"Rocket launchers! Second volley!"
"Aim for the main gate and the heavy firing ports!"
The players halted their advance, dropping to one knee as the rocket gunners rapidly reloaded.
Another eighty rockets soared into the sky.
This time, the targets were much more focused: the iron-reinforced wooden gate of Merida Town, and a few firing bunkers on the wall reinforced with scrap metal.
The explosions were far more concentrated than the first volley.
The main gate was struck by six rockets simultaneously. The heavy wooden planks blew apart into splinters, and the iron latch behind them twisted and warped.
Incredibly, it didn't snap completely. The iron forged from the local black iron ore was genuinely tough.
But the firing bunkers on the wall weren't so lucky.
Rockets flew straight into the firing slits of three heavy bunkers, detonating the ammunition stockpiled inside.
The bunkers exploded from the inside out, launching debris and human remains over ten meters into the air.
"That's about enough."
Tax Bro licked his lips. He tossed the empty rocket launcher aside and pulled the modified heavy stubber shotgun from his back.
He racked the slide, chambering a round.
"Phase Three!"
Tax Bro raised the shotgun, aiming the barrel straight at the crumbling main gate.
"Crimson Strike! Charge!"
"Breach the gap! Kill them all!"
"For Crimson Dawn!!!"
"For Crimson Dawn!!!"
The roars shook the earth.
One thousand two hundred infantrymen surged toward the wall like a tidal wave.
They no longer maintained their rigid phalanxes. Instead, they broke into dozens of assault squads, covering each other as they advanced in alternating bounds.
The gangs on the wall finally recovered from the initial shock.
The remaining four hundred or so men fired desperately with solid-slug rifles and lasguns.
A torrent of bullets and laser beams rained down.
Players were hit and fell.
While their augmented physiques gave them damage resistance far beyond a mortal, they were not completely invulnerable.
Solid-slug rounds striking their crude armor would bounce off if they were lucky. If they were unlucky, the rounds punched through, blossoming into a spray of blood.
The laser beams were even more lethal, burning straight through the armor and into flesh.
But the players did not stop.
If I die, I die. The Chapter offered death compensation anyway, and it wasn't like they were going to get scammed out of it like some players in other games.
Right now, the only thought was: Charge.
The first assault squad reached the main gate.
The squad leader was a player with the ID [Imperial Fists Smash Everything]. He stood 1.91 meters tall, corded with rippling muscle, carrying a massive tower shield fashioned from a thick steel plate.
"Move!"
He roared, tucking himself completely behind the massive shield, and slammed headfirst into the already shattered gate.
CRASH!!!
The crumbling gate finally gave way entirely, collapsing inward along with a chunk of the doorframe.
A thick cloud of dust plumed into the air.
"The breach is open!"
[Imperial Fists Smash Everything] charged out of the dust cloud, his shield pitted with bullets and scorched by lasers.
Behind him, dozens of players poured through the gateway.
The wall was breached.
But just as the players were about to surge into the town, the situation abruptly changed.
"ROOAARRR!!!"
An inhuman, guttural roar echoed from deep within the town.
The sound was low and rasping.
Immediately after, a dozen... things appeared on the streets behind the wall.
They used to be human.
They still were, technically, but not entirely.
They averaged two-and-a-half meters in height, their muscles grotesquely swollen and deformed. Their skin was dark red, covered in a carapace-like layer of crystallized black iron ore.
Their arms were thicker than a normal man's thighs, and their fingers ended in razor-sharp black bone claws.
The most terrifying part was their eyes. They had turned completely into a cloudy yellow, lacking pupils entirely, radiating only the feral viciousness of a beast.
"Irradiated Mutants..."
Tax Bro, leading the charge, felt his pupils contract the moment he saw them.
Mutation in the Warhammer universe came in many forms.
Mutations caused by Chaos corruption. Mutations caused by Warp energy erosion. And... natural mutations occurring at the genetic level due to prolonged exposure to high radiation and heavy pollution.
Merida Town was rich in black iron ore. The heavy metals and radiation associated with the ore were more than enough to cause irreversible mutations in those exposed to it long-term.
These creatures in front of them had clearly been controlled or artificially accelerated into mutation by the gangs using some unknown method.
"Watch out!" Tax Bro roared.
Before he even finished speaking, one of the mutants charged.
Its speed was shocking. In just a few strides, it crossed thirty meters, swinging its bone claws straight at [Imperial Fists Smash Everything]'s face.
[Imperial Fists Smash Everything] raised his shield to block.
CLANG!!!
A deafening clash of metal rang out.
The bone claws gouged three deep grooves into the tower shield, and [Imperial Fists Smash Everything] was sent skidding backward four or five meters, his boots plowing two trenches into the dirt.
"Holy shit..."
He shook his numb arm and looked at the claw marks on his shield, drawing a sharp breath.
The shield was made from steel plating nearly two centimeters thick.
And it almost got torn straight through?
"Focus fire!"
Tax Bro didn't hesitate. He leveled his shotgun at the mutant and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
A spray of 12-gauge buckshot slammed into the mutant's chest.
A chunk of the crystalline carapace shattered, exposing raw, dark red flesh beneath, but the shot missed any vital organs.
The mutant roared in pain, spinning around to lunge at Tax Bro.
Right at that moment.
"Tax Bro, watch out!"
White Scars' voice called out from the flank.
Without anyone noticing, he had led the Crimson Wind mobile troops over the side walls using grappling hooks and ropes, breaching where the defenses were thinnest.
White Scars held a laspistol in each hand, firing rapidly while moving at high speeds.
The laser beams struck the mutant precisely in the eyes.
"RRAAAGGHHH!!!"
The mutant screamed, clutching its face. The eyes were one of the few vulnerable spots not covered by the carapace.
Tax Bro seized the opportunity. He lunged forward, pressing the barrel of his shotgun directly under the mutant's jaw.
BOOM!
The second shot fired.
The blast tore upward through the jaw, blowing off the top half of its head.
The mutant crashed heavily to the ground.
But there were still over a dozen left.