Warhammer: I Don't Want to Become a Stinky Can!!!

In the low-lying white cornfields of Barbarus, a pale, determined little boy was toiling away with a hoe. His name was Hades. In his previous life, he had been a shut-in named He Shi from Earth, who had been painting a Death Guard Plague Marine miniature for Games Workshop when he suddenly blacked out. When he opened his eyes again, he had been reborn as a newborn on the death world of Barbarus.

At first, he knew nothing. He only realized he had been reborn into a world that was incredibly hostile to humans when his gaunt-faced parents taught him to speak and told him that the land beneath his feet was called Barbarus.

By the Emperor! Barbarus?! This was the Warhammer universe! Hades felt like he could cough up a mouthful of blood on the spot.

What kind of place was Barbarus? It was a notorious death world in the Warhammer universe, the home of the Primarch Mortarion. The planet was covered in deadly toxic fumes, and humans could only survive in the low-lying areas where the poison was less concentrated. The true alien overlords of the planet lived in mountain fortresses shrouded in the thickest, most lethal gases.

Humans were not the masters of this world; they were merely livestock.

When the brief daylight of Barbarus ended, the toxic gases would slowly seep into the lowlands. Pale, grotesque creatures would laugh and play in the poisonous mist, leisurely surrounding villages and selecting their future slaves.

There was no resistance. The humans had long been broken by fear, hiding in their villages and praying they wouldn't be chosen. Those who were selected might be killed on the spot or dragged to the mountain fortresses, where countless sorceries and experiments awaited them. Humans were raw materials, cut apart and stitched back together in twisted forms, given new life through sorcery, and turned into eternal slaves for the overlords.

There was no hope for the humans here, just as there was no hope in the Warhammer universe—only eternal darkness.

Hades really wanted to bash his head against a wall and start over. He was doing his best to hold back tears, not wanting to cry like a grot whose toe had been stepped on.

Even though he was a transmigrator, he didn't have any cheats or special abilities! Where was the promised overpowered protagonist who could dominate the world?!

In his current frail body, even the weakest alien could crush him.

As a transmigrator, Hades knew the trajectory of this world, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

The reason? This was a world where thoughts held power.

This world was composed of the physical realm and the Warp. As a human, his body existed in the physical realm, while his soul had a flickering projection in the Warp.

Among humans, those with a stronger connection to the Warp were known as psykers. Psykers could harness the power of the Warp, known as psychic energy, to perform feats that defied the laws of physics. The most powerful Alpha-level psykers could even destroy planets with their minds.

But being a psyker wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Because they were more closely connected to the Warp, their soul's flame burned brighter, making them more enticing to the creatures of the Warp.

These malevolent beings would whisper to psykers through the Warp, driving them mad, twisting their thoughts, and turning them into eternal slaves. The more a psyker used their powers, the brighter their soul's flame would burn, making them more visible to Warp entities and more susceptible to corruption.

Hades had tested himself and found that he had no psychic talent. He couldn't even produce a tiny spark. While he was disappointed, he was also relieved.

A person's soul and thoughts truly resonated in the Warp, and as a transmigrator, Hades knew forbidden knowledge. If his thoughts attracted the attention of a powerful Warp entity… Hades didn't even want to think about the consequences.

In fact, from the moment Hades realized he was in the Warhammer universe, he had forced himself to control his mind, to never think about the gods of the Warp.

If he even thought about that kind of knowledge, he would immediately draw the gaze of the four Chaos Gods!

But what Hades didn't know was that it was precisely his "transmigrator" constitution and the planet he had landed on that allowed him to barely escape the notice of the gods.

For now, Hades could only recall and think about the knowledge of the early days of the Imperium of Man.

Originally, humanity had flourished, colonizing countless planets across the galaxy. However, after the Iron Men Rebellion (an AI uprising) and the ■■■■, human civilization had been shattered and was on the brink of extinction.

In times of chaos, heroes emerge. Just as humanity was about to be wiped out, a man known as the Emperor rose to power!!!

The Emperor, the most powerful perpetual in human history, the strongest psyker—strong enough to obliterate Warp entities—the ruler of Terra, the supreme commander of the Great Crusade…

This legendary figure, who had lived in anonymity for millennia, swiftly unified Terra, which had been divided by warlords. He created the Space Marines, formed an alliance with Mars, and launched the Great Crusade to reclaim human worlds that had been lost during the ■■■■ and to conquer those occupied by xenos.

To ensure the success of the Great Crusade, the Emperor created twenty-one Primarchs using his own genes as a template. These Primarchs possessed intelligence, strength, and abilities far beyond those of ordinary humans. Some could instantly unravel the most complex mathematical formulas, some could single-handedly destroy a Warhound-class Titan, and others could manage the affairs of hundreds of planets simultaneously.

In fact, most of the Primarchs could do all of the above, though each had their own specialties.

The twenty Space Marine Legions, created using the Primarchs' genes as templates, became the backbone of the Great Crusade.

These towering figures, standing between 2 and 3 meters tall, were each a force to be reckoned with, exuding an aura that left ordinary humans in awe.

It was no exaggeration to say that in any other setting, they would be the ultimate protagonists. But in the Warhammer universe, even beings as powerful as the Primarchs and the Emperor ultimately…

Hades quickly stopped himself from thinking further.

In the end, half of the Primarchs rebelled, becoming monstrous abominations, and the Emperor was entombed on Terra…

After the Great Crusade, humanity's once-bright future turned dark once more.

But all of this had nothing to do with Hades, who was currently digging in the dirt.

The most useful knowledge from his past life was related to the Fourteenth Legion, the Death Guard, and their Primarch, Mortarion.

The twenty-one Primarchs had been scattered across the galaxy by a Warp storm shortly after their creation. Mortarion had landed on Barbarus.

In the original lore, Mortarion had been adopted by the most powerful alien overlord on the planet, who lived high in the mountains. He was treated as a weapon, subjected to brutal abuse from a young age—thrown into pits with wild beasts before he could even walk, exposed to Barbarus's deadly acid rain, forced to fight other alien overlords…

Even as a Primarch, Mortarion wasn't invincible as a child, especially since his alien foster father was the most powerful psyker on the planet. Thus, Mortarion endured a miserable childhood.

This tragic upbringing shaped Mortarion's twisted personality, which later led to his betrayal of the Emperor.

Of course, Mortarion's eventual fall to Chaos… that was also influenced by the machinations of the Warp.

But all of that was far in the future. The event closest to Hades's current timeline was when Mortarion escaped his foster father's control, led the people of Barbarus in a rebellion, and overthrew the alien oppressors.

Then, at the critical moment when Mortarion was about to defeat his foster father, the Emperor swooped in and took the kill, sowing the seeds of resentment between them…

After that, for a long time, Mortarion quietly took command of the Fourteenth Legion and led them on the Great Crusade.

As for the people of Barbarus, they gained the right to join the ranks of the Death Guard.

Based on his memories from his past life, Hades set a medium-term goal for himself: to survive until Mortarion was found by the Emperor and then become a Death Guard.

An additional goal was to try to earn Mortarion's favor while he was still on Barbarus.

It was a solid plan.

However… becoming a Death Guard wasn't necessarily a good thing, given that they would eventually turn to Chaos… and their fate was grim. Hades didn't want to become…

But that was too far in the future. Hades decided it wasn't worth worrying about.

Given that he was likely just cannon fodder at this point, becoming a Space Marine would be a stroke of incredible luck.

Damn it, why did his transmigration have to be so miserable?!

His short-term goal, of course, was to survive. Life on Barbarus was deadly, and before Mortarion led the rebellion against the aliens, the average lifespan here was thirty years.

Currently, Hades was living in a small village called Heller's Pass. His parents had been killed by the aliens when he was three or four years old. He didn't have much attachment to them, only vaguely remembering their pale, toxin-ravaged faces.

Hades didn't have any siblings either. Fortunately, in the villages of Barbarus, food was distributed based on need. He lived in the mud hut his parents had left behind, scraping by on the meager rations he received.

There was no other choice. He was too weak. At just seven years old, Hades didn't have the strength to fight the aliens.

Every day, he worked in the fields with the other villagers during the brief daylight hours, then retreated to his home at night to tinker with tools and weapons.

His most impressive creation so far was a small crossbow, which he had modified himself. The materials were treated with chemicals to resist the corrosive effects of the toxic atmosphere.

Although it took some effort to load, it was quite powerful.

He had secretly tested it on the corpses of aliens left in the toxic mist. Except for the thick-skinned varieties, his bolts could pierce their hides, sometimes even passing straight through.

He had thought about making a gun, but he lacked the ability to forge metal. The only metal weapon he had was a dagger left by his father.

In addition, he had been researching the design of gas masks and the chemical components needed for them. Everyone on Barbarus had a crude gas mask to protect themselves from the toxic fumes.

To be honest, he had made some progress, but not much.

After all, his activities were limited to the village and the surrounding fields, so he could only gather a limited variety of herbs.

Hades was confident that if he could obtain other materials, he could improve the current gas masks.

The village bell rang, signaling the end of the workday. Hades hoisted his hoe and looked with satisfaction at the field he had just tilled. It was a decent-sized plot—despite his young age, he was quite skilled at farming.

He jogged back to the village with the other villagers, and with a shout, the village gates were closed.

Hades returned to his mud hut, wiped his hands with a cloth, and started boiling water for a simple porridge.

After eating, he picked up the blueprint for a repeating crossbow he had been working on. A single-shot crossbow wasn't very practical in combat. If he were to face a real fight, his enemy wouldn't give him time to reload. The crossbow would only give him an initial advantage.

As he was deep in thought, a series of screams erupted outside.

Damn it! Were the aliens attacking their village tonight?

Hades quickly extinguished the lamp, put on his gas mask, and donned as much protective clothing as he could. He grabbed his crossbow and bolts, tucked the dagger into his belt, and hid by the door.

There wasn't much furniture in his hut to hide behind—just a large earthen bed.

The pale, grinning aliens slowly crawled through the village streets. Their faces were ghostly white, their smiles grotesquely wide, and their unnaturally long limbs moved eerily along the walls of the houses.

They reminded Hades of giant, human-faced spiders with absurdly long legs.

They were massive, only slightly smaller than a single-room mud hut.

Yellow-green toxic gas was wrapped around their slender bodies, held in place by psychic energy.

Hades's pupils contracted as he saw the gas seeping through the cracks in his door.

He had been chosen.

Gritting his teeth, Hades aimed his crossbow at the door and let out a bitter laugh.

It looked like he was going to have to fight.

He just hoped he could survive.

Today, Hades was still doing his best not to cry like a grot whose toe had been stepped on.