Cleansing the Horde

Each frontline consisted of just over twenty people, and their mobility in action was a sight to behold.

Organized into four-person squads, each controlled a truck loaded with various necessary supplies, driving openly onto the long-abandoned streets.

As if deciding the scene wasn't hype enough without a BGM, they had even strapped a speaker to the roof of each vehicle, all blasting the same high-energy, emotional song.

The debris blocking the roads had been cleared out over the past two months, but some zombies hiding in dark corners were still drawn out by the commotion.

However, the moment these scattered Deadwalker zombies poked their heads out, they were served a full course of human civilization. Three bullets, fired from three different vehicles, blew their bewildered heads to smithereens.

These weren't your small-caliber suppression rounds; they were full-power military-grade ammunition, designed to shred a target, not just injure it.

These zombies hiding in corners were a major threat during building sweeps. This was a good opportunity to clean out a wave of them, which would reduce the risks for subsequent cleanup operations and the eventual arrival of the city exploration teams.

But their main targets weren't these stragglers; it was the massive horde that had been festering here for so long.

On the drone footage, the approaching music made the horde seem agitated. But the sound was coming from four different directions. The zombies on the outskirts wanted to charge toward the noise, but they were held back by the zombies deeper inside, unwilling to move on their own.

A horde is easy to form but difficult to disperse. The zombies at the center tether the ones on the periphery, keeping the horde tightly packed.

It was just like a traffic jam; the only thing blocking your way is another car.

The sound grew closer, and the horde's agitation became more and more apparent.

Suddenly, the vehicle convoys from all four directions came to a halt simultaneously. On the commanders' orders, the trucks turned sideways, using their long bodies to form walls across the streets.

Groups of soldiers armed with weapons climbed onto the roofs of the trucks. Under the watchful eyes of the drones, they set up machine guns, mortars, and other heavy weapons. Then, just as the music swelled into a tense crescendo, the four commanders raised their hands in unison.

"Fire!!"

The music exploded into its climax. The soaring melody spurred the zombies into a furious roar, and the simultaneous attack sent the already restless horde into a complete frenzy.

The outermost zombies broke into a run, dragging their bodies in a rabid charge toward the barricades of trucks, only to be torn to shreds by a dense web of firepower.

The zombies deeper inside also went berserk, but the congested mass of their own kind in front of them left them to rage impotently. Only when the path ahead was clear could they finally roar and join the battle.

This was the definition of a human-wave attack without any order. In layman's terms—lining up to be executed.

From the highest aerial perspective, one could only see the large black "stain" of the horde continuously dissolving from four directions. Instead of advancing, its overall size was rapidly shrinking under the relentless assault.

This was truly faster than mowing a lawn.

Toward the end, the zombies couldn't even die on the run. The moment the zombies in front fell, creating space to advance, the next wave was already being shredded by bullets.

But ammunition is finite. Even with all the trucks packed full of bullets, it wasn't enough to eliminate this many zombies. The biggest weakness of this metal storm was that waging war meant burning money.

The hail of gunfire soon weakened, and the zombies began to push the line back. That initial volley of attacks had eliminated less than a fiftieth of the entire horde.

But it had served its purpose: the entire horde was now completely mobile and in chaos.

The mortars mounted on the truck roofs were now calibrated. Several fist-sized shells were quickly loaded and launched. Arcing through the air with fiery trails, they soared like meteors straight into the zombie swarm.

A single finger-sized bullet could take out one or two zombies; three was pushing its absolute limit.

But how many targets could a single fist-sized shell eliminate?

BOOM—!

A series of rapid explosions blossomed throughout the crowded horde. Massive gaps appeared in the zombie ranks. The horde, once as dense as a sheet of iron, now looked like a slice of Swiss cheese, riddled with holes.

It wasn't just the zombies on the outskirts that were confused, unable to pinpoint the source of the noise; the zombies in the interior were utterly bewildered.

But with the space around them cleared, the zombies on the edge of the blast zones gave in to the frenzy that had been building inside them and made a foolish move—

They charged toward the impact points of the shells, toward their fellow zombies!

Crossing the small craters left by the artillery, waves of charging zombies slammed into each other head-on. The full-force collisions sent a shower of pixels flying, and being attacked only made them more rabid, furiously trying to tear apart everything in front of them.

The inner ring of the zombie horde descended into chaos. The recent volley of shells had precisely struck every part of the inner circle. While the outer ring was still being slaughtered by the soldiers, the inner ring had turned into a disorganized, self-destructive battlefield.

The zombies at the very center were now trapped in a cage formed by the inner ring, completely helpless against the commotion from the outside world.

But the same problem remained: there weren't enough bullets or shells. Not nearly enough.

Even with the horde split into three sections, they would struggle to completely wipe out even the heavily depleted outer ring.

The final battle would still fall to melee weapons...

A side panel on one of the trucks opened, and out rushed a squad of mechs, each about 1.5 meters tall, with bladed arms and even bladed legs.

They charged into the still-chaotic zombie swarm and went into full Musou mode.

The Nightmare Module—a machine created for the sole purpose of slaughter, born for this very moment.

Even during the height of the world wars, the designer who proposed the blueprints for this mech was tried in a military tribunal for "crimes against humanity."

For the past few decades, aside from a few units in the hands of wealthy mecha collectors, these machines were nowhere to be seen.

But now, here they were, serving as the most reassuring machines of slaughter. It truly lived up to the saying:

A weapon is defined by the one who wields it.

Dozens of Nightmare Modules used both hands and feet, with every roll and tumble felling several zombies. The soldiers on the frontline continued to fire shells and stun grenades, maintaining the state of chaos throughout the horde.

The drones even gave a shot to a group of people holding wrenches and screwdrivers, surrounded by spare parts for the Nightmare Modules, clearly on standby to replace any damaged components.

The hoped-for scenario was unfolding. The moment of total annihilation was now in sight, even if it was still some time away...

But don't forget, there aren't just zombies here...

There are also Deadwalkers.