"BOOM!!!"
Deafening explosions tore through Plaguebane's foul air, mingling with the shrill, inhuman death screams of xenos creatures and the dull echoes of ceramite weapons striking, reverberating across a land steeped in despair.
Scorching shock waves carried rubble, sticky fragments of organic matter, and acrid Smoke outward in violent rings, briefly dispersing the lingering fog with its sickly-sweet stench of decay.
Fire was the most striking color in this inferno, and the most reassuring.
Not natural fire, but carefully calibrated flamers spewing cleansing flames, the flowers of death blooming as heavy bolts struck the ground, and the searing sparks bursting forth as power weapons tore through flesh.
Amid the dancing orange-red and incandescent white light, figures as dark green as emeralds and as massive as mobile fortresses advanced with unstoppable resolve.
They were the Salamanders, warriors of the Eighteenth Legion.
Their armour bore the scuffs of long years and fresh scorch marks. Against the flames and filth, their dark green paint resembled the hardest basalt in an ancient forest.
The lizard Insignia rearing amid flames on their pauldrons seemed to come alive, moving with every blow their wearers struck and every shot they fired.
Their enemies were Plaguebane's "natives"—or rather, an ancient calamity accidentally awakened from slumber by human colonization.
They were creatures almost impossible to describe accurately in words, inspiring instinctive revulsion and terror.
Their enormous bodies resembled distorted lampreys magnified countless times, covered in slick, dark, thick hides studded with tumorous growths and constantly leaking mucus.
They had no visible eyes, only sucker-like mouths lined with rings of sharp teeth, seeming to lead into an endless abyss. These opened and closed in the darkness, making wet sucking and hissing sounds.
They varied enormously in size. The smaller ones resembled giant serpents crawling across the ground, while the silhouettes