They had departed from the cathedral roughly an hour ago. But right before they marched out, the high priest had performed a final, unsettling ritual. Dipping his fingers deep into the pristine stainless bowl, he had drawn out a few drops of a viscous liquid of entirely unknown origin. He flicked a single, bitter drop directly onto each soldier's tongue, rapidly mumbling an esoteric blessing over their bowed heads.
After leaving the sanctuary, the massive armored convoy successfully crossed the threshold of the primary NHF wall. Despite General Brownman personally authorizing the high-priority mobilization, standard border protocol couldn't be completely ignored; the security detachments still insisted on a meticulous inspection of the operational documents and biometric clearances. Once cleared, the heavy transports finally rumbled onto the uneven streets of the outskirts.
The small, square ballistic windows of the APV were securely locked and shuttered, but Graves could still easily perceive the familiar, pungent stench of his childhood home filtering through the vehicle's intake vents. Through the thick plating, he could hear the distant, echoing shouts of the unawakened citizens as they pointed frantically at the passing military convoy. The cracked, neglected terrain caused the heavy vehicle to sway violently, making the tightly packed soldiers wobble against one another inside the metal hull. To Graves, it smelled and felt exactly like home.
Unfortunately, their ultimate destination lay far beyond the borders of the outskirts—deep within the desolate, dead zones where no living humans dared to dwell.
After another stretch of grueling, silent driving, the convoy of APVs suddenly ground to a final halt. The hydraulic rear doors hissed violently and slammed open, prompting the immediate deployment of the troops. Combatants and medics alike jumped down from the transports, their boots hitting the dry, irradiated earth.
"All medics, form up on me! Move, move!" a sharp, booming voice echoed across the staging area.
Graves immediately snapped his attention toward the source, falling into a precise formation along with his unit. They had stepped out into a vast, apocalyptic wasteland. A few scattered military tents had already been pitched by an advance reconnaissance team sent ahead to monitor the anomaly, but otherwise, the landscape was a graveyard of old-world civilization.
Around them stood the hollowed-out, dilapidated remains of ancient concrete structures, their crumbling walls heavily coated in radioactive mold and thick green algae. If a person looked closely at the scorched earth beneath their feet, they could discern the faint, haunting outlines of silhouettes—the permanent, vaporized shadows of people and structures etched forever into the ground by the blinding heat of the original nuclear fallout.
A sudden, violent gust of wind howled across the plain, kicking up a massive, blinding cloud of radioactive dust. The soldiers instinctively raised their arms to shield their faces, the harsh grit causing several raw recruits to cough violently into their sleeves.
"Let's get these tents pitched and set up the mass-trauma kits! Move with some urgency, people!" the senior medical officer ordered. He possessed an incredibly thick, unruly mustache—one so excessively bushy that Graves secretly feared the stray hairs would enter the man's mouth every time he spoke.
The medical corps moved as a cohesive unit, rapidly assembling the reinforced pop-up tents, organizing the cellular regenerators, and arranging rows of mechanical stretchers for rapid field access.
Meanwhile, across the encampment inside the primary command tent, a high-ranking officer stood hunched over a heavy tactical table. Spread across the surface was a flickering digital projector, casting a vibrant, three-dimensional holographic layout of the enemy's massive vanguard positions. His arms were tightly folded across his chest as his sharp eyes scrutinized the moving red indicators. A handful of respectable command staff surrounded him, conversing in low, strained whispers about how to safely advance their forces.
"Sir... our latest long-range intelligence reports suggest that the devil horde is currently numbering well into the hundreds of thousands," one of the officers stated grimly, his face pale under the glow of the hologram. "We simply cannot authorize a head-on infantry charge against a force of this magnitude. Due to their overwhelming numerical advantage, it would be a suicidal meat grinder."
The surrounding officers nodded in spontaneous, anxious agreement, a low burst of tense murmuring rippling through the command staff.
"And even if we chose to execute a mechanized push utilizing our superior technological assets, we cannot ignore the high probability of an A-class devil directing their movements," another officer added, leaning over the display. "Or, the Church forbid... an S-class entity."
Colonel Greyman nodded slowly, his expression entirely somber. He was a veteran who had climbed the military ranks purely on the back of his razor-sharp tactical judgment and his flawless ability to strategize under pressure; he wasn't about to let arrogance blind him now. He knew his subordinates were entirely correct. Under normal circumstances, an elite A-class human soldier was supposed to be commanding an operation of this magnitude. Being a standard B-class soldier himself meant he possessed absolutely no biological or physical advantage over an intelligent, high-ranking A class devil commander.
"What do you suggest we do then?" Greyman asked, looking intently at his staff. He knew that to survive a delicate operation like this, a commander had to completely swallow his ego and listen to the collective expertise of his room.
"I suggest we immediately request heavy reinforcements, sir," the first officer replied quickly. "We need to bring in heavier tactical equipment... and if possible, authorize an immediate aerial bombardment."
Colonel Greyman contemplated the suggestion. He knew that asking General Brownman for more raw infantry wouldn't change the tactical reality; what were a few more thousand ground troops going to do against hundreds of thousands of monsters? The horde undoubtedly contained dozens of B-class devil variants, each capable of effortlessly slaughtering hundreds of standard C and D-class soldiers unless pinned down by an equivalent human powerhouse. Sending more men would be a catastrophic waste of human lives and precious NHF resources.
But the officer's secondary suggestion struck a powerful chord. An airstrike.
A sudden surge of visceral excitement rippled through Greyman's chest. Turning his head toward his immediate lieutenant, his voice cut through the tent with absolute authority.
"Coordinate with the aviation wing immediately. Call in a full-scale tactical airstrike," Greyman ordered, his eyes flashing in the dim light. "Tell them to scramble every single heavy bomber and jet fighter available across the military airfields in Sector C. Let's remind these bastards why they should fear the NHF military!"
The lieutenant snapped into a crisp salute, immediately spinning on his heel to patch into the high-frequency encrypted comms. The remaining staff officers nodded in fierce, approval.
"Once the initial aerial bombardment concludes—assuming everything goes according to our projections—the strike should effectively wipe out up to eighty percent of the concentrated horde," Colonel Greyman continued, pointing directly at the densely packed red clusters on the 3D map. "Because they are foolishly tightly clustered together in that valley, our high-explosive ordnance will be exponentially more devastating. The moment the smoke clears, our ground forces will swoop in to clean up the fractured remnants."
He paused, a confident smirk playing on his lips as he looked around the room. "And as an added insurance policy, General Brownman managed to pull the necessary strings to secure an elite A-class soldier for us. They are currently on active standby back at the primary staging base, ready to deploy the second we call them in. Now, get word down to the tents—tell the soldiers to brace for the shockwaves."