The war entered its fourth day.
The brutal street fighting had turned the street before the abandoned department store into a cruel meat grinder, every inch of paving stone carpeted with sticky blood and mangled corpses.
The once orderly battle lines had been dragged into jagged shapes, while the ground plowed by artillery and aerial bombs bore one shocking scar after another.
Ironically, the Three-Year War that had buried the Human Alliance had never touched this land, yet two centuries after the war ended, it was baptized in iron and fire.
Hum Chi was filled with confusion.
It remembered what the boss had said: The Alliance's offensive was at the end of its tether. Their soldiers had been scared witless by Delu's booming voice and would soon tuck their tails between their legs and run.
The positions they had retaken were the best proof.
However—
Was that really true?
"Boom—!"
The dense artillery barrage began right on schedule, rolling down the street like compressed storm clouds, each blast drawing closer than the last.
Green heads crouched in the concrete buildings lining both sides of the street, rising and falling with the dust that occasionally drifted down.
Hum Chi was not afraid of The Alliance's bombardment.
It sounded terrifying, but it was hard for shells to injure them through concrete walls, and a few minor scrapes were nothing worth worrying about.
The two sides would have to fight face-to-face to decide the victor anyway.
So there was nothing to fear.
The barrage began on time and ended on time.
The centurion crouched nearby shook cement fragments from his body, rose to his feet, raised his weapon, and roared at the top of his lungs.
"Chop them to pieces!"
His chest trembled with the roar like a beast howling at the sky.