The annihilation of the navy didn't come without value. Besides eliminating a considerable number of zombies, it also bought the Liberation Army some breathing space.

After a few hours of respite, the Liberation Army somewhat regained its strength, and the second round of battle quickly commenced.

Guo Zhun dispatched all his elite forces, barely managing to hold on until dawn.

After sunrise, the zombies' assault somewhat lessened as they began devouring their fallen comrades' corpses, allowing Guo Zhun's side to rest and finally see things clearly.

Standing atop the city wall, Guo Zhun's hands were ice-cold.

There were too many!

Never did he imagine a zombie horde could be so massive.

Across the ten kilometers of the river surface, zombies advanced everywhere.

In the dim sky, while light snow still fell, masses of mutated birds resembled dark clouds, threatening to crush Ice City.

He strained to look across the river, only to see the opposite riverfront also swarming with zombies, stretching endlessly to the edges of buildings with unmeasurable numbers.

Now that many zombies were gnawing at the corpses of their comrades from last night, he finally caught a breath of relief.

Guo Zhun knew he shouldn't watch as zombies continued to devour and evolve, but he no longer had the courage or strength to launch another attack.

The destruction of the armored forces left him powerless to strike, and the ordinary soldiers, after a night of fierce battle, were utterly exhausted.

He had no choice but to allow some soldiers to rest first, while others, despite their fatigue, held on, ready to engage at any moment.

At this moment, he felt that even his force of over 110,000 men wasn't sufficient, and he wondered how Dawn Army, with just more than 10,000, managed to endure and win.

"I can do it. If Dawn Army could, then we certainly can. Victory will surely be ours."

Dragging his wearied body, Guo Zhun settled down here at the riverfront.

He also needed rest, as he was barely holding on.

After going to Dawn's side and returning, he hadn't slept all night, his nerves were extremely strained—even an iron man couldn't endure it.

Without anyone to wake him, he could have slept until the following morning.

But just as he fell asleep, the zombies launched their second wave of attack.

At two in the afternoon, after their feeding, the zombies, needing no rest, aggressively attacked Ice City once more!

Without the naval distraction today, the zombie attack was extraordinarily fierce.

And the Liberation Army's response to such brutal combat clearly lacked experience, quickly encountering danger.

Led by some Level 2 Mutated Zombies, a section of the wall fell despite repeated struggles!

By the time Guo Zhun realized, five King Kong Zombies, eight Crawlers, and hundreds of Mutated Zombies had already surged onto the wall.

The riverfront city wall was only eight meters, not a significant obstacle for zombies with high evolution levels.

If not killed midway, those Crawlers could leap onto the wall in just two jumps, unleashing a storm of carnage.

Seeing this, Guo Zhun deeply regretted and could only immediately signal, "Get up there! Push those zombies down for me!"

He ordered his Liberation Army's direct units to counterattack, and the defensive firepower instantly surged.

The attacking horde of zombies came under severe fire suppression, toppling like grass being mowed down.

The King Kongs and Crawlers received even more focused strikes.

Heavy machine guns and rocket launchers rained down like a storm.

Under such dense fire, the Crawlers' agility found little room to play, yet the Crawlers cunningly slipped into the crowd, hoping to use it as cover.

Guo Zhun's face turned icy blue as he directly issued an order: "No matter who it is, if a zombie reaches your side, don't dodge. Hold it with your life, block it with your body, grab the zombie's leg with your hands, make sure to stall it! Anyone fleeing will be shot immediately!"

His Guard Corps acted as a blocking force, pressing from behind, shooting any deserters immediately.

Under his brutal rule, the Liberation Army burst out with an exceptional surge of fighting strength. Some soldiers, even after having a leg bitten off by a zombie and being doomed to die, still clung desperately to zombies, either pulling the pin from their grenades or using their weight to add a bit of burden to the zombies.

Then, indiscriminate fire swept in from behind, wiping out both soldiers and zombies alike.

Under such circumstances, Guo Zhun forcefully reversed the unfavorable situation.

This batch of zombies stormed the wall, only to be driven back at the cost of lives.

By the time the last zombie on the wall was killed, Guo Zhun felt a cold sweat running down his back.

"Damn it! Why are these zombies so hard to beat? How did Dawn Army resist with over 10,000 men against three million zombies back then?"

At this moment, Guo Zhun was indignant, firmly believing he could win.

But before he could catch his breath, the next wave of zombie attacks arrived.

Across the river, groups of zombies, fifty thousand strong each, advanced in succession. The gap between each group wasn't large, pressing the Liberation Army continuously, aiming to finally break this base.

Another wave of fifty thousand zombies stormed up. After several hours of battle, nightfall approached again, and the Liberation Army had to release flares once more.

As soon as they fired, the Mutated Birds appeared, once again swallowing the flares.

Like little points of light in the high sky, they were being extinguished one by one.

Logistics urgently supplied more flares, continuing to fire, maintaining the battlefield's brightness.

The continuous drain was heartbreaking for Guo Zhun.

He once thought Ice City Base had generous strategic reserves, but now it seemed far from enough.

At this rate, it wouldn't take two days for the flares to be exhausted.

And compared to flares, the loss of personnel was even more devastating.

Taking advantage of the flare consumption and the darkened skies, the Mutated Birds folded their wings, diving like missiles towards the walls.

The shifting lights on the walls muddled the vision of the warriors. By the time they spotted the Mutated Birds, they were already upon them.

Their sharp claws knocked off helmets, and their piercing beaks, with one strike, could even shatter a human skull!

Many soldiers sacrificed themselves in such circumstances, even at the last moment, their faces were covered by mutated birds, and their bodies rolled down the city wall.

Some who weren't dead yet had their eyeballs shattered, white and red fluids flowing from their heads, wailing in agony, begging their comrades to give them a quick death.

In this situation, the soldiers were beyond saving, as they had both external injuries and viral infection.

The comrades around them could only fire with tears in their eyes, killing their comrade and the mutated bird on his face together.

Under the frenzied attacks of the mutated birds, zombies on the ground advanced rapidly.

Even though Guo Zhun had ordered the artillery units to fire on the spot, it still couldn't stop the onslaught, with nearly a hundred thousand zombies approaching within two-hundred-meter range of the city wall.

Some of them were fat zombies, and they began to spray toxic water containing viruses and acid.

Some of the fat zombies had evolved to be quite large, holding hundreds of pounds of water within their bodies, and their spraying range was getting further.

The previously broken hundred-meter range wasn't a problem anymore, even two hundred meters could be reached.

Under such attacks, groups of soldiers fell on the city wall.

Anyone sprayed with acid quickly decayed, and no amount of clothing could stop the acid's corrosion.

Moreover, the acid contained a virus, and being hit meant only death.

Below, groups of Iron Armor advanced, approaching the city walls under the cover of fat zombies and mutated birds!

By now, corpses had piled up below, making it easier for the zombies to attack.

Guo Zhun had only been back for one short hour when the second crisis arrived.

Seeing countless wounded, and the defending soldiers stupefied by the zombie attacks, Guo Zhun's eyes turned red.

"Where's the air force! Get over here and bomb them! Bomb these zombies to death!"

Guo Zhun couldn't think of a better method, so he ordered his precious air force to mobilize.

His air force had forty-six fighter jets and dozens of helicopters.

Those fighter jets he usually treasured as if they were precious gems had to be deployed on the first night.

The planes were loaded with bombs, and as they streaked across the sky, they dropped a string of bombs into the horde of zombies, instantly setting off a sea of fire.

A large number of zombies were killed, and the situation was immediately alleviated.

However, in the sky, a swarm of mutated birds suddenly appeared.

This time it wasn't the crows and sparrows from the previous attack.

This time they were fast-flying mutated birds, like swifts.

Before the apocalypse, these birds had a flight speed of over 350 kilometers per hour, and now, mutated, they were even faster, exceeding 500 kilometers per hour, matching these last-century fighter jets.

These swifts launched rapid assaults in groups, charging at the fighter jets like cannonballs.

Bang bang bang~~!

Crash!

The cockpit windows were shattered, and some swifts even dove directly into the engines.

Whether it was engine destruction or pilot attacks, it signified the fate of the aircraft.

One by one, the fighter jets that Guo Zhun valued like treasures spiraled down, crashing to the ground like fireworks.

But Guo Zhun didn't dare to order a retreat, hoping they could bomb to buy time for the defenders on the city wall.

On the second night, all forty-six of Guo Zhun's fighter jets were annihilated!

In the latter half of the night, Guo Zhun had to deploy the helicopters.

The pilots boarded with faces ashen, knowing they were going to their deaths.

But facing the gunpoint of the superiors, none dared disobey, entering the battlefield continuously to hold back mutated birds from devouring the flares.

In night battles, lacking illumination meant death.

But helicopters were even less durable than fighter jets; when one ascended, it was immediately surrounded by a group of mutated birds, and in a few minutes, it would crash.

Even with over thirty helicopters taking turns, they only held for a few hours; before dawn, the Liberation Army's air force was wiped out!

The situation on the city wall wasn't much better; over ten thousand soldiers perished that night.

After two days of fighting, the Liberation Army's air and naval forces were annihilated, and the armored units were gone. Out of the initial 170,000 troops, combined with the losses on the Dawn Army's side, only over 80,000 remained.

Guo Zhun had no choice but to issue an emergency mobilization order, conscripting able-bodied men within the city into the army.

Additionally, the city's residents had to urgently make torches, and car headlights were urgently modified to shine upwards, replacing the effect of flares.

If modifications couldn't be completed, dirt piles were made, allowing cars to drive up slopes and use their headlights to light up the sky.

These were makeshift solutions, and Guo Zhun wasn't sure how effective they would be.

But he was out of options; the zombies showed no signs of decreasing. If things continued like this, it was unclear how long the Liberation Army could hold out.

If the city fell...that outcome was unimaginable.

The devastation from this heavy snow was too great, cutting off traffic. Ordinary survivors, even if they escaped Ice City, how far could they run on foot?

Ten kilometers? Or twenty or thirty kilometers?

They would likely be caught and eaten by the zombie horde.

That's over five million lives!

Could it be...to seek help from Ye Fan?

This thought appeared for the first time in Guo Zhun's mind, but he shook it off, biting his teeth.

He was the Imperial Count; he didn't want to bow to Ye Fan.

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