Chapter 379

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

A tremendous roar shook the air, while vibrations traveled through the ground.

Xiao Shen stared toward the horizon, unable to believe what was happening.

The monsters are supposed to be thousands of kilometers away.¹ How did they…?

The twenty-year-old was not the only one wondering.

More than a thousand Hunters from the Public Security Armed Forces Department and five thousand members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army had been dispatched to Chengdu International Airport to maintain public order. Every one of them had the same question, and every one of them was stunned by the reality bearing down on them.

—Screeech!

—Graaaar!

From low-level monsters such as goblins and Orcs to higher-tier monsters like Trolls, ogres, and Lycanthropes…

An army of monsters filled the horizon, charging forward with hideous shrieks.

The one-kilometer gap² was closing by the second. Panicked cries rang out.

“Form ranks by unit! Assemble! Form up—!”

“Fire! Fire!”

Rat-a-tat-tat! Boom!

The People’s Liberation Army hurriedly formed ranks and unleashed their firepower at their commanders’ orders, but the effect was negligible.

No one had expected an army of monsters to attack.

The soldiers were ordinary people without any special abilities. Fear paralyzed them, and their weapons were effective only against low-level monsters at best.

“There are too many! There are too many monsters!”

“Pilots!”

“Get the fighter jets in the air! Bomb them from above—!”

The commanders’ frantic shouts were drowned out by a ferocious roar from the sky.

—Kyaaaao-o-o!

“W-What is that?”

“Wyvern! It’s a Wyvern!”

A gigantic shape flew toward them with the setting sun at its back.

A Wyvern, known as the terror of the skies, led the charge, followed by dozens of Griffons and Gargoyles.

The A-rank monsters angled their wings, each several meters long,³ and dove upon the fighter jets that had yet to take off.

Crunch! Boom!

Their powerful wingbeats rocked the several-ton machines,⁴ while magical-power-infused claws tore through the aircraft hulls like paper.

Metal fragments blasted outward with tremendous force, mowing down the pilots running frantically toward their planes.

Boom! Crunch!

They died instantly, without even the chance to scream.

The commanders regained their senses and ordered the soldiers to open fire, but even hundreds—thousands—of bullets left no more than scratches on the monsters’ magical-power-infused skin and hides.

—Kikikik.

The monsters laughed at the helpless humans.

A shock of terror swept through the soldiers, making every hair on their bodies stand on end.

“H-How can this be?”

An army of monsters filled the ground and sky. Even firearms barely affected them.

They were monsters in every sense of the word.

“M-Monsters…”

“I-I have to live. I don’t want to die like a dog in a place like this!”

The fear of death spread faster than any epidemic.

As the People’s Liberation Army began backing away, one person strode forward instead.

“Don’t retreat!”

Xiao Shen shouted, his youthful face still not quite rid of its boyishness and his eyes blazing.

The Five-Starred Red Flag, the national flag of the People’s Republic of China, was emblazoned across the chest of his armor.

“Who are we?”

Those who had been about to flee stopped in their tracks at the young man’s question.

Xiao Shen glared at the army of monsters charging from several hundred meters away.⁵ His voice thundered once more from beneath his low-pulled helmet.

“Who are we?”

The shout made their blood boil.

With every eye upon him, Xiao Shen raised his spearhead high.

“We are the descendants of Zhonghua!⁶ We are brothers of the People’s Liberation Army and the Public Security Armed Forces Department!”

Aura the color of sunset blazed from the spearhead thrust toward the heavens.

Hissss!

“Let’s go! Let’s wipe out every last one of those monsters!”

“Waaaaaaah!”

A tremendous roar numbed the ears and shook the earth.

Led by Xiao Shen, the Hunters of the Public Security Armed Forces Department gripped their weapons and charged the monster army like ferocious tigers.

“Don’t retreat! Show them the strength of Zhonghua!”

“Uaaaaah!”

—Graaaar!

—Awooooo!

Human cries filled with the resolve to face death mingled with the monsters’ shrieks. The two groups collided and became entangled in one mass.

Kwagwagwagwang!

The collision shook heaven and earth. Death rained down from every direction.

“Gyaaaah!”

—Kweeeek!

Squish! Crack!

Screams and thunderous impacts rang out across the battlefield.

An A-rank Hunter’s aura-coated blade sliced through a Lycanthrope’s neck, while a single swing of an ogre’s iron club reduced three or four Hunters to bloody pulp and sent them flying.

Two Hunters combined their strength to bring down a monster. As they raised their weapons against their next foe, a gigantic shadow fell over them.

—Kiiiiiit!

Slice!

A Griffon plunged from the sky, its claws shredding the Hunters’ bodies along with their armor.

As it searched for its next prey, a large ball of fire hurtled toward it.

“Fire Ball!”

Boom!

The Griffon’s body reeled amid the acrid smoke. The ranged units on the ground had been watching for just such an opportunity, and they did not let it pass.

“Now!”

Bang! Boom-boom-boom!

All manner of spells and arrows brimming with mana pierced the Griffon.

It plummeted with a dying shriek, and the other flying monsters let loose ferocious cries.

—Kyaaaao-o-o!

Modern weapons made of lead and iron blocked the flying monsters as they plunged toward the ranged units.

“Concentrated fire!”

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat! Boom!

Countless rifles and heavy weapons opened fire. Dozens of tanks unleashed their cannons at once.

Modern weapons could not compare to mana, the natural counter to a monster’s magical power, but so much concentrated fire still forced the flying monsters to falter.

—Kiiit!

“It’s working!”

“Anywhere else is useless! Aim for their eyes!”

The flesh of monsters, saturated with magical power from birth, easily shrugged off most physical force.

But there was one exception: the eyes.

Covered only by a thin membrane, their eyeballs could be damaged by heavy weapons.

At the sight of the monsters hesitating, the divisional commander who had been watching the battle excitedly waved his command baton.

“More! Pour it on! Pin those monsters down—”

Rooooar!

His voice cut off.

Poison Breath from a Green Wyvern blanketed an area over a hundred meters in radius.⁷ The divisional commander and his command staff were drenched in powerful acidic poison and melted away.

“C-Commander!”

“The command staff…!”

The People’s Liberation Army lost hundreds of soldiers and high-ranking officers in the blink of an eye. Panic swept through its ranks.

Officers, noncommissioned officers, and enlisted soldiers alike stared at the horrific scene before them, crying out in shock.

“This can’t be happening…”

“N-No. This isn’t right. It can’t be! This isn’t my mission!”

That scream spoke for all of them.

They had deployed in force as a precaution, but their primary mission was to meet and escort the foreign Hunters arriving at Chengdu International Airport, then follow their superiors’ orders.

No one had said anything about an army of monsters thousands of kilometers away¹ invading the airport.

“What the hell is happening…?”

“We’re going to die. We’re all going to die.”

The fear they had briefly forgotten descended upon the People’s Liberation Army once more.

They were not the Hunters of the Public Security Armed Forces Department fighting at the front. They were only ordinary people carrying modern firearms.

And their ominous suspicion soon became reality.

A nightmare worse than anything they had imagined.

—Om. Neu. Ha. So. Yu.

A voice spoke in broken, disconnected syllables. The eerie sound, like static from a radio with a poor signal, echoed across the battlefield.

Black fog that had gathered from somewhere spread over the people’s heads.

—Yen. Wi. Ga. Ji. Ke!

That was when the horrific change occurred.

Swoooosh!

Dark magical power, black as storm clouds, spread through the blood and corpses like a spiderweb.

It breathed new power and souls into the bodies growing cold, binding and subjugating them with chains.

Crack. Crack-crack-crack.

An army of skeletons slowly rose from pools of death, granted new life.

Those beings bound the countless dead with invisible chains and made them their slaves.

They laughed in satisfaction.

—Kik, kikikik.

—Grrk. Kihihih.

—Grrrrrk.

With a bubbling sound, a man rose to his feet.

Clad in armor emblazoned with the Five-Starred Red Flag and carrying a massive ax, he looked exactly like the A-rank Hunter Xiao Shen remembered.

…Mr. Yao Wei.

But Xiao Shen could not say the man’s name aloud.

He could not bring himself to.

Because he knew that the person standing before him was no longer the man he had known.

Ah… ahhh.

If Xiao Shen had not witnessed his decapitation a little over ten minutes earlier—if the man had not risen with his own severed head tucked under one arm—he would still have thought of him as a colleague and friend.

But Yao Wei no longer existed.

His new name slipped from Xiao Shen’s lips.

“Dullahan…”

A headless knight.

A Dullahan.

Xiao Shen bit his lip at the sight of his former colleague transformed into a high-level undead monster. Something hot ran down his cheek.

“I’m sorry. I truly am.”

—Graaaar!

The Dullahan charged with a shriek.

Xiao Shen shot forward like the wind.

The two of them had often sparred like this. What began as simple competitive pride became a daily routine, and after every bout, Xiao Shen had to endure Yao Wei’s complaints.

You little punk. Where are your manners? Would it kill you to let me win once?

Ha-ha. Let’s go get something to eat. The loser pays, so I guess you’re buying again today, Mr. Yao Wei.

You’ve got plenty of money at home, and you’re still so greedy. One day, I’ll make you buy me a meal.

But that had never happened, and now it never would.

Xiao Shen had always won.

Goodbye. Thank you for everything.

Whoosh! Slice!

The ax cleaved through empty air.

Aura blazed from Xiao Shen’s spearhead and tore through the Dullahan’s torso from the waist. The headless knight slowly crumpled.

Thud. Crash.

Xiao Shen stared down at the face of the fallen Dullahan—no, Yao Wei—and his eyes burned.

“How dare you… How dare you do this…”

Only half a day ago, these friends and colleagues had been laughing and talking with him.

Now they were undead monsters.

The Hunters of the Public Security Armed Forces Department were famous for their strict discipline, but they were not cold-blooded people without a drop of blood in their veins.

They had entered battle prepared to die. Now, for the first time, they faced the fear born of their attachment to one another.

“Get a grip! It’s me, Liu Yinqin! Liu Yinqin!”

“H-Hyung…!”⁸

—Grrrrrk!

Crack! Boom!

Screams and death rained down from every direction.

The Public Security Armed Forces Department had lost nearly half its strength. The monster army, on the other hand, had only grown in number and continued pouring forward without end.

Am I going to die here, like this?

For the first time in his life, Xiao Shen contemplated his own death.

The situation was desperate enough to make even someone as bright and cheerful as him think that way.

We never received a warning signal, so communications are probably down. There won’t be any reinforcements either… This really is the end.

Slice!

Xiao Shen cut down one charging undead monster after another, then laughed hollowly and looked up at the sky.

The sunset was beautiful.

Once the sun went down and darkness came, he would never see a sight like it again.

At least the last sky I see isn’t half bad…

Huh?

Xiao Shen blinked, his thought cut short.

Something enormous was hurtling toward the battlefield from high above.

An airplane?

Roooooar!

A gigantic aircraft wreathed in flames.

Then someone’s shout rang across the vast sky.

“Hey! Monsters!”

“…”

—…?

Am I hearing things?

Not only Xiao Shen but everyone on the battlefield looked up.

Someone’s voice, carrying an almost palpable madness, rang out like thunder.

“I’m going to ram it!”

Ram what?

Xiao Shen soon understood.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

The airplane’s enormous fuselage plowed straight across the battlefield.