Mortarion stood outside the house, scimitar in hand, looking out at the mountains in the distance that were obscured by poisonous fog.
On top of the highest mountain, in the thickest poisonous fog, stood the castle of his adoptive father Nakre.
That bastard... his father... Mortarion had sworn many times that it would be either him or me.
Mortarion deeply feared his adoptive father and deeply hated him.
As far as he can remember, verbal abuse and abuse have been a daily occurrence for him. He was forced to complete impossible tasks, and was then rescued by his adoptive father's psychic powers when he was on the verge of death.
When he was still weak, Mortarion was once asked to scale a cliff in acid rain.
Or fighting off dozens of rock-corroding dogs before they’ve even learned to stand.
Or be thrown into a poisonous swamp, to be torn apart by the witchcraft corpses that are rotting and diseased.
There is no doubt that he was too weak and he failed in everything.
"Useless stuff."
"All they could do was wail in the mud and let me rescue them."
"How many more times do I have to save a piece of shit like you?"
His father said so.
"If you fail again, I will break your neck."
Yet Mortarion never succeeded.
"You are a failed weapon, a freak, and you are different from all the creatures here."
"You are the failure of my wizarding experiment. I should have destroyed you then."
"Forget it, it's a failed thing. Your use is just to fight with other lords."
"Thank you for my kindness, my good-for-nothing son."
He wants to kill him.
Mortarion wanted to kill his father.
He swore countless times that he would kill him.
He swore when his whole body was broken, his lungs were torn out, and he was trembling and struggling in the swamp; he swore when his skin was corroded and peeled off by the acid rain and his chest was pierced; he swore when his limbs were torn off and he was nailed to the cliff and struggling, he swore.
He swore, he swore, he swore, he would kill him.
Mortarion's world used to be simple: get stronger, stronger, and stronger, until he could stand on the most poisonous mountain of Barbarus, until he could tear his adoptive father's head off his body.
He wanted nothing more, nothing less, than to kill his father.
In his countless fantasies, there were always only two possible endings for him: either he was too weak to die in a fight, or he was strong enough to kill his adoptive father.
Apart from this, he had no time to take care of anything else.
—Until those two strange bottom layers showed up.
Yes, his adoptive father didn't let him come into contact with the humans at the bottom of the valley. They were the "bottom of the class", a kind of living crop.
Before this, Mortarion had never come into contact with humans.
He doesn't know what "the same kind" is.
But when the strange little boy looked directly at Mortarion through the poisonous fog, Mortarion's world was instantly turned upside down.
He is a human being.
Mortarion is a human.
Hades and Typhon shattered Mortarion's small world, and they showed him a completely different world, a world full of their own kind.
Even though this world is not perfect, it is fragile, simple and rough.
People were held in deep fear and raised like livestock by the mountain lords. They were toys and consumables.
In them, Mortarion saw his weaker self.
The one struggling with fear and anxiety.
But when he met his own kind, he was no longer weak.
He is Mortarion, he is a human, he wants to lead the human race in rebellion,
Resist all this oppression and injustice.
They will kill all oppressors.
Even if it means sacrifice, I will do it.
If I had to choose a word to describe Mortarion, I would choose "rebellion". Mortarion is a rebel, which is destined to make him and his "father" who symbolizes "power and rule" always incompatible.
He will never submit unless he becomes the ruler himself.
But to be honest, as a "father", Old Mo is still quite kind. He is very good to the Death Guard. Excluding Typhon, the "filial son", he and other Death Guards of the Barbarus origin can be said to be a true father-son relationship.
(Isn’t this one of the reasons why his loving father chose him?)
(End of this chapter)