The Tyrant's limiter coat had been torn to shreds. Its right hand twisted and deformed, changing from a human-shaped palm into a grotesquely oversized claw. The entire transformation took only about two seconds.
The Tyrant raised its arm high. Only then did Deacon Frost realize something was wrong, but he was still a step too late. The Tyrant's claw severed his head. He did not die immediately; his eyes were full of bitter resentment, and the last thing he saw was the Tyrant's huge foot coming down toward him.
Deacon Frost, the young leader who had dreamed of reforming the vampire system, died without fanfare. He was actually one of the lucky ones—at least he had exchanged a couple of blows with a Tyrant. Many of his supporters had it far worse, because Bella's side had deployed tanks!
More than ten M1A2 main battle tanks crisscrossed the battlefield, which was bright as day. Several vampires running like the wind had their arms and legs seized by bioengineered humanoids before tank shells blasted them apart one by one.
The American flag in front of the New York Stock Exchange was crushed beneath tank treads. Mixed with blood from the battlefield and perfluorocarbon fluid from the bioengineered humanoids, it had become so filthy that its original appearance was impossible to make out.
"You idiots are going to get me killed! Retreat, now! Stop trying to pack up that junk!" Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan sent by Hell to ally with the vampires and known by the nickname Hellstorm, wore a vicious expression as he swung his divine halberd wreathed in hellfire, cutting down the bioengineered humanoid soldiers charging at him.
"Pah! What the hell are these things? They don't even have souls?" He was extremely dissatisfied with the burning effect of hellfire. The mighty flames of Hell were no more effective on the bioengineered humanoids than ordinary fire. On closer inspection, they actually burned a little more slowly than normal flames. He found that infuriating.
He had earned the nickname Hellstorm because of his fighting style. On the battlefield, he swung his divine halberd to harvest the souls of intelligent life. It worked almost like stacking buffs—thirty stacks, eighty stacks, however many he wanted. The more souls fed back into him, the stronger he became.
Hellstorm was like the protagonists of many novels. Fighting enemies above his level was practically routine.
And now? He had been fighting forever without scoring even one effective kill! What the hell was the point of fighting like this?
"Hurry up! Stop dragging your feet!" Furious as he was, he still wanted to get the vampire leadership out. By the traditions of Hell, these people would all be placed under his command later. If he could save them, he still had to try.
The vampires suffered horrific casualties in the face of silver bullets. The elders who had not fought for hundreds or even thousands of years were little better than useless, being reduced to dust in whole groups.
Yet many of the old vampires valued their wealth more than their lives. Even with the enemy right in front of them, instead of uniting to resist, they kept tripping one another up. Some even used others as shields while they themselves tried to haul away fortunes accumulated over a thousand years.
Their behavior made Hellstorm furious enough to explode. Unfortunately, he had charged too aggressively earlier and was now completely surrounded by bioengineered humanoid soldiers. He could not break out quickly at all.
"Come help me!" At his command, several horned demons three meters (about ten feet) tall and carrying enormous hammers answered the summons and stepped through portals.
The bioengineered humanoids were still using firing-line tactics. The cunning demons circled around to the flank. One demon wielding a flaming greatsword charged into the formation like a train. The impact sent seven bioengineered humanoid soldiers flying, while another was impaled on one of his horns. Several more had been crushed under the demon's feet.
The vicious demon pulled the bioengineered humanoid soldier off his horn with practiced ease, as though he had rehearsed the motion a thousand times. He grabbed the soldier around the waist, opened his enormous maw, and bit down.
Pfft! It felt as though he had bitten into rotten fruit. Perfluorocarbon fluid flowed through his mouth and into his stomach, and the sour, acrid taste nearly made him vomit.
Several other demons instinctively fought according to their experience in Hell. They cut open the bioengineered humanoid soldiers' bellies and twisted off their heads, but the imagined fountains of blood never appeared. All they saw was milky-white liquid!
It sprayed all over their heads and faces. They looked absolutely ridiculous.
"ROAR! What is this stuff? We demand an explanation!—" Several demons roared in the language of Hell. They were blaming Hellstorm for summoning them to a godforsaken place like this...
Artificial blood was splattered everywhere, and severed limbs covered the ground. The demons fought until they were drenched in perfluorocarbon fluid. Their originally crimson muscles could no longer be seen; from a distance, they looked like a pack of horned yetis!
The underground tunnels were filled with a sour disinfectant smell that thoroughly nauseated the demons. They did not even have time to wipe themselves clean, because more bioengineered humanoids were already charging in with weapons.
The demons under Hellstorm were all powerful, but against a tidal wave of bioengineered humanoids, they were still being badly mauled.
The bioengineered humanoids had no emotions whatsoever and only knew how to mechanically pull their triggers. Even with the combined strength of vampires and demons, the allied force was steadily taking losses.
Hellstorm swung his halberd like a windmill and once again cut down a squad of bioengineered humanoid soldiers blocking the way. To be honest, he did not even know whether these enemies counted as kills for his ability. All he knew was that the overpowering smell of artificial blood was about to destroy his sense of smell.
"Break out! Our only chance to live is to break out! Follow me!" A demon's teleportation could normally move only itself, or could be combined with the summoning power of a superior. Teleporting a huge mass of vampires directly into Hell simply was not possible.
Hellstorm led from the front, racing back and forth through the underground tunnels with the demons and vampires. Several routes had already been sealed by the tide of bioengineered humanoids, so he had no choice but to lead the vampires back to the surface and escape aboveground.
The moment he climbed out of the underground passage, Hellstorm ran straight into Bruticus.
Bruticus raised the huge gun in his hands and fired a dark-blue shell packed with astonishing energy directly into Hellstorm's chest.
The inverted pentagram on Hellstorm's chest flashed with a vivid red light. A curtain of blood like a shield wrapped around him. Faced with Bruticus's charged attack, he had no choice but to use one of his trump cards to defend himself.
Transformers specialized in firearms, firing energy projectiles produced through compression and fission. Bruticus had considerable combat intelligence. Holding a massive gun, he pooled the energy of all five Decepticons and fired shot after shot at Hellstorm. Whenever they entered melee range, Bruticus was no weaker physically than Hellstorm, who still had no buff stacks.
"What is this thing now?" Hellstorm was somewhat dumbfounded by the twenty-meter-tall (about sixty-six-foot-tall) Bruticus. Fortunately, he truly was a veteran of countless battles and quickly thought of a solution: machines against machines!
The demons pushed out Hell's catapults and ballistae. A gigantic boulder burning with hellfire hurtled toward Bruticus.