Chapter 68: Ironhold’s last stand [1]
BZZZ!
The spore storm hit first, a corrosive haze melting 80 meters of Ironhold-3’s outer defenses, shredding it to molten debris.
The Sovereign’s Sporebloom Maws snapped, a tendril sweeping a squad of 12 soldiers, their Furnace Core vests igniting, screams cut short as sap dissolved flesh to bone in seconds.
A Spore Crown Behemorph of a higher rank was the worst enemy to any Awakened human. It could and would kill you in the worst ways imaginable.
Blood sprayed, limbs liquefied, skulls pooling in fungal sludge.
Another tendril crushed a drone turret, its Null Lance sparking, shrapnel shredding five Ironblood, their Embers, none Awakened snuffed out in an instant.
In just a few seconds, 27 souls vanished, their deaths brutal, visceral; a soldier’s torso bisected by spores, another’s lungs foaming as Reality-Warp Spores aged her to dust, her scream echoing a century’s decay.
The sight, the sound was brutal, traumatizing, maddening.
The psychological toll ripped through the ranks; soldiers collapsed, knees buckling, eyes wide with primal horror, some vomiting, others frozen, clutching Null Blades like talismans.
Yet spite flared in some survivors, watching their comrades die so helplessly and in such brutal manners.
A scarred Corporal roared, his eyes fully dilated, Furnace Core blazing, firing uselessly into the spore cloud, his squad cursing the Behemorph, defiance born of despair and desperation.