Gate: The Last Chance

by Mr.Kromer20

With the release of an interdimensional entity and a worldwide rebellion, the Combine begins to exhaust its patience towards humanity. Amidst the upheaval, an interdimensional portal emerges in a park in City 17, leading to an attack by the Empire on the city. Unbeknownst to them, this action has resulted in them gifting their own planet to a multidimensional empire.

2. Chapter 1: Defense of City 17

(Author's Note: The prologue turned out much better than I expected, thanks for the support! Chapter 1 reached 28,000 words, which seems like utter madness to me… So I decided to expand the prologue by giving it a little bit of that load from the beginning of Chapter 1. Honestly, I'm excited about the pace it's taking. If you have any comments or something you'd like to mention, I'm happy to read them in the comments section.)

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Location: Earth, South Zone of City 17.

As he watched his forces deploy their siege machinery and advance toward the unknown city, Secundus could not help but feel a pang of gratitude toward Emperor Molt Sol Augustus. Thanks to his strategic foresight, they had been granted greater reinforcements after the initial failure of the campaign at Alnus Hill, where an army of one hundred thousand soldiers and auxiliaries had been sent at first, only to return defeated and with casualties amounting to sixty thousand dead.

"And if we are..." Secundus left the sentence hanging, shaking his head to dispel the doubts that were beginning to take root in his mind. No, he could not allow himself to harbor such uncertainties, not when the glory of the Empire was at stake.

Still, the rumors that had reached his ears about those mysterious foreign soldiers - the "Green People" who now occupied Alnus Hill after launching an overwhelming counterattack - were difficult to ignore entirely. Those stories, narrated by the scant survivors of the initial campaign, described a kind of magic never seen before, powerful and destructive beyond all comprehension. And from the descriptions, it coincided quite closely with the magic employed by the "elite mages" of this new world they had arrived in.

"Hey, General." The arrogant voice of Caius, Secundus' subordinate, interrupted the thread of his thoughts with abrupt brusqueness. "I'll let you know I'm heading to the front. I don't want to miss out on the fun, and these idiots need someone like me to lead them."

Without waiting for a response, Caius spurred his mount to join the troops' advance into the city, his arrogant smile reflecting the excessive confidence he radiated. Secundus simply shook his head, resigned to his subordinate's insolence.

After dismissing Caius with a gesture, the general turned his attention back to the deployment of his vast invading force. As they advanced, the din of siege machinery and marches mingled with the war cries of his troops, creating a macabre symphony that seemed to herald the arrival of a new order in this world - or so he believed.

Squaring his weary shoulders, Secundus took a deep breath of the polluted air surrounding him. It was the scent of conquest, the prelude to a new era of greatness for the Sadera Empire. And he, as the commanding general, would ensure that this victory was crushing and indisputable.

Within seconds, multiple streets in the southern sector of the massive City 17 began to fill with the invading hordes of the Sadera Empire. "Roman" soldiers in glittering armor alongside demihumans broke through the already shattered containment lines, initiating a new wave of massive invasion towards the heart of the European city where the Citadel stood, being held back by Civil Protection blockades.

"Containment zone compromised. All Civil Protection ground units, maximum alert status." Overwatch's calm voice resonated like a balm through the encrypted communication networks. "Invader disturbances identified. Coordinate, suppress, pacify. Air reinforcements en route, estimated time of arrival: 1 minute."

While the imposing Citadel, rising like a monolith in the center of City 17, projected its powerful artificial light beams onto the streets where the enemies advanced unceasingly. Its blinking lights occasionally illuminated one of the fortified blockades where Civil Protection agents were entrenched, ready to face the new threat looming over them.

At one of those blockades, a Metrocop was helping his fallen comrade Jorge deal with an open wound on his leg, the result of a sword strike that had caught him in the earlier battle's fray. Blood stained the pavement in a crimson pool as the agent applied an improvised tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

"Hang in there, Jorge. You'll be alright," John's words resonated through the gas mask, his voice attempting to convey a calm he himself struggled to maintain.

With his gas mask removed, Jorge grunted through gritted teeth, his face covered in soot and sweat reflecting the agony that consumed him. "Shit..." He muttered through a tense voice, fighting to remain conscious as the searing pain threatened to overwhelm him.

After a few frantic seconds of work, John managed to properly apply the tourniquet and gave a reassuring pat on his friend's shoulder. "It's over, just be careful when you walk."

The Argentine nodded with a stiff gesture, his eyes narrowed behind the mask as he evaluated his physical state. John moved to remove his gas mask for a refreshing sip of water, but before he could, the officer in the nearby gun turret alerted them over the radio channels.

"Attention, an avalanche of enemies is approaching our position!" The sentry's voice rang with urgency. "Prepare for combat!"

An elite Metrocop, his uniform slightly more adorned than regular agents, turned toward John and Jorge, evaluating them with a critical gaze. "Hey you, can your friend operate any of the machine guns up there?" He asked, pointing to one of the elevated platforms on the containment wall where a heavy machine gun awaited an operator.

Before John could respond, Jorge stepped forward with his characteristic reckless courage. "I can do it, just point and shoot, easy." He declared confidently as he rose with difficulty, replacing the gas mask over his sweat-drenched face.

"But Jorge, your wound might reopen if you're not careful," John protested, concerned about his Argentine friend's delicate state. His voice carried a mixture of apprehension and respect for the other agent's determination.

Jorge simply shrugged, brushing off the matter with a nonchalant gesture. "Don't be so dramatic, boludo. I've survived worse than this little scratch."

The elite officer nodded approvingly at the wounded Metrocop's attitude. "Very well, then take position on that machine gun. We're going to need every available weapon to contain this wave."

Limping slightly, Jorge made his way to the elevated platform, climbing the metal steps with difficulty but without a single complaint. John watched him go, a mixture of admiration and concern reflected in his body language.

"He'll never change..." He muttered in a tone laden with brotherly affection, shaking his head before turning toward the rest of the agents and assuming his combat position.

The goblin, a sniveling creature with a hooked nose and an ever-present scowl, elbowed its way through the Saderan soldiers, his wrinkled face deformed in a sneering grin. "What's happening? Are you afraid of a few flying beasts?" He mocked, his unpleasant chuckle sounding like the gurgle of a clogged drain.

"Shut up, you disgusting spawn." The orc glared daggers at him, his yellowed fangs bared in a threatening snarl. "If it weren't for the master, I'd have crushed you like the cockroach you are."

Before tensions could escalate into an internal skirmish within the horde, the commanding centurion's voice rose with unmistakable authority, quelling the squabbles. "Silence, all of you! Hold your positions and prepare for combat!"

The centurion, a man whose face bore the marks of countless battles, narrowed his eyes as he assessed the situation critically. There was something about those flying machines that stirred a primal fear within him–an instinctive preservation warning that they faced an unknown and potentially deadly threat.

Suddenly, one of the Hunter Choppers began to move, its rotors slicing through the air with a deafening roar as it advanced toward the invading horde. The Saderan soldiers tensed, gripping their shields and weapons with sweaty hands as they awaited any sign of hostility.

"We have visual contact with hostile forces." The voice of one of the pilots echoed through encrypted communication channels. "Awaiting authorization to engage."

"Authorization granted," Overwatch's instant reply came, devoid of any emotional inflection. "Eliminate all hostile targets without hesitation."

And then hell was unleashed upon them.

A blinding flash lit up the night, followed by an explosion so powerful it made the ground tremble. The pulse turret of the Hunter Chopper had fired, unleashing a barrage of dark energy projectiles that tore through the enemy ranks without mercy.

Bodies began to fall like ragdolls, torn apart and dismembered by the impact of the projectiles. Screams of agony and fury filled the air, mingling with the roars of the orcs and the howls of the more bestial creatures in the horde.

Another blinding flash streaked across the sky as a second Hunter Chopper joined the assault, its weapons tearing through enemy ranks with deadly precision. The dark energy rounds shredded whole battalions without any mercy, as if they were made of paper.

The centurion who managed to escape the fire along with more soldiers and demihumans found themselves fleeing from their aerial predators chasing from above.

"Elf scum, ready your enchanted arrows! Aim for those flying beasts!" The commanding centurion's bellow cut through the chaos, his voice steady despite the visceral fear gripping him.

The high elves and dark elves within the Saderan ranks reacted immediately, drawing their bows and preparing their arrows. With expert hands, they began chanting elven incantations to imbue their projectiles with arcane power.

A supernatural glow emanated from the arrowheads as the elves channeled their ancestral magic. The spells would make these arrows fly faster and truer toward their airborne targets.

"Fire!" The centurion gave the order with a guttural roar, his sword drawn in defiance against the machines threatening his troops.

Bowstrings thrummed in perfect synchronization as a hail of enchanted arrows streaked through the air toward the Hunter Choppers. The elves aimed carefully, trusting in their spells to be strong enough to bring down those fearsome metal beasts.

The whizzing of arrows intertwined with war cries and the relentless roar of the Hunter Choppers' weapons. The battle had reached its zenith, a deadly dance of magical projectiles and dark energy bullets painting the night with blinding flashes.

The first enchanted arrows struck their targets, hitting the armored hulls of the Combine combat helicopters. But to the horror of the elven archers, their magical projectiles achieved little more than scratching the surface before shattering into thousands of pieces, utterly ineffective against the reinforced armor of the Hunter Choppers.

"Impossible!" A dark elf's scream was lost amidst the battle's cacophony. "Our arrows do nothing!"

Despair began to spread through the Saderan ranks as they realized their conventional weapons were useless against those flying machines.

From the Civil Protection bloc, the elite Metrocop and his comrades watched the scene with a blend of satisfaction and disdain. Watching these fantastical creatures battle uselessly against their technological superiority was almost comical.

"Insects," the officer spat disdainfully, reveling in the spectacle of death and destruction unfolding before his eyes. Finally, they would have a momentary respite.

Another thunderous crash shook the battlefield as a third Hunter Chopper joined the attack. Its dark pulse turrets swept through enemy lines, disintegrating armor and bodies alike in a brutal display of firepower.

The screams of agony multiplied, mingling with the roars of rage from orcs and trolls who saw their comrades fall one by one under the relentless assault of the Combine helicopters.

Amidst the chaos, the Saderan centurion frantically evaluated his options. He needed to find a way to bring down those flying machines, or his army would be annihilated without mercy.

Suddenly, a massive projectile streaked through the air, launched from enemy lines in a desperate attempt to shoot down the fearsome Hunter Choppers. An enormous arrow, as thick as a tree trunk, shot out from one of the Saderan ballistae with a terrifying whistle.

"Watch out! Enemy artillery!" The warning shout echoed in the Combine pilots' communications just as the arrow grazed one of the helicopters, forcing it into an emergency evasive maneuver.

"Alpha One here. We have visual contact with enemy primitive artillery." The voice of the Hunter Chopper formation leader sounded unfazed as he focused his targeting systems on two dozen ballistae arrayed in Saderan ranks. "Requesting permission to use rockets."

"Permission granted. Neutralize those threats immediately," Overwatch's instant response came, as emotionless as ever.

Almost simultaneously, rocket launchers on all three Hunter Choppers hissed ominously as they opened. A barrage of explosive projectiles ripped through the sky with a deafening roar, heading directly for the enemy ballistae.

The Saderan soldiers, orcs, and other creatures manning those primitive weapons barely had time to react. A series of explosions rocked the ground as the rockets struck their ranks, obliterating the ballistae in a spray of shrapnel and fire.

Screams of agony and severed limbs mixed with smoke and debris that rose into the air. Those who weren't directly hit by the rockets found themselves trapped in flames and secondary explosions that consumed everything in their path.

"Targets neutralized," Alpha One's pilot reported dryly as he refocused his weapons on remaining enemy hordes still standing. "Proceeding with elimination of remaining hostiles."

The three Hunter Choppers finally eliminated enemy legions in their assigned zone and began flying toward other sectors for aerial support. However, they paused upon hearing a harrowing roar piercing through the night sky.

"Alpha One here. We have contact with hostile aerial forces. They appear to be some kind of winged dragons with riders," announced the formation leader impassively over encrypted channels, as if reporting on weather conditions. "All units prepare for engagement!"

The pilots were unsurprised, having already been briefed about this threat. According to information provided by Metrocops, miniature dragons were easily dispatched with heavy weaponry like pulse turrets. What truly concerned them was the sheer number of these creatures heading their way – not to mention those attacking other Combine forces.

The pilots began firing at the aerial threat once more, turning dragons and their human riders into burning shreds of flesh. Not even the small dragons' scales – larger than an APC – could withstand two seconds under continuous pulse turret fire. The only problem was there were too many.

The Combine helicopters waged a ferocious battle for aerial dominance. Despite their superior firepower, Wyverns' agility gave them an advantage in aerial mobility, dancing through dark energy barrages.

"Target at fifteen meters. Initiating attack," one pilot announced coldly while targeting his turret, downing a small dragon with deadly precision.

The Hunter Chopper, momentarily free from enemies, turned its attention to the Saderan horde advancing on the Civil Protection lines. Contributing to the effort alongside its allied ground forces, the helicopter began focusing its firepower on stemming the enemy onslaught. However, just before opening fire, an impact shook the underside of the aerial vehicle as something tried to force its way through the armor plating, though without any success. The sound of metallic pounding reverberated through the cockpit.

"I need assistance! Enemy on my six!" the pilot exclaimed with a rare note of alarm in his usually calm voice. He maneuvered the helicopter in a desperate attempt to shake off the attack from the stalking Wyvern, narrowly avoiding an imminent collision with the rotor blades.

The Wyvern's claws clung to the aerial vehicle's armored windshield, its rider trying to pierce the armor with a spear that barely managed to scratch the surface. The beast roared furiously as it strained to find a weak point in the Combine craft's hull.

"Alpha Three, I need cover! Got a Wyvern latched onto my canopy and I can't shake it off!" The besieged pilot's voice rang with urgency over the communication channel. He executed another abrupt evasive maneuver, violently shaking the Hunter Chopper in an attempt to dislodge his attacker.

"Watch out, everyone! We've got an element in trouble!" The formation leader, Alpha One, reacted instantly to his beleaguered comrade's call for aid. With a deft movement, he trained his Hunter Chopper's dark pulse turrets on the Wyvern clinging to Alpha Three's canopy.

A crackling burst of energy swept through the night sky, slamming directly into the winged dragon's side. The concentrated blast of darkness sheared through the Wyvern's tough, scaly hide, ripping off one of its razor-sharp limbs in an explosion of blood and charred flesh.

The rider, a Saderan warrior clad in armor evoking ancient Roman styles, staggered atop his wounded mount as one of its talons was literally disintegrated by the impact. His spear trembled in his grip as he struggled to maintain balance and avoid being thrown into the void.

"Graaaahhh..." The Wyvern's agonized roar shook the air as the creature began losing altitude, its shredded wing unable to generate enough lift to keep it aloft. Spiraling in a vortex of pain and death, the winged monster dragged the Hunter Chopper into its descent as it refused to release its grip.

"Damn it, it's taking me down with it!" Alpha Three's voice came muffled by static as his craft was violently shaken by the forced descent. "I repeat, losing altitude! Need urgent assistance!"

"I have it in my sights!" The response came from Alpha Two, the third member of the formation. His turrets hummed to lethal life, ready to unleash their full payload on the dying Wyvern.

A barrage of dark projectiles streaked through the air, slamming directly into the winged beast's scaly torso. The blasts shredded what remained of its body, turning the Wyvern and its rider into a rain of charred remains plummeting into the void.

Alpha Three's Hunter Chopper lurched violently as the dragon's dead talons finally released their grip. Free from its aggressor, the pilot managed to regain control of his craft with frantic maneuvering, avoiding crashing into the ground by mere inches.

"Thanks for the save..." Alpha Three's voice resonated with evident relief. "For a moment there, I thought I was going to end up as a smear on the pavement."

"Don't mention it, buddy," Alpha One responded dryly. "Stay sharp, there are still plenty more of those things flying around."

Indeed, the battle for aerial dominance raged on with renewed intensity. Scores of Wyverns swarmed through the skies like a plague of miniature dragons, their riders brandishing spears as they dove towards the Combine helicopters.

Despite their compact size, the winged dragons proved formidable adversaries. Their agility and maneuverability allowed them to evade the turrets' streams with relative ease, closing in dangerously on the Hunter Choppers' hulls.

"I've got two on my tail! Can't shake them off!" Alpha Two's desperate shout rang over the channels as two Wyverns doggedly pursued him, their claws scraping uselessly against his craft's armor.

Just as the Hunter Chopper pilots began to feel overwhelmed by the Wyverns' relentless onslaught, a familiar metallic, impassive voice resonated through the encrypted channels.

"Airwatch has arrived to provide support. Cooperate and pacify the city's southern sector. Eliminate any trace of invasive activity." The order came terse and inflection-free from Overwatch, but its meaning was unmistakable.

Almost instantaneously, a cybernetic roar tore through the skies as the first Gunships emerged from the upper levels of the Citadel. These biomechanical beasts, half machine, half living creature, soared through the heavens with a lethal grace that even eclipsed the agile Wyverns.

Two of the Gunships wasted no time joining the fray. With a bellow that shook the clouds, they opened fire on the winged dragons harassing one of the Hunter Choppers. Their dark pulse cannons swept through the air, reducing the Wyverns and their riders to shreds of scorched flesh plummeting into the void.

"Damn them!" The anguished scream of a human rider was choked off as he disintegrated under the Gunships' concentrated fire. He didn't even have time to raise his spear before turning to ashes.

The arrival of the fearsome biomechanical craft changed the course of the battle drastically. Where the Wyverns had enjoyed a tactical advantage thanks to their agility, they now found themselves outmatched by the cold efficiency of the Combine Gunships.

The synthetic machines moved with an inhuman grace, their movements calculated with logic-defying precision. Their reaction speed was unmatched, anticipating every evasive maneuver from the winged dragons and responding with a hail of lethal projectiles.

The Saderan riders, accustomed to fighting flesh-and-blood foes, found themselves utterly outmatched. Their cries of fury turned to shrieks of terror as the Gunships began decimating their ranks with chilling efficiency.

"Pull back! Those things are massacring us!" The voice of a Wyvern rider captain rang through the air above the battle's din, thick with desperation.

But his orders fell on deaf ears as a fresh wave of Gunships emerged from the Citadel to join the carnage, along with those freed from clearing the northern sector's final Resistance holdout.

The biomechanical craft moved in perfectly coordinated formations, like a hive mind acting with a single purpose: to annihilate the invading threat. Their dark plasma cannons traced incandescent lines through the air as they swept the skies, rendering the Wyverns easy targets.

Even the larger dragons, those whose scales were thick enough to shrug off moderately powerful spells from any above-average mage, came apart like butter under the Gunships' relentless assault. No natural armor was a match for those cutting-edge weapons' destructive power.

Amidst the chaos, the Hunter Choppers regrouped and resumed their assault on the enemy's ground forces. Now, with the aerial threat being neutralized thanks to the Gunships' intervention, they could focus their firepower on crushing any remaining resistance still standing.

The dark pulse turrets swept through the streets without mercy, reducing Saderan soldiers and fantasy creatures to shredded gore. Nothing could withstand the relentless advance of those Combine-tech weapons once unleashed at full power.

Some of these metallic aerial hunters took strategic positions above the imperial forces, releasing an seemingly endless succession of explosive mines raining down on the opponents, helping eliminate entire legions from the seemingly infinite army of the invading forces at the metrcop blockades.

The slaughter in the skies raged on relentlessly, turning the night into a hell of fire and steel. The Saderan soldiers who managed to escape the initial massacre at the hands of the Hunter Choppers forgot their conquest objectives entirely. Even their deep-rooted racism against demihumans took a distant back seat once the Gunships joined the lethal dance unfolding in the heights.

If the Combine combat helicopters had seemed like nightmarish monsters before, the Gunships were aerial demons straight out of Hardy's very abyss - the dark deity ruling the underworld according to Saderan beliefs. Those biomechanical beasts, half machine and half living creature, soared through the skies with a lethal grace that even surpassed the agile Wyverns.

Some of the Gunships relentlessly pursued the fleeing winged dragons, hounding them mercilessly with their dark pulse weapons. The Saderan riders, once proud warriors, became easy targets as their mounts were shredded in mid-flight.

"By all the gods!" A soldier's scream was drowned out by the battle's din as his Wyvern disintegrated under a Gunship's barrage. His body plummeted into the void amid smoldering ruins, joining the ever-growing pile of charred corpses.

The demihumans, those beings forced to fight in the Empire's name despite their reluctance, were overwhelmed by an almost maddening urge to flee. Ogres, trolls, and minotaurs alike roared in terror at witnessing the extermination unfolding before their eyes, utterly forgetting their devotion to the imperial cause.

Even the battle-hardened bunny warriors trembled in fear at the sight of the Gunships. Those nightmarish creatures seemed to invoke the demihumans' deepest fears, bringing to mind ancestral legends of winged demons sowing destruction in their wake.

"We have to retreat! We cannot win, this is the work of some god of this world!" A green-skinned orc howled, his voice distorted by panic – the same panic that allowed him a rare moment of intelligent thought. In his primitive mind, only the dark powers of a god of violence and war could have birthed such abominations.

"Silence, filthy beast!" The centurion commanding that Saderan legion glared at him, though his weathered face was taut with fear. "Hold your positions or I'll have you executed for cowardice!"

But even the threat of summary execution did little to quell the cries of terror rising through the invading ranks. The spectacle of the Wyverns being massacred in the air had utterly shattered the troops' morale, leaving them on the brink of total rout.

Amidst the chaos, Secundus, the general in charge of the conquest campaign, huddled with his magical escorts in one of the few alleys the Gunships had yet to sweep with their devastating offensive. The once proud military leader cut a pitiful figure, his golden armor dented and soiled, his white steed lying lifeless at his feet.

"They told me we were going to conquer a world of savages...not face hell itself!" Secundus yelled in a trembling voice, his gauntleted hand clutching his chest as he fought to stave off an impending panic attack.

Around him, the few soldiers and demihumans who managed to find refuge in that alley trembled in fear, fervently praying to every deity they knew. Elves, cat girls and bunny warriors huddled together, forgetting their racial differences in the face of the danger stalking them from above.

Even the three elite mages comprising Secundus' personal escort seemed reluctant to abandon their hiding spot. The irrational terror those demonic machines instilled in them far outweighed any training or discipline they might have received.

"I-I beg the gods' forgiveness..." one of the mages stammered, his voice cracking with fear. "Ral'Lu, Elange, Miritta...shield me from these abominations!"

Secundus barely heard him, too consumed by his own whirlwind of emotions to pay heed to his subordinates' pleas. His mind teetered on the brink of collapse, unable to process the nightmare he was living.

"H-How is this possible?" The military leader trembled violently, his armor clanking as his entire body shook uncontrollably. "How did those...masked mages manage to tame such beasts?"

His eyes, which at the start of the campaign had been as hard and determined as newly forged steel, were now wide with panic. Dilated pupils stared in horror at the grotesque, writhing shadows the Gunships cast across the alley's mouth, twisting like mocking demons in the surrounding flames' light.

"First there were those metal monsters..." Secundus swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry from the irrational fear gripping him. His mind replayed the horrors they'd witnessed since crossing the interdimensional Gate into this cursed world. "Capable of spitting explosive lances with a terrifying roar..."

A shudder ran through his body as he recalled the deafening thunder of Combine rockets impacting the Saderan ranks, disintegrating men and demihumans alike in a hail of searing shrapnel. Those weapons of immense power had sown chaos and death even before the fearsome Hunter Choppers made their appearance in this damned land's skies.

"T-Then those flying monsters came..." Secundus brought a trembling, gauntleted hand to his brow, as if trying to physically swat away those terrifying images from his tormented mind. "Masses of black steel that spewed dark fire from their maws..."

Visions of the Hunter Choppers sweeping the skies with their dark pulse turrets assailed him with chilling clarity. He could hear the agonized screams of his soldiers being disintegrated by those hellish weapons with painful sharpness, could feel the searing heat of the explosions caressing his face with tongues of ethereal flame...

"And now...now those demons have appeared!" Secundus' voice cracked into a shrill shriek, rife with sheer panic. His entire body convulsed with violent tremors, teeth chattering in an uncontrolled tic. "Those...winged things that are neither machine nor beast!"

His eyes fixed on the alley's entrance like two bottomless pits, beholding with indescribable horror the grotesque, writhing shadows the Gunships cast upon the cracked walls. Those nightmare creatures seemed to mock him with their graceful, lethal movements, dancing to a tune only they could perceive amidst the battle's thunderous din.

"What kind of world is this?" The general brought his gauntleted hands to his helmet, teetering on the brink of madness. Tears of terror threatened to spill from his eyes as he tore out clumps of graying hair. "What dark power governs these accursed lands? I would rather face a thousand apostles than these abominations!"

In his desperation, Secundus found himself longing for the tranquility of his Falmart homeland with an almost physical ache. The memory of his native world's green fields and clear skies assailed him like a fleeting vision, making him yearn with every fiber of his being to return to those simpler, more peaceful days.

"Merciful gods..." he pleaded in a broken whisper, his voice little more than a murmur drowned out by the battle's thunderous roar raging in the streets. "Take me back to Falmart...away from this endless nightmare!"

Secundus clamped his hands over his ears, refusing to listen any further to the nearby explosions and the screams of agony that fell abruptly silent an instant later. The demonic roar of Gunships passing overhead where he huddled seemed to mock his prayers, as if those hellish creatures could smell his terror.

Suddenly, a horrific thought struck the Saderan general with the force of a battering ram. "Wait...and Caius? He's likely dead by now..." he whispered, his voice choked with guilt and anguish.

Memories of his young, arrogant subordinate – a promising centurion with a brilliant future – assailed him all at once. Caius had insisted on marching at the head of the invading vanguard, eager to prove his worth in battle. Now, it was highly likely his life had been snuffed out by those winged devils from the abyss.

"If he did survive...how will I explain this to his mother and father?" Secundus' body shuddered at the terrifying prospect. How could he look into Caius' parents' eyes and tell them their son had perished in this suicidal endeavor? How could he explain the abominations they had faced, creatures that defied all logic and reason?

A fresh roar echoed in the distance, eliciting an involuntary flinch from the terrorized general. It was then that he realized he was not alone in his misery. Looking up, he found himself met with the equally terrified faces of the few subordinates who had managed to find refuge in this seemingly forgotten alley.

His magical escorts – proud sorcerers capable of rending the very earth with their arcane arts – huddled in a corner like small children. Some prayed in hushed tones to every deity they knew, begging the protection of Ral.

Meanwhile, at one of the Civil Protection blockades in the southern sector of City 17 covering a street from right and left, the officers found themselves watching the massacre with attentive eyes. Some peered over the edges of the tall, mechanical walls – wide enough to allow a man to pass – while others took positions in the watchtower connected to the blockade, all gazing upon the carnage the Hunter Choppers and Gunships unleashed with satisfaction. Many had even removed their gas masks to eat or drink something.

"Hey, Jorge... I'm just now realizing something," John's voice broke the silence, addressing his comrade seated on the ground as he adjusted the improvised tourniquet applied to the leg wound.

"Whatcha realizing, kid? Spill it," Jorge responded without looking up from his task, taking a nonchalant swig from his water bottle, taking advantage of the respite afforded by the aerial reinforcements' arrival.

"If the Gunships are here, that means th–" Before John could finish his sentence, the sound of a heavy, coordinated march caught the attention of both officers, as well as all their comrades stationed at the blockade.

A series of metallic, resonant footsteps approached from the northern street, growing ever closer. Before the agents could turn to identify the source of that noise, Overwatch's impersonal yet strangely elated voice echoed through their encrypted communication channels.

"Civil Protection teams who have held the southern blockade against the invaders..." The artificial intelligence paused almost dramatically before continuing. "Your services and unwavering resilience are greatly appreciated."

Overwatch's words rang with an almost jovial tone, as unusual for her as a sincere commendation toward the occupation forces. A wave of murmurs rippled through the officers' ranks at hearing those words of acknowledgment.

"Overwatch troops have finally arrived." The AI's voice resumed its usual inflection-free cadence. "Open the blockades immediately. They will handle eliminating the invasion and any remaining traces of hostile activity completely."

Following Overwatch's words, the Civil Protection officers turned almost in unison toward the north, their eyes beholding with awe the formation advancing relentlessly down the cleared street.

An endless column of transhuman soldiers marched in perfect synchronicity, their steps marking an inexorable rhythm that resonated powerfully through the cracked pavement. Those warriors, enhanced by cybernetic technology, advanced with machine-like precision, their movements devoid of any remaining hint of humanity – except for the grunts, though they strived to emulate their comrades.

These ranks were being led by platoons of elite soldiers at the head, their red ocular visors causing the agents to immediately recognize them.

Behind them, a retinue of Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) trundled forth with equal parsimony, their metallic hulls glinting with sinister sheen under the Citadel's spotlights. And soaring over the streets, a fresh wave of Gunships emerged from the central edifice's upper levels, their biomechanical hums joining the symphony of steel and death resonating through the besieged city.

But what truly captured the officers' gazes were the Striders – those imposing fifteen-meter-tall tripods that carved their path forward with majestic slowness. Each of their steps made the ground tremble, as if the very earth quaked before the presence of those colossal, synthetic walking war machines.

"This time, nothing will be left of those second-rate Roman copies!" Jorge's exclamation rang out over the din, his eyes wide as he beheld the display of military might unfolding before him.

John simply nodded, too awestruck to find adequate words. The arrival of the Overwatch forces marked the endgame for the already shattered Saderan invasion.

As the column of augmented soldiers continued advancing, a fleet of Dropships appeared in the night sky. Those biomechanical craft, shaped like massive metallic insects, ferried fresh batches of APCs, Striders, and even sealed containers that undoubtedly harbored more Overwatch troops in their clutching talons.

Without further ado, the Metrocops swiftly descended from the wall's edges. The elite officer keyed a code into one of the computers, causing the mechanical barriers to begin opening like towering gates, allowing the transhuman forces unfettered passage into the southern sector.

They were not alone; at the other blockades, the same was happening, with their respective Metrocops opening their defenses for the Overwatch forces to handle the root issue.

On one of the still intact streets in the southern sector of City 17, Caius was riding at full gallop astride his black steed. His once shiny black armor was now severely battered and dented from the ravages of combat.

Behind him, a squad of Saderian knights followed on foot, straining to keep up with the frantic pace set by their leader. Those warriors, hardened by countless battles, were in deplorable conditions. Their armors were slashed and stained with soot or what could very well be dried blood. Their faces contorted with exhaustion and the visceral fear that haunted them.

"Keep running, you useless lot!" Caius's order echoed furiously down the street illuminated by the flames of ruined buildings. The young centurion advanced at a full gallop on his black mount, his dented armor caked in soot as testament to the battles he had fought.

"Hurry up, worthless scum!" Caius turned his head to glare at the stragglers, his youthful face twisted into a scowl of disdain toward a specific soldier. "Do you want those beasts to find us here?"

A middle-aged soldier, whose armor was particularly shattered, raised his head with effort. "But... centurion..." He gasped, his voice hoarse from fatigue. "We've been... fleeing for hours... Don't you think we should..."

"Stop?" Caius interrupted him with a mocking snort. "Is that what you want, coward? To surrender to those masked mages and their metal beasts?"

The young centurion straightened up in his saddle, his arrogance barely diminished by his deplorable state. "We are Saderian warriors! Sons of Emroy, lord of war! We will not bow to anyone!"

His burning gaze fell upon the small group of legionnaires as his steed advanced at a slower pace. "We will find more of our brethren and counter-attack. We'll teach those coward mages that we, sons of the legions, do not surrender so easily."

"But centurion..." Another soldier dared to raise his voice, his tone laden with uncertainty. "Those beasts... We've never seen such abominations before. Not even our enchanted arrows could harm them..."

"Are you all just a flock of frightened chickens?" Caius silenced him with a furious roar. "Those things are nothing but tricks of black magic! They were surely created by some heretic warlock in the service of those cowardly mages!"

The centurion clenched his gauntleted fists, his eyes shining with defiant determination. "If they managed to summon such abominations, it only shows how desperate they are. They are afraid to face us in fair battle, that's why they resort to those demonic contraptions!"

"But centurion..." The voice of another legionnaire sounded trembling, laden with barely contained fear. "Those things... They didn't seem like magic tricks. They were... They were real demons. Beasts from Hardy's very underworld!"

"Silence, blasphemous heretic!" Caius's shout rang with authority down the deserted street. "How dare you insult our gods like that? Those beasts are nothing more than creations of renegade mages, not demons from the underworld!"

The young centurion dug his heels into his mount's flanks once more, urging it to move at a faster pace. "Enough pointless chatter! We will keep moving until we find the rest of our forces. And then we'll show those cowards the true power of the Saderian legions!"

With those defiant words, Caius hurried down the rubble and charred corpse-littered streets. His men followed in silence, too exhausted and terrified to argue further.

However, luck seemed to have completely abandoned them that night. In his haste and distraction, Caius failed to notice the small blue light centering on his horse's head until it was too late.

In the blink of an eye, a blinding flash streaked down the street when the black steed was struck by a dark energy beam. The poor animal whinnied in agony before collapsing, throwing its rider in a tangle of limbs and armor.

"What the hell...?" Caius's cry of surprise was drowned out by the thunderous boom of another shot ringing out into the night.

One of the legionnaires following him dropped instantly, his skull utterly shattered when a new burst of enemy fire struck him. The poor man didn't even have time to scream as his life was snuffed out so abruptly.

"Enemy archers! Take cover!" Caius rolled along the ground, frantically seeking shelter behind the rubble. His men reacted similarly, scattering in an attempt to become harder targets.

However, the centurion did not escape completely unscathed. As he ran towards a still standing wall, trying to get away from the line of fire, a new volley struck one of his shoulders. The impact made him roll on the ground once more, wrenching a cry of pain from his throat.

"They got me...! The bastards got me!" Caius clutched his wounded shoulder with his free hand, teeth gritted in an agonized grimace. Through the haze of pain, he caught sight of the sniper's silhouette lurking amidst the ruins of a nearby building.

Caius failed to see his assailant clearly, the surrounding flames barely managing to dispel the nocturnal shadows enveloping the window of the building from where his attacker lurked. The only thing he glimpsed were two eerily glowing blue dots, two eyes watching him steadily without betraying the slightest emotion.

A new shot rang out on the street, eliciting a choked cry from one of the accompanying legionnaires. The poor man dropped instantly, his useless shield providing no protection against the impact that had utterly shattered his skull.

With the faint muzzle flash of the enemy's arcane weapon, Caius managed a better glimpse of his attacker's appearance, albeit only a fleeting image. Jet black arms protruded from the window, grasping what seemed to be an elongated and deadly tube.

More detonations followed from different directions, sowing death among the stragglers of his small group. As he turned, the terrified centurion caught sight of more of those glowing blue eyes peering from the ruins, like lurking demons ready to massacre them all.

"We have to flee! We can't reach those damned archers!" Caius's desperate bellow resonated into the night as he tried to order his troops to retreat down the back street, the only path that seemed free of enemies.

But just as he was about to give the order to fall back, one of the Combine snipers discharged his weapon against a small pile of abandoned barrels in a corner. The impact triggered an explosion that spread like a raging wildfire, erecting a curtain of searing flames cutting them off from their only escape route.

A sepulchral silence fell over the street, broken only by the crackling of the newly ignited flames. Caius and his men stood paralyzed, an ancestral chill running down their spines when an eerie noise tore through the air beyond the fire wall.

Heavy, resonant footsteps, like those of a nightmare creature, approached with an inexorable rhythm. Suddenly, a three-legged figure emerged from the flames, striding through them as if they were nothing but a curtain of smoke. Each of its steps made the ground tremble, its fifteen meters of height casting an ominous shadow over the terrified Saderian soldiers.

The Strider, an imposing Combine walker, advanced with majestic slowness as its warp cannon began charging up. A faint blue light ignited within the barrel of the weapon, causing subtle visual distortions in the surrounding air. The dark energy grew increasingly concentrated in that cannon, as if the Strider were gathering the power of a thunderbolt inside.

To Caius and his men's eyes, that metallic three-legged creature was merely another magic trick of the enemy mages, was it not? Their minds tried denying the reality, but the monster's appearance did nothing to help. A being whose form defied reason, with its smooth brown armored body and limbs covered in razor-sharp spines.

But what truly chilled the blood in the Saderians' veins was the sound the synthetic being began emitting. A piercing cybernetic wail, like the lament of a thousand tortured souls, resonated powerfully as the Strider prepared to unleash its destructive might.

The warriors of the Empire, men hardened by hundreds of battles, shuddered in terror at that display. Not even the most fearsome beasts they had faced in the forests of Falmart compared to this metallic spawn of flickering eyes.

"Wha... What kind of monster is that?" A legionnaire's trembling whisper broke the silence, barely audible over the Strider's biomechanical roars.

"It's... it's a demon..." Another soldier shrank against the nearest wall, his face a mask of primal fear. "A demon from Hardy's hells! It will massacre us all!"

"Silence, you cowards!" Caius's roar echoed with desperation, trying to cling to the last remnants of his arrogance. "They're just more of those damned mages' tricks!"

But even as he uttered those defiant words, the young centurion felt his legs trembling uncontrollably. The terror that Strider instilled in him went beyond any previous experience, surpassing even the tales of supernatural horrors that bards narrated by the campfires.

This was a visceral, atavistic fear that transported him back to the days when man was still prey in the food chain. A creature of such size and destructive power awoke in Caius the most primitive instincts of flight and survival.

The Strider continued its inexorable, slow advance which was even more terrifying. Its warp cannon was almost at maximum charge, the dark energy concentrating into an ever smaller and denser point. Suddenly, a blue beam projected from the muzzle of the weapon, aiming directly at the Saderian soldiers.

"Get away! That thing is going to attack!" Caius's blood-curdling scream rang out into the night, laden with pure terror. But it was too late.

With a thunderous boom capable of shaking the foundations of the surrounding buildings, the Strider discharged its warp cannon in a single, immeasurable burst of dark energy. The beam plunged towards the legionnaires with the force of a meteor, vaporizing everything in its path in an explosion that rent the air and set the ruins ablaze with its brilliance.

"By the gods!" Caius's wail was lost amidst the thunderous roar as the concentrated blast of darkness swept the streets. Within seconds, all that remained of his men were charred smears on the pavement along with their armor, withered by the searing heat.

The young centurion was flung backwards by the force of the detonation, his back slamming violently against the debris of a crumbled wall. A scream of agony burst from his throat as splinters dug into his flesh, shredding his armor as if it were paper.

Caius found himself engulfed in a whirlwind of confusion and agony, the earth seeming to spin around him as he struggled to focus his sight. He coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of blood as he tried to get on all fours. His ears rang with a deafening pitch, the remnants of the impact's thunderclap still echoing in his skull.

Through the haze of pain, the Saderian centurion managed to make out the towering silhouette of the Strider, that nightmarish machine advancing relentlessly amidst the flames. The sight of that creature, with its flickering eyes and armored body, was enough for fear to take complete hold of his being.

"No... It cannot be..." Caius dragged himself across the ground in a frantic attempt to escape, his gauntleted hands leaving a trail of blood on the pavement. "That... That was no mage's work..."

The reality of what he had just witnessed bore down on him like a leaden weight. That explosion, that unbridled destructive power, could not have been conjured by human or demihuman means. Not even the spells of the mightiest mages were capable of such devastation.

"That... That thing is no mage's creation..." The Saderian centurion shuddered violently, his entire body wracked by uncontrollable tremors. "It's... It's a true demon... A creature from the underworld itself!"

In his troubled mind, the teachings of his faith began to take on a terrifying new meaning. All the stories he had heard as a child about Hardy's hells and their demonic legions seemed to take shape before his very eyes.

That tripod of steel was undoubtedly one of those infernal creatures, a nightmare being made real whose mere visual contact was enough to instill the most primal terror in a man's heart.

"Why... Why were we sent to this accursed world?" Caius clung to the ground with clenched fingers, his gaze lost in the surrounding flames. "We should have listened... We should have fled instead of defying the lords of this hell..."

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when a new blue flash ripped through the night, projected from the Strider's warp cannon. The beam aimed directly at him with terrifying precision, as if the demonic machine had perceived his movements despite the rubble concealing him.

"No... No, please!" A desperate squeal burst from Caius's throat as he realized his end had come. With what little strength he had left, he dragged himself in a futile attempt to escape, leaving a longer trail of blood in his wake.

But the Strider was relentless, its inexorable advance continuing while charging up for its coup de grace. The dark energy accumulated once more in the muzzle of the cannon, the visual distortions around it growing ever more intense.

In those final moments, Caius's mind was assailed by memories of his life. Fleeting images of his childhood in Falmart, of his training as a soldier, of his dreams of glory that now faded into nothingness...

It was then that a name flashed across his thoughts in a burst of agony: his mother. The woman who had given him life and fought so hard for his future, now faced with utter despair upon learning of his death in this suicidal enterprise.

"Mother... I'm sorry..." The words came out in a choked whisper as the Strider finished charging its weapon. A solitary tear slid down Caius's cheek as the reality of his imminent demise struck him with full force.

The centurion squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to behold the impending horror. He awaited the impact with gritted teeth, his mind praying to every god he knew in a final, desperate act of faith.

The ensuing thunderclap was so deafening it seemed to tear the foundations of the neighborhood asunder. A new blast of dark energy swept the street, vaporizing the debris surrounding Caius and turning it into smoke or outright nothingness.

But for the dying centurion, that coup de grace never reached his body. The last thing he felt were the shockwaves rattling his bones and the searing heat caressing his skin like the flames of hell itself, disintegrating his body, atom by atom.

Then, all faded into absolute darkness as his consciousness finally flickered out, releasing him from the suffering that invasion of the demons' realm had caused him.

With the presence of the Strider and snipers, it was clear that Overwatch forces had already arrived and dispersed throughout the southern sectors to carry out their task: ruthlessly hunt down and kill any surviving enemy that had managed to evade the aerial units.

Within moments, the streets briefly occupied by the Saderians and their demihuman slaves began filling with transhuman soldiers, Striders and APCs.

The sound of their boots rang out in an implacable cadence, crushing rubble underfoot as they took up strategic positions at key points before moving to eradicate the invaders.

"Echo One, defensive formation!" The order came distorted by voice modulators, but its meaning was unmistakable.

A squad of Combine Grunts rapidly deployed, seeking cover behind the still-standing walls to begin laying down suppressing fire toward the mass of enemies.

"Vanguard, advance!" This time it was an Ordinal speaking, his voice sounding almost like a robotic growl. "Wallhammers, lay down heavy fire!"

Without delay, a group of Wallhammers moved forward with their heavy weapons raised, squeezing their triggers. The shotgun pellets scattered and dispatched more invaders.

"Enemy contact, three o'clock!" One of the Grunts unleashed a burst from his pulse rifle, aiming towards an alley where a group of dwarves attempted to flee. "Fire at will!"

The dark energy bursts swept the alleyway without mercy, turning the dwarves into bullet-riddled corpses that crumpled onto the sidewalk. Their agonized screams barely had time to resonate before being silenced by the transhuman's lethal precision.

"Keep pushing forward!" The Ordinal remained unfazed by the carnage, his voice sounding almost bored. "Neutralize any resistance you find!"

As the Grunts and Wallhammers advanced down the street, a thunderous boom shook the buildings when one of the patrolling Striders opened fire on a group of Saderians attempting to mount a defense. The dark energy beam scythed through their ranks without pity, vaporizing armor and bodies in a grotesque display of destructive power.

"For the Emperor!" The terrified scream of one of the surviving legionnaires rang out over the thunderclap. "What manner of demons are these?"

"Silence and hold your positions, coward!" The "Roman" officer in command tried to instill some discipline, although his voice betrayed the same visceral fear. "Lancers, take aim with your..."

But before he could finish his order, a new barrage of fire from a Combine Suppressor swept through their ranks from an elevated position. The dark pulse machinegun shredded several lancers, including the officer, turning their screams into mere choked echoes.

"Hostiles neutralized." The Suppressor's distorted voice rang out with utter emotionless flatness. "Advancing to next objective."

As they pushed through the city streets, the Combine forces encountered sporadic pockets of resistance formed by straggling groups of Saderians and demihumans, or swarms of enemies that were simply erased by combined air and ground fire support.

None managed to mount an effective defense against the relentless advance of Earth's garrison forces.

In a nearby alley, a group of medusan humanoids and a rabbit warrior girl had taken shelter behind a makeshift barricade, having fled from their main group after they were slaughtered by the Combine soldiers. The medusas, their serpentine hair twitching with fear, huddled against the wall in a vain attempt to remain unnoticed.

Their clawed hands gripped the knives so tightly that their knuckles turned white, as they waited in a silence broken only by their ragged breaths and the occasional hiss of their reptilian tresses. They prayed silently to every deity they knew, imploring not to be found.

But to their misfortune, one of them was shoved back several meters by the impact of a shotgun blast, her body tracing a grotesque arc in the air before slamming against the opposite wall. Green blood spattered the walls of the alley as the projectile tore through her torso, ripping off her upper half in a grisly display of violence.

The medusa's body crumpled with a gurgling thud, a warm pool beginning to form around her shredded remains as the life drained from her eyes.

"Sister!" The gut-wrenching scream of one of the surviving medusas resonated through the alleyway, laden with anguish. Her mouth twisted into a terrifying grimace as she watched in horror as the remains of her blood sister slowly bled out onto the ground.

The rest of the demihumans stared wide-eyed at where the attack had come from, swallowing hard as they made out the towering figure approaching.

A lone Wallhammer strode into the alley, his heavy weapon trained on them. The transhuman soldier advanced with calculated, precise steps, his gait devoid of any hesitation. His imposing appearance vaguely resembled that of the "masked mages" they had witnessed at the Portal, only this one carried a far larger "metal wand", almost the size of a bastard sword.

Moreover, his body was encased in what appeared to be heavy, reinforced armor, lending him an even more menacing and terrifying aspect. Each of his movements seemed calibrated with the precision of a clockwork mechanism, devoid of any trace of humanity.

The rabbit warrior girl, reacting with the swiftness of her kind, tightly gripped her sword and leapt towards the Wallhammer in an attempt to attack him. Her legs coiled with the grace of a gazelle as she built momentum, her body tracing a perfect arc as she propelled herself towards her target.

The transhuman fired once more, but the reinforced pellets merely whistled through the air as the rabbit girl managed to evade them with an almost hypnotic weaving of her lithe frame. Executing a mid-air somersault, the demihuman managed to land a powerful kick with all her might squarely onto the Wallhammer's shoulder.

The impact was so powerful that the seams of the rabbit girl's suit creaked from the force of the blow. Her muscles tensed like springs as she channeled the kinetic energy of her leap into that demolishing kick, enough to fell a regular human.

But to her surprise, the Wallhammer barely seemed fazed by the strike. The transhuman merely dipped his shoulder where the pauldron rested, his stance as unmoving as a steel statue. The rabbit warrior stood dumbfounded, having failed to elicit so much as a pained grunt or even the slightest involuntary wince of discomfort.

Even an orc, those green-skinned brutes whose brutality was only matched by their stupidity, would have howled in agony from a kick of that magnitude. But this strange being, whether mage or demon, remained utterly impassive, as if the blow had been little more than a gentle breeze.

That momentary distraction was all the Wallhammer needed to land a powerful punch into the demihuman's midsection with his free arm. His artificially-enhanced muscles tensed as he unleashed that pile-driver of a strike, the kinetic force flowing through his limb like a steel battering ram.

The impact whiplashed the rabbit warrior like a ragdoll, wrenching a strangled gurgle from her throat as the air was driven from her lungs. A thin trickle of blood seeped from her lips as her body was flung backwards by the sheer brute force of the blow, crashing to the ground with a dull thud.

But before the Wallhammer could bring his shotgun to bear on her, all three medusas sprang onto his back with a furious hiss. Their serpentine bodies coiled around the transhuman like enraged snakes, managing to deflect his shot that had been aimed at the downed rabbit warrior.

The three medusas managed to mount the transhuman's back while hissing angrily, their humanoid bodies and writhing serpent hair and limbs snaring around his neck and arms in an attempt to immobilize him. Their serpent tresses thrashed violently, some of the tiny heads opening in menacing snarls as they sought vulnerable spots to bite.

One of the medusas, the one who had witnessed her sister's demise, managed to clamber up to the back of the Wallhammer's neck. With a roar of pent-up rage, she drove her knife into the transhuman's right eye, the blade punching through the blue lens and sinking into the ocular cavity with a wet, unpleasant squelch.

A trickle of blood began oozing from the stabbed eyehole, seeping down the Wallhammer's gas mask in a crimson rivulet. But to the demihumans' horror, the Combine soldier showed no sign of pain or discomfort whatsoever. Not a strangled groan, not even an involuntary wince. Nothing to betray the agony any living being would have felt from such a wound.

"Monster!" The scream of one of the medusas rang out, a mixture of fear and disbelief. Her face twisted into a mask of terror as she realized they were facing something that defied the natural laws. "What manner of creature are you that feels no pain?"

The scene of the Wallhammer mercilessly massacring that group of demihumans repeated itself time and again on the streets of City 17, only this time with different classes of Overwatch soldiers carrying out the slaughter.

The Striders, those colossal three-legged walking machines that seemed to defy the laws of physics, advanced with strides that shook the foundations of surrounding buildings. Each of their movements was an exhibition of power and mechanical precision taken to the extreme.

With a blood-curdling roar, the Striders opened fire against the enemy hordes attempting to regroup. Their warp cannons, weapons of immeasurable might, scythed through neighborhoods and plazas with blasts of dark energy capable of vaporizing everything in their path.

Not even the sturdiest structures could withstand the impact of those concentrated beams. Walls melted like butter before the searing heat, leaving only smoldering rubble and disintegrated bodies in their wake.

Those invaders from Falmart, whose primitive minds still adhered to archaic Roman-era codes, found themselves facing true nightmarish demons. The Saderian troops and demihumans who had managed to survive the initial waves of the invasion were slaughtered without mercy or contemplation.

Suppressors stationed in the heights opened fire with their dark pulse machineguns, shredding legionnaires into tattered chunks of meat within seconds. The agonized screams barely had time to resonate before being silenced by the lethal precision of those demonic weapons.

"Aaagghh!" A Saderian soldier's wail rang out into the night as his body was disintegrated by an aimed burst. The last thing he glimpsed were those glowing blue eyes watching him emotionlessly from the shadows before his world went black forever.

In the streets, the standard soldiers advanced with pulse rifles raised, mowing down any living being that crossed their path. Not even the creatures of legendary strength managed to put up resistance against the relentless onslaught of those infernal forces.

Minotaurs and werewolves, beings of near superhuman vigor, hurled themselves against the transhumans in hopes of crushing them with powerful horns and claws. Some even brandished improvised blunt weapons, from crude maces to torn-up tree trunks.

But their attacks proved futile against the cybernetic enhancements those war machines possessed. Even when they managed to strike them with all their brute force, slamming them against walls or sending them rolling along the ground, the soldiers rose almost instantly showing no signs of pain or discomfort.

"What the hell...?" A minotaur's bewildered growl resonated into the night as his mace slammed hard against a standard soldier's chest. The impact was so powerful that the transhuman was knocked backwards, but he stood up instantly as if nothing had happened.

It was as if their systems had been designed to completely nullify any physical sensation, rendering them empty husks devoid of all humanity. Not even the most devastating blows managed to wring a groan or grimace of discomfort from them.

And when they rose, they did so with the same implacable coldness that characterized them, opening fire with their heavy weapons without the slightest hint of mercy. Those beings of prodigious strength who had tried to crush them were reduced to bloody pulp splattering across the cobblestones.

The Saderian soldiers, men who had received quality training from the empire, shuddered in terror upon witnessing such displays of inhuman power. Their primitive minds, still anchored to myths and legends, could only conceive of them as true beings from the underworld.

Demons incapable of feeling remorse, pain, or any hint of feelings beyond the bloodlust that seemed to guide their every move. Creatures whose appearance, distorted by the Saderians' fear, made them look even more terrifying than they already were.

"For the Emperor! Fall back! Those are no mere mages!" A centurion's bellow rang out with authority as he brandished his sword towards the Overwatch soldiers. "They are spawns from the very Tartarus, sent by some deity to punish us!"

To the invaders, those gas masks covering the transhumans' faces seemed to morph into horrific demonic maws. The glowing blue lenses transformed into flaming eyes reflecting the fires of hell itself. Their weapons were no longer mere wands, but instruments capable of hurling spectral flames that rent flesh and soul alike.

And when one of the invaders, whether by sheer luck or a desperate burst of courage, managed to fell one of those steel demons, their triumph was fleeting. Within seconds, the other Overwatch soldiers slaughtered them without mercy, their body shredded by the dark energy bursts.

Not even still-intact structures or barricades could shield them from the lethal reach of those infernal forces. The Striders simply toppled any obstruction with their powerful warp cannons, crushing any living being that might have taken shelter amidst the rubble without hesitation.

Those who tried to flee were pursued relentlessly. The Ordinals deployed their fearsome Manhacks to eliminate the stragglers hiding in alleys and nooks. The buzzing drones became an omen of death, one that chilled the blood of any Saderian or demihuman who heard it. The sound of their rapidly spinning blades seemed to invoke the wails of a thousand tormented souls, a demonic chant heralding the inevitable massacre to come.

Slowly but surely, no matter how many casualties they reaped among enemy ranks, the invaders found themselves being pushed back towards Dolina Onovlennya Park where the portal they had emerged from was located. Their lines broke again and again before the overwhelming superiority of the Combine forces, devolving into a desperate rout.

The Saderian army found itself edging ever closer to their point of entry, their retreat turned into a frantic flight to escape the relentless abominable forces hounding them. Still, some legionnaires and demihuman slaves insisted on putting up futile resistance against the demons from the underworld that pursued them, their sanity hanging by a thread in the face of the horrors they witnessed.

Secundus, that general who had once led the conquest campaign with pride and arrogance before arriving in this new world, had managed to fortuitously survive up to this point. Hidden amidst the rubble of a ruined building with his 3 remaining personal guards who shared his luck, with the exception of the swordsmen who fell to the flying beasts.

Secundus beheld with bulging eyes how the imperial forces crumbled completely, in his mind there were no doubts, they had to retreat immediately and warn the Emperor about this threat, and that the portal must be destroyed.

"Retreat! Everyone back to the Portal!" The general's bellow rang out in a mixture of authority and desperation, his gauntleted hands clinging to the edges of his hiding spot as if fearing being dragged into the underworld.

In an instant, as if those words had been a spell breaking a paralysis enchantment, the remnants of the Saderian legions began to move. Men, demihumans, and fantasy creatures alike launched into a frenzied stampede towards the Portal's location, as if fleeing from a doomsday apostle.

Somehow, whether by miracle or sheer willpower to abandon that accursed world, Secundus's order managed to be heard over the din of battle. Or perhaps, in their collective desperation, the invaders simply decided to surrender and beat a retreat instinctively before the general's command.

However, their flight was far from safe. The steel demons and their biomechanical beasts showed no signs of relenting their relentless pursuit. Overwatch soldiers, Striders, APCs, and other biomechanical monstrosities advanced tirelessly, slaughtering any being that crossed their path regardless of attempts to flee.

The Hunter Choppers and Gunships, those winged creatures that had demonstrated their absolute mastery of the skies, seized the new lines of targets in the streets to initiate fresh massacres. It was almost impressive that such a large volume of enemies still remained despite the havoc they had wrought, but compared to the initial invasion force that had managed to occupy all of City 17's southern sectors, the remaining troops were mere crumbs.

Within minutes, the invaders managed to reach Dolina Onovlennya Park where the Portal loomed. With a frenzy worthy of a pack of terrified beasts, they began pouring through that Roman architectural tear, pushing and shoving each other in a desperate bid to escape that nightmarish realm.

Each of them, regardless of rank or race, shared the same burning desire: to return home to Falmart and forever distance themselves from that accursed place and its demonic denizens. Nothing mattered more than crossing that interdimensional fissure and putting land between them and the endless nightmare.

As the terrified hordes rushed toward the Portal, the Overwatch forces showed no signs of letting up their offensive. Those nightmare beings, whether demons or war machines of some advanced civilization, continued advancing with earth-shaking strides.

At the vanguard, the transhuman soldiers moved in perfect synchrony, like a swarm of steel insects guided by a higher hive mind. Their dark pulse rifles scythed through the streets mercilessly, reducing stragglers to scorched gobbets of flesh with chilling efficiency.

"Neutralize all hostiles! Leave none alive!" The order rang out in a distorted, metallic voice devoid of human inflection. It came from one of the elite soldiers spearheading the formation, his white-armored frame reflecting the flashes of nearby explosions in the dark night.

"Understood, Alpha unit!" A dozen equally modulated voices responded in unison, like a single entity speaking through multiple maws. "Proceeding with the purge!"

In response, the standard soldiers fanned out, covering a wider front as they advanced on the fleeing hordes. Their dark pulse rifles began spewing lethal bursts, sowing death and chaos among the invader ranks struggling to reach the Portal.

Screams of agony and wails of terror blended into a harrowing cacophony as legionnaires and demihumans dropped one by one, disintegrated by the dark energy projectiles. Arms, legs and viscera flew in every direction, splattering the facades of surrounding buildings with a rain of blood and organic remains.

"By Emroy, shield them from those demons!" A Saderian mage's roar resounded over the thunderous din, his hands raised in desperate supplication as he marched towards the Portal. A dozen faithful followers trailed close behind, fervently praying while corpses fell around them.

But neither the prayers nor the pleas to their absent gods in this universe could appease the destructive fury of Earth's garrison forces.

A Suppressor stationed atop a nearby building focused his Pulse Machinegun towards the group of mages, his orange visor coolly scanning the targets with mechanical detachment.

The thunderous roar of his heavy weapon split the night as he opened fire at will, scything down the supplicants in a torrent of concentrated plasma.

The mages conjured magic shields to protect themselves, but it was to no avail - those very shields made of magic shattered upon the first impact of a dark energy plasma round, leaving their users vulnerable to the ensuing barrage.

Meanwhile, within minutes Secundus managed to reach the Portal's location along with his three remaining mage bodyguards. His boots rang heavily on the pavement, the weight of his battered armor barely diminished by his injuries. Streaks of dried blood stained its surface, a silent testament to the horrors he had witnessed over the past hours.

Panting hard with sweat beading his brow, the general took a moment to catch his breath while surveying the stampede of troops pouring toward the portal.

Utter chaos reigned near the Portal area. Soldiers and demihumans jostled each other in a frenzy to be the first through that gateway and escape the hellish realm they had been transported to. The irrational fear those demonic forces had instilled in them far outweighed any sense of order or discipline.

With a brusque wave of his gauntleted hand, the Saderian general began organizing the straggling troops milling about. His movements were slow and pained due to shrapnel and shards embedded in his flesh, but his willpower kept him on his feet despite exhaustion.

"Form ranks, you cowardly lot!" Secundus's roar rang out with authority over the screams and wails of terror flooding the park. "Two abreast, advancing in file towards the Portal! Stop shoving like cattle!"

His words cut through the air like a whip, imposing some order amidst the reigning chaos. The soldiers and demihumans who had managed to survive the slaughter ground to a halt at hearing the general's command voice. Even in their state of sheer panic, the respect and discipline drilled in by years of training prevailed.

"Move, you useless louts!" Secundus brandished his sword toward a group of orcs who had frozen in their tracks, their bulging green eyes glazed with terror. "Or would you prefer those spawns of Tartarus catch up to you! And let the wounded go through first!"

The general's words had their effect, for the orcs renewed their frenzied dash toward the Portal with fresh vigor. Their steps made the earth tremble, shoving aside stragglers in their desperation to escape.

In some neighborhoods further back, the Overwatch forces continued their relentless advance. Their silhouettes were backlit against the glare of explosions and surrounding fires, lending them an even more terrifying, demonic aspect in the eyes of the defeated invaders who had yet to reach the park area. The thunderous boom of their weapons resonated through the night like the echoes of a thousand peals of thunder, sowing death in their wake.

"Hurry, cross the Portal!" Secundus's voice took on a desperate edge, his ears attuned to the noise of the enemy hordes slaughtering the unfortunate, a constant reminder that they were closing in. "Don't let those monsters catch up to you!"

The general knew that, no matter how many of his men managed to cross over to the other side, his fate was sealed. Still, he refused to abandon his troops or be the first to flee. His sense of duty and responsibility towards his soldiers kept him steadfast in his decision to be the last one to abandon that hellish world.

Any other military leader, faced with such a display of supernatural destructive might, would have opted to save himself first and foremost. But not Secundus. His honor and loyalty to the empire bound him to that place, forcing him to watch over his men's survival before his own.

"You! Come here this instant!" Secundus's arm shot up abruptly, his hand clutching a man who appeared to be a messenger by the throat, bringing him before him.

"What is it, sir?!" The messenger asked in alarm, halted by his superior as he met the old man's stern gaze with fearful eyes.

"Take this scroll and deliver it to the Emperor! Make sure the information within the scroll reaches his hands at all costs - it's to prevent the demons from launching a counterattack against our nation!" With those rushed words, the general shoved the scroll into the messenger's hands and pushed him towards the gate, leaving no room for a response.

Secundus sighed with some relief as he turned back towards his remaining bodyguards, who hurried over to him with quickened steps.

"Hurry, Secundus!" One of the mages approached with trembling strides, his face a mask of abject terror. "We must cross before those... things catch up to us!"

"I said I'll be the last one!" The general's reply was a defiant roar that brooked no argument. "Now cross that portal, mage! That's an order!"

The mage swallowed hard, his gaze flitting between Secundus and the approaching hordes of steel demons. For an instant, he seemed to waver, his mind debating whether to obey or plead for his superior's life.

Seconds later, a dull thump and something hitting the ground made Secundus whirl around abruptly. His heart seemed to stop when he found one of his mage escorts lying dead on the ground, a gaping head wound revealing the shattered remnants of his skull.

Before the terrified general could process what was happening, the second mage dropped like a stone from the same unknown cause. His body crumpled to the ground with a dull thud as a pool of blood began forming beneath him, his eyes wide and frozen in a rictus of terror.

"By the Twelve Deities!" Secundus's gut-wrenching scream rang out across the park as his third mage bodyguard suffered the same instantaneous demise. In just three seconds, his last remaining escorts had been slaughtered before his very eyes without him being able to do anything to prevent it.

The Saderian general barely had time to process what was happening when the buzz of the flying infernal beasts tore through the night air. A Gunship, that grotesque amalgamation of machine and living organism, soared overhead with a menacing drone.

The sight of that abomination was enough to bring the remaining soldiers and demihumans of the survivor legions to a dead halt, paralyzed with fear. Their screams and cries fell abruptly silent, replaced by a tense, primal terror-laden hush.

In another second, as if shadows emerging from hell itself, the transhuman soldiers surrounded the park with their weapons trained on the invaders. APCs rumbled in behind them, shoving aside any obstacles in their path before taking up positions.

But what truly caught Secundus's attention were the Striders and Crabsynths, those walker machines whose very appearance defied all known logic. The fifteen-meter-tall tripods took up strategic positions around the park, their cannons swiveling back and forth as if scouring the area for fresh targets, followed by the crab-like monstrosities.

The terrified general found himself staring fixedly at one particular transhuman soldier that stood out from the rest. This one wore pristine white armor, with black boots and gloves contrasting its plating. A skull-shaped insignia rested on its chest, but what drew Secundus's gaze the most was the large red eye that seemed to stare unblinkingly at him, like a cyclops.

There were more of these armored demon-kin, albeit in far fewer numbers compared to the rest of their troops. Secundus's terrified mind theorized they must be some manner of high-ranking spawns or leaders, given their unusual appearance and limited presence amidst the invading forces.

To the old general's fortune, groups of demihumans found themselves inadvertently surrounding him and his slain bodyguards' corpses, forming an involuntary living barrier separating him from those hellish fiends.

But that shielding proved fleeting. With chilling precision, the elite soldiers opened fire on the demihumans shielding Secundus. Their pinpoint shots punched through skulls and torsos with ease, reducing those creatures to bloody corpses crumpling around the terrified general.

"By Emroy, have mercy!" Secundus's wail echoed across the park as the lifeless bodies of trolls and orcs fell around him. Green blood and viscera spattered his battered armor, eliciting a grimace of revulsion from the hardened soldier.

In a motion that chilled the general's blood, one of the elite soldiers activated the secondary fire mode of his wand. A sphere of dark energy formed at the muzzle before being discharged towards a group of trolls stationed near the Gate.

Secundus watched with eyes wide, his mind unable to process what he was witnessing. Instead of detonating like a normal arcane ball, that projectile exerted some unknown, unnatural force upon the bodies of its targets upon impacting them.

The trolls were ripped from the ground by an invisible hand, their limbs twisting grotesquely as their entire molecular structure began carbonizing from the inside out. The looks of terror on their faces froze into macabre rictuses as their whole bodies disintegrated within seconds, reduced to nothingness as if consumed by a searing blaze.

"Gods..." Secundus's choked cry rang out with renewed dread upon witnessing such a display of power. "What... What foul sorcery is this now?"

He had already witnessed the demons' might firsthand, but none had done anything like this, only reinforcing his theory that the white devils were high-ranking or noble fiends.

Location: Earth, in City 17, inside the Citadel.

While inside the Citadel, near the summit of the towering skyscraper, Wallace Breen remained hunched in his office armchair, one hand massaging slow, weary circles on his brow. The weight of the world seemed to bear down on his stooped shoulders, each breath a palpable effort in his tired lungs.

The Administrator of Earth, the man who served as the planetary ruler under the directives of his alien overlords, found himself immersed in the observation of the multiple monitors covering the walls of his sanctum. Each of those screens displayed live footage recorded by security cameras, the integrated devices in the transhuman soldiers, and even the scanners soaring over the interdimensional Portal area like buzzing metallic insects. An endless avalanche of data that threatened to overwhelm his exhausted mind.

Breen surveyed the images with a mixture of fascination and utter weariness, his bloodshot eyes scrutinizing every detail of that incursion which had taken City 17 by surprise. The photographic scanner data revealed every angle and perspective, allowing him to analyze the situation with a clinical precision that barely kept his scattered focus intact.

"How long...did this invasion last?" The Administrator let out a slight, ragged sigh as he posed the question, his tone laced with a barely concealed weariness that threatened to overcome him. Each syllable seemed a titanic effort.

His glassy, bloodshot gaze fell upon the elite soldier who had brought the preliminary reports, a transhuman whose pristine white armor contrasted starkly with the gloomy ambience of the office. Despite the cybernetic enhancements that rendered him an almost impassive war machine, the officer maintained a martial bearing that evoked the days when humans still ruled Earth.

"Calculations show the invasion began at 7:43 PM and concluded at 9:32 PM." The elite soldier's response was terse and devoid of inflection, as if he were a device reciting cold, impersonal data. "In short, it lasted around two hours, Administrator."

"Very well, though I would have sworn the invasion lasted longer..." Breen reclined into his armchair with a prolonged, trembling sigh, his gaze drifting off as he processed the information. His eyelids drifted shut involuntarily, struggling against the extreme exhaustion threatening to overcome him.

"This is madness, first a worldwide rebellion by the Resistance that lasted days, and then..." The Administrator paused, taking a deep breath to recompose himself. His eyes fixed on the transhuman awaiting orders across his desk, as if searching for any glimmer of reaction on that expressionless, gas mask-obscured face. A spark of life struggling to shine through the haze of his overwhelming fatigue.

"And shortly after we were QUELLING the last pocket of rebellion in the northern sectors..." Breen continued in a grave, rasping tone, almost incredulous, as if still struggling to accept the facts. Each word seemed to cost him an enormous mental effort. "An interdimensional tear in the shape of a Roman archway opened in the south, and from there, an army that seems like a copy of the Roman legions invaded us. But they brought with them...beings that we only saw in fiction...Utterly impressive and impossible!"

A faint tremor shook the Administrator's hand as he took a glass of water from the nearby table, his lips parched from accumulated stress. He took a prolonged, desperate sip, letting the cool liquid soothe his dry throat as he sighed once more. Weariness seemed to seep from his every pore.

"And yet, there they were." Breen let out a strangled, rasping chuckle, almost a croak, as if still struggling to accept the reality of what he had witnessed. His gaze drifted off once more, reliving those impossible images he saw through his monitors. "Invading our city, massacred by our own forces..."

Yet despite it all, the Administrator looked somewhat less "stressed" than before, the pain medication managing to alleviate his throbbing migraine for the moment. But fatigue and tension were still etched into his withered features, a silent testament to the whirlwind of events that had shaken City 17 over the past few days. His breathing was slow and deep, as if each intake of air was a titanic effort.

"The good thing is that the ordeal is over." Breen let those words slip out in a hoarse, strangled murmur, almost like a silent prayer.

Breen remained silent for endless seconds, as if gathering his scattered thoughts. Finally, he addressed the transhuman again with studied calmness. "Tell me, do you know how many casualties we suffered repelling that...fantasy attack?"

"Our records indicate 3,290 members of Civil Protection containing the area lost their lives during the invasion." The elite spoke in a flat, emotionless monotone, as if the deaths of those officers were nothing more than clinical statistics. "As for the Overwatch forces, we only suffered 32 casualties, mainly some standard and Echo-class soldiers."

Breen nodded slowly, his face impassive as he absorbed that information. There was no room for emotional weakness when it came to necessary sacrifices for the greater good. "Acceptable casualties as far as our army goes...The Civil Protection ones are regrettable, but what can be done? No one expected an entire invasion force to emerge from that Roman archway."

His eyes locked onto the transhuman, a spark of curiosity glinting in his pupils. "And about that enemy army, is their exact number known?"

The elite soldier remained ramrod straight, his stance rigid as he responded. "Negative, Administrator. We have not yet completed the body count across the entire southern area, but it is likely to exceed units of thousands of hundreds. Though it will be difficult, as several bodies were reduced to mere remains and others vaporized by the Striders' warp cannons." He paused, as if processing additional data. "However, it is reasonable to estimate they exceeded 100,000 soldiers, not counting the creatures they brought along."

"I understand it will take time to obtain an exact figure." Breen nodded thoughtfully, his fingers drumming on the desk as he mentally calculated the magnitude of the invasion. "But once you have a precise count, make sure to report it to me immediately."

The elite soldier remained impassive, his face hidden behind the gas mask as he awaited further orders. "Any other instructions, Administrator?" He inquired in that flat, mechanical monotone devoid of emotional inflection.

Breen narrowed his eyes pensively, his gaze roaming across the images displayed on the monitors. He studied the integrated cameras of the Overwatch soldiers and aerial scanners intently, absorbing every detail with cold objectivity.

On one of the screens, the aged Administrator watched as a considerable fleet of Armored Personnel Carriers advanced towards Dolina Onovlennya Park. Upon arrival and halting, the APCs' rear doors swung open, and waves of Civil Protection officers poured out, entering the battle-ravaged terrain.

Breen reclined in his armchair, interlacing his fingers as he reflected on the recent events. The appearance of that interdimensional gateway, the fantasy army that had emerged from it... It all seemed pulled straight from a fairy tale, and yet it was so terribly real. He could see the evidence strewn everywhere, like a nightmare given flesh and blood.

But the emergence of this interdimensional breach also gave him hope - not just for himself, but for all of humanity, for the following reasons swirling in his strategic mind.

"This discovery could be our chance for salvation." Breen's lips curved into a faint hint of satisfaction as he considered the infinite possibilities opening up before him. "If my calculations are accurate, their universe bears similarities to ours. I could present this world as an offering to our benefactors, thus ensuring humanity's ascent in the hierarchy of the Universal Union."

The notion of officially aligning with the Universal Union promised a golden age for the human species, though that description paled before what could be achieved if his plan came to fruition. Being part of a higher echelon within that civilization of such scale, a vast multidimensional empire, would open unimaginable doors for humanity, elevating them to a status they had only dreamed of in their deepest fantasies.

The possibilities were endless, from access to advanced technologies capable of curing any disease or repairing the environmental damage inflicted on the planet, to the potential of expanding through the cosmos and colonizing new worlds and realities for mankind. Humanity would no longer be shackled by the chains of their fragile existence, but would ascend to a realm of unprecedented greatness.

Breen lapsed into a contemplative silence, his mind buzzing with possibilities and strategies. He would have to play his cards wisely, present this offering in an attractive and convincing manner to his overlords. He would need to demonstrate the value of this newly discovered universe, its richness in resources and the promise of novel wonders to explore.

The future, for the first time in a long while, seemed to glimmer with a flicker of hope, though the path to attaining it would be strewn with sacrifices and difficult decisions. But the Administrator was willing to walk it regardless of cost, so long as it ensured humanity's ascension to a new realm of unimaginable greatness.

He would no longer be remembered as the one who sold out his species to the highest bidder for a dream that never came to pass. He would show all of humanity that he had been right all along, and they would cease to be mere vassals to become full-fledged, equal members of the Universal Union. His vision would finally be vindicated.

Breen rose from his armchair and began walking towards the door of his office, ready to retire to his quarters. All that remained was to wait two days for the Advisors to communicate with him again, so he could explain what had transpired. He would make his offering of surrendering that newfound universe, redeeming the Overwatch forces in the process which, in the Advisors' eyes, were seen as useless for being unable to stop the Resistance uprising in time or destroy it completely despite being entrenched on Earth for twenty years. But he would prove them wrong.

With purposeful strides, Breen passed through the doors of his office, his mind already charting plans and contingencies. The Citadel loomed as an imposing tower, its 2.5 kilometers of reinforced steel defying the night sky. Built entirely from reinforced steel, it stood as a monument to human determination, a beacon that would shine with renewed intensity in the future to come.

As he strode down the dimly lit corridors, Breen allowed a satisfied smile to form on his lips. For the first time in decades, he felt he had absolute control over his fate and that of all humanity. And this time, he would not fail…