

However, there is no similar substance in the space surrounding the Gate of the Underworld; Siren Dust is a substance unique to the Gate of Elysium.

　PS: Chapter 2 will be scheduled for 21:21.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)