Larrak Valley – 500 meters from the demi-human camp
Officer Richter stood with his gloved hands behind his back, coat fluttering slightly in the rising wind. Before him, the flat, frost-laced plain stretched wide—open and unforgiving. His 500-man battalion stood in formation behind him. No shouting. No drums. Just the soft creak of armor and the muffled shift of boots in frozen dirt.
Beside him stood Arnold Brant, a grizzled man with a thick jawline and a faded scar across his temple. His rifle hung slung behind his shoulder, and his hand rested lazily on his pistol grip.
Arnold squinted toward the distant makeshift camp, smoke rising from crude tents and shattered wagons.
"Looks like they're starting to notice our presence," he said, voice deep, but calm.
Richter didn't look at him.
"Took them long enough."
"Think they'll charge?" Arnold asked, arms folded across his chest.
"Not yet. My bet?" Richter's voice remained flat. "They'll try a standoff first. Flex. Show numbers. They still think we're just rebels playing soldier but the might we showed the last battle will hinder them."
Arnold grunted.
"When's the artillery barrage supposed to start? I don't see Ritter's signal yet."
Richter lifted a gloved hand and pointed eastward—toward a decaying wooden farmstead tucked half-buried by ash and wood. The roof sagged, and broken fencing leaned in the cold.
"You see that farm over there?"
Arnold followed his finger.
"Yeah."
"That's where our guns are set up. Only about 250 meters from their flank. They haven't scouted it—probably betting we won't do anything bold. Or they think we can't."
Arnold smirked.
"Fools."
Richter said nothing more.
Five minutes passed. The wind picked up.
Then, like phantoms pulled from the camp's shadow, a tide of demi-humans began to march.
From beyond their crude barricades and broken wagons emerged columns of soldiers—some in poor maintained armor, others wielding spears, axes, or iron swords. Their march was disciplined and they stood with over 2,000 strong, and they kept coming.
They spread wide, forming a crescent line across the plain, halting just 200 meters from the human battalion.
The ground went quiet. The two armies faced one another—flesh and fury on one side, iron and steel on the other.
At the front of the human line stood the 100 heavy knights, painted black, shoulder-to-shoulder in a perfect straight line, their swastika-marked plates dull in the gray light. No movement. No noise. Just their massive silhouettes like iron statues—tanks made of men, ready to hold the line or break it.
The riflemen stood behind, rifles resting in hand or across chests. Engineers and mortar crews remained low, waiting. Even the horses tied to the rear supply wagons seemed to hold their breath.
Nothing moved.
Only the whistle of the cold wind, biting and dry, whispered between the two forces—a reminder that winter was coming, and that this war would not wait.
Then it began.
A distant boom tore through the silence—not from the standoff line, but from behind the demi-human army.
The sound echoed across the valley like the roar of an awakened beast. A second shell shrieked through the sky—then another. Explosions tore through the demi-human camp, setting tents and wagons ablaze. Dirt and bodies erupted into the air.
From behind the front, Richter's voice rang out like a hammer to steel:
"Open the tank line! Riflemen—positions!"
The black-armored heavy knights stepped to the side in perfect unison, their steel boots grinding against the frost-bitten earth. As they moved, they revealed the wall behind them—three full firing lines of riflemen, already crouched and ready, eyes down sights.
Without hesitation, the order was clear.The first volley came like thunder.
CRACK–CRACK–CRACK.The sound rolled like a wave of punishment.
Bullets ripped through the front line of demi-humans. Breastplates cracked open like eggshells. Some dropped instantly, skulls shattering. Others stumbled backward screaming, clutching gaping wounds where iron had once offered protection.
The riflemen didn't pause.
Second volley. Third. Fourth.Bolt–click. Fire.Bolt–click. Fire.A rhythm of pure, practiced slaughter.
The demi-human front line broke almost instantly—screaming, falling, some crawling through the blood-mud to reach cover that no longer existed. Their ranks shattered under precision fire.
Panic swept through them like a plague.
"We're under attack from both sides!" someone shouted."The camp! The camp is on fire—!""Get to cover—!"
A demi-human officer screamed out across the chaos:
"CHARGE! RUSH THEM!"
Dozens obeyed, howling war cries as they sprinted toward the human line—a desperate, suicidal rush.
But the riflemen were ready.
CRACK—CRACK—CRACK.
They mowed them down in seconds. Knees exploded, chests caved in. One reached within twenty meters before a bullet punched through his eye, flinging him backward like a puppet with its strings cut.
Those who didn't fall in the charge dropped their weapons and ran.
A few hundred left, at most.
They turned and fled, slipping on blood and frozen dirt as they scattered back toward their smoldering camp.
"Don't stop!" Richter shouted. "Keep firing!"
And the riflemen obeyed.
Bullets chased them down, punching into spines, legs, necks. Screams echoed in all directions. Some dropped mid-sprint. Others kept running on shattered legs before crumbling.
Then there was nothing but smoke, silence, and corpses.
The battlefield stank of blood and gunpowder. Over 2,000 demi-humans had stood minutes ago. Now, barely a dozen still breathed.
Richter raised a hand and barked one final command:
"Poke every one of them. Make sure none are faking."
The heavy knights moved in with mechanical precision, swords lowered. Riflemen advanced behind, bayonets fixed.
The gruesome work began.
Steel blades jabbed into fallen bodies—some twitching, others already still. A few demi-humans gasped and writhed, grabbing at blades embedded in their sides.
"Mercy—!" one shouted, reaching up as a knight drove a sword straight through his chest. The body jerked, then stilled.
A lizard-man twitched and suddenly bolted upright, bloodied but fast. He ran ten paces before a bullet cracked through his spine, dropping him like a sack of meat.
Another groaned and rolled over—only to be met by three bayonets from advancing infantry. He screamed until the last blade tore through his throat.
"MOVE DOWN THE LINE!" one officer barked. "Check throats, check backs—nothing survives!"
Heavy knights stabbed through bodies, their armor soaked with gore. One swung downward with both hands, cleaving a skull open. Another flipped a corpse only for it to cough blood and claw for help—it was met with a brutal boot to the neck and a finishing thrust to the chest.
By the end, the field was a carpet of corpses, scattered weapons, and scorched ground.
The riflemen lowered their guns. The knights cleaned their blades. The medics didn't even move—there were no wounded on their side.
Only one banner remained standing—a red armband, fluttering in the icy wind.
As the last of the demi-humans were bayoneted and silenced, Richter Lenz stepped forward, wiping blood off the barrel of his Luger with a torn scrap of uniform.
He surveyed the smoking horizon, the black trail of Elisabeth's cannons still drifting through the eastward sky. Then, without pause, his voice cut through the cold:
"Tanks in front. Riflemen—reload and restock. Mortar teams, prep for barrage. Use everything we've got. We march with thunder."
The heavy knights returned to the forward line, iron boots stomping through blood and shattered bone. Their black armor, streaked with crimson, gleamed beneath the gray sky as they resumed formation—unshaken, unreadable.
Riflemen scrambled to the rear wagons, grabbing fresh ammunition boxes passed down the line. Belts were restocked. Clips loaded. Bayonets checked.
From the side, Arnold Brant stepped up, voice like gravel:
"Mortar teams, move! Set up forward! Wagon two—on me!"
The ten mortar tubes were lifted and carried swiftly—shouldered by crews and dragged into place as a supply wagon rolled up beside them. Boxes of mortar shells hit the dirt, thrown open and stacked with military precision. The engineers quickly reinforced firing positions with dugout snowbanks and angled braces.
The infantry began marching forward—not charging, but advancing, rifles held tight, footsteps crunching the frost-covered earth. The valley ahead stretched open, leading directly to what remained of the burning demi-human camp.
At 100 meters out, Richter raised his fist.
The mortars march ceased.
Only the sound of boots, breath, and crackling flame remained. The soldiers kept advancing, drawing closer… 75 meters… 60… 55…
Arnold's voice rang out like a whip:
"FIRE!"
The sky exploded.
A full barrage of mortars launched upward with a synchronized shriek. The first shells landed just seconds later—thunderous detonations that tore apart tents, wagons, bodies, and dirt in a cyclone of fire and steel.
Shell after shell screamed downward in rapid succession, each detonation closer and tighter to the ground, as if the earth itself were collapsing.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sky rained shrapnel and flame. Campfires were blown apart, canvas tents disintegrated. Men caught in open air were ripped to ribbons—legs blown clean off, arms sent spinning, torsos turned to red mist.
One demi-human tried to crawl away, screaming, his back flayed open, spine exposed like a stripped wire. Another had his face melted off by a direct burst—his teeth bared in a silent, skinless scream.
A small group huddled behind a barricade. It offered nothing. A shell dropped directly overhead, the blast sending skull fragments and limbs flying like meat confetti.
Some tried to flee, only to trip on burning bodies or shrapnel-strewn mud, their legs crushed beneath falling debris. One soldier, pinned under a collapsed wagon, clawed at his own crushed chest before another blast vaporized him in fire.
A horse bolted through the camp, its eyes wide, flank scorched and split. It ran blind, screaming, before collapsing in a heap of fire and blood.
The stench of charred meat, scorched hair, and ruptured intestines choked the air.
For an hour, hell rained down.
Fire. Screams. Blasts. Then more screams. Then silence. Then more fire.
By the time the shelling stopped, the ground where the camp once stood was a black pit of cratered earth and steaming corpses. Not a single tent remained standing. Flesh clung to tree bark, bodies fused to wood and stone.
And standing on the ridge—unshaken, unmoving, and undeniably victorious—was the black-clad spearhead of the Reich.
Schützenbataillon 9. Larrakhammer.
The smoke was still thick, the air hot and trembling from the echoes of mortar fire when Richter Lenz stepped forward again. His face was calm, not because he was unfeeling—but because this was expected.
He raised one arm toward the shattered ruin of the demi-human camp, then gave the order with chilling clarity.
"March into the camp. Kill any survivors."
The heavy knights, black iron glinting under a sunless sky, began their advance with mechanical grace. Behind them, the riflemen followed, boots crunching over frozen soil, ash, and shattered bones. Bayonets fixed. Ammo loaded. Eyes sharp.
The camp was nothing more than a graveyard of twisted debris and scorched flesh.
Charred wood creaked under their boots. Canvas fluttered like burned skin. A tent post, split and bloodied, stood upright only because it was impaled through a corpse's chest.
From within the rubble, a cough echoed.
Short. Wet. Weak.
A rifle cracked instantly. The noise didn't halt the march. One of the riflemen had spotted a demi-human half-buried in a pile of scorched sacks, still breathing. A bullet drilled through the creature's skull, and the sound it made as it hit the ground was softer than the rifle's report.
"No hesitations," one corporal barked. "No mercy."
A few steps deeper, a group of riflemen rounded a shattered barricade—and from the smog, a pack of wounded demi-humans burst forward, screeching.
They wielded broken spears, rusted cleavers, anything that wasn't already melted. One lunged forward, howling, but before he made it halfway—
A black-armored knight met him mid-step.
With both hands, the knight drove his massive war hammer forward, the blunt end slamming into the creature's chest.
The impact was catastrophic.
The demi-human's torso caved in like wet paper, ribs exploding outward in a red spray. His entire chest became a jagged ravine of pulverized bone, his body flung backward with such force that it slammed into two others behind him.
Another raised a blade to strike—only to be gunned down mid-swing, his arm separated from his body as three riflemen opened fire in unison.
The remaining attackers turned to flee—but the riflemen were already raising their weapons.One. Two. Three more fell.
Blood sprayed across the shattered barricade. None escaped.
From the other side of the camp, movement stirred again—a last-ditch guerrilla strike.
A half-dozen demi-humans emerged from trenches, popped out from under burned wagons, leaping at the humans with scorched faces and cracked weapons, screaming in desperation.
It should have been a surprise.
It wasn't.
"CONTACT—LEFT!"
The human column reacted instantly. The riflemen fanned out, forming a staggered firing line while the heavy knights shifted to shield position, creating a wall of steel.
The demi-humans ran straight into a coordinated volley.
Gunfire tore through them at close range. One was shot through the eye mid-jump. Another had his leg obliterated and landed face-first into the mud, only to be bayoneted in the spine seconds later.
A tall, muscular beast lunged for a rifleman—screaming in rage—only to be intercepted by a knight who grabbed him by the throat, forced him down, and drove a short sword through his neck until it hit the ground beneath.
His body twitched once, then went still.
Another tried to hide beneath a collapsed wagon. A soldier crouched, aimed carefully, and fired straight into the gap, the bullet bursting through the wooden slats with a splatter of red behind it.
The field was chaos—but controlled chaos.Tactical. Merciless. Complete.
One last group—a trio of burnt demi-humans missing limbs—attempted to crawl away from the killing field.
They were spotted from twenty meters out.
"Finish them!" someone shouted.
A burst of rifle fire ended their crawl. One tried to roll over and beg—but the round struck him in the jaw, blowing half his face off before the next ended his suffering.
The killing continued for another hour.
By the end, the battlefield was silent again—except for the whistle of the coming winter wind, drifting over a valley now painted in blood, bone, and smoke.
Schützenbataillon 9 did not cheer.
They simply cleaned their barrels, sharpened their blades, and waited for the next order.
Because for them, this was not a victory.
It was procedure.