Chapter 23

In a dark alleyway of the shopping district center, two corpses of hideous creatures lay ruptured on the ground. They were slightly smaller in size compared to the one Cindy and Mindy encountered. From the deformed shape of their corpses, it seemed like the creatures were brutally murdered, making its already grotesque feature even more horrifying.

Zomi looked questionably at the two black crystals on her hand. After a few seconds of examination, she placed the crystals in her multi-dimensional space breast pocket and stabbed her hands in the corpses. The corpse of the abomination quickly withered while Zomi still held a blank expression.

The big girl thought they were quite nutritious and was about to hunt for more of these creatures. Before that, Zomi took out a container and had her daily portion of white oozy stuff then let out a soothing innocent smile.

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The military leaders of Anurica had forcibly assumed the legitimacy of the nation's government from the spineless remnants of the country's politicians and leaders. They established total control in the name of state of emergency and stripped all civilian rights. This was met with strong backlash and made controlling the surviving cities difficult, but it was deemed as a necessary sacrifice that had to be made.

The military's first order of priority was not to rescue the civilians and defend the remaining cities. Only certain cities were prioritized and most cities out of position were low on the list. The commander in charge had deemed that the highest priority was to secure crucial infrastructures such as nuclear power plants, dams, satellite control centers, weapon & steel manufacturing factories and national emergency supplies in various warehouses. In times of crisis, he could only treat the population as just a number for human resources and saving as many people as possible was more of a liability than gains in this war.

In the forward HQ base at the northern outskirts of New Londo.

"Bravo! What is the situation on the ground? Over."

"Battle master tank reporting! Commander, we have spotted another pack of zombies estimated at 200,000 heading in the northeast direction. The auxiliary team had already engaged with the enemy and was wiped out. Over."

The commander could only hold his aching left chest as he digested the news. Beyond the walls of the temporary HQ, gunshots and explosions can be heard from miles away. Just a short distance of 30 miles east was a metropolis full of living people. What will soon happen is a dreadful siege of the city and they must delay the inevitable as long as possible, since almost a million lives were too great of a responsibility for the military to bear.

Across the horizon, a massive horde of zombies were attracted by the living and were promised a feast by their king. The human soldiers on the ground were doing everything they could to slow down the march of the horde towards the city to buy time for the evacuation. Artillery shells rained from the sky, erasing patches of zombies that all too soon refilled from within their ranks.

"Keep the gun barrel spinning!"

"General! Unit down!"

The battle lines had been shrinking. Fast mutated zombies could break into the ranks in front of a barrage of bullets and force the human soldiers to temporarily abandon their defensive positions. In the battle, the soldiers were vastly out-numbered as transportation of ammunition and troops was a major issue.

The commander brutally scratched his head and tightened his eyelid closed. His forces were spread thin and separated throughout the vast country. The battlefield he was in now was not the only battle taking place. Roads and bridges were occupied by chaos or hordes of zombies, making transportation by land largely inadequate and the commander could only rely on the meager number of air force he had at hand for transportation. Worst of all, the regiments that were isolated by physical contact would often defect from the nation's military and form their own organization.

Amidst the battle, an order was given to the front-line generals. The second and fourth regiments were ordered to retreat, as another horde of zombies were approaching from their flank. The soldiers on the ground could only swallow their breath being the given order, for they understood what their retreat meant for the fates that were in their hands.

The commander prayed to God for the sin he was about to commit as he gravely gave out his order over the radio.

"Foxtrot, execute operation H2 at 18:00 on the mark. Over."

Captain Balalaika slammed the transceiver on the ground, her battalion was ordered to move to the 38th parallel to slow down the incoming horde of zombies from the west. This was a suicide mission for her and her men, but she had no choice but to accept her order.

"Father… as expected of you," the captain murmured to herself.

Balalaika regrouped her men and hosted a small meeting with her lieutenants. The plan was for the armored division to march at full speed to set up defenses at the 38th parallel and the rest of the battalion would set up other lines of defenses at one, three and five mile marks respectively behind the first defensive line.

At the last defensive line, all the men in the tent understood there would be nowhere left to run. For the original horde of zombies will be right behind them when the rest of the army retreated. Solemn orders were given out and the battalion moved into action.

The first defensive line at the 38th parallel was defined by rocky mountainous terrain with small hills and ditches. This type of terrains was unfavorable for armored vehicles to move freely, which was a disadvantage. However, with a lack of supplies such as gas, the captain planned to form choke points by using the terrain and abandoning the vehicles to form walls.

After exhausting the ammunition of the combat vehicles, they were abandoned and the tactic worked well when the soldiers dealt with the first scattered wave of zombies. However, the battalion had no chance against the full horde marching through and quickly retreated to the second defensive line.

The next few hours at the second and third defensive lines met with heavy casualties as mutated zombies mixed in the fray. Firearms definitely still threatened the mutated zombies, but they did not go down with just a couple shots. Furthermore, some of the zombies were able to move at a speed faster than soldiers can react. More often or not, the men had to trade their lives for an opening to kill such zombies.

"Captain, we retreated here earlier than expected. But it seemed like it's still too late to run," one of the lieutenants said mockingly. "We got our ass kicked and now surrounded by that same horde."

"Running was never an option. Seems like something intelligent is leading the horde," the captain lit up a cigar in front of her men. After she lowered her cigar and exhaled a ring of smoke, all lieutenants then saluted in unison.

"Captain… it was an honor to serve you. We will fight to the last breath."

"Captain! You carry our men's hope and dreams!"

"And we will die to protect that pair of hope and dreams!"

"Shut up Idiots!" The captain threw her gun at the men shouting out nonsense and her pair of ample bounty under the military uniform jigged with the motion.

The battalion, now down to a company of men, was at their last defensive line. They held their bastion at a once well-known five-star hotel in the area. The zombie king itself and its guards had rushed ahead of the horde to the area and commanded the surrounding local zombies to encircle the humans holding down the fort in the hotel. So far, only small packs of zombies poked the hotel's defenses. The hooded zombie king in a robe did not plan to risk itself or its bodyguard's lives for some caged prey.

Captain Balalaika was sitting in a dark room alone, enjoying her moment with the last cigar in her mouth. But within the darkness, the sound of cracking was heard, and a rift was opened in front of the captain. However, nothing came out of the rift, it remained brilliantly bright. Balalaika was mesmerized by the rift and walked towards it. She put her hand within the rift and felt she was slightly sucked into a portal. Finally, she moved forward and her whole body disappeared within the light.

By the time the zombie king ordered a full attack, no living soul was found within the hotel. Their presence still lingered, but the zombie king could not understand where the humans had gone. Regardless, the humans here were just bonus side meals, the reason why it had led its army here was for a different matter.

At the same time, high altitude above clouds, two fighter planes were enroute to perform their mission.

"This is Alpha and Charlie, requesting confirmation from HQ," the head pilot reported.

"This is HQ, confirmation granted. God bless Anurica."

The pilot heard the confirmation and nodded his head to his partner in the other jet fighter. Both fighters launched their missiles in the direction of the mountain range outside of New Londo. The target was a hydroelectric dam that stored water from the river of the mountains. With the dam destroyed, large areas of the north will become inaccessible, even for the zombies.

The ultimate back up plan for the military was to destroy the dam and flood the region to prevent zombies from marching further east. The build-up of water from the long season of storms was enough to buy the military enough time to secure the northeast pocket, but the consequence of this action was the loss of major infrastructure and thousands of lives lost.

The zombie king robe marched forward with its horde. The other horde was stopped due to the flood created by the humans. The two hordes finally met at the bank of the river and their respective kings stood out to meet their rival.

Surprisingly, within seconds after the king's meeting, the two hordes of zombies began to fight with each other. Even with the overwhelming size disparity between the two hordes, the hooded zombie king and its bodyguards were able to take out their enemy's leader in the first hour and emerge victorious.

The victorious zombie horde feasted on the other side, growing ever stronger. The zombie king in the hood and cloak, after eating the leader of the defeated horde, looked back in the direction of New Londo, where it planned to make a return as a true king of the horde. It remembered that tall existence, fear still ran through its spine, but it was determined to get stronger to confront that existence again.