The wall shook under the pounding of colossal footsteps.

Dust drifted from the stonework, caught in the shafts of pale sunlight.

The air reeked of iron, sweat, and something rotten, thick enough to choke on.

At the base of the rampart, a ragged line of battered soldiers stood with shields pressed together.

Their armor was cracked, dented, smeared with mud and blood.

The thousand civilians behind them huddled shoulder to shoulder, clutching children, clutching each other, clutching whatever makeshift weapon they thought might matter.

"Hold the line!" a sergeant barked, voice hoarse from shouting.

The command sounded like desperation wrapped in duty.

His knuckles were white around his spear.

How many hours was it?

They doesn't know.

"They’re not stopping..." whispered a young archer beside him, trembling so hard the arrow on his string rattled against the bow.

From beyond the ruins of the outer district, they came, titans.

Towering, skin like cracked leather stretched over knotted muscles.

Their eyes were too small for their faces, glinting with a sick amusement.

And on those faces... smiles.Too deliberate.

The lead titan swayed its head from side to side like a twisted dancer savoring the wait.

Behind it, another dragged its toes along the ground, carving shallow furrows in the dirt as if drawing lines for a game only it understood.

One of the civilians, a gaunt man with a bleeding scalp, whispered, "They’re... playing with us."

"They may look mindless but they sure are playful with us... "

"Mom... Are we going to die?"

"Help us, please... God, help us..."

"Quiet," an older woman hissed, pulling her granddaughter closer.

The girl was crying silently, trying to breathe in short, careful gasps so no one would hear.

Then, from the titan line, a movement broke the awful rhythm.

A singular giant, slightly smaller than the rest, suddenly bent its knees and leaped straight into the air.

It clapped its hands once, loudly, like a child greeting a surprise.

The sound echoed against the stone, unnerving in its glee.

Someone screamed. Another dropped to their knees.

"They’re toying with us before they feed," the archer muttered, voice cracking.

The sergeant turned and met the eyes of the civilians.

He didn’t lie. "We can’t hold them if they rush. When they break through... run. Run and don’t look back."

His voice echoed against the walls, there was a hole in it with an entrance towards an underground tunnel.

But none of them knew where it led.

"We will guard this position here, as our final service to this city and to the people" The sergeant saluted first, and exhaled, "It's an honour to die today... "

Silence settled for a moment, broken only by the soft padding of titanic feet drawing nearer, nearer.

Thump...

Thump...

Thump...

The titans grew closer.

Each smiling, eyes squinting with the remains of those who had perished before.

The sergeant saw this, the people behind slowly crammed into the hole's entrance one by one.

And he swallowed, his hands holding the spear tightened, eyes narrowing towards the incoming titans, "Make sure to swallow me whole you bastard, or else I will slice you from the inside"

And then.

The sound came first.

A deep, earthshaking thud.

Then another.

And another.

The ground quivered under each step, so heavy it rattled the shields in the soldiers’ grip.

From the haze of dust at the far end of the street, they emerged, ten figures, each towering three meters tall, wrapped in greenish, slab-thick armor.

No banners, no insignias beyond the jagged mark of a shattered blade etched into their pauldrons.

Massive bolter guns hung from their right thighs, thick enough to shear a titan in half.

War axes rested across their backs, hafts as long as a man’s height.

The civilians didn’t cheer. They didn’t know whether to hope or hide. The air felt colder.

"W-who are they?"

"Armoured warriors?"

The lead warrior stopped just ahead of the soldiers’ failing line, they came from the side in a different direction from the titans.

His voice came through the rebreather grill of his helmet, deep and metallic.

"Fall back citizen. We take it from here."

The sergeant blinked. "W–what—?"

"Fall. Back." The words hit with the same weight as the armor he wore.

The soldiers stumbled aside. The civilians pressed tighter to the wall, clutching their mouths as if to stifle both hope and fear.

The titans paused, tilting their heads at the new arrivals.

One leaned forward, grinning wider.

The Broken Blade Legion moved as one. No roars, no battle cries, just the heavy, deliberate rhythm of armored boots striking stone.

"What a bunch of uglies... "

The lead warrior reached over his shoulder, the metal plates of his gauntlet screeching faintly as he pulled free the war axe.

The weapon’s head was broad, engraved with black blood of the prior titans he had slaughtered.

Another legionnaire spoke, voice flat. "Guns first. Don’t waste a swing unless they’re close enough to smell."

"Understood." The rest adjusted their grips, the bolters rising in unison.

The mechanical locks clicked open.

A single command followed. "Fire."

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

The street lit with the thunder of bolter rounds.

Shells the size of a man’s forearm ripped through the air, slamming into titan flesh.

The impact wasn’t just sound, it was a physical force, the air itself bucking from the shockwaves.

Chunks of grey skin tore away in sprays of black-red blood.

One titan fell forward, crushing a crumbling wall under its bulk.

Another staggered, a smaller one, a hole the size of a wagon punched clean through its chest.

The civilians gasped, some covering their ears against the concussive roar.

The smaller, leaping titan bounded sideways, unnaturally fast, avoiding a hail of shells. It crouched, growling, eyes locked on the nearest legionnaire.

It lunged.

The warrior didn’t step back.

He waited until the shadow of the titan’s hand fell over him, then swung.

Boom!

The war axe cleaved through wrist and bone in a single arc, spraying the street with gore.

The titan screamed, stumbled, and met a bolter round to the face.

"Push forward," the captain ordered, his tone never changing.

The ten advanced, boots sinking into the blood-slick street, each step deliberate, inevitable.

They didn’t rush. They didn’t falter.

Behind them, the civilians stared in stunned silence.

"Who... are they?" a boy whispered.

The sergeant, still gripping his spear, answered without taking his eyes off the green-armored giants. "Our savior"

The battle continued.

Shing!

Boom!

A war axe cleaved into the thick hide of a titan’s back, biting deep enough for bone to groan under the force.

The titan roared, stumbling forward before collapsing face-first into the street.

Boom!

The figure on its neck did not flinch from the impact, an armored giant with a jagged, half-length blade strapped to his side.

The crimson visor of his helmet cast an unblinking glare down at the writhing creature.

The wound hissed as steam rose, flesh knitting back together in seconds.

The stench of burning meat and foul ichor thickened the air.

The Broken Blade warrior’s expression beneath the helm never shifted. His voice, low and detached, cut through the chaos.

“Rapid regeneration. High physical defense. Intellect… pitiful.”

“Understood,” came another voice, flat and without hesitation.

A second warrior strode forward, each step a deep, ground-shaking thud.

He reached a crawling titan, its oversized head turning toward him with a slack-jawed grin.

Without ceremony, his armored boot slammed into its face.

Boom!

The sheer force caved the skull inward as the titan skidded across the cobblestone, shattering a storefront into splinters and rubble.

Dust rained down from the fractured beams as the warrior followed through, one hand wrapping around the titan’s greasy hair, the other gripping its massive neck.

With a sharp, unrelenting motion, he tore the head clean from its body, spinal cords snapping like wet rope.

“The weakness is universal,” he stated coldly, dropping the head with a dull thud. “Sever the head, and they stay down. No chance for recovery.”

"But for most awakeners in this world, these titans are their nemesis."

His tone carried no pride, no thrill, just the rhythm of a man logging a fact into an endless list.

But then, a faint flicker caught in the corner of his visor.

A thin streak of red split the distant sky.

All of them turned at once.

Visors glowed faintly as they tracked its ascent, the world briefly falling silent beneath the weight of their attention.

“SOS flare?” one murmured.

A short pause. “A group is in trouble somewhere.”

“Impossible,” another replied, his voice more like iron scraping than speech. “These titans aren’t enough to cause distress to any trained unit of ours."

The leader raised a gauntleted hand, signaling without looking back. “We finish here. Fast. Then move. Five brothers will remain to escort the civilians back to the Lord’s territory.”

A single word in response: “Good.”

Their formation

shifted instantly, no wasted steps.

Each warrior’s frame moved like a siege engine, the ground trembling under their combined advance.

The smell of blood, scorched flesh, and dust clung to the air as they cut forward through the titans in this city.