Smoke still curled through the alleys of the eastern city. Every second breath tasted of ash.
Human boots crushed through broken glass and chunks of stone. Mortar craters had turned entire avenues into sunken ruins—pillars laid flat, balconies melted down to wire and slag. But the advance never stopped.
Corpses—dozens of them—lined the walkways. Panther-kin buried under rubble, badger-kin clawing at collapsed beams, jaguar-kin twitching in pools of blood. Some were still alive. Most weren't for long.
A soldier in his twenties, helmet skewed on his head, leaned against a wall and lifted his rifle. A demi-human woman—trapped beneath a wagon axle—tried to lift her hand. Her wrist was shattered.
CRACK.
The bullet hit between her eyes.
"Clean shot," muttered his companion, a short, scarred man with a missing left thumb.
"Didn't even twitch," the younger one said.
They both chuckled grimly and stepped over the corpse.
Not far behind them, the banners marched through the haze—swastikas fluttering through flame and soot like vultures above a funeral pyre.
"You know," the scarred man said, lighting a cigarette with a match and shielding the flame with a shaking hand, "if they never wanted humans in their precious big cities…"
He took a drag and exhaled toward the sky, where smoke already blotted out the sun.
"Then we might as well bomb the hell out of every damn one of 'em!"
The younger soldier snorted. "Damn right. If they'd just let us in through the front gate, maybe we wouldn't have to come through the f***ing floor."
They laughed.
Behind them, another rifleman barked for medics—someone had stepped on a magic spike trap, the kind that seared through steel and tendon both.
But the two soldiers kept walking.
Until—
Ping… clink… clink…
A small, glowing stone cylinder bounced twice near a pile of rubble. It shimmered blue—then hissed with a low hum.
The younger soldier's eyes widened. "Wait, is that—?"
BOOM!
The blast wasn't like a normal grenade. It warped the air—folding it inward, sucking screams into itself. Fire exploded in every direction, not from fuel, but from compressed mana. The detonation lifted a full cart into the air and blew both soldiers off their feet.
Two more grenades landed just behind them. Sapphire blue.
"Damn it!" a lieutenant shouted. "Those are elven-made! They bought this crap off the tree-humpers!"
The shockwave from the next grenade knocked loose half a stone archway, collapsing it onto a squad of riflemen. Screams erupted.
"Fall back! Toss 'em back—NOW!"
One grenadier ran forward and grabbed the next blinking grenade, hurling it with a roar toward a cluster of beastmen in a half-standing shop.
A second later, it exploded.
But this time, it was red—not blue.
And the effect was completely different.
CRACK-BOOM!
A human-made chemical grenade—burning white phosphorus and iron shards—tore through the alleyway like a meat grinder. Screams turned to choking. Half the beastmen ignited in raw fire. The others collapsed under the hail of red-hot metal and bone-shards.
"Eat science, bastards!" someone shouted.
From behind a shattered wall, human engineers loaded two more grenade launchers. The barrels hissed as cylinders popped out, trailing black smoke toward demi-human barricades.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
Chunks of fur, claw, and armor rained down like hail.
Down a nearby boulevard, a rifle team flanked left.
"Rooms clear?"
"Not yet," came the reply.
A panther-kin leapt from a second-story window, dragging a soldier to the ground.
Steel flashed—fangs bared.
A bayonet sank through his back before he could finish the kill.
The team leader kicked the body aside. "Push forward! No mercy!"
From the rooftops, snipers in human trench coats rained fire down on archers and spear-throwers.
A hawk-kin burst from a balcony, wings spread wide. He hurled a magic blade toward the street.
It never landed.
A human bullet caught him mid-air—sending his body tumbling like a burning leaf into the alley below.
One soldier pumped his fist. "These ain't gods! They bleed like we do!"
Wilhelm's voice returned over the radio—now weaker, with sparks crackling from the antenna.
"Maintain pressure. Eastern quadrant will be cleared by sunset. Leave nothing behind."
"Use grenades to clear collapsed homes. If they're hiding… burn 'em out."
His voice faded.
But the order stood.
The humans advanced again.
Over the next hour, forty-five more demi-humans were rooted out from behind walls, inside chimneys, or hiding in water troughs. Some fought with knives. Others with teeth. All of them died.
And still—the city burned.