Chapter 81: The Long, Long Night
This place — where had lost a on the very first encounter — had long been treated like forbidden ground.
Even now, still hadn't figured out what kind of attack it had used against the back then.
But that didn't matter, because today, he had plenty of drones and artillery shells.
With the first salvo of the artillery, three thousand " " suicide drones formed the first wave, plunging into the dense mist in a tight wedge formation.
The moment they entered the designated area, they actively detonated the high-energy explosive modules they carried.
hadn't tried to have them gather intelligence or analyze the situation inside the building.
There was only one thing they needed to do: explode.
BOOM——!!!
Three thousand points of light rose from within the mist at almost the same instant. The blazing white radiance pierced the mist in that very moment, illuminating the entire area as bright as day.
Hot on its heels came a roar that nearly tore the eardrums. A violent shock wave swept in all directions like a tsunami, flinging shrubs, streetlights, and abandoned vehicles aside like scraps of paper. The abandoned buildings all around were leveled to the ground in an instant.
Even the convoy on the high ground, positioned beyond the safe distance, felt the blast of the explosion. In that moment, even and the others, who were seeing this kind of explosion for the first time, were stunned.
However, when the aftershocks of the first round of explosions faded, the scene that emerged made everyone on the high ground suck in a cold breath once again.
Concrete fragments from the building's outer layer rained down, revealing what was truly inside — a living structure built from fresh, vivid flesh and blood.
No floors. No office cubicles. No elevator shafts.
In the very center of the building's interior, there was only a thing like an enormous egg sac made of bright red flesh.
Dark red sinews, like thick blood vessels, coiled across its surface, pulsing slowly.
Inside the translucent sac, a giant fleshy embryo more than ten meters in diameter was clearly visible.
And the saturation bombardment that could have destroyed an armored battalion just moments ago had been forcibly stopped by a layer of madly writhing dark red "flesh blanket" several meters thick.
At this moment, the flesh blanket's surface was charred over large areas, riddled with holes — yet the tissue beneath it was still writhing and proliferating at a visible rate.
"I knew it couldn't be that simple!" cursed.
[Its repair must be consuming energy,] 's voice rang out over the comm channel. [Keep attacking. Don't give it a chance to catch its breath!]
But at the same moment, hundreds upon thousands of hair-thin blood-red tentacles shot out from the surface of the flesh blanket — so fast that even could barely track them, and each one easily pierced through several drones.
Now finally understood how that had crashed back then.
But so what?
The delayed-detonation modules preset in the downed drones were still counting down.
Three seconds later, they blew up on their own in midair, blasting the surrounding tentacles apart along with them.
"Second volley! Aim for that embryo!" ordered decisively. Even a fool could see how serious the problem would be if they let this thing be born.
On the high ground, the self-propelled gun-howitzer and the rocket launchers fired in unison once more.
The shells traced parabolas and slammed into the egg sac, but that flesh blanket was agile enough to block all the attacks, like a blood-colored barrier.
The explosions plowed charred furrows across the flesh blanket's surface, yet never managed to harm the embryo behind it.
But just then, at the foot of the high ground, countless zombies and mutants abruptly changed direction and began charging up it like mad.
Three or four humanoid monsters covered in black bone spikes mixed in among them. Their objective was clear: destroy this fire position.
"Defense squad! Open fire!" ordered calmly.
On the flank of the position, dozens of 30 mm autocannons roared at the same time, their crimson streams of fire instantly suppressing every monster charging uphill.
An ancient noble tried to break through from the flank, only to be blasted straight back into the by a burst from the rotary machine gun was holding.
On the other side, seeing that conventional firepower couldn't stop that absurd flesh blanket from regenerating, made a decisive choice.
Since three thousand wasn't enough, then just increase the dosage!
The next second, directly took control of ten thousand suicide drones on standby and sent them charging at the embryo.
[ , — order all ground units to fall back five hundred meters and prepare for the shock wave.]
Ever since that blast in , he had come to understand something.
Suicide drones were the one true god!
When dealing with these inexplicable things, there was no point in slowly grinding them down — that was a fight he could never afford.
Stop thinking and just blow them up. That was all there was to it.
There was nothing an explosion couldn't solve. If it didn't die, the yield wasn't big enough.
Increase the dosage, and done!
A few seconds later, ten thousand points of light bloomed around the twisted flesh embryo.
In that moment, time itself seemed to slow down.
Then — BOOM!
A white sphere of light like a sun burst open above the ruins of the .
***
The 's main battlefield.
Although the assault on hadn't gone as smoothly as had hoped, there was no doubt that this tactic had caught the enemy off guard and thrown off the rhythm of their attack.
For example, when the fighting broke out at , the " " monster in the sky — the one that had been locked in an endless dogfight with the formation — suddenly froze mid-motion.
Then it let out a shrill, piercing shriek.
Countless blood-red sinews across its massive body blazed brilliantly as it abandoned everything and wheeled around, trying to fly toward .
But how could , who had been prepared all along, ever let that happen?
At that very instant — the moment this " " monster abruptly wheeled around and beat its wings.
A that had been hovering at the edge of the battlefield all along overloaded its engines, turned into a streak of silver light, and slammed suicidally into the 's enormous scale-wings, which had just begun to spread open.
BANG!
The violent explosion forcibly interrupted its acceleration, smashing its colossal body hard downward.
In that instant of stall, the indicator lights on the more than two thousand " " suicide drones that had long since taken up positions in the airspace around it switched from blue to red all at once.
BOOM!——
A blazing white fireball burst open in midair.
When the light faded, a burning mass of black-red wreckage was plummeting to the ground.
The 's pair of magnificent, savage scale-wings had been blasted down to nothing but the roots of the wings.
Its charred black carapace was covered in spiderweb-like cracks, from which vivid red tissue fluid gushed endlessly like a fountain.
Yet even so, it was still alive, the flesh all over its body desperately writhing to regenerate.
But with no ability to fly, it was nothing more than a sitting duck.
In the sky, the remaining dozen or so Sky Blades and more than two thousand swarm drones unhesitatingly poured out all their firepower.
High-energy lasers, micro-missiles... the nearly endless attacks drowned it completely.
In that moment, concentrated every bit of his aerial firepower on it, all for the sake of destroying it as quickly as possible.
Otherwise, this monster's mobility was simply too troublesome.
Seeing its recovery speed gradually failing to keep up with the speed of its destruction, the 's colossal body twisted violently in midair and — braving the hail of fire from all directions — charged at the 's black bulwark!
The next second, hundreds of blood-red energy blades swept down like a violent storm onto the wall and the turrets directly in front of it.
The swarm drones intercepted with everything they had, but its attacks were too dense. Several dozen light blades still broke through the interception net and slashed hard into the black bulwark.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The composite wall, more than capable of withstanding artillery bombardment, showed enormous cracks for the first time.
Meanwhile, the had already reached the foot of the wall, its raised forelimb pointing straight at the plasma turret on the wall's top.
[ ! Fall back!] 's warning exploded over the comm channel.
"Too late to run!" 's eyes were locked on the targeting interface, both hands still rotating the turret as steadily as a rock.
The blue-black launch rail lined up on that head howling skyward.
The electromagnetic acceleration rings lit up in succession.
The monster's forelimb had already come smashing down.
The next second — FWOOM——
A blue-white orb of destruction struck dead center on the monster's chest, which was already riddled with wounds.
BOOM——!!!
The terrifying energy impact completely blasted the monster's upper body apart.
Immediately after, several high-energy lasers lancing down from high altitude precisely vaporized the lower body that was still regenerating, finally ending its life.
At the same moment, 's system window popped up with a notification.
[Ding! Detected kill: third-stage special " " x1. gained: 8,000.]
[Ding! Obtained special drop blueprint: " " special-class large military UAV blueprint x1.]
[Current : 32,830.]
[ ! Still alive?]
"I'm fine, won't die — just a bit choked!" slumped back in the operator's chair, casually wiped the blood from her temple, and grinned.
Kill her with that? They'd need a lot more practice!
The next second, she swung the cannon around again, aiming at the other airborne units closing in.
Meanwhile, on the ground battlefield, the " " — focus-fired by every heavy weapon in an extremely short time — was finally blasted into fragments by the unrelenting artillery fire, leaving no possibility of recovery.
The deaths of these two troublesome core threats became the turning point of the battle.
The , which had been advancing without letup, already breaking through three defensive lines and pressing close beneath the city wall, began to be suppressed — even pushed back out.
Yet even so, the 's offensive showed not the slightest sign of falling apart — on the contrary, it grew even more frenzied.
Behind it, dozens of new " " had already entered the rocket launchers' range, scarlet energy beams beginning to converge.
"All units! Focus fire on the ! Blow them all to hell!" 's roar echoed in everyone's ears.
On the city wall, soldiers carrying man-portable air-defense missiles coordinated fire against the mutants that kept making death charges from the air.
shouted at the frightened people beside him as he reloaded: "Move the ammunition faster! Don't just stand there!"
Behind the position, the members were transporting ammunition resupplies to the wall at top speed, while several doctors organized emergency teams to carry the severely wounded to the rear.
Everyone was running for their lives, firing for their lives.
They all understood: the enemy had started fighting with everything they had, so they had to keep up.
***
— the core blast zone.
The terrifying shock wave blew away all the pale white mist within a radius of several kilometers.
The temporary high ground where , , and the others stood had also been grazed by the shock wave's aftermath. If they hadn't withdrawn in advance and found cover, both people and vehicles would have been sent flying.
"Cough, cough... we made it..." poked his head out from behind cover and looked at the horrifying scene in the distance, as if a giant beast had taken a bite out of the earth. He was still shaken.
The flesh blanket that had shielded the egg sac had been blasted into pieces. Thin fragments lay scattered across the scorched earth — writhing madly, yet clearly unable to come back together anytime soon.
However, the giant flesh embryo remained standing.
Only, the sac structure on its surface had shattered, revealing the true body within, glowing with dark red fluorescence under the night sky.
And just then, the monitors of everyone on the high ground let out piercing alarms at the same time.
lowered his head. The numbers on the dial were jumping wildly.
[Contamination level: Level Two. Real-time intensity: 74...81...93...99.]
The numbers finally stopped at 99. They didn't rise any further.
At the same time, a bizarre sound similar to Sanskrit chanting rose without warning in everyone's ears.
But unlike the sacred chanting that brings peace to the mind, this sound only made people feel unbearably ill, as if their brains were being churned into a smooth paste.
"Ah!" Several team members with weaker wills immediately clutched their heads and cried out in pain, their eyes blood-red. It was only after their comrades pinned them down hard that they barely managed to calm down.
At the same time, from the cracked-open egg sac, an enormous humanoid silhouette slowly straightened up.
Its height was estimated at over twenty meters. Its whole body was dark red, its frame seemingly woven from countless twisted flesh and sinews.
It had no head. In its place was an unnameable structure resembling a "lotus," seemingly composed of countless open mouths and eyes.
A single glance was enough to stir revulsion in one's heart, to make one want to vomit.
It extended a giant arm made of pure flesh and blood and casually beckoned.
After steadying itself, it casually waved its hand toward the ground.
In an instant, the flesh blanket fragments on the ground, as if summoned, madly gathered toward its body and climbed up onto it.
In the blink of an eye, the fragments joined together once more, ultimately forming a flesh cloak resembling a monk's kasaya over the bizarre monster's shoulders and back.
"Holy shit!" stared at that towering figure that seemed to prop up heaven and earth, feeling his worldview being refreshed yet again. "What the hell... do these monsters usually eat to grow this big?"
"Fire! Keep firing!" Immediately after, he practically roared the order.
The rocket launchers volleyed once more!
Yet those shells, powerful enough to split mountains and crack boulders, only burst into clouds of blood mist when they hit its body. Once the smoke cleared, those wounds had already healed.
"That can't be..." a gunner muttered.
Even more terrifying was that with every step it took, the zombies all around on the ground, as if obeying some sort of summons, surged madly toward it and willingly let the flesh tissue at its feet devour and absorb them.
And as it devoured the , its body was actually swelling at a rate visible to the naked eye!
Watching that godlike monster strolling through the gunfire, its body growing steadily larger, and couldn't help an emotion called despair rising in their hearts.
This... was this really something human beings could defeat?