Research wins wars. Decided Iron Lord, raising the skewered Dirtyblood and ignoring the blood running down his glaive. His rival relied on prediction, improvisation, and other silly, unreliable schemes, which helped entice gullible masses. Folly, as Houstad's failure had proven. Only hard data mattered, and its proper application led to the establishment of a stable society. Research was hardly limited to technological advances, and sociology and psychology were the respected and valuable sciences.
Barely audible gasps escaped the Dirtyblood's mouth; her body convulsed and spasmed, arms desperately trying to lift the body from the blade, oblivious to the fact that her lung was no more. Vermin always tried to save themselves, rather than reaching for a gun on their belt and firing at the assailant. This moron was paying with her life for disobeying a simple order and demanding immediate assistance from Iron Lord. Irritated by his oversight, the khan turned off the disruption field, forcing the fool to suffer the consequences.
Both should have known better. But there was a lesson in every failure, and Iron Lord intended to learn it, accepting his partially impaired mental state.
Theoretical. How do you defeat a nation? In ages past, vast armies marched on. To avoid the terrible casualties of urban warfare, economic blockades were set up to starve the opposition into submission. New fates were forged during clever negotiations in high cabinets, while propagandists sowed seeds of discontent among the general populace. Net, news, pocket politicians, strategy, discipline, will, numbers, technology, flexibility—through these currencies, a nation purchased its future and manifested its destiny.
Nowadays, the validity of such notions was questionable at best. Starve the Horde, murder every last one of their minions, and what have you accomplished? Mad Hatter will still exist, and through her might alone, she'll rebuild and conquer, forming another Gilded Horde. Demigods roamed the lands, smashing hundreds, casting doubt on the former ways of war by disregarding numbers and overcoming strategy through brute force. They were the countries in themselves, and any nations that formed today were unions of such individuals, with the less fortunate rallying around them.
Humans didn't matter. To survive and preserve those they care about, they had to ensure the victory of their demigod, even if that person wasn't a paragon of virtue. It was a bitter irony. Iron Lord cared about the Merchants and his wives, and for their sake, he planned to ensure that his people would learn how to create soulless gods obedient to their commands.
Practical. How to conquer a nation? Take down such individuals, cull them, shatter the false illusion of security, and essentially disarm your foe before lowering the curtain by sending the elite to swoop in. A simple plan, but how to create an opportunity to massacre a demigod? That was where research chimed in. Once a demigod's thought process and habits were known, setting a trap was trivial. And the Reclaimers… they cared for their young.
His idea clear, Iron Lord had contacted the traitor, wrested the tool from the clutches of his rival, and obtained the study sites of the white-furred Purebloods. After carefully calculating their future advance, Iron Lord had chosen one, a perfect spot to deprive the Reclamation Army of one of its best assets. And the Horde had gained a target.
Not everything went as he had expected, but such was the price of working alongside the incompetent. He cast the dying woman on the floor and let his thunder bull feast. Iron Lord and his elite guards hid themselves in an industrial warehouse of this settlement. Built around the Knight Academy, Opul thrived on the Order's generous donations. Located deep within the Reclamation Army's territory, it lacked even a simple palisade.
That morning, hoverbikes had streaked through the streets, disrupting the morning silence with the hiss of pulse rifles. The infantry charged in after them, lobbing explosive munition into the tall complex glistening in the sunlight. Its reinforced stone blocks endured the searing heat, darkening and melting as the hordemen surrounded the place, ensuring that no victim would be able to escape. Against his strict instructions, the khan in charge of the rabble led her soldiers in a headlong assault and was bloodied by the defenders. Iron Lord didn't care about the casualties; the majority of the degenerates belonged to Brood Lord, and any of his own troops had richly earned themselves death.
He wasn't waging war on children, not when Mad Hatter wasn't around to order him to stage another massacre. The white-furred were supposed to undergo brainwashing and join his khaganate.
Phaser had opened a portal and endured an agonizing experience to let a large group into Opul in exchange for forgiveness for his involvement in the would-be assassination. Iron Lord had refused to explain anything to the khan and simply admired the place. Most of the buildings were built in a 'block' style to house large families, but closer to the academy were proper houses and mansions, owned by both the locals and the white-furred. Unfortunately, they had been ransacked.
About a hundred citizens stayed in Opul out of concern for the children, while the rest fled into the forest, for all the good it might have done them. The mayor, a heavily augmented and tanned individual, hurried to Iron Lord, imploring him to spare the kids. Iron Lord let the mayor run his mouth, in case he had something important to say, and observed the events through the visors of his troops. Unmoving, unbreathing, sustained by the life-support systems. Like a true machine.
Enraged by her losses, the khan had bombarded the complex of white stone and chrome, destroying its magnificent statues and royal imagery, reducing many facilities to smoking heaps of collapsed rubble. Ravenous beams burned away barred balconies, and flashes from rocket explosions sent an avalanche of rocks and marble tumbling down. Doors bore traces of dents and notches. A dome housing an observatory had been breached, and a small inferno was now pouring out of it. Vaulted passages between the complex's facilities stood no longer.
Inside the complex, the hordemen battled against the instructors clad in outdated power armors. Iron Lord admired the ingenuity of his opponents, who had managed to separate the invaders by locking the doors, as well as their dedication and efficiency. Silver and white figures almost danced on the walls, elegantly bypassing their opponents' crude shield walls, slashing at joints and cutting sinews, even hacking through bones. In the end, their sacrifice meant little. One after another, they died under a hail of bullets, and their wards were meeting the same fate from the enraged soldiers breaking into classrooms.
The barbarity unleashed touched Opul, introducing its inhabitants to the harsh truth of their shared world. And there was something else, a veneer of another horror touching souls, ever intensifying…
Iron Lord opened his tired biological eyes, stirred by the howls of aggression filling the streets. An axe, bigger than a man's body, flew out of the forest, spinning, slicing through three bondsmen and burying itself in a hoverbike, exploding it and setting nearby soldiers aflame. Their armor saved them from burns and injuries, but they never stood up as two orbs of plasma—the orbs that speared through a dozen trees—finished them off by burning their way through their bodies.
Two massive, super-heavy vehicles stormed into Opul, oversized parodies of the Provincial Army's APCs. Parts of buildings in their path shattered, and an unlucky rider got splattered into a mix of broken steel and innards by their wheels.
Huge figures entered the fray, seemingly blinking into existence with their superior speed. One carried a long spear, and a flick of her wrist sent its blade through several necks as the sword saint, in shining armor, stepped ahead, making sure not a drop of blood stained her cloak. Another Wolfkin walked across the rooftops, firing her revolvers. A single shot sent a web of cracks snaking behind a hordewoman, who looked at the gaping emptiness in her chest in disbelief before collapsing. The bullet itself ricocheted off the ground, killing another soldier before ricocheting off the blade of the spear and slaying the third. Even the sword saint seemed to be startled for a tenth of a second, and then she became a whirlwind of strikes. Smaller copies of their leaders sneaked through the rubble, firing their ugly versions of shotguns or slashing those near them.