As the legion's main force pressed on like an unstoppable tide of iron, pursuing the fleeing enemy, the clamor of the chase gradually faded into the distance.
Duke's squadron received new orders: hold position and help the units following behind with the initial clearing and security of the battlefield.
When he set foot again on the ground that had just seen the fiercest fighting and the final collapse, the sight struck him with a heavy, almost suffocating force, even though he was long accustomed to death.
As far as he could see, corpses covered the earth. Barely an inch of soil remained exposed.
The remains of Indigenous Coalition soldiers, all manner of grotesque magical beasts, and even greater numbers of slave creatures lay heaped together. In many places, the piles stood taller than a grown adult.
Blood had soaked through the soil, turning the already dark-red earth thick and muddy. With every step, his boots sank into an unpleasant mixture of bloody mud and minced flesh with a wet squelch.
The smell was so strong it seemed almost tangible: the metallic tang of blood, the reek of entrails, the sickly-sweet stench of badly decomposed corpses, and the char of lingering energy, all mingled into a nauseating breath of death.
Broken spears, shattered shields, twisted armor, the blasted remains of ballistae—the Indigenous Coalition's equipment lay discarded everywhere like trash.
Among it were plenty of the legion's losses, too. Destroyed Golems lay like enormous heaps of scrap, their inner workings exposed and flickering with unstable energy.
Dark-green corpses of Green-skinned Orcs appeared here and there. Most had fallen in the fiercest assaults.
Now and then, the vast wreck of an airborne vessel came into view, its bones like those of a steel behemoth driven at an angle into the earth, still trailing