A foul, viscous wind swept across the blackened earth, lifting a sheet of paper caked in mud and carrying it off into the distance.
The land beneath its path was littered with shell craters and pyramid-like mounds built from corpses, ideal breeding grounds for countless mushrooms and pustules.
The wind carried the paper high over those heaps of corpses spewing the stench of death and spores, sending it drifting toward the Imperium's positions.
At last, the wind plastered the paper against the observation window of an Imperial Command Vehicle, preventing War Marshal Liss from continuing to observe the distant battlefield through it.
"Clear this away." The War Marshal left those words behind. Before long, a servo-skull floated out from the command vehicle's hull and burned the mud-smeared paper to ash.
Liss turned and walked toward a tightly sealed blast door only a few meters away.
Stopping before the door, he adjusted his clothes and did his best to appear optimistic about the battle. Liss understood the importance of inspiring morale, and he also understood the heavy responsibility borne by a commander.
"Without The Emperor, they're all counting on you..." Liss murmured to himself. Then he squared his shoulders, hid the ashen look on his face, opened the blast door, and walked inside.
One of the Imperial Command Vehicle's core sections, a bustling command room unfolded before Liss. The enormous chamber, packed with advanced equipment, was enough to make even a seasoned Imperial commander's heart race. Some commanders who had made their names on backward worlds conquered their enemies through savagery and fanaticism, but their limits were likewise constrained by that brute force. A commander who failed to recognize the importance of information exchange and overall battlefield deployment would only ever lead a single regiment in The Emperor's service.
The wall