Warhammer: Should I also sit on the Golden Throne?

0077 Unless the god of war descends upon them

As he listened to Lasita's words, Deepak's pale, worm-like fingers twisted together.

"What if?" Deepak said in a low voice, as if he were talking about something that couldn't be known to outsiders.

In recent days, he has been preparing for that grand "war" gladiatorial combat. Whenever he falls asleep in the box of the arena due to exhaustion and fatigue, he always has some terrible dreams.

He dreamed of a terrifying vortex accumulating beneath the arena, of a golden light rising from the arena, of... of that slave named Zhou Yun.

How terrifying.....

Deepak still remembers the scene: after the man was anesthetized and passed out, the Worm Eye dragged the unconscious man into the operating room.

But when the Butcher's Nail was implanted into the man, he neither screamed nor roared. He was delirious yet unusually calm, his lifeless eyes staring at Deepak through the worm's eye...

It was as if he wasn't lying on an operating table, but rather being held in the arms of a demigod and placed on the throne of the gods, looking down upon Deepak.

Deepak felt as if he were being stared at by a dead god, stared at by death itself.

That face always appeared in his dreams, waking him up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat.

He was ashamed to admit that he had been frightened by a slave, but he couldn't help feeling fear—fear of what the man might do.

"...Hahahaha!" A sarcastic laugh escaped from Lasita's throat.

Her laughter made the air even more tense, and Deepak had to pick up the iced honey water on the table and take a sip to relieve the dryness in his throat.

He hated Lasita. Although she was a high-ranking rider, she was not of the blood of the great Tarka family. She came from a small family in a small city-state in the Coastal Alliance. For some reason, she was valued by the High Lord and promoted to general of the Royal Guard.

"Just in case," Deepak said, taking a deep breath and addressing the ugly woman.

Deepak simply couldn't appreciate the woman's tanned, lean, and muscular body; she looked too much like an ugly gladiator.

Is this the crude aesthetic of those nouveau riche from the Coast Alliance?

The beauties of Diya are all fair-skinned and plump. They travel with slaves carrying layers of lace parasols and eat melons, honey, and desserts garnished with jam and chestnuts. They would never grow up to look like Lacita.

"Don't worry, worm, my personal guard will go, but not for those gladiators."

Lasita's gaze fell on Deepak, who was indignant at being called a "worm":

"So many high-ranking riders, all armed, if they intend to plot against my beautiful Queen, then this is truly..."

"How dare you slander our noble and loyal high-ranking riders!" Deepak was dumbfounded.

"Their loyalty to the Great Khan is perhaps not even a tenth as great as that of the gladiator slaves to the other gladiators."

Lasita sneered:

"If it had been you, me, and the Great Khan in the arena back then, and we had been forced to fight each other, would you have had the integrity and loyalty to sacrifice yourself for the Great Khan?"

I don't see any.

"How dare you compare me, the Great Khan, to a slave!" Deepak was so angry that his fat trembled.

"Heh." Lasita just smiled dismissively, sticking out her tongue to lick the juice off the corner of her mouth.

"I will definitely sacrifice myself for the Great King."

Lasita stuck out her tongue and had her male lover place a peeled grape on the tip of her tongue.

"But you, you and the other high-ranking riders, are, in my opinion, a greater threat than the gladiators."

"Only high-ranking riders can threaten other high-ranking riders; this has been an ironclad political rule in Nutheria for thousands of years."

With a slight flick of her tongue, she swallowed the grape.

"As for gladiators, there have been instances of gladiators staging uprisings in some of the weaker towns of the Coastal Alliance."

"But they all failed, and do you know why?"

"Because we have noble blood and sacred weapons passed down from our ancestors," Deepak replied almost immediately.

Blood and weapons—that's everything for a high-ranking rider.

Every advanced rider knows this from a young age.

"No, fool, it's not just because of those weapons. Many weak city-states only have a few high-ranking riders. There are also cases where an entire small city-state had all its high-ranking riders killed by gladiators, like Deshya."

"But those gladiators can only make a small ripple at most, destroying a weak city-state, before being wiped out by other high-ranking riders."

Lasita waved his hand:

"There are many skilled gladiators, especially those from Diya. For our amusement, we even modified some of them so that they could even compete with high-ranking riders."

"But they still can't compete with the collective strength of the high-ranking riders. We are a whole bound together by politics, military, marriage, bloodline, and interests. Our organization far surpasses that of those gladiators—even though many high-ranking riders have become corrupt and selfish these days."

"Besides organization, the most important difference is the commanders. We understand what war is, while the gladiators only understand what combat is."

"Even if they manage to escape the arena, how can they possibly stand against me without a capable commander?"

"What if there are?" Deepak waved his hand impatiently. "What if one of them is a general more capable than you?"

"Are you kidding me? A worm?"

Lasita snorted and sat up slightly from the sofa.

The long, venomous snake's gaze fixed on Deepak, causing Deepak's body to tremble, to the point that Deepak even forgot the humiliation of being called a "worm."

"My family has been engaged in war in the Coast Federation. My father once commanded troops to destroy three cities in a month and thwarted the raids launched by the Forest Beastmen against the Coast Federation."

"I was trained to be a commander from birth. I was implanted with silver vines when I was two years old, started reading the military books passed down in my family when I was three, could name every war in Nutheria's history when I was twelve, and went to the battlefield with my father when I was fifteen and witnessed his death. Then I took command, defeated the enemy, and personally killed seven beastmen."

"My family and I both depend on war for survival. How could a commander who surpasses me suddenly appear among the gladiators?"

That is why you are so lowly. We high-ranking riders exist because of our noble bloodlines. You depend on war, so of course you are lowly.

Deepak stared at Lasita, gritting his teeth as he thought to himself.

"What if?" he asked.

"There's no such 'what if'."

Lasita lay languidly on the sofa again, nestled in her male lover's arms:

"Unless the god of war descends upon them."