Chapter 789.1: Beat Down

Emerald-green slurry soaked the ground that had been churned over by artillery fire, and the stench of rot was suffocating.

Strands of dark green Na Fruit lay exposed above the soil like blood vessels that had been forcibly dragged out through flesh.

Artillery still thundered in the distance, while burning pieces of steel continued to rain from the sky as though the downpour would never end.

120 Conqueror tanks formed the spearhead of the offensive. Their long, thick gun barrels and nearly red-hot coaxial machine guns spat continuous tongues of flame, pouring savage fire into the gaps between the indirect barrages from the artillery behind them.

More than 10,000 clone infantry clutched Ripper rifles and charged after the tracers streaking through the sky, roaring as they rushed recklessly toward the Fungal Mutant that had been blown apart by the bombardment, venting their boiling fury with the most primal sounds they could make.

“AAAAAAAH!”

“Grrrrooo!”

A Fungal Mutant covered in wounds from heavy-shell fragments let out a miserable howl that also sounded like a roar. Its bloated body pulsed like an umbrella as it continuously squeezed out clumps of dark green spore mist.

The dark green spores were almost like some kind of miracle drug. Every Fungal Mutant that came into contact with them groaned in relief, staggered up from the shell craters, and even their mangled limbs began healing at a speed visible to the naked eye. It was especially so for the Zombie Mutant Humans and Corpse Hounds.

Though those cannon-fodder creatures were not known for their offensive strength, they possessed extraordinary resilience. After taking just one breath of the spores, they twisted and struggled back to life.

In the blink of an eye, the entire dark green cloud had been sucked clean, while the giant mushroom that had released it visibly shrank as though it had withered.

Spotting what was happening, a charging clone squad immediately closed in. They kept firing their rifles while maintaining their advance. Several rounds struck the giant mushroom, leaving it on the verge of collapsing.

Just as the clone squad was about to reach it, the giant mushroom’s body suddenly began convulsing violently like boiling water. Then its body split open, tearing a fissure nearly a meter wide! More than a dozen tentacles shot from the opening and lashed like whips toward the approaching clone soldiers!

“Grrk!”

One clone soldier was struck head-on. The creature let out a short, excited squeal and, like a frog snatching a fly, dragged the unlucky man into its mouth before forcing his head down into an esophagus filled with corrosive acid.

Before the giant mushroom could savor the sweet flesh, however, a bayonet suddenly punched out through the back of its head.

“GRRRAAAH!”

A scream of pain burst simultaneously from its open mouth as its wound was torn open.

It twisted the tentacles beneath its body and staggered backward as though it had eaten something rotten, then spat out the mangled corpse together with a mouthful of digestive fluid. Before it could regain its balance and adopt a defensive posture, another clone soldier was already in front of it.

His mad, bloodthirsty pupils gleamed just as brightly as the shining bayonet in his hands!

“AAAAAAAH!” Roaring, he drove the bayonet into the Fungal Mutant’s body and viciously twisted it from side to side.

The giant mushroom, capable only of releasing healing spores, quickly collapsed to the ground. The Walking Corpses and Corpse Hounds around it were likewise beaten down one after another.

A Creeper charged forward and had just bitten through one clone soldier’s neck when a tank shell slammed into it head-on and blasted it into pieces.

Both sides instantly plunged into brutal close-quarters slaughter.

The clone soldiers looked even more like Mutant Slime Mold than the grotesque Fungal Mutants did, especially with those pairs of bloodthirsty eyes that seemed to regard killing itself as life.

Their lives were measured in seconds. They had crossed more than 10,000 kilometers of desert to reach this unfamiliar land, all for this final moment of burning.

They fell one after another, yet not a single one retreated. Their muddy flesh mixed with the black sludge beneath their feet. They painted the land red and pushed the frontline forward by the most primitive method imaginable.

Forward.

All they did was push the frontline further forward!

“Push!” Half his body protruding from a turret splattered with blood and slime, a Wislander centurion roared and urged the troops around him onward. “Show these filthy, ugly things what real cruelty looks like! We’ll make them regret ever coming into this world! Offer victory to Lord Marshal! Bring glory back to Triumphant City! Bring death to our enemies!”

“CHARGE!”

His roar was answered by deafening cries.

“AAAAAAAH!”

They couldn’t actually make out what the boss was shouting, but rushing toward death truly was the greatest release they could hope for.

Behind them, soldiers in heavy protective suits advanced slowly while carrying cylindrical metal tanks on their backs and sterilization sprayers in their hands. From time to time, one of them would stop, crouch down, pick up chunks of flesh mixed with mud and blood, and throw them into the tank on his back.

B strain could not grow outside the Baiyue Province, but the fruiting bodies produced by the Hive raised by the New Alliance had solved that problem.

Besides synthesizing it on a large scale through incubation chambers, the New Alliance’s Biological Research Institution had also developed portable sterilization equipment, the devices currently carried on the backs of those Wislander soldiers.

Each tank contained a body inoculated with the B strain genome, which could continuously synthesize more B strains. Only one tank was required for every square kilometer treated.

B strain itself could not survive in soil outside Baiyue Province. Once it completed its mission of destroying the J strain that made up the strange Mutant Humans, it would naturally disappear. It was extremely convenient.

The coalition had already restored half of Ocean Edge Province’s territory using the equipment.

As the drone camera gradually pulled farther away through the rising smoke and spore clouds, dense masses of human figures came into view across the entire wilderness.

The force attacking was not merely a single division, it was 10 full divisions from the Eastern Army!

Even more brutal slaughter and death could be seen everywhere across the muddy land...

The New Alliance was not the only faction that could see that the Torch Church was weakening. The Army’s commanders could see it as well.

If they wanted more bargaining chips when the spoils were divided, they needed to seize more territory!

East of the Army’s front line, the fighting across the territory controlled by the New Alliance was even fiercer.

If the Army’s clones merely regarded death as release, then the New Alliance’s players truly treated death as returning home.

Even though the Wislanders never cared about clone casualties, and would practically prefer those ants to die faster so the rear could send in younger, stronger cannon fodder, they still did not dare casually allow the clones to become deeply encircled. After all, once that happened, even individuals who feared death the least would lose their will to fight and stop resisting.

Players, however, had no such problem. To farm a few more monsters before dying, or simply to avoid having friendly troops get in their way, they would even voluntarily penetrate deep into enemy territory and deliberately allow themselves to be surrounded by the Torch Church’s Fungal Mutants.

That deceptive tactic had caused the Torch Church no small amount of trouble during the early stages of the war. Whenever the Torch Church tried to use encirclement and isolation tactics to destroy the New Alliance’s effective forces, it instead suffered even greater casualties.

Continuing east beyond the New Alliance-controlled sector would be the territory held by the Academy’s Alpha Mobile Task Force and the Bugra Free States’ Hound Special Forces. Farther still was the front controlled by the Enterprise.

Aside from the 100th Mechanized Mountain Division that had been sent to the front when the war just started, there were also 3 infantry divisions that had crossed Spur Province to reach the battlefield, along with 12 mercenary regiments operating in the area.

Every faction was displaying its own methods on the frontlines. The Torch Church was being beaten from every direction while desperately running back and forth.

The battered earth was mottled green and purple, looking remarkably like a face swollen and bruised from a beating.

Looking down upon the fragmented front line, Human Emperor stood suspended in the void with his eyes stretched wide and his teeth clenched so tightly they seemed ready to crack. The calm confidence and effortless composure he had possessed at the beginning of the war were completely gone.

There are too many enemies!

Soldiers carrying rifles swarmed toward the front like locusts. He would barely finish arranging defenses in the east when tens of thousands more appeared in the west. Just when he finally managed to deal with both directions, New Alliance aircraft would drop an entire group of paratroopers right on top of him.

The threats no longer came only from directly ahead. His ass was on fire as well.

No matter how skilled he was at calculating, even he could not withstand countless fists striking him all at once.

“Die... All of you, just die!” Human Emperor roared furiously, yet no one could hear him.

Again and again, he projected his consciousness into the evolved bodies on the front line, personally entering battle in an attempt to reverse the defeat. Yet each time, after only a brief interval, he lost contact with the mortal body and could do nothing but repeat the endless cycle of connection and disconnection.

Perhaps moved by his efforts, or perhaps merely pitying his futile struggle, a gentle voice came from above him. “That’s enough. You’ve already done all you could.”

At the sound of the Chosen One’s voice, the madness on Human Emperor’s face froze for a moment. However, it was only for a moment. He panted, “I can still fight...”

His face still carried the madness of the body that had just died as he spoke.

Looking at that crazed expression, the Chosen One gave a soft sigh. “The fall of the Kingdom of Heaven is already unavoidable. Our time has come. The others have already set out. You should...”

“NEVER!” Human Emperor, completely consumed by the killing, roared and cut off the soft voice.

At that moment, he resembled a wild beast driven into a corner. Staring at the burning battlefield below, he spat, “I. Will. Never. Retreat! My Kingdom of Heaven is here... I’m not going ANYWHERE!”

To bring the Kingdom of Heaven down upon the land, to make humanity evolve into a higher form of existence, more than a million survivors had died by his hand! After paying such an enormous price, his Kingdom of Heaven had finally descended into the mortal world. At long last, all those sacrifices had produced a reward. No one would take his Kingdom of Heaven away from him! He would fight to the very end, so that none of that blood would have been shed for nothing!

The Chosen One silently looked at that twisted face and sighed softly. “I respect your choice...”

As he spoke, a trace of madness also entered those empty eyes of his, like a black hole swallowing everything in existence, even space itself.

“I will witness the final moment of this miracle together with you.”

...

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.