In the dense blood mist, Kriegers moved back and forth through the trench network they had dug across the position.
Numerous heavy weapons had been deployed along the very front line, while heavy artillery was being transported rearward through the broader trenches.
Directly ahead, Iron Man units were fighting the suddenly appearing enemies. The battle between both sides continued. Though some guessed the Iron Men would be enough to eliminate those fools who had run out of the Skull Fortress to die, the Kriegers would not count on the "pleasant prospect" of the Iron Man units finishing the encounter on their own.
Death Korps soldiers stood at firing positions in the trenches or beside heavy weapons. Heavy breathing came from beneath their gas masks as everyone stared motionlessly ahead.
Firelight flickered deep within the blood mist.
It seemed that some grotesquely swollen mutant had split an ordinary combat-model Iron Man in two. Then, a squad of Plague Warriors and a heavy combat unit known as a Hellbeast emerged from the blood mist and opened fire on the Kriegers in the position.
Their movements were stiff, an effect of the Blackstone Obelisk.
Some optimists believed this was precisely why the enemy's initiative amounted to suicide. They had willingly entered Blackstone's effective range. It was practically the best thing they could have hoped for.
Yet no matter how they considered it, the staff officers in the Leviathan command vehicles far to the rear could never have imagined that the troops sent to attack the Skull Fortress on Brumm's second landmass would end up engaging Plague Warriors.
But that was the reality.
It was not only Dade reporting that his troops had encountered Plague Warriors. Every other force in the battle had also reported sightings of Plague Warriors, and some had even reported