Chapter 454: Reinforcements of Clan Mors

"How, how could this be?"

"Heh, some things are better left unknown."

Genuoduoer flicked its grey whiskers and sneered, its thoughts returning to the scene in the Broken Tower at that time. It had spent three days bitterly detailing the consequences, analyzing clearly how the Dwarfs reclaiming Eight Peaks and the connection between the Southlands and the Old World would unfold, yet it still received no response from the Councilors.

Just as it was feeling disheartened, a terrifying tremor suddenly came from beneath its feet. The Grey Claw High Priest initially feigned composure to steady the Skaven, but as the Broken Tower itself began to shake, that old rat also prepared to run for it.

The Councilors looked at one another, fearing that if they ran too slowly they would be buried in the tower, yet fearing that if they ran ahead down the stairs they would be backstabbed by those behind; eyeing each other, not one dared to move a claw first.

At this critical juncture, the evil bell overhead suddenly began to toll of its own accord. This bell rarely rang, but once it did, it tolled eleven times in succession, leaving all the rats dumbfounded before it finally ceased. One must know, legend has it that when the Skaven race first emerged, the bell only tolled thirteen times!

The holy bell tolling on its own meant that something earth-shattering had occurred for the entire Skaven Empire; those among the Councilors with less seniority were witnessing it for the first time. The divine power of the Great Horned Rat spread through the sound of the bell, protecting the very core of Skavenblight during the earthquake.

Before the Grey Claw High Priest and the Clan Skryre Arch-Warlock stationed at the headquarters in Skavenblight could check how severely other regions had been damaged, the statue of the Great Horned Rat placed at the thirteenth seat burst into a room-filling green light—the long-horned evil god had descended!

The Great Horned Rat pointed out the cause of the earthquake in concise terms—the new god of the Dwarf race, Kelage. What worried Him even more than another new god ascending among the races hostile to the Skaven was that this race, which had already entered its twilight, had once again burst forth with new, vigorous vitality.

Combining the fragments of information revealed by other Chaos evil gods and the reports from the Skaven themselves, He deduced that the cause of all this was likely the newly ascended Demigod in the Southlands called Snorri Thorsson.

Out of this concern, the Great Horned Rat personally instructed the Skaven Empire to provide aid to Clan Mors; at worst, they were to stifle the momentum of the Dwarf resurgence, and at best, Snorri's head would be a sacrifice that satisfied Him.

"You, go now!"

Genuoduoer shook its head and raised a claw to point at the door; the large rat bowed in salute and left silently.

"Those four, have all four taken their seats? I should, should appear as well."

Muttering to itself, the Clan Mors bigwig stood up and walked into a secret passage leading directly to the main reception hall on the lower level of Eight Peaks. The hall, once the most magnificent in the Mountain Kingdom, now exuded an evil aura; green Warpstone had replaced the brilliant rubies and diamonds, and as for those desecrated ancestor statues, every Son of the Mountains who saw them would want to pluck out their own beard.

"The beard-things and the human-things' coalition has, has crossed the river."

As Genuoduoer took its seat, a rat wrapped in a black cloak, with only two eyeballs visible, spoke up. Its two claws, tucked inside the cloak, remained pressed against the hilt of the blade at its waist, and its tail twitched unconsciously; these had already become muscle memory.

"Too slow, they are too slow! The mushroom-things above only know how to degrade, degrade the bloodline! The flesh and blood of a Demigod, I can hardly wait!"

The rat that replied chewed loudly as it spoke, and the other rats had to prick up their ears to hear what it was saying. This fellow was Throt the Unclean, the most notorious and insane Master Mutator of Moulder Clan.

It was tall and bloated, freakishly fat, with three arms, and its left eye had been replaced with Warpstone. It had performed numerous experiments on itself, gaining a Troll-like physique and regenerative abilities, which also brought about an endless hunger.

"How, how much longer until they arrive? Give me, give me an exact time; the ritual needs to be prepared, prepared in advance."

To Genuoduoer's left, a Grey Seer with ferocious horns on its head asked while toying with a crystal ball in its hand; among the few rats, it looked the most normal, yet the other rats all seemed to want to keep their distance from it.

"My god's noble, noble representative, they will take ten more days, perhaps, perhaps longer; that Snuo, Snuori, is very cautious!"

"Hahaha! Enough! I, Queek, will, will make those hairless-things submit, submit to the wrath of the Great Horned Rat!"

The Grey Seer spoke wildly, but none of the rats present mocked it for overestimating its own strength. This Queek was a rising star of the Grey Seer Clan; although not old, the Great Horned Rat seemed to have special favor for it, as not only had its strength advanced by leaps and bounds, but it had also escaped death several times.

"What I brought, brought are the most outstanding technologies, reserved for, reserved for that bearded Demigod! Don't expect me to waste, waste them on the riffraff. They, they are not worthy!"

The "cyber" rat that had remained silent in the corner spoke last; it was clad in a set of exoskeleton armor, and the halberd leaning against its chair occasionally sparked with arcs of electricity.

"Lord Ikit Claw, please, please rest assured, my Clan Mors Zhua Tuan will deal with, deal with the beard-things, just like, just like their ancestors!"

This Ikit Claw was the technical director of Clan Skryre and a legend of the Skaven Empire. Even the bigwig Genuoduoer, as a Councilor of the Council of Thirteen, had to answer personally.

Its lifespan was enough to rival the Grey Claw High Priest; it had participated in the Second Skaven Civil War, invented many best-selling War Machines led by the Doomwheel, and was also a quite brilliant user of Destruction Magic.

"Thank you, thank you all for coming; the era of the rat-kind will eventually arrive, and the beard, beard-things will surely be buried in Eight Peaks!"

Having briefly coordinated the combat readiness of the four Great Clans' reinforcements, Genuoduoer raised the Warpstone wine cup on the table. Skaven had always tried to ingest Warpstone in the most "safe" way possible; extracting it with alcohol was a method with low utilization but relative safety, and even the Great Clans could not afford it daily.

The Skaven were taking tense actions, but the Evil Moon Tribe entrenched in the upper levels of Eight Peaks remained "as steady as Mount Tai." Iblit was not in a hurry; it and the Dwarfs were equally aware of how easy Eight Peaks Fortress was to defend and how difficult it was to attack.

The old rat from Clan Mors kept sending envoys; if it wanted to worry, it could worry on its own—although a rat's brain was small, it was full of devious schemes. When it came to grudges, compared to the often-absent Angrund Clan, the Skaven, who had fought fiercely for thousands of years, had more.

So what if he was a Demigod? If a sea of spawn swarmed him, he couldn't possibly kill all the Night Goblins; when his divine power was exhausted, even a true god would be unable to escape his doom!

Compared to the army marching from the south, it was more interested in the intensifying struggle for supremacy around Black Crag. That madman who called himself the Green Prophet claimed that a thieving Waaagh! Black Orc was the chosen one of Gork, but it, Iblit, felt that it was more suitable itself.