The sun was gradually rising, but the early summer sunshine failed to dispel the gloom of the battlefield. The bone-chilling coldness made the sunlight seem gray. The no-man's land, sporadically combed by crows, still appeared desolate and terrifying in the sunlight—it conjured images of deserts, Gobi, abandoned mines, and all places devoid of life. But those places would never have so many decomposing bodies, let alone the malevolent creatures that fed on them.