The dark passage seemed to be lit by strange green lights, which were the eyes of the black-bone skeletons.
Thick iron armor plates were hung in layers on the battle skirts that almost covered their entire body. Even the wrists that seemed not to be taken seriously were tightly protected.
Under the influence of these superior undead creations, the solemn air has already condensed into layers of frost that adhere to the surrounding rough and slippery stone surfaces.
These few elites, the real Nagashzar guards, who were originally very handy in dealing with the Skaven troops, now seem to be less effective.
Like the rusty smell of metal, the thick battle smell unique to the Ratmen covered the air around the battlefield, and the cold air like a tomb also became warmer.
Under the green flames, the appearance of the rat people was looming in the darkness.
Except for the strange green light in his eyes that was different from before,
These armors have become quite sophisticated, and the surface of the breastplate is as new as if it had been polished.
The power that can directly split rocks, coupled with the speed that far exceeds the past, has already turned into an enemy that the skeletons can no longer defeat.
"Whoever breaks through the front first will be rewarded with ten bags of copper coins!"
Ikrit heard his leader yelling. He cast his eyes to the rear of the enemy's line and started yelling too.
"A black bone head in exchange for the mating rights of a rat's breeding pit!"
The rats, who had little interest in copper coins at first, immediately saw a golden light in their eyes when they heard Ikrit's words.
In the past, only the captains of various 169-man companies were eligible to fight for the mating rights of female rats, the opportunity repeatedly selected by Baili Select. Even if today's rat population has been reduced by more than half, it is not their turn.
The green light in the eyes of pairs of rats shone on the black-bone skeletons. They were no longer terrible enemies, but tickets to the breeding pits. With the female rats, they no longer needed wolves, dogs, or sheep. , solved it with his own claws and the like.
One claw after another grabbed the yellowed bones stained with moldy meat scraps and broke them into pieces. Only five minutes later, the rats had advanced as far as they had in the previous fifteen minutes.
Broken bones and hundreds of rat corpses were left on the ground. The bright red blood stuck the black and brown fur together, almost turning into a solid body and sticking to the Skaven at the front of the battle line.
The clan rat with the missing spikes on its head shook its face, shaking off the liquid that was not clear whether it was tears or snot. It grabbed the spear that was stabbed and pulled it with its paw, driving the spear to its owner's head. Bones are torn to pieces.
Another blow struck the head, completely demolishing the yellowed bones in front of him. He had already arrived in front of the group of black bones.
The medium armor covering their whole body makes them not as easy to break as the trash who only have shrouds. They only have a small cervical vertebrae and skull that are not covered by armor. The clan rats know this very well.
Allowing the three spears thrust from the front to hit his breastplate and belly armor, he thrust his claws between the helmet and armor of the black skeleton in front of him, and straightly grabbed the one engraved with green runes. Black cervical vertebrae.
The hot bones made his claws smell of warpstone and barbecue.
His head collided with the opponent's breastplate, and the blunted spikes gave the opponent a huge impact. With both forces, the skull was removed.
The clan rat excitedly held the black skull in his arms and started to retreat.
He was the first to take down the black bone! The female rat was waiting for him. Before he could finish his joy, he felt a pain on his neck and an excited rat voice came from behind.
"You'd better get on your way, the female rat is mine."
The vicious dagger stabbed in from behind, through the gaps in the armor that were exposed for movement.
Should have thought of it earlier!
He did not die in the hands of the enemy, but died in the hands of these compatriots.
The dead clan rat fell down, and more rats rushed up, trying to pick off more black skulls, or snatch one.
Many black bone skeletons saw the situation in front of them and tried to kill them with spears.
Several rats were decapitated by the sneak attackers who had been waiting for a long time. The chaotic battle situation unexpectedly caused the skeletons' formation to be messed up.
The smarter rats at the rear immediately dug into the line of black skeletons and embedded the front of the rat men's army.
Behind the battle line, seeing that the front line was about to break through, Ikrit turned his head to the side. He had already seen several black-robed rats carefully sliding down from the roof of the cave without letting any rats or skeletons notice.
"Eshiriga?"
"Yoriel is back. We don't see any reinforcements from the skeletons behind us. If we break through this passage, we can attack the stickman's fortress from underground."
The defector did not waste any extra time. Following the gentle chirping of birds, several more black-robed rats climbed to the top of the passage and disappeared into the darkness.
This is the last passage to the upper level that has not been blown up or burned. The scouts can only sneak into the enemy's hinterland from the "ceiling".
If it weren't for the mission of the Big Horned Rat, this last passage would have been blown up.
Thinking of the Horned Rat, green "spring water" flowed from Ikrit's hands. That was the wind of life, Ji Lun.
The warlord thought about it again and put it down.
Releasing the blood of the earth can indeed make the war go more smoothly, but more political consequences must be considered. In the end, it is only appropriate to release these magics when no one knows his identity.
"The Horned Rat should know that we already have magic."
Eshiliga persuaded, he raised his head and pointed to the darkness aside, where his subordinates were hidden in magic.
The old warlord flicked his tail on the ground. Can concealment magic and life magic compare? Do you want him to test the Council of Thirteen?
"The Horned Rat's approval does not mean that his spokesperson approves, but it is indeed an advantage."
Ikrit's tail, which had several steel decorations on it, swung wildly and snorted coldly.
"Wilsky cannot be trusted either. At this time, he is in the big city, which means that he will definitely put the responsibility for the defeat on us."
"Originally, my only bargaining chip was to provide the council with sacred stones on a regular basis, but now that the Horned Rat is on our side, we can have more chips."
Thinking of this, Ikrit looked at the passage behind him, his thoughts already drifting to the Skaven Demon City thousands of miles away.
"Hopefully we can at least get a new batch of reinforcements."
"Fortunately, the communication is poor, the war has turned critical, the deep underground fortress has been breached, the branch of the Skryre clan has been destroyed, and the news of Quickwall's death, this series of bad news will not be immediately transmitted to the Council of Thirteen."
He is not a Gray Prophet. He has the ability to continue to gain support without a humiliating defeat. Moreover, his current position was obtained through a coup.
Adding up several crimes, it is conceivable that the entire underground empire, except for the frontline battlefields, will have no place for him. The only things he can actually rely on are the dimension stones and the horned rat.
As the eyes went away, the rat sea had swallowed up the skeletons, and those skeletons turned into a pile of broken bones. There was an endless stream of clan rats holding rune black bones to receive the reward.
Ikrit looked around and saw that due to the armor covering his whole body, the non-combat casualties added in the fight for these things were not too many, only a few dozen, which was considered acceptable.
Seeing his little leader leading the clerk to issue breeding pit passes to the rats, the warlord patted Eshiliga's shoulder armor.
"First of all, we need to rescue the unlucky Eski. We need his magic and those magic gadgets."
Although I don’t know what caused the explosion dozens of minutes ago, since there are no skeleton reinforcements in the rear, we must seize the time to enter the fortress said to be called Nagashzar.
After a few minutes to restore order, the rats continued to move forward at a slightly chaotic pace.
Every few minutes, a spy would report the intelligence ahead to Eshiliga. Round after round of spies passed by, and soon, Ikrit arrived at the second and first mines that had never been recaptured.
From here and up,
It's the bottom floor of Nagash's fortress.
But a strange creature appeared here. According to the assassin's report, it was flying under the cave roof like a big bird, but this was underground.
Before Eshiliga could dispatch the second group of spies, they had already sighted the creature - he landed directly in front of Ikrit, and to their surprise, they discovered that this was the target they wanted to rescue.
"Esky!"
Ikrit circled around the bat-like mouse several times suspiciously. He heard from the mouse below that when Esky left, his whole body was already in disrepair.
But now, not only has the rumored injuries healed, but he has also grown a pair of wings on his back. Eski's hair has turned gray and two horns have grown out, which is more likely than having these things.
The old warlord immediately thought of Eski's former secretary who had turned pink and purple during the battle.
Only the corrupted rat-men would mutate into that state, and the Esky in front of him obviously did the same.
Even Eshiliga asked.
"Did you use these wings to escape?"
Esky shrugged, his wings hanging casually behind his shoulders, and instead of answering their questions, he asked them.
"You actually know that I'm not dead? How do you know?"
"The Horned Supreme."
Ikrit pointed his paws towards the sky.
"Horned Rat, does He want you to rescue me?"
Eski's beard trembled slightly. There had been some minor conflicts between him and the Horned Rat in the past. Who knew why the Horned Rat was thinking about him so much.
"Yes, I want to take you back to the underground fortress, where he lowered the Pillar of Commandment."
"WTF?!"
Eshiriga's words made the magical wind in Eski become more unstable due to his emotions.
It took about a few more minutes of explanation before Esky understood clearly the difference between the Pillar of Commandments and the one in history. He held his chin and analyzed it.
"The power of Skaven Mordor is special. Because of the existence of the Temple of the Horned Rat, the environment there is the most suitable for the Horned Rat, so the power of the Horned Rat will not be affected by the maelstrom there."
"But it's different here. Every trace of magic here will be squeezed out by the maelstrom. All the winds of magic are just residues floating out of the maelstrom."
"Therefore, the ceremony to directly upgrade to the God's Chosen One cannot be performed here."
"Judging from your description, it is possible that the divine power obtained from the sacrifice of the dead Skalven was distributed to you through sacrifice or similar methods."
"No matter what, that thing is considered a treasure."
The two mice seemed to have not listened to Eski's analysis at all, and their eyes remained on Eski's back.
The wings composed of the skeleton and the flesh wings trembled as if they hated the attention, and Eski showed the pink symbol on his left paw in front of Er Mouse's eyes.
"Don't think about it, it's this thing."
"This is?"
"The symbol of God is the four gods who are higher than the Horned Rat, the lesser god of chaos. For your sake, it's best not to ask so many questions."
The pink paw with white fur was placed on his lips, and Eski's red eyes seemed to change color.
"Then let's forget about it. What should we do next? You've received it too. Let's demolish this damn place and go back to defend?"
Hearing Ikrit's words, Eski shook his head.
"Nagash's spell has backfired. It will take at least another two or three hours to resolve it. We must take this opportunity to increase our chances of winning."
As he spoke, the sharp rattle technique conveyed Eski's order to all the rats gathered in the nearby passage.
"Stay all the clan rats and slave rats and let them take every piece of warpstone they can in the area. The storm rats follow us and raid Nagash's lair."
"Each Storm Rat carries a few warpstones and cuts some oil from the corpse, which will be used when lighting the fire later."
A sharp scream echoed in the passage, and Esky raised his right arm and pointed it at the body on the ground.
With a spell that made Iklit feel holy, the horned rat runes on the backs of Eski's paws lit up, and green light flew out of the rat corpses and slowly flowed into the runes.
"What is this for?"
Ashriga asked curiously.
"Recover the great horned rat's divine power. I need these things. Even the dead rat can't use these divine powers."
Divine power!
Upon hearing this word, Ikrit immediately cast a hopeful look at the white mouse.
Esky waved his paw.
"Don't think too much. We went up to destroy Nagash's troop reserves and material reserves. You can't defeat Nagash, even if he is suffering from spell backlash."
"Isn't it even possible if you are included?"
Ikrit asked with a distrustful tone. The horned rat's magical power was concentrated together. When it was weak, it should be able to severely damage that thing.
After decades of fighting, he had a pretty clear idea of the stickman's strength.
Esky raised his right paw and fired a dimensional lightning, directly melting the stalactite pillar on the side, and then said.
"Have you seen my current strength?"
Before Ikrit could answer, Esky went to his own business.
"The current Nagash is still far behind the Great Horned Rat. But I can deflect his spell once at most."
Pointing at the green-lighting talismans produced by the Gray Prophet on Ikrit, he smacked his lips.
"The amulet on your body is of no use at all. I have to ask the entire Prophet Council for help, maybe within a few months at the earliest."
"You want to go back to the big city? I have a relationship with a slave trader. He can arrange a ship to send you back to avoid the scurvy clan."
Eshiliga suggested.
"I didn't say avoid scurvy."
Putting away his slightly arrogant tone, Eski looked around again and said, finding no trace of the old gray prophet.
"Quickwall is dead, right? The agreement between me and him is invalid."
Ikrit nodded to express his understanding, as any self-respecting Skaven would do at this time.
But the engineer warlock's next words caught him by surprise.
"But I will still wait outside the city until the chief engineer warlock allows me to enter the city."
