"Heaven favors us!"
With a battle cry, the nun swung her massive sword, slicing down a dog-like aberrant creature crawling on all fours. The foul black blood splattered everywhere.
Even after its head was severed, the mutated creature opened its mouth in a grotesque hiss.
Bang! Without hesitation, the nun raised her boot and crushed its head, silencing it completely.
Although she knew the recent missile bombardment was no divine miracle, she rallied her comrades with cries of "Heaven favors us" to boost morale. The Black Falcons were still in stealth mode, making them nearly invisible to the naked eye. Only the missile trails had briefly revealed their general position, though none of the human soldiers, the nun included, had time to focus on that.
The nun's speed and strength were clearly beyond that of a typical human, similar to the Empire's elite injected with the Inquis serum or the gene-enhanced investigators with nanobot infusions. Her massive sword seemed uniquely effective, delivering fatal damage to the twisted, deformed creatures labeled as "heretics." In contrast, the soldiers equipped with submachine guns, rifles, and machine guns had to expend large amounts of ammo to reduce these abominations to shredded remains before they could fully immobilize them.
Still, even after this, the creatures were not entirely dead.
Whoosh—Boom!
Only when the flamethrowers in the rear ranks unleashed waves of scorching fire on the incapacitated creatures did they finally fall silent.
This unyielding vitality and ability to keep moving despite severe injuries suggested that these beings were akin to "demons," similar to warp-spawned entities. Their abnormal resilience and grotesque appearances screamed, "We are demons!"
At that moment:
Ratatat!
The disoriented, mutated soldiers snapped out of their confusion after the sudden missile barrage and the blinding hydrogen bomb explosions, focusing their fire on the nun at the forefront.
Clink—Clink! The rifles and submachine guns held by the aberrant soldiers couldn't penetrate her armor.
Ratatat!
Meanwhile, human soldiers gathered around the nun, providing covering fire against the twisted horde.
The battle was becoming even more chaotic.
At this point, the still-stealthed Black Falcons deployed their Gauss cannons, firing 40mm kinetic spikes into the demon forces' lines.
Splat—Splat!
In an instant, the humans who had turned to serve these demons, along with the creatures seemingly birthed from hell, were shredded to bloody chunks. The blood mingled with the fog, thickening the already toxic haze. These hypervelocity spike rounds, capable of piercing armor, were far more powerful than the WWI- and WWII-era firearms in the human soldiers' hands. Though they couldn't permanently kill the demons, the chunks and viscera they left behind posed no further threat to the nun and her soldiers. The flamethrowers soon "cleansed" the remnants with high heat.
However, thousands of demons still remained.
Unable to locate the Black Falcons, these creatures, not entirely mindless, quickly spread out into small groups, attempting to isolate and eliminate the nun and the human soldiers. The demons seemed willing to sacrifice themselves at any cost, a desperate attempt to prevent the nun's party from escaping with what was surely valuable information. If they escaped, it might jeopardize the demons' "plan" or force them to act prematurely.
Under his helmet, Soap assessed the situation via the tactical map, quickly drawing a likely conclusion. Before the initial missile strike, he and his vanguard team, along with four Greek demigods, had opened the hatch and leaped out of the Black Falcons, freefalling from fifty to sixty meters.
With their bodies fortified by the Inquis serum and supported by their specialized nano-suits, the vanguard team landed without harm. The four Greek demigods, clad in armor merging ancient Greek design with advanced technology and wielding custom-made .75-caliber explosive bolt guns, dropped down without any cushioning maneuvers, crashing directly into the muddy earth.
Thud—Thud!
The demigods' massive frames, each weighing over a ton, created shallow craters on impact, sending dirt and debris flying. Their armor, lacking powered assistance, was essentially armor carried solely by their physical strength. Mechanical exoskeletons and Mackpr power armor couldn't provide a significant advantage to them. After the Heretic Inquisition was formally established, the research department developed specialized power armor based on the Titan series for the demigods. However, for this recon mission, they opted for lighter gear to prioritize speed.
The landing noises from Soap and his team were masked by the loud artillery, gunfire, and explosions, unnoticed by either the humans or the demons.
Without spreading out, Soap's team activated their optical camouflage, stealthily approaching the eastern flank of the demon line. Their mission was to eliminate the immediate demon threats and link up with the nun and her team surrounded by the enemy. The larger task of wiping out the demon forces would be handled by the reinforcements en route.
Soon enough, Soap's team collided with a small demon squad.
Thud! Crack!
Rather than using firearms, Soap, the vanguard team, and the Greek demigods opted to use brute force, dispatching the demons swiftly to avoid alerting the larger force.
However, as they moved deeper into the encirclement, the number of demon squads increased. The demons' heightened sense of smell soon picked up the trail of Soap's team.
"Roar!"
Dog-like demon creatures, resembling hellhounds, lunged at them.
Without hesitation, Soap and the eleven vanguard members aimed their hard-light rifles at the airborne hounds, pulling the triggers.
Zap—Zap—Zap!
The red-hot hard-light beams tore across the muddy battlefield.
Splat—Sizzle!
The hellhounds struck by the beams were instantly reduced to smoldering debris by the high-energy, high-temperature blasts.
"Open fire and advance! Link up with the local forces!" Soap's command echoed across the comms.
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