Travel through time and become a member of the Warhammer Empire

Chapter 380: The Skaven's Plan of Destruction

A few miles away from the ruins of Lyonness, deep within the ruins of a relatively hidden, abandoned dwarven outpost.

Water droplets condensed on the damp stone walls, and the air was filled with dust, mold, and the stench and fear emanating from the rat-man captives whose mouths were forcibly gagged.

The bonfire crackled, and the dancing flames cast flickering shadows on the cold armor and smoking weapons of the four knights, as well as on Windlow's solemn face.

In front of the five of them was a ratman engineer warlock tied up, who kept making "squeaking" sounds while struggling.

But just put the gun to his head and the guy would immediately calm down.

Its small, green eyes, gleaming behind its warpstone goggles, were filled with malice and utter fear.

The Honest Knight's heavy shield acted like a wall, blocking all of the Warlock Engineer's escape routes.

The Knight of Justice kept loading his flintlock pistol, deftly turning bullet after bullet in his hand.

The honorable knight Eleanor rested her long-barreled musket on her knees, closed her eyes and prayed to the goddess.

The heroic knight Bo Ze wiped the rat-man blood off the grenade launcher in annoyance. The fierce exchange of fire just now had left many scratches on his grenade launcher, but fortunately, the autograph of the Imperial Engineer was not damaged.

Windlow squatted in front of the prisoner, the muzzle of the Imperial pistol pressed against the engineer's greasy and dirty jaw.

"Don't tell me!"

He forced himself to ignore the sickening smell and the inhuman evil in the captive's eyes, and spoke in the calmest but most oppressive tone possible. This was a common interrogation procedure, using fear to oppress.

"You, you, you ask... Ask, I don't know, I don't know, what to say."

In addition to fear, the engineer's eyes were filled with shock. In the past, the ratmen kidnapped human nobles and bureaucrats, but this time he was kidnapped by humans.

Moreover, he was kidnapped by the Bretonnian knights who were in ambush. This scene even made the engineer warlock with very strong acceptance ability feel a chill on his back.

"Your mission, and the Skaven's plans."

"I am a warlock of Clan Skryre, a… engineer of Clan Skryre… responsible for… responsible for delaying Bretonnia… delaying Bretonnia and recovering, recovering the warpstone nuclear bomb data, yes, yes."

Its voice was full of flattery and a desire to survive.

"Delaying Bretonnia?"

Wendlow frowned.

"make it clear."

Without the flintlock pistol pressed against his chin, the ratman engineer spoke much more clearly.

"Bretonnia is meaningless. Skaven are not good at fighting cavalry, and Bretonnia has no food. Our plan is the Empire. Yes, yes, a great, great plan! Destroy the Empire! Bretonnia is just... just a diversion! The Empire... the Empire is the main course!"

Windlow's heart sank suddenly. This confirmed his worst suspicion, but the scale was far beyond his imagination.

"Grand plan? Explain it clearly!"

The ratman engineer's eyes kept spinning, as if he was thinking of some deceptive trick, but in the end he seemed to give up and did not choose to lie. Instead, he looked directly into Windlow's eyes and told the real truth, his voice filled with a twisted fanaticism.

"Yes, yes! The Council of Thirteen... is wise! The demons from the north and the Norsemen will soon march south! Like a tidal wave! Drowning the Empire! The people of the Empire... will shed their last drop of blood!"

"The ratmen will cooperate with the demons and the Norscans to attack the empire from both sides and destroy it."

There was a cunning and malicious light in the eyes of the ratman engineer. He seemed to see through Windlow's identity as an imperial citizen, so he told him the whole plan.

"But the demons and the Norsca are also enemies! Powerful, powerful enemies! When they and the humans of the Empire are both defeated and exhausted, the great Skaven will emerge from the ground! Harvesting everyone like wheat! Demons, Norsca, and humans of the Empire...all will become food and slaves! The Old World will belong to the Skaven! Yes, yes!"

The air was dead silent, with only the crackling of the campfire and the heavy breathing of the Skaven captives.

The eyes of the four knights grew extremely solemn. The viciousness of the Ratmen's plan and the sheer scale of their ambition sent a chill down the spines of even these knights who had experienced the civil war.

Not only do they want to destroy humanity, but they also want to use the invasion of the Chaos army as a tool to weaken both sides, and finally reap the benefits, dragging the entire surface world into the terrorist rule of the underground rats!

This is an open conspiracy, a conspiracy that Windlow has no doubt about. The rat people who have been lurking underground for a long time are preparing to seize the land on the ground this time.

Windlow felt a wave of exhaustion, a bit breathless. The chaos in the north of the empire was the true calamity! In comparison, Bretonnia's rat infestation, while severe, could be gradually eradicated under the leadership of King Laun's pragmatic Grail Knights, the Knights' military might, and the gradual introduction of new weaponry.

But if the Empire is overrun by Chaos Demons and Norse Horde, it will be the end of the entire Old World!

Compared with the demons and Norscans, the ratmen's all-out attack was just a minor rear raid.

The ratman engineer warlock keenly caught the shock and consideration in Windlow's eyes. It struggled harder and made a pleading squeak.

"Let me go! I'm valuable! I know a lot! I know what the demons have, I know their weaknesses! I know the Norse routes! The Skaven are willing to trade! Give the Empire human intelligence! Let the humans hold out a little longer! Let the demons bleed more! This way, the Skaven will have less effort to harvest! Yes, yes! Win-win, win-win! A rare win-win situation."

What a blatant "deal" that's true to the Skaven's nature! Providing enemy intelligence isn't to help humanity, but to make humanity consume more of Chaos' power while resisting it, ultimately making it easier for the Skaven to reap the spoils.

Trade with the Skaven? It seems to be the only way now.

The Empire is the dam that holds back the flood of destruction! As long as they hold off the demons and Norse coalition in front, the Empire and Bretonnia will be able to easily deal with the Skaven!

"you…"

Wendlow's voice was as dry as sandpaper. He looked at the despicable, cunning rat in front of him who exuded the breath of betrayal, and a deep sense of powerlessness and cold rationality were intertwined.

"How do you prove the intelligence you mentioned about the North?"

The Warlock Engineer's eyes flashed with green light of ecstasy. It seemed the deal was done, and he spoke even faster.

"Prove it! I can tell you, but I can also write it down and draw a map! Demonic vanguards... gathering points! Norscans... secret passages! I can tell you everything I know, I can tell you everything."

The Knight of Justice placed his hand on Windlow's shoulder, his voice low and full of warning.

"Wendlow, it's lying. The ratmen are a race that only knows how to lie. You can't trust a single word that comes out of their mouths."

The Honor Knight's gun remained motionless.

"It is using us to fight Chaos, and its ultimate goal is to destroy us all."

The Honest Knight expressed the most truthful opinion of everyone, that the Skaven were indeed using the Empire and Bretonnia to weaken the Demons and the Norsemen.

But if we can make use of the Skaven's intelligence, we can maintain a strategic advantage over the Skaven even after weakening the demons and Norscans.

Wendlow closed his eyes, but could not hear any firm thoughts.

He suddenly opened his eyes, and in his eyes was the desperate determination of a businessman facing a desperate situation.

"There's no good or bad intelligence, it only matters whether it can be used. I need pen and paper."

Wendlow's voice was unusually calm. He looked at the ratman engineer.

"Write. Write what you think will save your damn life. If what you write is any different from what I know..."

The Imperial pistol in his hand hit the rat man's chin hard.

"You know, I'm an imperial noble. If what you write is very different from what I know... I promise that the lie will make you die a painful death."

The Warlock Engineer nodded frantically and squeaked in cooperation.

In the following moments, under the cold gazes and weapons of the Four Knights, the Skaven Engineer Warlock drew twisted lines and marks on the rough parchment with trembling claws.

It names several hidden fjords and ports where the Norse might gather.

Pointed out several temporary corruption nodes of Chaos Daemon Vanguard in the Imperial Border Forest.

It can even accurately describe the composition of Nurgle's vanguard in the Brass Mountains in the central empire.

It also covers the entire process of the fall of Kislev and what the coalition of demons and Norsca did in Kislev.

"Kislev has fallen?"

"Yes, yes, Kislev has fallen."

Faced with Windlow's questions, the engineer naturally told him everything in order to survive and fulfill his own plan.

Due to the extremely bad relationship between the Ice and Snow Court and the Great Orthodoxy, in order to unify Kislev, the Tsar announced the launch of a "special military operation", and the Kislev civil war officially broke out.

At the beginning, the Ice and Snow Court advanced quickly, directly occupying and controlling the Northern State and the strategic port of Erengrad.

However, the Great Orthodoxy subsequently delayed the attack of the Ice and Snow Court and even sent special forces deep into the territory of the Ice and Snow Court, launching a plan code-named "Spider Web" to destroy the Ice and Snow Court's transportation network and war machinery.

Of course, the specific details cannot be repeated. The ratman engineer only knew that the Ice and Snow Court took the initiative to launch an attack, hoping to wipe out the Great Orthodoxy in one fell swoop.

However, the Great Orthodoxy successfully resisted the attack of the Ice and Snow Court. On the battlefields of the Troll Kingdom and the Northern States, the Kislevites were constantly losing troops in the civil war.

Every Kislevite warrior died at the hands of their own people until the arrival of the Everchosen of Chaos, who easily conquered the city of Praag, which had remained undestroyed for thousands of years.

And they attacked the capital of Kislev at an almost devastating speed, and wiped out all the forces of the Ice and Snow Court, followed by the Great Orthodoxy.

The two sides in the internal struggle successfully allowed the Chaos Eternal God to pick the peaches. Except for a small number of Kislevites who successfully escaped to the Empire by land and sea, the rest of the Kislevites were all killed.

The Tsarine of the Ice and Snow Court was killed, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church Constantine was also killed by the Eternal Chosen, and the Kislev faction was destroyed.

With every stroke of the pen, Wendlow's heart sank a little.

This information is most likely true. I have been to Kislev once and of course I know there is a possibility of civil war.

Every piece of intelligence reveals the ratmen's terrifying ability to infiltrate the surface world.

The Skaven not only know about the Empire, but also know intelligence about Kislev in the north and even the Norse Peninsula further north.

The description of the Norse gathering point was completely consistent with the information he collected when he passed through the Norse Peninsula during his business trips. Even the name of the port was written correctly. Everything the ratman engineer said was true.

"OK OK!"

The warlock engineer finished writing the last stroke and looked at Wendlow flatteringly.

"Let...let me go! Deal done! Let me go, let me go, and then we can trade intelligence. Trade intelligence."

Wendlow carefully rolled up the parchment that exuded a foul odor and a scent of conspiracy and carefully put it into a waterproof tube lined with lead.

He stood up and looked down at the rat man on the ground with an extremely complicated look in his eyes.

"roll."

Wendlow's voice was cold, without a trace of warmth.

"I hope you still have the information to buy your life next time."

The Warlock Engineer seemed to be pardoned. He rolled and crawled towards the gap created by the Honest Knight's shield and instantly disappeared into the darkness outside the ruins.

Only a series of squeaks that gradually faded away, leaving behind the surviving sounds.

"You let it go?!"

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse all growled in disbelief.

"why?"

Wendlow leaned tiredly against the cold stone wall, looking up at the water droplets seeping from the dome of the ruins.

"Because... I've been to all the places he wrote about, and I've predicted what he said would happen. He even got the name of the city and the time right."

He looked at the Four Horsemen, his eyes filled with unprecedented heaviness and determination.

"What that ratman said is true. The rat plague in Bretonnia, the demon invasion, and the Norsemen's southward advance all serve one purpose: to take advantage of the depletion of surface species and reap the benefits from the ratmen's sudden underground invasion."

"I must go north immediately. To the northern border of the empire."

Windlow knew that after losing the defense line of Kislev, the northern part of the empire was basically wide open, with no defense system to rely on. Now he had to return to the empire.

"So what should we do here?"

The Honor Knight finally spoke, his voice low.

"The information here."

Wendlow pointed in the direction of Lyonness outside the ruins.

"You've seen it with your own eyes. The Skaven are rebuilding Lyonness as their lair, targeting the Empire and planning to take advantage of the Chaos invasion. You must immediately and personally bring this information back to King Laun and the Holy Grail Knight! They will make their choice after learning the information!"

The bonfire crackled, and the ruins fell into a brief silence.

The four knights exchanged glances. While Windlow's words were difficult for them to accept, their logic and demonstrated sense of responsibility were irrefutable.

The survival of the empire is indeed related to the fate of the entire old world.

Finally, the Knight of Justice nodded slowly.

"Understood. We will report everything here to the King and the Holy Grail Knights as quickly as possible, and the Bretonnian knights will clean up their homes."

Wendlow forced a tired smile and tightened his bag.

"Then we shall part ways. May you soon clean up the filth beneath the earth."

He didn't say anything more, but blew a whistle, and a unicorn came out of the forest and let Windlow ride on its back.

At the same time, the unicorn glanced at the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, lowered its head and chuckled a few times.

If only someone could understand the unicorn language at this moment.

"Wuhu, we have to work overtime again."