The battle began as smoothly as the players had expected. The Death Seekers formed three firing lines, taking turns to cover one another. With every volley, hundreds of laser beams swept across the vanguard of the corpse tide in perfect unison, like a giant, red-hot scythe.
The shambling Plague Zombies fell like wheat before a blade, unable to get within thirty meters of the trenches.
"Hold steady! Keep your rhythm! First rank, reload! Second rank, take their place!"
The Third Company Commander stood on a raised section of the trench, waving his Chainsword as he excitedly directed the defense. The despair of nearly being swallowed by the corpse tide had vanished, replaced by the exhilaration of controlling the battlefield.
"Looks like we've got this wave!" the Third Company Commander shouted over comms. He even had time to make an exaggerated forward slash, pointing toward the thickest cloud of green mist in the distance. "Heavy weapons teams, put a round into the elite mobs over there—" Boom!
Before he could finish, a deep, savage report tore through the air.
There was no warning, no incoming whistle. A large-caliber bolt struck the Third Company Commander square in the chest.
Before the surrounding players' eyes, the commander who had been giving orders a moment earlier exploded from the waist up into a cloud of blood and shattered bone, as though his upper body had been stuffed into a detonating pressure cooker. Only his legs remained standing aimlessly in place before buckling into the mud.
"A sniper?! No, that was a bolt!"
"Over there! There's something in the green mist!"
The poisonous mist, which had been little more than a backdrop until now, suddenly churned violently. Accompanied by footsteps heavy enough to shake the ground, several enormous, bloated figures slowly emerged.
It was a