Up in the Void, Red watched the clock. He was playing a grand strategy game, and the turn timer was ticking down.
[ T-MINUS: 21 DAYS ] The Golden Army crossed the plains. Red watched their supply lines stretch. He saw the Troglodytes finishing the hidden trench networks in the outer swamp.
[ T-MINUS: 14 DAYS ] The Golden Army hit the Dead-Lands. The terrain grew hostile. Red watched the Omni-Web pulse as the heavy cavalry struggled through the deep mud. Sludge and the Mud-Skippers began burying clay pots filled with Crawler's Kiss acid along the main chokepoints.
[ T-MINUS: 10 DAYS ] The smog from Bastion's forges grew so thick it blotted out the sun over the eastern swamp. In the Golden Army's camp, Aurelius looked up at the unnatural dark clouds gathering on the horizon, entirely unaware that the 'savages' he was marching to conquer had industrialized.
Red sat on his throne of shadows.
