[A/n: This chapter contains disturbing content!]
It wasn't simple cruelty, nor was it casual evil or some sort of demonic nature. It was evolution, simple biology, and bodily chemistry for the Gobzkin Horde.
Cruelty was a tradition they practiced against other species and among themselves, for it was what kept the Gobs strong and the horde's spirit alive; Cruelty, Hate, and Malice.
Not a single Gob had the faintest clue where this instinct—this drive to dominate and obliterate, and this nature to defile and destroy—came from. It always came to their minds like an unreachable itch they could never scratch, and a feeling by which they were compelled.
Observations of Gobzkins across all races and worlds consistently highlighted one recurring word: "Crude". If a Gob found something symmetrical, they would invariably smash it out of symmetry; if they found something shiny, they would hoard it, believing it would raise their standing against other races; and if they found a taller and more aesthetically pleasing race…
"AAAAAH!"
"PLEASE! KILL ME!!"
"LORD! I BEG YOU! JESUS!"
A smirk appeared on the twisted, ugly face of Prince Skad as he watched the naked crowd of bald apes of this world: so docile, so tameable, their screams bringing nothing but eternal joy to his twisted heart. Everywhere he looked, a Gob stood, and a bald ape knelt. To him, it was good, it was natural; things were finally taking their course. These bald apes made perfect sport, screamed in perfect pitch, and agonized in the most satisfying of ways.
It didn't just look right, it smelled right, it sounded right too.
Fear oozed from every bald ape in abundance, enough to make the entire horde high on that sensation for days. The metallic tings of their chains as they wiggled their asses left and right while laboring, the broken squinting of their eyes as they were fed the larvae of Hosts that kept their minds weak and psyches in agony; this didn't only satisfy him, it broke his hideous mouth into a smile that showed a sharp row of fangs with bits of human skin still stuck to them.
Then there were the Alfari, the eternal enemy. If there was anything better than the bald apes, it was the Alfari, and the one he personally captured earlier was nothing short of premium. The thought of tearing her body limb from limb, violating her noble peerage, and destroying the centuries-old pride of her name brought him so much joy it made his stomach churn with hunger.
He looked around at his personal pets and emergency snacks, then picked one up. Its heart pumping fast, moans coming from its mouth, cries, and fear in its wide eyes visible beyond the messy hair covering its face.
This was it; the snack was functioning right. It was cooking itself just by fear, terror, and pointless squirming. This would make the flesh tender, the blood fresher, and the skin easier to peel.
CHOMP!
And so he took a bite, a big bite, one that would keep his snack still fresh and alive, making even more beautiful sounds, and motivating both Gobs and bald apes alike.
Blood dripped off his maw as the view of the human fortress became visible, and soon, they would break just like all other humans had broken around this kingdom of his.
There, he would feast to no end.
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The sight of the eastern front made the hair on Buzz's neck stand as his panicked voice reported what he saw. All he could do or say was point towards the east, and everyone on the roof was immediately looking in that direction.
Not a minute passed before the horde came into view; blood froze, and words died at the sight of the enemy's vanguard, enough to make everyone halt and watch.
"Bazi!" The Elden Lord was first to exclaim, "This is… bad!"
Everyone stepped ahead to look at the encroaching tide of naked humans and Gobzkin; then the details came clearer, and the wails reached the ears of every defender.
"Shit! What the fuck…" Elena's eyes widened as she saw a horror she had never seen across nine combat tours on nine different worlds.
The sight of the human slaves was beyond any iteration of brutality she could think of; even the Sermons of the Scriptorium Ministers never depicted the brutality of the Infernals or the Machina in such ways.
Then she felt it: fear.
A ridiculous feeling started seeping inside her heart, but Elena Skarn was angered, not afraid; only then did she realize that this feeling wasn't hers.
It was beside her, coming from her summoner.
"Sir!"
She turned to him, and he was standing there as stiff as a log. Blinkless, motionless, breathless. She held his hand; it was as cold as a cryo cell, and she even found it difficult to yank him towards her, so she stood between him and the sight until it was only her reflection in his eyes.
"Sir! You need to get it together," she said and shook his shoulders. "This is war!"
He looked at her, finally, a twitch on his solid expression, then it got worse. His temperature, his breathing, his sweat; it all went into panic mode.
"No… We…"
A shiver ran across his body, and his entire being rejected sanity. His psyche was crumbling in real time, and his senses started playing tricks on him. Elena felt it, the Wartopians felt it, and its feedback reverberated through them.
"STOP IT!"
SLAP!
Adam's entire being went into a forceful reboot as the left side of his face was met with the merciless hand of a Solarium Sergeant Man-at-Arms. He lost his footing and fell to one knee, his nerves giving out, but still looked with shock at Elena.
"Elena… this is not possible!"
His shaken state was barely suppressed, but what remained broken was his crumbled logic, and luckily for Elena, this wasn't something that more violence couldn't solve.
She held him by the nape of his coat, lifted him up, dragged him in front of everyone to the edge of the roof, and pointed ahead:
"Look there! Take a good look!" she spoke fiercely. "With a few blazers, shovels, and twenty men, you have stopped three thousand Krant." She then held him by his shoulders and shook him strongly. "You have three times that many, and every one of them is armed to the teeth. The enemies aren't even five hundred."
Still looking towards the horde with shaken eyes, Adam raised his hand and pointed.
"Did you count that as one?" he asked in a weak voice.
Elena turned, and just as she was about to shout more spine into him, she had to stop and deal with her spine first. The human slaves in a brutal state were one thing; the numerous horde of Gobzkins that were defiantly more powerful than Krants was another thing; but the towering Gobzkin Gigant that marched at the back of the horde was something else entirely.
Adam was right about one thing: it was unfair to count them with the same estimate as a mindless horde of sea ants. Gobzkins are as cunning and vile as humanity itself, and with a sight like that, it is impossible to fight with a straight mind.
The Gobzkin Prince knew it well: a fear tactic that must have worked on every human force he had faced so far, and once the morale of any human force crumbled, they too would join the slave train.
"Fuck this shit to fucking hell!"
Elena cussed out loud and wanted to say something to Adam, but she heard the radio of Raj's team reporting the sight of the horde to the other teams with obvious panic.
"Get that signal!" she shouted as she pointed at Buzz. "Tell them not to transmit anything."
"But…" Buzz hesitated as he picked up his radio's mic, yet Elena snatched it away immediately.
"All teams to a different channel each! No communication allowed! No reports unless we contact you first! That's an order!"
She immediately stopped the panic from spreading to the other defending teams and faced Adam fiercely.
"Sir, there is only one way out of this," she said and aimed ahead. "We'll offload the mortars at them."
"What?" Adam's face twisted, backing off her reach. "ARE YOU CRAZY?"
"There is no saving them!" Elena spoke calmly, trying to reach for him before his emotions spiraled out of control.
Adam wasn't able to cope with this visceral reality and had never faced the Gobzkin in that way ever before. He saw them killing humans, kidnapping humans, and eating humans. They acted as monsters that survived by preying on others, but this wasn't a predator/prey relationship; it wasn't something he even realized was possible for monsters.
He felt bitterness swell from his core and burn his guts: fear, anger, sadness, and disbelief. He looked around and saw that he wasn't the only one.
"What should I do?" he looked at Elena, desperate for an answer.
"It is obvious what they would do," she said, indicating that the humans were put on the vanguard for a reason.
"This is senseless, Elena; we can't kill all that." Adam, still near the thought of killing the captives, turned to look, and his being shivered at the sight of them.
"You have to. The enemy's at the gate, and if you won't fight, just kill us here and now," she said firmly. "But if you would fight, you do it the right way. Kill the hostages."
"It is not noble to annihilate…" Beside Adam, Lord Kaimu intervened, but it only made Elena angrier.
"Shut it, alien!" she barked fiercely. "You want to die for a noble cause, go charge those things for all I care."
Elena didn't give any quarter to the Elden Lord, but before the argument could even develop, a shrill cry came from the side of Lord Kaimu's Serai.
Everyone turned immediately towards the voice, only to see Kahori being pulled back from the edge of the Serai by the servants as she pointed towards the horde.
"Muji! Samara!"
She shouted her sister's name, a hand extended towards the horde, and everyone turned to where she was pointing. The horde was roughly 500 feet away, so it seemed that Alfari's eyes were superior to those of humans. Lord Kaimu turned, and only a gasp was choked in his neck as he gritted his teeth.
"Got a sight on the alien, boss." Sharp, on the other hand, looked through his scope. "Big monster front."
Elena took her spare scope and took a look through it before letting out a long sigh and handing it to Adam. He immediately looked through it, and one couldn't help but tense up.
It was an Alfari female, black-haired and gray-skinned, her head sagged down, and her body was stretched from all limbs over the inflated belly of the Gobzkin Gigant as if she were an armor chest piece. She was just like the humans: naked, bleeding, bruised, and in a sorry state beyond words.
Adam put away the scope, and it all became clear to him.
"They want our attention," he said and backed down, turning away from the agonizing sight. "Return to bombardment; keep the other fronts covered."
His head started to get clearer now, but it was far from his best; he was in greater turmoil, and his body was shivering from the dark emotions he was feeling.
Elena turned to him, assured that he was back in his right mind for war, far from ideal, but at least maintaining enough composure to grit through this situation. The resistance continued, the siege still heated, and the human defenders never crumbled at the sight of the fear tactic the Gobzkin employed.
At the side of the Gobzkin, the Prince soon finished his meal and spat out some bones. It wasn't the first time the bald apes showed some grit, but it wasn't something he couldn't deal with.
With a signal, the whips of the Gobs started cracking, the screams increased, and the Hobgobs started beating the bald apes like drums.
A mark for a new phase.
Adam was barely returning to his post beside the mortar, but in a split second, he felt the air around him shift and looked back to see Lord Kaimu charging at him with a stern face, blade drawn.
"Wh…"
He couldn't utter a single word before the alien reached him, and with a single motion of his blade, something broke midair.
Crack!
An arrow the size of a spear clashed against the Lord's blade and was flung away with ease. The Elden Lord moved right away and slashed his blade twice, breaking two arrows before they hit the Wartopians.
"TO COVER!"
Elena shouted and got behind cover before taking out a smoke grenade and throwing it in the direction the arrows came from.
Everyone was on their stomachs, Buzz moving his hands frantically to locate the source of those arrows.
"Can't see the shooter! It must have come from some far-off building," he cried.
The Elden Lord took cover as well, seemingly resting after intercepting those arrows, before speaking: "It is from a far-off tower, red of color, a hundred arms that way."
"Got it!"
To that, Sharp answered and aimed his blazer through the smoke, before narrowing his eyes, waiting for it to flutter, and…
BZZZZ-CRACK!
He fired a bolt that punched through the smoke and then immediately ducked to cover. A second later, an arrow passed where he stood, and he made his report.
"The good news: shooter down," he said.
"And the bad?" Adam asked.
"Seven more to go," Sharp replied with a mischievous grin.
"We need to move the mortar behind that stair's head house," Adam said and nodded to Elena as she threw an extra smoke grenade for more cover.
Sharp covered the other angles, trying to spot more Gobzkin sharpshooters, but it seemed they were all gathered in one area. Buzz hid the drone before trying to calculate the distance from their position to the shooters' nest to get them all in one go. Meanwhile, the mortar was easily carried by Adam and Elena, whereas Sharp and, surprisingly, Lord Kaimu moved the shell crate carefully to the new cover.
Elena kept working on the mortar once again to calibrate its bombing range, while Adam started contacting the other teams that may be in range of the Gobzkin sharpshooters. However…
Swoosh!Swoosh!Swoosh!
Shatter!Shatter!
Adam heard the sound of air breaking, followed by glass shattering. He frowned for a second before immediately realizing that the Gobzkins were now shooting inside the factory!
His voice's echo didn't fade away before he heard screams and wails coming from downstairs, where the refugees were sheltered. He gritted his teeth and cursed with frustration, but it was far from over. The Gobzkin Prince was planning to smoke them out, no matter what, and what he had next in store was far worse than anything Adam imagined.
Before the screams and wails could fade away, Adam turned around as he sensed activity from the side of the Gobzkin horde.
The Gobzkin Gigant—an ugly, asymmetric brute with an inflated belly, misaligned limbs, and the ugliest mug an inbred could have—was carrying something and swinging its longer arm around before flinging it upward.
Adam followed two odd-shaped projectiles rising through the air and descending towards the factory. He called for cover, and everyone got ready for impact, yet just as it landed…
SPLAT!
SMASH!
There was no heavy impact, no thundering boom, or any sign of a siege attack. Just a wet sound, amplified and reminiscent of a grape popping.
Adam peeked his head from cover and saw the sight before anyone else. His guts flared up, his eyes froze solid, and his mouth went dry. Something tight pressed on his chest, and he felt an iron-like taste in his mouth, as his teeth were involuntarily digging into his dry lips.
There wasn't supposed to be more brutality than what was shown, yet the Gobzkins were proving Adam's imagination for brutality to be limited and too soft for this kind of fight.
In front of him, two mingled bodies were lying like broken dolls, limbs torn, skin peeled, and bones twisted in all the wrong ways.
This wasn't something he could handle anymore. More than this, and it would break him; and if he got broken, his summons might as well not function properly anymore. He had to stop this, end this suffering, pass it to someone who knew the ugly face of war.
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