Chapter 182: The Monster Assault

The armored vehicles slowly pushed forward, then the ground began to tremble. The vibration quickly grew stronger, accompanied by a deep, rhythmic sound coming from within the black tide.

Thump, Thump, Thump.

"Something’s coming!" a soldier inside the lead armored vehicle warned.

The infected at the front of the horde suddenly scattered as something massive forced its way through them. Bodies were shoved aside and thrown across the street as several enormous figures charged toward the advancing formation.

"Identify the targets!"

Before anyone could respond, a massive figure burst through the horde.

BOOM! A Gorefist slammed directly into the first armored vehicle.

The impact lifted the front of the vehicle off the ground before the entire machine was thrown onto its side. Metal screeched as the armored vehicle rolled across the street, crushing several soldiers beneath it.

"What the hell was that?!"

"Gorefists!" another soldier shouted through the radio. "Multiple Gorefists charging the front!"

BOOM! BOOM!

One after another, they emerged from the horde and charged straight toward the armored formation. They slammed into the vehicles one after another, shaking the defensive line and forcing the advancing armor to halt.

"Commander, the Gorefists are breaking through the front!"

Stephen immediately raised his radio. "Stop the advance! Tighten the formation. Get the vehicles together and don’t let them split us apart!"

"Copy!"

The remaining armored vehicles quickly maneuvered closer together, forming a tighter defensive line while their mounted guns focused on the charging Gorefists.

Above them, Reynold and the Special Units had already seen the threat.

"Gorefists!" Reynold shouted. "Concentrate fire on them before they reach the infantry!"

The Special Units immediately adjusted their positions. Cables fired toward nearby buildings as soldiers swung across the streets, opening fire as they moved.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Rounds tore into the approaching Gorefists, striking their heads and upper bodies. Several staggered under the concentrated fire, but they continued charging through the barrage.

"Keep shooting! Aim for the head!"

Another soldier fired as he swung toward a nearby building, but before he could reach the rooftop, something moved from the shadows.

A long arm suddenly shot out from the side of the building.

THWIP! The limb stretched far beyond anything should have been capable of, its hand snapping around the soldier’s torso in midair.

"AH...!" He disappeared from the formation in an instant.

"Man down!"

Reynold immediately turned toward the building as his eyes widened.

The soldier had been dragged toward the darkness, where a grotesque infected emerged from the shadows. One of its arms remained unnaturally elongated, while the other had transformed into a thick, blade-like appendage.

The creature swung its bladed arm and blood splashed across the side of the building.

"Kill it!" Reynold shouted.

The Special Units immediately redirected their weapons.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A concentrated barrage tore into the creature as more soldiers swung into position, surrounding the building from different angles.

The creature twisted behind the building, using the concrete wall as cover as its elongated arm dragged its body into the darkness.

...

While the western sector struggled to contain the Gorefists, another crisis was unfolding several streets away.

"Snipers, shift your fire to the Gorefists!" Brandon’s voice came through the radio. The man in his fifties, commander of the eastern defense, spoke with urgency as he watched the massive infected tear through the streets. "They’re breaking through the armored line. Take them down before they reach the infantry!"

The snipers immediately adjusted their positions, turning their rifles toward the massive creatures charging through the streets. Several settled behind their scopes and prepared to fire, but before they could take their shots, a desperate voice suddenly burst through the communications channel.

"Sander is down!"

"What happened?" Brandon immediately asked.

A sniper stationed on a nearby rooftop turned toward Sander’s position and froze. A Crawler had somehow slipped onto the building and was tearing into his companion.

"Crawler! We have a Crawler on the roof!"

"Close-range units, move in!" Brandon ordered. "Don’t let it reach the other snipers!"

Several Special Unit soldiers immediately fired their Dual Cable Launchers and swung toward the rooftop to intercept the creature while the remaining snipers repositioned themselves.

Below, the soldiers continued firing into the horde. The Gorefists were still charging through the streets, forcing the armored vehicles to maintain their defensive formation.

Then something slammed into the upper floor of a nearby building.

BOOM! The entire structure shook from the impact.

"What was that?" one of the soldiers asked, glancing toward the building before immediately turning back and firing into the horde.

A second later, something massive came crashing down from above.

BOOM! It landed directly on top of a parked vehicle, crushing the car beneath its enormous weight.

The soldier closest to it turned around, his expression immediately changed. "What the...?"

A massive, bloated infected slowly pushed itself up from the wreckage. Its body was unnaturally swollen, almost resembling a huge mass of flesh covered in stretched, diseased skin. Its limbs were almost completely swallowed by layers of grotesquely inflated tissue, making it look like a walking lump of rotten meat.

"Get that thing away from us!"

Several soldiers immediately raised their rifles and opened fire.

BANG! BANG! BANG! Bullets struck the creature’s swollen body, tearing through its stretched flesh, but the infected barely reacted. Instead, its entire body suddenly began to swell even further.

One soldier lowered his rifle slightly. "Wait..."

BOOOOM! Before they could react, the infected suddenly exploded.

A violent blast of flesh, bone, and dark blood erupted across the street. Soldiers caught within the blast radius were thrown from their feet, while others were struck by pieces of the creature’s body.

Several nearby soldiers collapsed immediately, leaving the surrounding area covered in blood and debris.

"Commander Brandon!" a soldier shouted into the radio. "We’ve got an explosion in the eastern street! Multiple casualties!"

"What’s the source?"

"We don’t know! Something came down from the buildings and exploded!"

Brandon’s expression hardened. "Find out where it came from, but don’t expose yourselves. Watch the surrounding buildings. Whatever caused that explosion may still be nearby."

Several soldiers cautiously scanned the rooftops through binoculars, searching through the smoke and chaos.

"There!" One of them pointed toward a nearby building.

"I see movement!"

Through the thick smoke, several large figures could be seen moving between the infected. Two Variants were carrying another one of the bloated infected between them, each holding one of its arms as they moved through the horde.

"They’re carrying those things!"

"Variants..." the soldier muttered. "They’re the ones sending those creatures."

He immediately grabbed his radio. "Snipers, target the Variants carrying the explosive infected!"

"Snipers are engaged with Crawlers!" another soldier reported. "They can’t get a clear shot!"

"Then have the nearest units take them down!"

The soldier raised his rifle and looked back toward the Variants.

But before anyone could fire... BOOOOM!

Another explosion suddenly erupted among the horde.

The bloated infected the Variants had been carrying exploded, tearing through everything around it. And the blast caught both Variants at close range, sending them staggering through the smoke.

One lost its entire shoulder to the explosion, while the other suffered a massive wound across its chest.

"How did they...?"

The soldier stared in disbelief. Before he could finish, two suppressed shots quietly cut through the battlefield.

THUP! THUP!

Both Variants suddenly jerked. Their heads exploded almost simultaneously, sending dark blood across the surrounding infected.

The soldier froze. "Good Lord..."

He immediately looked around, searching for whoever had fired the shots, but there was no obvious shooter. The rooftops were filled with smoke, debris, and moving infected, making it nearly impossible to identify the firing position.

"What’s the status?" a voice asked through his radio. "Report."

"The Variants are down," he answered, still scanning the buildings. "But... I don’t know where the shots came from."

"Probably one of our snipers. Continue monitoring the area."

"Understood."

The soldier lowered his binoculars slightly, still unsettled by what he had witnessed.

...

Several rooftops away, Jaxon slowly lowered his DMR.

His eyes remained on the corpses of the two Variants for another moment before he finally shifted his attention to the battlefield below.

’That’s three down.’

His gaze swept across the horde. ’Five more to go.’

Before he could move, a faint scraping sound reached his ears as Jaxon glanced over the edge of the rooftop.

Several infected were already climbing toward the rooftop, using the damaged walls and nearby structures to reach him.

He calmly reached into his System storage and pulled out a grenade. Without wasting another second, he pulled the pin and dropped it over the edge.

BOOM!

The explosion swallowed the infected climbing toward him, sending their bodies tumbling back into the street below.

Jaxon didn’t wait to see the result. He slung his DMR over his shoulder and immediately moved across the rooftops, heading toward Natasha and the others while another explosion echoed behind him.