The Fourth Generation Hybrid Genestealer's scarlet eyes were locked on the battlefield before it. Its bloodshot pupils, reddened by exhaustion and rage, looked especially ferocious in the dim firelight.
The air was thick with the stench of blood, scorched flesh, and burning limbs. Whether they were Genestealers torn apart or pierced through, or Astra Militarum soldiers rendered unrecognizable with shattered armor, their corpses had piled up like mountains, layer upon layer, carpeting the entire Central Lounge.
Blood had completely stained the floor, gathering into winding streams that slowly seeped between twisted metal wreckage and shattered wall tiles.
The savage firepower of both sides—the roar of Autoguns, the shriek of Lasguns, and the thunder of grenades—had utterly destroyed the room.
The once spacious, brightly lit lounge was now an unrecognizable ruin. Exposed steel reinforcement bars protruded like struggling bones, while the charred walls were riddled with bullet holes and grotesque scars left by explosions.
No one could have recognized what this place had once looked like. Even its designer, standing here in person, could only face this horrifying devastation and futilely search their memories for some trace of the past.
The battle had lasted only a single hour. During that hour, the enemy's total numbers had never exceeded thirty, yet strangely, they had never fallen below twenty either.
Batch after batch of Astra Militarum soldiers poured in like a stream, rushing forward to fill the gaps left by the fallen. By all logic, such an utterly foolish piecemeal tactic should have only exposed these human soldiers to greater firepower and heavier casualties, eventually breaking them in despair.
Yet the cruel reality was that its own side had been the first to fail! The number of Genestealers killed in the front half of the first floor, including the Central Lounge, had already