Kais Val'ra could barely recognize the land beneath his feet.
In its memory, Sere Kl was a shining pearl under the radiance of The Greater Good. The sky here was always pure and blue, with three small satellites taking turns rising at night, casting soft silver light across the land.
In the city, elegant white curved buildings blended perfectly with the natural landscape, and anti-gravity vehicles glided silently along designated routes, leaving fleeting trails of light. Earth Caste engineers had planned vast ecological parks here, where exotic flowers and plants from different planets coexisted harmoniously, and the air was always filled with a faint fragrance.
It remembered that on non-duty days, its favorite activity was to take its family for a picnic by the crystal lake outside the city. Children chased glowing insects on the soft, grassy meadows, vendors sold refreshing drinks made from local specialty fruits, and the air echoed with laughter. There was no poverty, no strife; every T'au Empire citizen contributed to the common "greater good" in their respective roles, living in peace and prosperity.
Sere Kl, this tranquil jewel, was once a perfect microcosm of peace and prosperity against the backdrop of a dark universe.
But now, this was hell.
The high temperatures from the orbital bombardment still hadn't dissipated, and the ground beneath its feet was as scorching as a red-hot iron plate. With every breath, the air was filled with choking dust and the smell of sulfur. The once beautiful landscapes had been melted and vaporized in the flames and explosions, leaving only twisted metal wreckage and charred ruins. The azure sky had been stained a desperate blood-red by endless dust and the fires of war.
The laughter of the past was replaced by the incessant roar of gunfire and the wails of the dying.
Kais Val'ra gripped the pulse rifle in his hand tightly; the metallic touch gave him a slight sense of security. He looked around; his comrades, the surviving Fire Warrior from various squads, also held their weapons tightly, silently defending this temporary position made of architectural debris. Even Shas, the most cheerful and joke-loving member of the team, was silent now.
Sadness, anger, and a deep-seated hatred for the invading enemy filled the heart of every warrior.
Suddenly, the distant artillery and gunshots eerily thinned out. The entire battlefield seemed to fall into a brief, unsettling calm.
Kais did not relax in the slightest; instead, he maximized the power of his battlesuit's sensory system and scanned the front more vigilantly. The calm before the storm—this principle applied equally in every corner of the universe.
Sure enough, a few seconds later, a wild and chaotic engine roar, completely different from before, came from the dust on the horizon and was rapidly approaching.
"What is that?" a young warrior couldn't help but ask.
Kais looked in the direction of the sound, and when he magnified the distant scene through his battlesuit's optical lens, his pupils couldn't help but contract slightly.
Those were human tanks and armored vehicles.
In previous skirmishes, the Fire Warrior had roughly figured out the performance of these clumsy iron boxes. They were heavily armored and fiercely armed, but their mobility was poor, and their fire control systems were quite backward. In Kais' opinion, these were like museum antiques from hundreds or thousands of years ago, still stuck in the age of tracks.
But at this moment, these "old antiques" were charging at full speed, in a frantic manner that completely disregarded engine load and mechanical lifespan! They bounced and jumped on the uneven scorched earth, black smoke spewing from their exhaust pipes, as if they would fall apart at any second.
What made all T'au warriors even more astonished and perplexed was that human soldiers were clinging to those speeding tanks and armored vehicles like ornaments! They faced the strong winds, letting gravel and shrapnel lash their bodies, like mad parasites clinging to steel beasts.
"What kind of trick is this?" Kais was filled with confusion. What was the point of such a tactically ungraceful, almost suicidal charge?
But the opportunity was fleeting, and he had no time to think. As an experienced warrior, his body reacted faster than his brain.
"Fire! Stop them from getting close!"
Kais quickly raised his rifle, and the battlesuit's built-in AI assistance system instantly locked onto a chimera troop transport at the forefront. He pulled the trigger, and a series of deadly blue plasma bursts accurately shot at the human soldiers on the roof of the vehicle.
His comrades also reacted immediately, and the firing sounds of pulse rifles and pulse carbines merged into a continuous stream, forming an impenetrable energy fire net that covered the frantic steel torrent.
The humans also returned fire. The vehicle-mounted heavy stubbers spewed flames, and the soldiers on board futilely sprayed with their crude laser guns. But whether it was weapon performance or armor protection, they were generations behind the Fire Warrior. Their counterattack, apart from sparking weakly on the defensive cover, could not effectively suppress the Fire Warrior.
Swaths of human soldiers, under the precise pulse fire, fell from the high-speed vehicles like wheat reaped by a scythe, instantly crushed into blurred flesh and blood by the tracks of the vehicles behind.
However, the human charge did not stop for a moment.
Finally, after paying a heavy price, a chimera troop transport, spewing thick smoke and covered in shell craters, miraculously broke through the fire net and slammed directly into a hammerhead anti-gravity tank on the flank of Kais' position!
"Boom—!!!"
A deafening roar, accompanied by dazzling white light, erupted violently.
The shockwave from the explosion, like the invisible hand of a giant, violently threw Kais to the ground. As the world spun, he felt his internal organs were about to shatter. Fortunately, the battlesuit's cushioning system activated in time, absorbing most of the damage, and he only felt a severe dizziness.
"Damn it… are these humans… all crazy…?" Kais shook his ringing head, struggling to get back on his feet.
He watched in horror as the hammerhead, which had provided them with crucial firepower support, was now just a pile of burning wreckage. And the few comrades who were covering it nearby had been completely vaporized in that terrifying explosion.
Clearly, the explosives carried by that chimera had an astonishing yield.
And from within that burning wreckage, formed by the chimera and the hammerhead, several figures emerged. Seeing Kais not far away, they immediately rushed towards him recklessly.
Great confusion flashed through Kais Val'ra's mind.
How was this possible? How did they survive such a close-range explosion? This completely defied the laws of physics!
But the reality of the battlefield left him no room for further thought. Survival instincts and warrior training instantly overwhelmed all his doubts. He abruptly raised his pulse rifle, and the cold tactical AI immediately marked the optimal firing path on his faceplate display.
"For The Greater Good!"
He roared, pulling the trigger.
Precise blue plasma bursts instantly covered dozens of meters.
The first charging human had a large hole blown through his chest, charred limbs flying backward, and his body fell lifelessly to the ground.
The second and third humans tried to evade with meaningless "Z"-shaped running, but under the AI's assisted lock, this was just a futile struggle. Two precise bursts hit their heads and torsos respectively, turning them into two exploding blood mists.
However, just as he turned his rifle to shoot the last enemy, the opponent had already rushed in front of him with astonishing explosive power. The primitive and savage-looking bayonet on his lasgun gleamed with a deadly cold light in the firelight.
"Thud—!"
A harsh sound of metal being forcibly torn apart rang out.
Kais felt a sharp pain in his abdomen; the battlesuit's composite armor had actually been pierced by this seemingly primitive bayonet. The cold blade had deeply embedded itself into his body.
The intense pain made his vision darken for a moment, but he endured the agony, using all his remaining strength to press the muzzle against the human soldier's helmet.
"Boom!"
The roar of the pulse rifle was at point-blank range. The human soldier's head, like a watermelon smashed by a hammer, instantly exploded, red and white matter splashing all over Kais' faceplate.
The headless corpse slowly slid down, and Kais knelt on one knee, blood continuously gushing from the wound in his abdomen. The battlesuit's life support system emitted a piercing alarm.
He painfully raised his head, only to see a scene that filled him with utter despair.
More humans emerged from the wreckage, like a tide, surging from all directions. They stepped over the bodies of their comrades, treading on the scorching ruins, each moving without hesitation.
"No…"
Kais futilely raised his rifle, firing the last few energy blasts, felling two more enemies. But more humans had already swarmed around him.
The first bayonet pierced his shoulder.
The second pierced his thigh.
The third, the fourth… He felt his body being pierced by countless sharp blades, and his consciousness gradually sank into darkness amidst endless pain. In the last moments of his life, all he saw were those black full-face helmets… After dealing with this defiant T'au, the human soldiers did not continue their charge. They all turned around and returned to the still burning wreckage of the chimera and hammerhead.
Beneath the twisted metal lay a dying figure—their squad leader from the chimera they had just used. Thanks to a medkit and a last-second leap backward, he still had a breath left.
A soldier walked over and aimed his laser rifle at the squad leader's head.
A crisp gunshot.