In the narrow trenches carved out by mortal hands, five childlike soldiers clawed their way through the earth, digging a tunnel toward a nearby heretic camp with their small shovels.
Dry grains of dirt clung to their skin and uniforms, coating them in a dusty film. Even their gas masks were streaked with soil, the filters clogged enough to make every breath a struggle. But breathing difficulties were a luxury they could not afford to acknowledge, and so they dug, slowly and steadily.
Above the trench, on the side opposite the digging team, their newly appointed leader stood watch. He remained behind another soldier who wore his hat for him, an improvised, living shield.
The angels had called such tactics disgraceful, even barbaric. But the mortals lived by different rules. In their world, the leader was far too valuable to lose, while the one standing before him… was expected to give his life without hesitation. To them, this was not cruelty, it was practicality.
The other teams had been scattered across the battlefield, and reinforcements were never part of the plan. Killing heretics with nothing but shovels was foolish beyond measure, yet artillery was a precious resource they could not afford to waste. The angels had accepted to let them go without proper weapons… but they hadn't let them go entirely empty-handed either.
CLANK
"We've reached their layer, sir," one of the soldiers murmured as his shovel struck solid metal beneath the earth.
"Clear out the dirt," T-3 ordered quietly. "Plant the dynamite, then get out of the tunnel. Inform the other teams. Timer set to ten seconds."
"T-Alpha-15, bombs planted. Everyone clear?" the soldier wearing T-3's hat reported into his walkie-talkie.
"T-Adam-15, clear."
"T-Beta-15, clear."
"T-Sirus-15, clear."
A rapid cascade of confirmations crackled through the static as the soldiers pressed the explosives into the exposed metal.
Hours of digging had drenched them in sweat, and their hands trembled from exhaustion. Even so, they worked with meticulous care, brushing away damp clumps of earth, wet soil could weigh down the blast or slow their escape.
Tick
The moment the detonator beeped, the children sprinted out of the tunnel with every last shred of strength they had left. They scrambled up the side of the trench, where T-3 reached down and pulled each pair of shaking hands to safety.
BOOM
A deafening blast tore through the underground. The tunnel shuddered violently as a section collapsed inward, and a jagged breach ripped open the heretics' lower layer.
Dust, smoke, and shards of metal burst upward like a volcanic plume.
Bombs like these would barely inconvenience the Paragon students, but for heretics who clawed their way up the ranks by borrowing unstable power from demons, the blast was devastating. Yet when the dust settled and the soldiers peered into the breach, only three heretics lay inside, writhing and half-conscious.
These ones looked disturbingly human compared to the others. Their skin was stretched unnaturally tight across their skulls, pulled backward as if someone had grabbed their faces and dragged the flesh toward the nape of their necks. It made one wonder how their bones still held together.
Seizing the moment, the soldiers rushed in with a ruthless efficiency. Their shovels came down with sickening cracks, smashing the heretics' skulls into the metal floor.
The layer they had breached was made of a rare, durable alloy, almost impossible to find in the wastelands now. The hole was large, but not irreparable; if they secured the area, it could one day be restored.
The explosion had knocked out the lights, plunging the hall into total darkness. But these soldiers were born in shadow. Their senses were honed for it, sight, sound, smell, the darkness was their home long before it became their battlefield.
Then, suddenly—
THUD THUD THUD
Heavy footsteps echoed from the far end of the metal corridor.
The soldiers froze.
Silently, they pressed their backs against the wall beside the door, shovels gripped tight, holding their breath as they waited for the heretic on the other side to burst through.
But the door never opened.
Instead—
BOOM!
A massive arm crashed through the wall beside the door, punching through metal as if it were soft clay. Shards of alloy exploded outward as the enormous, grotesque limb snatched one of the soldiers by the torso.
"CUT IT!" T-3 screamed.
The strike team reacted instantly, hacking at the demonic arm with their shovels, but the blows barely scratched it. The soldier screamed once before being yanked into the darkness beyond the hole in the wall.
And then he was gone.
What they saw next was something no amount of training could have prepared them for.
The metal door groaned as it slowly swung open, revealing a grotesque, red-skinned giant crouched inside the chamber. Folds of fat hung from its massive frame, and in its claws… was their comrade.
The giant's jaw distended unnaturally wide.
CRUNCH
The sound echoed through the metal corridor, a wet, violent crack that sliced into their ears. The soldiers froze, horror turning their blood to ice as they watched the creature tear chunks off their friend with animalistic delight.
The heretic's mouth stretched into a wider grin, dripping with blood.
For a moment, the world felt still.
This should have broken them. But panic was a luxury they had never been allowed, and so... they charged.
The giant swung again, his enormous hand sweeping through the air to seize his next victim, but the soldiers were too fast, low to the ground, quick as starving wolves.
One soldier leaped onto the monster's arm, sprinting up its thick forearm as the heretic roared and opened its maw to swallow him whole but the soldier rammed his shovel inside the open mouth.
The sharpened metal scraped across teeth, tore through the giant's throat, and burst out the back of its neck.
For a heartbeat, the heretic stood frozen…
Then blood erupted from the wound in a violent spray, coating the metal floor in streaks of dark red.
The giant collapsed, twitching, gurgling, before finally going still.
"…Did he really think we wouldn't charge him with a shovel just because he ate one of us?" the soldier who delivered the killing blow muttered, breathing heavily.
The others exchanged a tired, indifferent shrug.