On the planet's surface.
Atop the city wall, the last defenders still able to stand gripped their Gun.
The Gun barrels were scorching, their fingertips numb from holding down the triggers for so long, yet a colder chill seeped outward from their spines.
They stared beyond the wall with wide, bloodshot eyes.
There was no longer any ground out there, only a surging, living, nauseating tide of flesh.
Countless "things" writhed and crawled, piling over one another as they surged forward.
Some were half black metal and half overgrown flesh oozing pus, with bone spurs or tentacles protruding from their mechanical joints.
Others were simply several corpses crudely stitched and pieced together, then fitted with razor-sharp blade arms or drills, shambling forward in contorted postures.
Their inhuman howls, the grinding of gears, and the wet sounds of tearing flesh blended into a tide of death that drowned all reason, battering the foundations of the tottering wall in endless waves.
"Ammo! Who's got rifle rounds left? I'm almost out!" a soot-faced soldier roared hoarsely, his right hand instinctively reaching for the nearly empty magazine pouch at his waist. In that instant of distraction—
Squelch!
A silver mechanical spear, its tip wreathed in ghostly blue frost, darted out from the edge of a crenellation like a viper and pierced straight through his torso.
The soldier went rigid. Looking down, he saw no blood spurt from the wound, only a layer of frost forming instantly and spreading rapidly.
Ice crystals grew and tore wildly inside him, his skin and muscles giving off faint, teeth-grating cracks.
In less than a heartbeat, spiderweb cracks covered him from head to toe like an ice sculpture struck by a hammer. Then, with a crash, he shattered into countless chunks of flesh coated in shards of ice, scattering