Surprise Attack

The demonic assault raged on. These monsters from the Abyss surged forth like an endless tide, launching charge after charge in relentless waves. Faced with the fierce artillery fire and deadly landmines of the Cinder Empire, they adopted the most primitive countermeasure: using low-tier demons to exhaust the empire's munitions and clear the minefield. Countless manes and dretches surged toward the Imperial Wall under the command of higher demons. Most were blasted to cinders and reduced to powder by the torrential bombardment; only two or three out of ten managed to slip through the barrage to reach the minefield, where they soon triggered the traps buried beneath the ground... In this manner, to advance their front line by a mere ten meters, the Abyssal host often had to sacrifice thousands—even tens of thousands—of lesser demons. Such an exchange seemed vastly unequal, but the number of low-tier demons in the Abyss was far more than a few hundred million; the count of manes and dretches across the layer ruled by Jerlazak alone likely exceeded that figure. To the demon commanders, these lesser fiends were cheap, expendable fodder. Their worth fell short of the empire's artillery shells and mines—indeed, they were not worth even a single bullet. In any case, when demons died outside the Abyss, they would still be reborn in the spawning pools. Sending them to their deaths was a bargain under any calculation, so long as they could bring down the Cinder Empire. Unceasing explosions, wave upon wave of death. Blazing light illuminated the nocturnal wasteland as bright as day, leaving even the demons lurking in the shadows nowhere to hide. The offensive ground on until dawn. Even as the sun gradually crested the horizon and morning light stained the clouds red, arcs of artillery fire continued to crisscross the somber sky. Across the earth lay charred demonic remains everywhere, covering most of the ground to form a bizarre, grotesque layer of "soil," interspersed with small hillocks of piled corpses. Whenever artillery shells struck those "mounds," the fiendish corpses erupted outward, sending mangled limbs and severed torsos flying in every direction. Yet even the empire's finest artillery required cooling and maintenance; round-the-clock bombardment was unsustainable, and the endurance of the imperial gunners was likewise limited. Demons, however, were another matter entirely. Spawned from cosmic chaos, they were infinite in number, endlessly sowing evil and destruction. By the late hours of the night, the earth had been riddled with craters, the entire wasteland shaved down by three feet, only to be refilled by the corpses of dretches and manes. Now, the tide of demons had steadily closed in on the Imperial Wall, advancing to within just over a thousand meters of the defensive line. Crack! "Those cowards only dare hide behind their walls and hurl iron balls! Once we clash in close quarters, we'll tear them to pieces! "Mortals are ever so frail and incompetent, fit only to be fodder for us demons, nourishment for the glorious Abyss!" A nalfeshnee cracked its whip. Giant, fortress-like goristros let out muffled bellows, snorting plumes of foul smoke, while vrocks flapped their wings midair with cacophonous shrieks. "Roar..." "Awoooo..." Meanwhile, dretches and manes squirmed and slithered forward in unending waves, jostling and charging at the very forefront of the demonic tide toward the Imperial Wall. From within the sturdy bastion, heavy gun barrels poked out one after another, their pitch-black muzzles trained squarely on the fiends before violently belching fire. "Boom!" "Boom! Boom!" That familiar thunderous roar echoed again amidst swirling smoke and roiling flames. Detonation after detonation ripped through the horde, reducing the lead demons to charred cinders once more. Blackened limbs and severed flesh rained down from the air, yet the demons continued to roar and charge. To these lowest of fiends, their superiors' commands were absolute. It was not uncommon for a demon lord, on a mere whim, to mutate an entire legion of dretches into hezrous. Along this stretch of the defensive line, spanning just several hundred meters, tens of thousands of demons were charging. The surging black tide swept across earth and sky, virtually engulfing the entire expanse before the fortifications. "Too many..." "It's not enough. The firepower still isn't enough!" Holding a pair of field glasses, George observed the distant battlefield, his expression grave as he muttered under his breath. This time, his superiors had placed great expectations on him. The post under his command was a critical sector in this theater, vital to the security and stability of the entire front; negligence was not an option. The deafening roar of cannons inside the bunker made normal conversation impossible. He turned his head and bellowed at his adjutant, "Tell the gun batteries to keep firing! No one stops without my direct order!" "Yes, Colonel!" The orderly nodded hastily and rushed off, waving signal flags to relay the orders to the other battalion positions. The adjutant asked, "What about the machine-gun teams? And the units high command transferred over specially..." George kept his eyes glued to the field glasses, raising his right hand as he said in a low, measured tone, "Not yet. Wait a little longer..." He then stepped up to an embrasure of the bunker, took position behind a mounted machine gun, and sighted the distant fiends. "Damned Abyssal vermin... how do they even breed? There's no end to them," he cursed under his breath. Under the crisscrossing barrage from over a dozen defensive gun emplacements, hundreds of demons collapsed every second. Yet driven by the higher demons, the demonic horde pressed forward undeterred, trampling carelessly over the shattered, mangled carcasses of their kin, seeming as though they would never retreat. The fiends' grotesque, twisted faces and grating, discordant screeches drew ever closer to the imperial soldiers. The soldiers' hands trembled slightly on their rifles as sweat dripped down their brows. Too many. There were simply too many. This hardly felt like an opposing army, but rather an unstoppable natural disaster—a black avalanche descending across the wasteland. And the gap between the fiendish tide and the defensive line steadily closed. One thousand meters. Nine hundred meters. Eight hundred meters. Only when they reached six hundred meters did George suddenly squeeze his trigger with all his might, roaring at the top of his lungs, "Fire! Tear into them!" Instantly, from dozens of embrasures across the bunker complex, tongues of fire spat simultaneously from hundreds of cold metal barrels. For the soldiers, drilled hundreds of times, the response was pure muscle memory, executed without a single flaw. "Rat-tat-tat—" "Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—" Bullets swept across like a raging tempest, weaving a dense web of fire between the demons and the battlements. The hundreds of fiends in the foremost rank were instantly riddled with holes. Spurts of blood burst from their flesh before they collapsed in heaps. Yet the machine guns showed no sign of letting up. "Abyssal vermin... die!" Gripping the receiver, George swept the field with grim resolve, his eyes slightly bloodshot. "Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—" "Boom! Boom!" Whistling rounds poured down as more artillery shells crashed into the demonic mass. Fiends fell by the scores; even the brazen brutes who had charged so fiercely moments before were forced to scatter in headlong flight. By the time the gun barrels glowed red-hot and had to be cooled with buckets of cold water, thousands of demonic corpses were left strewn across the distant wasteland. "They're retreating! The demons are falling back!" "Long live the Empire!" "Long live His Majesty Cassius!" Cheers erupted from the men as they embraced inside the bunkers, celebrating this victory in wild excitement. Yet George's face remained grim. He knew all too well that the demons' retreat was only temporary, and that a far greater menace surely lurked beneath the surface. His mission was far from over; this was merely the beginning of the war, not its conclusion. Sure enough, a crude, guttural roar echoed from afar, sounding as if it arose from primeval savagery, saturated with the stench of blood. It triggered an instinctive dread—the terror of prey before a predator, of sheep before the butcher. "Roar—!"