Chapter 380, Succession and the Drive of War
At the end of the day.
The gray rat Sansi left the simple platform. Today’s harvest was good. He had an extra bag of dried cave mushrooms in his hand. This was his reward for carrying goods this day. , which is also the reason why the Big Claw Priests are willing to hire them, rat free folk, as labor force.
The situation of the rat free people has become worse and worse during this time. The decline of various small workshops has made them idle, but their population has increased over the years. The years are inflating like a balloon.
All kinds of resources are monopolized by the rat priests. This is not the worst. The worst thing is that at the same time, all kinds of resources are monopolized by the rat priests one by one. , they don’t need these rat free people to participate in resource extraction.
But even so, their situation is still better than that of the wild rat people who are generally regarded as top-notch beasts by everyone in the rat-man empire.
At least these are gentler guys who can generally be driven, and some Big Claw Priests are willing to hire them.
Especially when these free rat people have repeatedly lowered their posture and asked for increasingly low rewards.
The most intuitive thing is the rat train. The train priests specially arranged a group of slave rats to follow the train to carry goods up and down. Not to mention the occupying of the train space, just the highly toxic The losses that black smoke may cause may not be acceptable to these train priests.
No matter how many slave rats there are, they cannot withstand such consumption. You must know that slave rats are their own assets, and the death of every slave rat is a loss.
At this time, what could be more cost-effective than hiring a group of extremely cheap rat free people?
After all, there is no need to give out blood mushrooms. Just give some extremely cheap cave mushrooms, and that is enough. It is really too affordable.
What makes Shu Sansi happy is not only the bag of cave mushrooms in his hand, but also the birth of his own offspring.
As a normal intelligent creature, the Rat Man certainly has the ability to reproduce normally.
It’s just that this method of breeding has always been suppressed by the over-developed rat-man breeding rooms. Until this revolution, rat-man breeding rooms of all sizes were flooded. die.
As a result, natural breeding, which does not rely on the breeding behavior of the highly specialized rat-human mother body, has begun to slowly raise its head.
Especially among this group of free rat people who are not valued by others and are not completely at the bottom. They will also form families. However, after experiencing the distortion of the breeding house, the family of the rat people has changed. It is quite different from the families of conventional intelligent races.
Of course there will be tenderness, which is the afterimage engraved in genes, as well as expectations, dedication, and encouragement.
However, there will also be cruel selection. In a rat family, for a long time, until it is finally infertile, the number of offspring that can be born is limited, often only two.
These Skaven free folk born from the breeding houses have inherited the indifferent screening mechanism, looking at their children just like the Great Claw priests once looked at themselves.
Children who are good enough and loved enough by them can become their true successors.
Some of these paranoid guys will even raise several rounds of rat-man cubs, and finally choose the most beloved or powerful child as the heir, while those who are not selected will be Expelled without hesitation, these too young guys often become new urban wanderers, or die in obscurity in the cold underground tunnels.
And this is already an attitude that is overly focused on one's own children.
The more common approach is that after a new litter of ratmen is born, either one is selected to be raised as the heir, or all of them are unqualified and all the newly born cubs are abandoned.
The Rat Free People, this group of so-called free guys, have been influenced by all kinds of guys in every aspect.
For example, their concept of inheritance was greatly influenced by the rat priests. They cared very much about the inheritance of something.
That's the name.
Shu Er's child will be called Mouse Er when he is young. When Shu Er dies, he will officially inherit this name.
This is quite an inheritance. Most of the free rat people cannot leave any legacy. Being able to leave this name is already the limit. It may also be influenced by the rat priests and the overall lifespan. The impact of these two points is too profound.
The rat people, who live and die like mayflies, feel that if their names can be preserved, it is as if they are still alive.
This is a very simple sustenance, and there is even a common understanding throughout the entire Skaven Empire. The Skaven family concept and inheritance system have been greatly impacted by the Skaven Breeding House for too long.
Overall, it has become crooked.
Zhu Sansi passed by the lively and noisy ruins, and the pungent smell of inferior alcohol coming from inside made him swallow a mouthful of saliva.
The situation of all the free rat people is not very good, but the overabundance of various cheap resources does not bring any benefits. In those rat priests who are addicted to various When things were new, the low-quality mushroom wine could appear in every noisy ruin.
Even the rat people are addicted to these cheap alcohols. He only needs to grab a handful of mushrooms and dry cave mushrooms from his pocket, and he can drink a glass and mix it. Watery shoddy mushroom wine.
This is one of the few pastimes for low-level rat people like them.
This is nothing, after all, he has been working for a day, and there is no need to worry about not having enough money. Today he also got another good thing.
Zhu Sansi stood at the door of the noisy ruins for a long time, but in the end, he suppressed the surging desire, no! There are still people waiting for him!
Shaked his head and left quickly, as if running away.
Shu Sansi was very lucky today. Standing in front of a dark abandoned tunnel, Shu Sansi slowly opened his paws, and a bright golden color appeared in the palm of his hand.
This was something he picked up from the ground when he was carrying those expensive and gorgeous blood-gold creations. It was a piece of golden debris. I don’t know what rolled off what. It’s hard to say whether it was left behind by this train. , deeper in the dark tunnel, lying quietly in a corner.
This is one of the reasons why he is so dusty today.
She will love this golden shard.
Thinking like this, Shu Sansi accelerated his pace a little bit more.
In the corner of this abandoned tunnel, crawling into an inconspicuous hole, the gray rat Sansi saw the woman he wanted to see.
He placed the bag of cave mushrooms on the table, displayed the golden fragments in his hands like a treasure, and happily jumped up and down in the narrow cave like a monkey.
This golden fragment was enough for Shu Sansi to drink mushroom wine for many days, but he brought him back without hesitation.
Soon, a golden fragment hung on the tall rat man figure.
In the eyes of Rat Sansi, this is simply beautiful.
Only today, not everything is so happy. In this new litter, not many qualified ones were born, and they were all too small.
At night, Shu Sansi left home in a hurry, carrying a bag of something that was still squirming and unknown, and wandered to a smelly ditch.
Here, he threw down what he was holding without hesitation.
After he left, a subtle howling sound appeared in the dirty ditch.
Several stinking figures appeared from the darkness and hurriedly fished out the ditch. Soon after, several wet little guys were killed by these dirty mice. He hugged her carefully.
………….
On the battlefield of the main continent.
Three years have passed since the start of this holy war, and the rats have been fighting this holy war for a full six years.
The progress is gratifying.
Nearly half of the main continent has been swallowed up by the rat people.
Although countless ratmen died during this period, this was not a serious problem.
To talk about the issues that annoy the rat people who are leading this war, they are actually the increasingly serious consumption of soul stones, the battlefield that is gradually heading towards a stalemate again, and the human attitude towards A tentative exploration of the sky.
The consumption of soul stones is not difficult to understand.
Whether it is magic firearms, various lightning cannons, or even steam tanks, these are all rapidly consuming those precious blue gems.
The gifts falling from the sky are no longer enough.
The rat people have once again returned to the path of mining flesh and blood, but this mining is not endless.
It’s not that there is no good news. In the center of the Scarlet Grassland, next to the Bone Temple, another piece of living flesh and blood was discovered, which greatly relieved the pressure on the rat people.
It just made them doubtful.
What exactly does this wriggling flesh and blood come from? This question seems not difficult to determine, because where this second piece of wriggling flesh and blood was discovered, something similar to the dark abyss of the underground rat city happened. .
A large amount of accumulated, sacrificial flesh and blood.
Here in the Bone Temple, a huge sacrifice was successfully held, the victory sacrifice of the final battle on the grassland.
Suddenly, things became clear.
Some things are vaguely confirmed.
Some of the more capable rat priests even wanted to try it on the spot, trying to create a piece of living flesh and blood again.
But this attempt was stopped by the temple guards.
But even the temple guards knew clearly that the attempt on this matter must be carried out. When the light falling from the sky was becoming more and more insufficient, the living flesh and blood and the living flesh and blood The green stones produced are really too important to the rat people.
A proposal for a grand sacrificial ceremony was launched.
The big figures in the Skaven Council have reached a consensus on this proposal, but now, what is lacking is enough sacrifices.
A war plan was put forward, which will be executed by the four Skaven armies in the northern battlefield together for a grand sacrificial ceremony.
If successful, the Skaven's urgent need for energy should be greatly alleviated.
It's just that the energy gap and pressure are not the only headaches for the rat people.
During the long war, the human empire became more and more militaristic. Coupled with the increasing number of golems and the introduction of various unmanned war weapons into the battlefield, the progress of the rat people had to begin to slow down. .
These damn humans are as stubborn as those bugs in the mud, it’s really annoying!
But this is not enough, far from enough. This is just the last struggle of these abominable heretics.
I have to admit that no matter how many fancy weapons are pushed onto the battlefield, they will not be able to completely overwhelm the Ratmen in a short time.
And if the Ratmen cannot be completely overwhelmed, no matter how many times they win in the regional war, there will still be a steady stream of Ratmen appearing on the battlefield again in the dark night of the next day, shouting loudly in the long dark night. Let out that piercing howl.
It is simply impossible to change the overall situation, it is the powerless struggle.
How can I put it, this kind of struggle is really annoying.
And not only are they annoying, those humans have also begun to explore the starry sky. According to the information given by the rat assassins, there are already several people in the capital of the Ghost Eyes. A strange-looking thing was launched into the sky, and it was just as the eye of the god streaked across the sky.
The motivations of these guys can be easily understood without guessing, but just because they can be easily understood, this makes the rat people even more angry.
Damn it, damn it, that is the gift and revelation given to us by the gods, to us rat people!
Damn heresy! Kill you! Kill you! Send all of you to the great god! Blasphemer! Damn blasphemer!
During a rat meeting held in an underground rat city, the rat council members roared in anger.
It's just a pity that shouting loudly means shouting loudly. There is really nothing the rat people can do about this.
The Rats are not yet qualified to explore the sky. It’s not that they don’t want to, but they haven’t figured out how to explore the sky yet. After all, no matter how much the steam wheels turn, or how much the magic furnace puffs out black smoke, it cannot be driven. The sky.
The war resolution that gathered all the troops on the Western Front battlefield, that dangerous war plan, was proposed at this meeting, amidst the embarrassment of the rat members.
The Dark Eye human race's attempt to touch the sky and the blue comet streaking across the sky made these aloof guys a little anxious.
(End of this chapter)