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

Mortarion stood outside the house, a curved blade in his hand, gazing at the distant mountains shrouded in toxic fog.

At the highest peak, within the densest fog, stood the castle of his foster father, Necare.

That bastard… his father… Mortarion had sworn countless times that it would be either his death or his own.

Mortarion deeply feared his foster father, and he deeply hated him.

From the moment he could remember, verbal abuse and physical torment were daily occurrences. He was forced to complete impossible tasks, only to be revived by his foster father's psychic powers when he was on the brink of death.

When he was still weak, Mortarion had been ordered to climb cliffs in acid rain.

Or to fight dozens of rock-corrosive hounds before he had even learned to stand.

Or to be thrown into toxic swamps, where he had to wrestle with rotting, disease-ridden corpses.

Unsurprisingly, he was too weak. He failed every time.

"Useless."

"All you can do is wail in the mud, and then I have to save you."

"How many more times must I save you, you waste?"

His father would say.

"If you fail again, I'll break your neck."

But Mortarion never succeeded.

"You're a failed weapon, a freak. You're not like any other creature here."

"You're the failed product of my sorcerer experiments. I should have destroyed you back then."

"Whatever. A failure like you is only good for fighting other lords."

"Be grateful for my mercy, my useless son."

He would kill him.

Mortarion would kill his father.

He had sworn it countless times. He would kill him.

When his bones were broken, his lungs torn out, and he lay trembling in the swamp, he swore it. When his skin was corroded by acid rain, his chest pierced through, he swore it. When his limbs were torn off and he was nailed to a cliff, struggling, he swore it.

He swore, he swore, he swore—he would kill him.

Mortarion's world had once been simple: grow stronger, stronger, and stronger still, until he could stand atop the most toxic peak of Barbarus, until he could rip his foster father's head from his body.

Beyond killing his father, he had no other thoughts, no other desires.

His world was made up of slaughter, cages, rage, and fear.

In his countless fantasies, his end was always one of two outcomes: either he would die weak in some battle, or he would grow strong enough to kill his foster father.

Beyond that, he had no time for anything else.

—Until those two strange lowborns appeared.

Yes, his foster father had forbidden him from interacting with the humans in the valleys. They were "lowborn," living crops.

Before this, Mortarion had never interacted with humans.

He didn't know what "kin" was.

But when that strange little boy looked directly at Mortarion through the toxic fog, Mortarion's world was turned upside down.

He was human.

Mortarion was human.

Hades and Typhon shattered Mortarion's small world. They showed him a completely different world, one filled with kin.

Even if this world wasn't perfect—it was fragile, crude, and rough.

The people were deeply imprisoned in fear, treated like livestock by the lords of the mountains. They were toys, expendable resources.

In them, Mortarion saw his own weak self.

The one who struggled in fear and uncertainty.

But after meeting his kin, he was no longer weak.

He was Mortarion. He was human. He would lead humanity in rebellion.

Against all oppression and injustice.

They would kill all the oppressors.

Even if it meant sacrifice, so be it.

If I had to choose one word to seriously describe Mortarion, it would be "rebellion." Mortarion is a rebel, and this inevitably leads to his eternal conflict with the concept of "father," which symbolizes "power and rule."

Unless he becomes the ruler himself, he will never submit.

But to be honest, as a "father," Mortarion is quite merciful. He treated the Death Guard very well. Excluding Typhon, the "filial son," his relationship with the other Barbarus-born Death Guard was truly one of a loving father and loyal sons.

(Could this also be one of the reasons Nurgle took a liking to him…?)