The Horde Arrives

'I shouldn't fight in here.'

The immediate area was enclosed and way too cramped to try and fight. There were high places grimm could leap to and attack him from the top or blind spots that the grimm could exploit to their advantage.

To Hanns, the place was horrible to fight in. Hanns needed to get vision, he was not going to risk a mutant creep sneaking up to him while he dealt with the increasingly numerous grimm that he attracted. Spotting a nearby area with light pouring in from the sinkhole above, he immediately went for it.

As he drove he could feel the thousands of footsteps the horde of grimm were making. Old ruined and still standing buildings were surrounding an area basked in sunlight that seeped from above. He idled in the middle while waiting for them to arrive.

He needed a strategy. While the Tiger H1 might be strong to resist attacks with its armor, the older and much stronger grimm will definitely use the distraction these smaller grimm will provide to attack his weaker top armor or underside.

Taking a look at his surroundings there was something he could do. He could funnel every single grimm in one opening while blocking off the rest by using the buildings.

Hanns began shooting the supports that held the buildings upright, bringing the whole structure down to sections of his area that had an entrance. Satisfied at the result he finally heard the horde nearby circling the area he created and readied himself.

Various grimm types began flooding the entrance he left an opening for. He loaded in HE and fired at the center of the entering grimm, sending some flying to the sky while the rest were killed in an instant from the high explosive sending shrapnel outwards.

Reloads were going to be his weakness so he had to use his machine gun to suppress grimm but found it harder and harder to manage increasing numbers of grimm.

'Can't these bodies decay quicker?'

The bullets he fired could only pierce a single grimm at a time, the lower caliber could instantly kill a weak grimm but its body still lingered long enough for other grimm to use its dying body as a meat shield before it decayed.

Hanns fires another HE at the center of the pack and spots mutants and alphas coming in. He needed to be more selective with his ammunition left in his machine gun so he focused on his main gun shooting stronger alphas and only burst firing at normal grimm.

Normal grimm were taken care of machine guns while harder enemies were destroyed with APSBS rounds. If there was a time he needed to reload hi machine guns he used HE while waiting for the reload to finish. The cycle he had was constant the whole time the event went on for.

Hanns was losing the track of time, he could check but that would mean a lapse in attention. He kept at this cycle for a while but he encountered a problem. The machine gun needed to reload and there was an unusually bigger amount of evolved and mutant type grimm arriving.

'Crap.'

Feeling the click from the now empty machine gun he switched to HE and committed to keeping the smaller grimm rather than eliminate the number of alphas. He backed up as the stronger alphas and mutants got in closer.

'Ok I think it's time to seal the entrance.'

Feeling the increasing pressure that the horde of grimm created, he fired a shell towards the support beam that held a building nearby. The structure collapsed burying beneath it hundreds of grimm before blocking the entrance he made.

Hanns could've done this from the start but free SL and RP made him choose to at least kill off part of the horde.

He was now left with multiple mutants and alphas in front and at his sides. He prioritized the mutant creeps. He wasn't going to risk getting blown apart by it so he wanted to take them out quickly.

He lets out machine gun fire at the other grimm to keep them busy while he reloads and fires an HE shell at the mutant creeps, killing them instantly.

A pair of mutant beowolves send out their spikes into the ground slowly growing in size while traveling towards Hanns.

'Woah!'

The spikes narrowly missed as Hanns backed away just in time. Loading in APCBC he melted the head of one of the mutant beowolves. The other alphas decide to launch their attacks simultaneously. Alpha creeps swung their tails, Ursa started charging him and beowolves began to lunge for the gun.

He accelerates forwards and crushes the alpha creeps beneath him while decimating the top half of the ursai when he shoots an APCBC round at them. Turning his turret, he switched to his other viewports to see the location of the other alphas.

He lets out more cannon shots as he kills the rest of the grimm before meeting the last mutant beowolf charging up its spikes. Not taking any chances he killed the beowolf and watched it as it lifelessly crumpled to the ground.

A sudden burst of rubble from the opposite side alerted him and immediately turned to face the new threat.

A giant mutant deathstalker crushes its fellow grimm below it while it walks forward from the breech it created, snapping its claws and its tail glowing bright green as it lets out a war cry at Hanns.

Hanns took one look at the new grimm and saw its armor plating lining the entire front part of the grimm angling at a really steep angle. Its mutated body let out green spikes from his side and made its tail grow green. Unlike the normal grimm, deathstalkers had almost its entire body made of carapace. So it's the closest thing to a tank that he could fight.

'Oh God, this reminds me of fighting soviet tanks before I knew about their weakness.'

Hanns loaded APCBC and shot it at the deathstalkers tail. The deathstalker swings its tail out of the way and Hanns' shot misses as it advances. He let machine guns fire out only for them to be ineffective, feeling his reload done he tries again.

Letting out another shell at the deathstalker he is surprised when the deathstalker uses its claw to block the shell. The grating noise of a ricochet reached his ears as he realized that the deathstalker just purposefully angled itself.

'One option left.'

He waits as he is loading in a DI-APCBC round. The deathstalker rushes forward reaching Hanns as it slams its claws at the ground while its spikes glowed green.

Hanns suddenly feels getting lifted up into the air as spikes reach the front part of his Tiger H1. He immediately makes his tracks grab the ground and break off the spikes. The deathstalker follows up its attack by swinging its razor sharp claw towards Hanns.

The barrel gets cut in half as Hanns drives towards its side cursing at the fact that it took away half his barrel.

Feeling the reload being finished he decides that he would let the DI-APCBC round travel towards the ground. The deathstalker tries to wrestle off Hanns who was attempting to ram its side while Hanns tries to get a shot at the ground below it.

The moment arrives and Hanns lets the shell travel through half his barrel before striking the ground beneath the unarmored belly of the scorpion-like deathstalker grimm.

The explosion tosses around Hanns sending him skidding across the ground while the deathstalker experiences total annihilation as it takes in all of the explosive prowess of the DI-APCBC and is left in bits on the ground.

*Ding*

[Mission Accomplished]

[Objective: Survive 1:30:00 / 1:30:00]

[Through the Fire: Destroy medium level grimm 15/22]

SL = 842,987 → 1,112,365 SL

VEHICLE RP = 112,382 → 185,438 RP

CONVERTIBLE RP = 165,807 → 260,489 RP

'Wait has it been an hour and a half or a minute and a half?'

The tank slowly repaired the damages and refilled the ammunition he used up during the fight and took his time looking around the underground city. Hanns would travel to where a trail of mutant grimm could be found.

Feeling his tank get repaired, he drives forwards passing by the multitude of decaying grimm. The breach the mutant deathstalker created was used by Hanns, he had planned on driving straight through the walls once the horde event finished but now that the deathstalker created one he could rest easy that it did the job for him.

In the distance he could barely see the markings of Merlot Industries' logo on a steel encased building. It was covered in destroyed sections of the facility and the paint was starting to peel off, a sign of age.

Multiple mutant grimm were roaming around it, easily spotted by the green glow they emanated from their body. It wasn't hard to pinpoint the area he needed to go so he judged the distance he had to travel.

'Quite far.'

Hanns had been fighting continuously for almost the whole day now. So he wanted to finish up the day by at least traveling towards the underground lab and stopping to some uncollapsed building to stay in before he would begin properly exploring Merlot's lab and killing every mutant type in there.

The rewards from earlier were very abundant. Mutant grimm provided more of a challenge and could actually injure Hanns properly if they could get to his weak spots. They gave him more RP and SP than their normal variant by a large difference.

He felt his tracks travel along the cracked and aging roads that lead towards Merlot Industries in the far distance. Roars filled the ambient atmosphere that the underground city was in. It was as large as the city above it but there is a stark contrast to the mood it brought.

Darkness filled the area since electricity powered by dust was presumably shut down after the fall of the city itself. The only light Hanns could use was the sunlight that leaked from the surface.

It was getting darker and darker and eventually Hanns got to a point where he was constantly running over chunks of fallen debris littered on the road he was trying to traverse.

He would need to find someplace to stay in for a while and rest up while he let the night pass by. Fighting in pitch black conditions would be a nightmare against grimm. If the night in Forever Fall had been dark, an underground labyrinth of concrete was much worse in terms of light.

As Hanns came to a stop he focused on looking at buildings to find a suitable place of refuge. It was still relatively sturdy and the buildings surrounding it acted as a wall to prevent grimm from wandering in.

Deeming it the best place for him to stay, he carefully made his way inside the building. It was surprisingly still orderly, unlike the other buildings that were scattered throughout the city. It was spacious too so he could bring in his Tiger H1 without blowing out the entrance for him to fit in.

He picked a spot to rest in and felt his engine turn cold as he urged it to turn off. He would still live even without the engine running, it just meant that he couldn't move from the lack of power.

He checked the hud for his account too look at the current SL and RP he had. Hanns was already at one million SL so the only thing keeping him from getting a plane was about 800,000 RP.

It would be only a few more days before he could unlock the aviation tree. The grimm both at the upper and underground parts of Mountain Glenn were still densely populated.

In one day he could earn almost 150,000 RP if he kept farming at this pace. It would be close to his goal of better transport than being stuck at the ground all the time.

'Should I just use the tunnels?'

It was definitely better than cross country suffering but a tank wrecking the supposed barricade to a city filled to the brim with grimm will definitely make the world hate him. Though he supposes that it wouldn't take long to get a plane so no rush to break down the barrier in Vale.