My Life as A Death Guard

— What’s the first thing you do after a battle? Looting. That’s what Hades said.

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Barbarus, Southern Swamp, Diderot Mountains.

Hades hummed a tune, leisurely rummaging through the bookshelf of the mid-tier Xenos Overlord Desley.

The shelves were filled with various steam machinery blueprints unique to Barbarus, experimental records, and ancient Barbarus texts—most of which were related to psionics.

‘Not bad,’ Hades thought as he eyed the thick stack of steam machinery blueprints.

Compared to the other minor overlords he had dealt with, Desley had a surprisingly extensive collection of steam machinery blueprints.

These brutal, cunning Xenos Overlords typically relied on their psionic sorcery to dominate, rarely accumulating or developing steam-based electronic machinery beyond necessary steam vehicles and anti-toxin equipment.

Most Barbarus overlords invested heavily in psionics, not machinery.

Except for the highly skilled overlord like Necare, who maxed out both.

“Well, that’s just a bit over the top,” Hades mused, continuing to sort through the blueprints.

Even though Hades couldn’t handle machinery now—touching it would kill him—he believed that one day he could compress his black zone down to his skin.

Then he could handle machinery!

He truly is a genius.

Damn, this big machinery is a man’s true romance!

In this Warhammer world, if he couldn’t wield a chainsword, bolter, or meltagun, what was the point of life?! None!

Hades revered technology.

Producing a meltagun in a few hours at a factory to instantly arm a soldier with a 75-point attack weapon was far more valuable than training a Space Marine with a 200-point attack for years.

Technology is power!

This was the simple faith of an engineering student from Earth in the 2000s.

He almost converted to the Cult Mechanicus—cough, no, not quite.

After organizing the mechanical blueprints, Hades turned to examine other instruments in the laboratory.

A toxin extractor dripped black-purple liquid, two interconnected devices probably related to psionics, a flaying machine, with an old, dried human skin hanging from it.

Damn filthy aliens.

After a thorough search, Hades ensured there were no more useful instruments or salvageable parts left.

(Yes, he had previously dismantled a bunch of instruments just for the parts, which now jingled in his pockets.)

He then walked over to the Xenos Overlord’s corpse beside the workbench.

Hades pulled out a knife from his waist and began—

Flaying.

Yes, flaying.

The aliens of Barbarus evolved skins resistant to the pervasive toxins.

Hades planned to sew custom anti-toxin suits from their skins.

Currently, Mortarion’s rebellion mainly used enclosed armor to resist the toxins.

Mortarion would definitely disapprove of Hades’ flaying method, but Hades knew what he needed.

Those armors couldn’t fully block the toxins unless they were high-tech power armors like the Space Marines’.

Clearly, Barbarus’ small craftsmen couldn’t achieve that level.

But that was fine; Hades only needed to know how to resist the peak toxins.

However, even these measures couldn’t fully protect against Barbarus’ toxins—

The toxins on Barbarus carried psychic damage, which was a shocking revelation for Hades.

He remembered the first time he used the Black Zone to sense his surroundings; he hadn’t detected the faint green-glowing toxins in the air.