The very first missile hit the ground right before the yellow sun came up.BOOM!Thick, ugly smoke tore across the rocky ridge. It looked like a fast-moving river of black fire. Sharp pieces of hot metal sprayed wildly across the quiet valley below. Giant, old trees snapped in half with loud cracking sounds and fell heavily to the dirt. Hundreds of sleeping birds exploded into the dark morning sky. They screamed in pure, blind panic.High up on the ridge, looking down at the valley, stood General Kade Rauth.He watched the destruction with completely calm, empty eyes.His heavy armor gleamed faintly in the early morning light. The armor was mostly pitch black, but it had beautiful, shining streaks of silver and bronze running through it. This was not normal metal. It was god-metal. It was magic metal stolen from the bodies of dead deities. The magic metal was melted and poured right into the seams of his suit.Strange, invisible shields called "null fields" shimmered in the air arou

Rauth did not turn around to look at him. He stood tall, his broad shoulders pulled back, his cold eyes still admiring his wall of dead gods."Prepare the army for the next phase of the plan," Rauth commanded smoothly. "We begin our expansion into the northern front tomorrow. Send more troops to reinforce the units that suppress the god-touched rebels. And make absolutely certain that the brand new class of super weapons is deployed on schedule.""Yes, General," the lieutenant said, quickly typing the orders into his tablet.Rauth finally turned fully around to face his command staff.The bright morning sun was fully up now. The beautiful light hit Rauth's black armor. The silver god-metal glinted sharply, promising a very lethal, bloody future. The invisible null fields hummed happily around his body.Every single step Rauth took across the command tent resonated with absolute authority. Every officer in the room felt his immense pressure. It was suffocating.It was absolute control.

Claire crouched down right beside Navarro. She pointed a sharp finger at his paper map."We need to set up deadly choke points right here, here, and here," Claire ordered.Her finger traced three specific intersections on the map where narrow, tight streets suddenly opened up into wide, flat public plazas."The Iron Order soldiers will try to march their big trucks through these wide plazas so they have room to shoot," Claire explained. "But if we hide our fighters in the narrow streets before the plazas, we can trap them in a tight bottleneck. We can turn those streets into bloody kill zones."Navarro nodded his head in agreement."My local militia teams are brave, and they have guns," Navarro said honestly, "but they are not professional soldiers. They are scared. Your Vanguard operatives will need to stay close and help them. We will have to mix our fighting styles. We will use sneaky, guerrilla hit-and-run tactics in the dark alleys. We will use careful, precision sniper strikes t

The first street they reached was completely empty of normal people. But long before Landon Ryke actually saw the enemy soldiers, he heard the terrifying, low humming noise of their machines.The air all the way down the Milwaukee street looked strange and wavy, like a hot road baking in the summer sun. The magical null-field emitters sitting on the soldiers' broad shoulders were warping the empty air itself. The machines literally bent the early morning sunlight into confusing, distorted patterns to hide the army.Then, the soldiers marched around the corner.They wore thick, heavy black armor. The sharp edges of their suits gleamed faintly with streaks of silver god-metal. Their deadly laser rifles were raised tight against their shoulders, ready to shoot anything that moved. Their invisible magic shields hummed loudly.VMMMMM. Every single step they took was perfectly precise and coldly calculated. They moved like a giant, angry machine."Landon, look at city block nine," Jin’

Landon timed his physical movements perfectly with each deadly pulse. The Kinetic Echo magically amplified his every reflex. He expertly dodged a laser beam sweeping across the ground, did a front roll over a fallen, rusty pipe, and launched a customized counter-EMP bomb directly at a small automated drone.ZAP! CRASH!Bright sparks flew into the air as the robotic device crashed hard into the brick wall and died."Landon, flank them on the left side," Claire ordered through the radio. "The alley splits up ahead. There is an open upper floor on the abandoned building. You can provide sniper cover for us from high above."Landon didn't hesitate. He jumped high into the air and grabbed onto a collapsed, rusty metal awning. He clung to the sharp edge with his strong fingers and pulled himself up to the second floor.Magic energy waves shimmered all around his body, easily deflecting the small laser blasts trying to hit him. Down below, the Iron Order patrols moved methodically through