Stark struggled to keep the Nanotech Suit moving as he pulled the badly wounded Ivan up into the sky...
Looking down from above, Stark saw the cannon-fodder demons locked in combat with humanity's second echelon beginning to retreat. The real force of the assault had become the several hundred enraged Lava Demons...
The second echelon, seeing the demons retreat, surged forward with renewed confidence, hoping to gain a little more strategic depth. It was practically instinctive for any army: when you won, how could you not chase them for a bit?
Stark watched the Fire Balls flying in from the distance and the Lava Demons charging across the ground. He shouted into his Communicator in alarm, "Fall back, fall back, fall back..."
By the time the second-echelon soldiers spotted the Lava Demons bursting out of the densely packed demon horde, it was already too late...
Just minutes earlier, the Abominations had been slaughtering everything in sight. Now they were like tigers facing a pride of lions. The two Abominations nearest the front howled and swung their Iron Bars, trying to attack the Lava Demons, who were nearly as tall as they were...
In the time it took to blink, the Lava Demons sent just two of their number to distract the Abominations. The rest dismantled two Abominations with a sword apiece as they charged past...
This was the fighting strength of the Royal Family's regular demon army: organized troops against the disorganized, groups against individuals. The Abominations were super-soldiers whose individual strength was in no way inferior to theirs, yet they were utterly helpless in the face of the demons.
Unlucky Colonel Rhodes had received an emergency order to retrieve some of Abomination's biological tissue, but the moment he swooped down to the ground, a Lava Demon damaged one of