The first shell hit the automated golems at dawn of the second day.
It was not a conventional artillery round. The Korthane military engineers had spent seven years developing the anti-domain suppression shells specifically for this engagement — heavy iron casings packed with a compound of resonance-breaking aetheric chalk that discharged on impact, generating a localized disruption field tuned to neutralize Mechanist rune-work.
The 14th Legion's forward artillery battery fired six shells in sequence.
The first shell struck the lead golem — a fourteen-foot iron automaton built in the crude, regressed style that had replaced the Domain-spark craftsmanship of the pre-cull era — and the disruption field discharged through its rune-lattice in a chain reaction. The golem stopped mid-stride and fell forward, its legs still attempting to complete a movement its central logic core could no longer process.
The second shell took the third and fourth golems simultaneously.
