Retreat?

Andre swatted a hunter aside with a powerful blow, but his plea was met with a dismissive shake of Zack's head. "Old man, you can retreat," Zack replied coolly, trying to convince Andre and his group to fall back.

"Retreat? Who do you think we are?" Andre growled, his tiger form towering over the battlefield. "We fear nothing! Ula!" With a defiant roar, Andre threw himself back into the fray, his battered body unleashing a second wave of ferocity. Claws flashing, he cut his way through the sea of zombies. But the relentless tide took its toll. Another gray wolf fell, collapsing from exhaustion and blood loss. One by one, the shapeshifters were overwhelmed, their bodies battered and broken on foreign soil far from home.

"Ego, call the Aegis! Deploy the Fearless ," Zack ordered, his voice cold and unyielding as he watched the battlefield descend into chaos. The Aegis wasn't just an Goliath platform—it was a massive airship with an expansive interior, capable of carrying troops, machinery, and supplies. After extensive modifications, its cargo hold dwarfed that of a standard Avalon. As for Fearless warrior, it's how now he call the brainwashed super soldier that doesn't fear death.

"Understood, Sir," Ego replied. From the clouds above, a sleek, futuristic aircraft descended rapidly, its powerful engines roaring as it approached the battlefield.

The moment the Aegis arrived, its tail hatch opened, and seven massive steel giants leapt out without hesitation.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Each Fearless Warrior landed with a thunderous impact, creating half-meter-deep craters in the ground. The earth trembled under their immense weight. "With Zack's will!" one of them roared. "Kill!"

The warriors rose, unscathed from their landings, and charged into the zombie horde. Their chainsaw swords roared to life, the alloy teeth spinning furiously at 4,600 revolutions per minute. With one sweeping motion, a Fearless Warrior cleaved through a row of zombies, slicing them cleanly in half.

"Push forward!" The seven warriors advanced in a tight formation, each maintaining a two-meter gap. Their chainsaw swords turned the tide of corpses into a field of severed limbs and broken flesh. The thick power armor they wore rendered them impervious to attacks from ordinary zombies, allowing them to cut through the swarm without hesitation.

"ROAR—!" An lord-class zombie lunged toward one of the warriors, its massive frame dwarfing the smaller undead. But in comparison to the Fearless Warrior's power-enhanced form, the lord was no more than a child.

"Kill!"The warrior didn't bother using his chainsaw sword. With a single punch, he sent the lord flying, its massive right arm snapping at a grotesque angle.

"Push forward!" Step by step, the Fearless Warriors carved a path through the zombie tide, their raw power turning them into living tanks. The horde, drawn to the warriors like moths to a flame, swarmed them in an attempt to overwhelm. But no matter how many came, the warriors stood tall. Each swing of their chainsaw swords sent a rain of blood and gore into the air, shredding zombies as effortlessly as cutting wheat. Even the lords fell to their relentless onslaught.

Within minutes, the seven Fearless Warriors had reclaimed the buffer zone. The ground they retook, however, was unrecognizable—an expanse of churned-up earth mixed with minced flesh, organs, and blood. "This power…" Andre muttered, watching the scene in disbelief. The tiger's bloodied body trembled, not from fear, but from the realization of what he was witnessing.

What if he hadn't come to fight the zombie tide? What if he had chosen to attack NYC City instead? Would he have been forced to face monsters like these? The thought chilled him. He turned to the gray wolf and the two remaining giant bears beside him, all of whom looked equally stunned. "We'd rather fight a billion zombies," one of the bears muttered, echoing the unspoken thoughts of the group. "Anything but those steel giants."

On the battlefield, even Zack was momentarily stunned by the sheer power of the Fearless Warriors. Back during the Battle with Black Hand, their power armor had been hindered by an electromagnetic pulse, limiting their full potential. Now, for the first time, their true capabilities were on display, and the results were nothing short of devastating.

"Hey, you! Up here!" A voice broke Zack's focus. He looked up to see the Aegis hovering above the battlefield. Standing at the open hatch was a red-haired woman in a tight combat suit. Before Zack could respond, she leaped down from a height of ten meters, mimicking the Fearless Warriors. 

"Why are you joining the fight?" Zack sighed as he activated his suit's thrusters, catching her mid-air and lowering her safely to the ground.

"Thanks for the assist!" Erza grinned, brushing herself off. "Now it's my turn to show off!" Before Zack could respond, Erza was already charging into the fray.

BOOM! BOOM!

Explosions erupted as a small flame appeared in Erza's palm. Fueled by the wind, the flame quickly grew into a massive fire dragon, several meters thick and stretching hundreds of meters long. The fiery beast roared, tearing through the zombie tide with a temperature of thousands of degrees Celsius. Of course, the intense heat wasn't Erza's doing—her ability was flame manipulation, not generation. The terrifying temperature was the result of her custom suit, designed by Zack. "Your control's improved," Zack observed, watching as the fire dragon weaved through the battlefield.

"Obviously!" Erza shouted back proudly. "Don't forget who I am!" Her boastful tone didn't diminish her effectiveness. The fire dragon carved through the horde, incinerating everything in its path.

Meanwhile, the mechanical beasts had completed their saturation attack on the suspected leader's location. With their missile pods empty, they returned to the frontlines, where their machine guns roared back to life. The tide of corpses was met with an unrelenting wall of firepower. Between the Fearless Warriors, the mechanical beasts, and the two Goliath, the zombie horde was being systematically annihilated.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The Goliath' 50mm Vulcan cannons roared, their depleted uranium rounds cutting through the horde with devastating precision. Every shot obliterated dozens of zombies, including lords and Mutated Lords, turning them into clouds of blood and shredded flesh. The combined firepower was so overwhelming that the tide of corpses, for the first time, began to falter. The once-unrelenting black torrent now showed signs of retreat, its relentless advance slowed to a crawl. 

"The tide is retreating!" "We're winning!" "Ula!" Cheers erupted from the soldiers on the high wall as they watched the tide of corpses being pushed back. Even Scott allowed himself a small sigh of relief. But the mechanical beasts didn't pause. Their heavy machine guns continued to fire, their AI systems immune to human emotions.

"It's too soon to celebrate," said Scarlett, her voice calm and measured despite the apparent victory.

"But aren't the zombies retreating?" asked Gwen, who was firing into the horde alongside Fang.