Then, after the team had advanced a certain distance, Malin saw the shattered parts.
Skaven weapon squad? Rat Special Troops?
This thing didn’t belong in Malin’s world, and if really necessary, Malin wouldn’t need to reverse engineer anything from it; he cast them aside, looking with a frown at the sea of rats charging at them once again.
Yes, a sea of rats, because all the rat-men were swarming over in a frenzy.
"It seems as if they’re defending something," the elf ambassador keenly sensed the problem.
"Exactly, and even the cannon fodder are not retreating," said the dwarven Great Craftsman, stepping to one side so that his flame soldier brother could get to the front.
"What are we waiting for, tell the mages in the back, mark at 120 yards, fire a salvo of six Flame Burst Spells."
While Malin spoke, he gestured to the machine gun crew on the mechanical body’s shoulder, and then he saw the machine gun crew gesturing back at him.
"Soldiers! The time to witness courage has come! The first row that runs out of bullets, fall back! The second row, advance after they’ve fired!" Malin, watching the rat tide drawing ever closer, emptied his shotgun shell by shell; rat-men faced a hail of bullets, falling like wheat before the sickle, but they kept pressing on.
"Mr. Malin! Are these things even less afraid of death than the greenskins?!" the dwarven Great Craftsman bellowed.
"Even the most cowardly of cowards, theoretically, should have a time when they would not recoil," Malin responded loudly.
The flame soldiers began to create a wall of fire fifty yards in front.
The rat-men charged through the firewall, continuously falling and advancing in the storm of bullets, accelerating their pace when the machine guns needed to reload.
Then the spells cast by the mages from the rear ignited rows of rat-men; some were blown into the ranks before they could recover, only to be pinned to the ground by bayonets.
The sound of gunfire began to thin out, and more and more rat-men roared as they neared the ranks.
Human soldiers with bayonetted rifles joined the line.
The flame soldiers fell back, helping each other unfasten their fuel tanks, ready to join the front lines of the fight.
Half-humans wielding shotguns squeezed into the lower space of the ranks, responsible for using their weapons to strike at any rat toe in sight.
When the rat-men were less than twenty yards from the ranks, the soldiers in the rear loaded their guns, rested their rifles on the shoulders of their comrades, and resumed firing.
Not until the rat-men crashed into the iron wall formed by the dwarves.
Their weapons could scarcely penetrate the dwarves’ armor and the new shields—could only be knocked aside at best.
The two sides collided, dwarf bayonets on their shotguns stabbing rat-men, both sides engaged in carnage at close quarters, while factory guard troops at Malin’s side kept falling—the storm vermin’s long weapons couldn’t breach the dwarven armor, but were merely paper against the human soldiers dressed only in military uniforms and light anti-stab vests.
Malin swung his chainsaw sword, but only in a limited range—his own men were all around, so he could only pull out his revolver and shoot the rat-men—knowing this, he would rather have brought his four-barrel shotgun.
Then Malin saw a towering storm vermin advancing on the ranks.
Malin reached behind him, where a half-human had already reloaded the 40MM shotgun for him; he took it, aimed at the formidable creature, and pulled the trigger.
A 40MM hollow point bullet was fired from the muzzle, piercing the chest of the storm vermin in the next second. The storm vermin didn’t die immediately; turning to face Malin, it raised its spear to throw.
Then, an armor-piercing bullet flying from behind hit its chest in what seemed to Malin a montage-like slow motion trajectory.
This time, the shattered rat-man was unable to throw its spear.
Behind it, the remaining rat-men suffered grievously, as shells marked a fatal trajectory of equality through their lives.
Malin aimed the barrel at another dense cluster of rat-men and pulled the trigger—next time, he would try the handheld cannon he had read about in the book.
After all, a larger caliber means justice, and a longer barrel length embodies Truth.
The machine gun crew roared to life once again, cutting a path of death through the tide of rats, lightening the pressure on the front line.
"Advance!" Malin shouted loudly! Looking down, he took a long shield from the hands of a fallen dwarf.
He pushed forward with all the remaining dwarves.
The factory guard troops, without hesitation, switched with their comrades behind, reloaded their ammunition, and caught up to fire once more.
The mages began to cast Spell Formations behind the rat-men once again.
The rat-men started to waver; they shrieked, wanting to continue the attack, but the slave rats ultimately broke, starting to retreat, and then turned tail to flee, which in turn disrupted the ranks of their own forces.
The remaining rat-men were willing to fight again, but Malin immediately ordered the ranks to halt—taking advantage of the rat-men’s confusion, Malin let his soldiers fire with rifles; this harmless exchange ultimately hastened the rat-men’s defeat.
They started to scatter, screaming as they ran.
And it allowed Malin to see what they were protecting—a giant mother rat.
"Is this their rat mother?" The Great Craftsman also saw the creature, spat out a mouthful of blood sputum, then covered his waist; in the recent fight, a rat had slashed his stomach: "Are they protecting their mother?"