"Run! Find cover!"
The crowd, so fired up just moments before, instantly fell under the grip of mortal terror and descended into utter chaos. Screaming and wailing, they scrambled toward the crude shacks nearby, shoving and trampling one another.
But it was already too late.
The poisonous mist descended.
The crude gas masks on the mortals' faces, fashioned from animal hide and scraps of cloth, were as flimsy as paper before this storm of concentrated poison gas. They failed instantly.
"Aah!"
Agonized screams rose one after another.
The first villager struck head-on by the poisonous mist had his mask corroded and dissolved in an instant, letting the poison flood his mouth and nose. A rasping cry escaped his throat, like a rooster being strangled, and he clutched his neck as he collapsed into the mud in agony. His skin began to ulcerate and blister before their eyes, oozing yellow-green pus.
Then came the second, the third...
People fell in swathes, like wheat beneath a scythe. They rolled and convulsed in the mud, clawing desperately at their rotting throats, yet could make no sound. In silent despair, they could only await death. In mere tens of seconds, the entire village went from the scene of a fervent rally before battle to a living hell filled with suffering.
And Mortarion stood at the center of that hell.
To him, poisonous mist of this potency was no more than a slightly invigorating steam bath. Apart from a faint stinging sensation on his skin, it had no effect whatsoever.
He felt not the slightest sympathy for the mortals dying in agony around him.
All he felt was fury beyond measure.
A pure, towering rage directed at these "followers" for their failure to live up to his expectations!
He was not angry at the cruelty