Chapter 14: Devil's Advance

"As you can tell, we've got bigger problems than we thought. For the past few days we have been considering a full frontal assault to finally push all of them back into the forest, however that seems unlikely now."

Zhang rapped his knuckles on the desk while looking at the paused video. Maxim had also witnessed the monsters doing damage but that had luckily been mitigated due to both Maxim and Ben doing some movie stunts as well the the PLA (Yes I'm calling it PLA now) squadron that showed up later.

However, there was something on Maxim's mind that he had been dying to ask Zhang ever since the battle.

"Why were you in that area to begin with anyways?"

To Maxim, it didn't seem like there was a good reason for them to be helping Fort Bragg. It wasn't like he wasn't thankful for their help, their aide helped stop any casualties that could have occurred during that incident. This was pure curiosity more than anything.

Zhang, in turn, sighed.

"We, like you, also wanted to know if we could become allies in this situation. It was necessary to give some sort of incentive for you to approach us so you knew we weren't hostile"

Maxim nodded, but paused. All of this made sense except one point.

"So, how about the hostage incident?" Maxim inquired

"That was just pure instinct, as a member of the Snow Leopards commando unit we do hostage rescues all the time... we are an anti-terrorism police force after all."

The Snow Leopards commando unit- a special forces unit that had members handpicked out of the Peoples Armed Police (PAP). They are one of the leading anti-terrorism forces within The Peoples Republic of China, especially in high altitude mountain terrains. They have been involved in the raiding of many terrorist bases and hostage-rescue operations. Zhang's squad in particular liked to utilise snipers and area control, locking enemies in place.

If they left the area, they died

If they tried to hole up in buildings, they would either get breached and neutralised or if there weren't any hostages involved they would just level the area with coordination with the mechanised-infantry corps.

Zhang rapidly flipped through the papers on his desk before bringing out a printed picture of the bird/human like creature. This image was sharpened so the figure was clearer than day. Zhang handed the picture to Maxim,.

"We have questions of our own. If your friends from around here are meeting you, please show them what this is. We need to carry out a plan and I don't think this is something we can carry out alone."

Maxim took the photo and stared. The monster was still hard to understand, just like nearly everything else in this world. It didn't attack, despite the belief that all monsters were aggressive by nature. Even when a light was shined on it, there was no reaction but when the two drones were downed that was when it fled the scene.

Maxim had his suspicions, but he needed to get them confirmed before anything.

"alright, we'll do tha-"

Maxim was cut off as the ground around them started to tremble. James and Flander lost their footing and fell to the floor before getting back up, groaning.

"The hell was that!? Earthquake!?"

Maxim yelled out as the shaking started to become more continuous. Dust started to come down from the ceiling as the light started to flicker, it felt like they were in the middle of a huge earthquake.

TATATATA!

The distinct fire of a machine gun was heard in the distance, before the firing ceased. Maxim looked at Zhang, but he looked just as confused as he was. It seemed like this wasn't a normal occurrence at all, unlike what Maxim had thought.

Wordlessly, all of them evacuated the building and were met by a scene of absolute chaos. People were running around taking shelter while soldiers that were off-duty had started to gear up again.

It didn't look like any of them knew what was going on but they were still gearing up with their rifles and body armour, some carried snipers and light machine guns as well.

From the main road, a single jeep was driving at full speed towards the base. It looked like this was the one that had been sent out previously to deal with the bug problem, it definitely didn't come back unharmed.

Long scratches ran along the side of the car as well as some kind of green blood. There was a large dent on passenger's door, which despite being a jeep was still armoured to fit military protocol. The dent was almost in the shape of a fist, which suggested pure blunt damage from something punching the door.

The occupants in the car were scratched up pretty bad as well, a few of them had blood leaking down their face as well as a few having gashes on the sides of their shoulders and chests. They were moving just fine, but it was worse than any injury Maxim had seen a soldier take in the entire time they had arrived to this world.

The other soldiers that had been loading their weapons and were preparing to get on their jeeps to head towards the conflict noticed the jeep and opened the doors to pull the more heavily injured ones out. There were still no deaths thus far from what was known, but there was no doubt something out of their calculations had happened during their patrol.

Zhang reached out to the driver as he got out of the car. He looked less hurt than the rest of the soldiers but it still wasn't pretty.

"Private, what happened out there!?"

The private blinked a bit before he replied, probably trying to grasp his bearings.

"Giant...things came out of the forest. There were a bunch of wasps before as well but our flamethrowers took care of them it was... the weird things that crashed into our car and nearly flipped us over. We killed one but...the other one's heading towards the Americans! The base on the other side of the forest!"

Maxim immediately jolted upright at his words

"Everyone get back in the car!"

Ben P.O.V

"Those contraptions are quite interesting"

The Humvee was going especially slow so the carriages could catch up, but it was obvious to everyone there that it could easily triple or quadruple it's speed if it chose to do so. Currently, the carriage behind the car held the more important people that were in the group, which included guild leader Francis and secretary Asher, the latter of whom was holding something that looked like opera glasses (search it up).

"What's so interesting about them? I get they look expensive, almost dwarven made, but we see these things all the time in big cities."

"Well they aren't letting out any magic whatsoever..."

"What??"

The glasses that Asher were using were actually a magic analysing tool, capable of testing the magic in anything as long as you looked through the lens. However, while anything that was using magic or mana would be letting out a bright glow based on the attribute the car itself was completely grey. There was nothing there.

" Then how are they moving? Even elves and dwarves need magic to run anything, this makes no sense!"

This country was starting to turn more and more mysterious and complicated, things that having been seen before, constructs and structures that would cost fortunes being used in the hundreds, everything they did led to even more questions that he wanted to ask.

Ben chuckled a bit as he listened to their conversation. They didn't know that their conversation could be heard very clearly when they were talking aloud as long as you had the windows down, so Ben was just listening along.

"I think we should stop trying to get information for the meantime, we don't need to stir anything unnecessary up."

A silence settled soon after, with only the bumps of the carriage wheels on small rocks along the path. Though this was just a small detour to the battlegrounds right outside Fayetteville, however there were still three humvees full of soldiers accompanying them, mostly in case an attack happens again.

With mounted turrets on top of all the humvees, this level of protection should be enough to counter something like last time. Though this was standard protocol when leaving the base, on top of all that Ben also had another LAV-25 follow the group of them as well.

Currently the group consisted of three carriages, one with V.I.P's and two other's with mercenaries. Adventurers generally weren't employed for escort missions like this since their skills were best utilised in smaller groups, mercenaries on the other hand were paid for their job at a stable income, so they worked better as guards.

These mercenaries were from the Lunama empire, which meant that they specialised in spear and sword combat. From what Ben knew, the Lunama empire was your run of the mill fantasy kingdom, equipped with traditional weapons and a fewer number of mages than most would want.

However, despite this they had won many wars with hostile kingdoms in the past. Especially ones that were fanatically following a god or goddess and wanted to purge others out of existence, those two had quite a history.

They were quite strong in their own right, but the only advantage they had over the American troops was experience with monsters. Still, the more the merrier.

They started to approach the site of the battle but the corpses that had littered the ground were now gone. For a moment, Ben could feel the air still around them. Something was wrong, very wrong.

And that was when he heard it.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

The booming footsteps that were coming out of the forest were headed straight towards them. All the cars and carriages spread out along the road as something was getting closer to them.

"Everyone out!"

Ben got everyone to get out of the humvee's as the footsteps got closer. They could feel the vibrations and shaking on the ground as the thing started to emerge from out of the forests, sending wasps flying in every direction.

Spear-tips were exposed from the carriages as the mercenaries also opted to get out in preparation for a fight. Each one had painted leather armor and iron helmets, many headed to the front as the ones with swords unsheathed them and stayed near the guild leader.

The soldiers used the open doors of the car as mounts for their guns before aiming their M4's at the stumbling beast that finally revealed itself.

Grey, anaemic skin coupled with a huge body and a club on the side and small, beady eyes. The thing let out a deafening roar as it advanced. Before anyone even had the chance to comprehend what was going on, smaller, panther-like reptiles appeared at it's feet. Nearly a dozen of them stalked forwards, sharp talons and teeth at the ready.

The air was once again filled with the familiar noises of the wasps as they started to fill the skies. This was much worse than anyone could anticipate.

"Fire!"

The gunners started to unload onto the monsters, .50 calibre bullets tearing through the monsters. The wasps immediately scattered after a dozen or so dropped from the bullets. The mercenaries covered their ears as they opened fire, almost getting a few eardrums ruptured due to the loud noises of the machine guns.

TAKATAKATAKA!

"AH!"

Guild leader Francis was having it pretty bad, sitting right next to one of the humvee's that were opening fire. The LAV moved forwards as the .50 calibres kept up sustained fire. That was when the panther-like lizards started to move.

When the battle started, the creatures hid behind the legs of the larger monster and had climbed onto it's back and arms. The larger monster took .50 cal hits and even a few 20mm chain gun hits but was still standing. The bullets had ripped through the flesh of the monster, but even then it still moved forwards like nothing was going on.

A few of the monsters hiding behind it got absolutely obliterated but most managed to use the large monster as a meat-shield before rushing forwards. They ran towards the LAV that was moving forwards to attempt to force them back and zigzagged to avoid the chaingun's fire. Some of them managed to jump above the LAV's gun's elevation, making it impossible to hit.

They clambered onto the LAV while attempting to break in but finding out that their claws and teeth were useless against the armor of the vehicle.

Realising the situation, the LAV driver stopped firing and drove the LAV in a doughnut around at high speeds. This caused the monsters that were clasping to it to get swung off, sending them flying through the air.

A few of them landed right beside the mercenaries, but before the monsters could even get up they were impaled by spears drive into the neck which put them down for good. The mercenaries looked on in disbelief as the wasps and other monsters were dropping like flies by weapons that they couldn't even see. To them, it looked like they were just dropping dead randomly since the wasps weren't spraying blood when they were shot.

"That fucker isn't going down!"

Despite all of their firepower, normal bullet's weren't taking the largest one of the group down. Everything else around it lay dead on the ground, ripped to shreds by the hailstorm of bullets but every time this monster was shot it instantly regenerated.

The guild leader suddenly yelled out in surprise as he looked closely at the monster

" T-t-that's a flesh golem! It's a C rank, we can't kill it with what we have here!"

The flesh golem barreled through the ranks of the mercenaries, swinging a few aside before smashing it's club into one of the carriages. The wood a steel of the carriage turned instantly into splinters. The flesh golem grasped it's club before finally eyeing down Ben

"Ah shit"

Ben dived to the ground just as the golem swung, missing him and making dirt fly into the air from the impact. Ben hurriedly jumped into the back of the humvee and the driver put it into reverse, making the golem narrowly miss a swing and hit right onto where the car was just moments ago.

TAKATAKATAKA!

FWOOSH!

As the gunner tried desperately to fight the monster off with the .50 cal, a different sound filled the battleground. Something shone across the forest before burying itself in the monsters back.

The golem only had seconds to register what happened before it disintegrated from the object, exploding from the inside and scattering it's remains across the battlefield.

Ben stared at the remains of the monsters before looking up towards the forest.

Someone made their way through the deep thickets of the forest, that being Maxim. He was holding a shoulder-fire rocket launcher, with the rocket tip missing. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together

"You good kid?"

The grind continues

Also here's something interesting

Battle report (Has flags on RoyalRoad and Scribblehub)

Commanders and Leaders

Earthlings

-Sergeant Maxim

- Captain Zhang

Adventurers Guild

- Guild Leader Francis

Devil's Forest Monster Group (No Flag)

Flesh Golem

Flesh Golem

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Combatants

Earthlings

- 1st Motorized Infantry Squad- 20

- 82nd airborne-escort squadron- 18

x1 LAV-25

x3 Humvee

Unaffiliated - Lunama Kingdom Mercenaries- 15

Devil's Forest Monster Group (No Flag)

x2 Flesh Golem (Rank C)

x12 Death Stalkers (Rank D)

x54 Giant Wasps (Rank E)

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Results

Earthling-Adventurers Victory

All monsters destroyed

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Casualties

-5 injured

Mercenaries-3 injured 1 killed (Crushed in carriage)

Devil's Forest Monster Group (No Flag)

66 killed