The artillery roared.
Not one shell, or two, but thousands upon thousands.
The shrieks of shells tearing through the air merged into a ceaseless, dull roar, like the final gasps of a dying beast.
The Imperium's batteries of Basilisk self-propelled guns were firing in unison, pouring down a dense storm of steel over the scorched earth before the frontline positions, ground already churned over countless times.
Where the shells struck, flesh blossomed.
Human soldiers controlled by the will of the xenos, bodies with eerie violet light flickering deep in their pupils, were torn apart in the orange-red flames of the explosions.
They did not scream, did not fear, did not show even a trace of human struggle.
They simply fell in swathes, reduced to dust amid searing shock waves and flying shrapnel, like stalks of wheat swept down by a scythe.
Life had lost all weight here. Only annihilation in its most primal form remained.
Thousands upon thousands of "sacrifices" added an insignificant, bloody footnote to a slaughter that had long since passed beyond the bounds of reason.
The Imperium and the Rangdan.
Humanity and xenos.
The battle lines had long since blurred, and strategy had become wastepaper. Nothing remained in either side's eyes but burning hatred, their nerves seared away by the purest urge to kill.
There were no prisoners here, no retreat, not even a desire for victory.
Only one thought remained, embedded in their marrow: Kill them all.
At any cost, with teeth, with fingernails, with the last scorching breath in their lungs, erase the enemy from existence.
BOOM!!!
The thick shell of ceramite and concrete caved inward, shattered, and disintegrated in an instant, as though struck head-on by an invisible giant hammer!
Dust and smoke billowed skyward, and behind that rolling gray-yellow curtain, a silhouette appeared