Hector leaned against the cold stone wall of the gateway, stained with blood and soot. Every beat of his heart tugged at the lingering ache deep in his chest, making his labored breathing rasp like a worn-out bellows.
He could smell the rusty tang of blood, the acrid gun smoke, and the stench of sweat mingled with excrement on his own body... traces left by sheer terror.
He had survived.
When that thought surfaced in Hector's mind, the sudden release of tension left him briefly weak and dizzy... just moments ago, he had been an ant struggling across that scorched wasteland of death.
Hector did not want to remember, yet he could still recall the deafening thunder, the earth groaning and splitting beneath Bagnia's heavy artillery.
Each falling shell brought a downpour of dirt and human fragments. Familiar and unfamiliar figures around him had been roaring as they advanced one second, only to become flying scraps of flesh and shattered remains the next.
His Pike Square had taken five direct hits in quick succession, as though an invisible giant hammer had battered it repeatedly. Within a few blinks, the formation had shattered and fallen apart.
Fear instantly seized every survivor. The instinct to live overwhelmed their orders.
The rout began.
Hector had been one of them. Simply to run faster, he had thrown away his cumbersome Spear and stripped off his surcoat and padded armor, stumbling backward with the surging crowd in a desperate flight toward Golden Ear City.
Yet the road to "safety" was just as thick with death.
The Discipline Squad!
Officers and Military Police wearing crimson armbands stood like cold reefs behind the torrent of fleeing soldiers.
There was no mercy in their eyes, only a cold intent to kill.
"Anyone who retreats dies!"
The Discipline Squad