Burning Defense Line (Please Bookmark and Click)

Dark Mountain Range.

Beyond the forbidden zone, where the flames burned.

Beneath the Red Moon.

The human frontline combat base outside the forbidden zone was shrouded within a towering wall of blazing fire.

Beyond that wall of flames.

Several crimson torrents spread outward from the mist-shrouded forbidden zone.

Looking closer.

What surged and roared through the forest was not a tide, but crimson monsters covered in tentacles and bone spines, each more grotesque than the last.

There were giant birds flayed raw and bloody, humanoid creatures formed from countless piled-up eyeballs, and horned giants as hideous as demons...

Their numbers were endless, pouring continuously out of the forbidden zone like an eruption.

They then converged into a World-Devouring Tide, swarming toward humanity's fragile defensive line.

The defensive line stood at a narrow valley entrance, where two towering hills enclosed and isolated most of the forbidden zone within the mountain range.

This unique terrain.

Invisibly provided humanity's defenses with considerable convenience.

The Combat Department soldiers only needed to hold this narrow mountain passage to completely seal off this newly formed forbidden zone within the mountain range.

The emergence of a forbidden zone could not be predicted in time.

But its spread could be stopped midway.

Every appearance of a forbidden zone was accompanied by the emergence of large numbers of Forbidden Zone Creatures.

These frenzied Forbidden Zone Creatures would assimilate and slaughter any native lifeforms on the outskirts of the forbidden zone.

Whether plants, animals, or even powerful Mutated Creatures affected by the Red Moon—as long as they appeared within the creatures' sensory range, they would be attacked without distinction.

The mass death and infection of native lifeforms caused the forbidden zone to spread even further.

From this perspective.

The forbidden zones appearing across the world were like cancer cells. If they could not be discovered and contained in time during their earliest stages.

Then once they developed, they would become a complete and utter disaster.

Fortunately, in the current situation.

This forbidden zone near Wangjing City had been discovered fairly early, and the Combat Department had responded swiftly, constructing fortified firepower positions in advantageous locations before large numbers of Forbidden Zone Creatures emerged.

But the bad news was that this forbidden zone was far more dangerous and troublesome than even the worst-case scenario previously anticipated.

Whether in quantity or quality, the Forbidden Zone Creatures pouring out of it.

Far exceeded expectations.

And beyond the defensive line now lay a vast plain.

Hangcheng, one of Wangjing City's seven satellite cities, stood upon that plain.

If humanity's defensive line fell, a major city with a population of several million could very well be put in danger.

In fact...

At Wangjing City's peak.

There had not been merely seven satellite cities surrounding the main city.

There had been thirteen in total.

Yet in the more than three hundred years since the end of the Golden Age, six of those thirteen satellite cities had gradually been destroyed by forbidden zones.

After paying an enormous price and suffering grievous casualties.

Humanity had gained only a few decades of desperate survival.

"I! Will never allow history's tragedy to repeat itself!"

Inside a fortress at the edge of the defensive line.

A young soldier wearing a helmet clutched a heavy machine gun in his arms, gritting his teeth as he poured unceasing firepower onto the chaotic, writhing Forbidden Zone Creatures.

Not far in front of him.

A huge dark reddish creature resembling a ray, roughly seven or eight meters long from head to tail, crawled on four limbs. Its back was covered in savage bone spines and armored plating.

Its tooth-filled maw still held half of a human soldier's body, dripping with blood.

Bang!

A bright spark instantly burst across the Ray Monster's back.

Several bone spines snapped, and cracks appeared in its thick shell, but the monster had not suffered a fatal wound.

Blood streamed from its injuries. It let out a roar, swallowed the half-corpse in its mouth in one gulp, then leaped high into the air and pounced madly toward the human firepower position.

"Damn it, what the hell are these monsters?!"

Bullets as thick as a toddler's arm could easily punch through a concrete wall.

Yet when they struck the Crimson Monster, they left only painless scratches.

Inside the fortress.

The soldier responsible for providing fire support watched helplessly as his comrade was swallowed whole, leaving not even bones behind. His eyes had turned bloodshot, and blood seeped from between his clenched teeth.

Ignoring the damage the heavy machine gun's tremendous recoil was doing to his internal organs, he pulled the trigger again.

Pouring bullets filled with towering hatred onto the monster.

Rat-a-tat-tat!

Blazing muzzle flashes spat forth.

One bullet after another spun through the air at high speed, carrying immense kinetic energy as they burrowed into the ray mutant beast's body.

Its shell was ripped apart by the unceasing barrage, blood spraying everywhere.

The terrifying steel storm was like a crimson sword, cleaving the mutant beast in two down the middle.

"Huff!"

Seeing the terrifying mutant beast collapse powerlessly to the ground.

Inside the fortress, the young soldier wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and had only just breathed a sigh of relief.

When he suddenly discovered that, in the distance at the edge of his vision, even more mutant beasts were stepping out from the wall of flames formed where the incendiary bombs had landed.

Among those mutant beasts.

The most conspicuous was a towering Ram-headed Humanoid Monster, more than three meters tall.

It was clearly made of flesh and blood, yet the scorching flames created by the incendiary bombs burned around it without harming it in the slightest.

Raging flames and corpses littering the ground.

Only made the monster look even more like a demon that had crawled out of hell.

Roar!

Amid a sharp, ear-piercing howl.

The ram-headed monster took a step forward, and cracks instantly spread across the hard, dry ground.

In the blink of an eye, the monster had appeared directly before the fortress.

The gun barrels protruding from the bunker were yanked out by the monster and kneaded into a lump of scrap metal in just a few motions.

The monster raised its foot. Its backward-growing goat hoof was as large as two washbasins, a massive black shadow that came crashing down upon the fortress.

Rumble!

The sturdy defensive fortification built from reinforced concrete.

Was forcibly destroyed by the monster's flesh-and-blood body. The machine gunner reacted quickly and rolled aside at the critical moment, but he was still caught by the explosive blast.

A searing pain spread through his chest and abdomen.

Scarlet gradually blurred his vision, while scorching air poured into his lungs, bringing a burning agony.

He collapsed limply onto the ground, no longer having the strength to keep fighting, and quietly waited for death to come.

Bang!

Yet the pain he had expected never came.

A streak of azure light shot over from afar and slammed viciously into the monster's waist and abdomen.