Photographs

Lanbo Capital, Underground Air-raid Shelter.

"Hello, hello, this is the 98th Division of the 18th Army Group. Our forces have been routed, and Lanbo has fallen. We need support, we need support..."

"Your message has been received. Please wait patiently. Perseverance is victory."

"Fuck you!"

The phone was slammed down hard.

The entire capital of Lanbo Province was shrouded in wisps of smoke, its buildings reduced to broken walls and rubble.

The fragile defensive line the European Alliance had established in Eastern Europe had proved as flimsy as a sheet of paper under the onslaught of several savage gods. One poke, and it tore.

Their formidable mobility left the slow-reacting garrisons completely unable to respond. The army had collapsed across the entire front. In just a few hours, several provinces had fallen one after another, like a nightmare from which no one could wake.

This city, so recently ravaged, seemed eerily quiet. The streets were deserted.

Just a few hours earlier, they had been teeming with traffic and people.

Kafiernikov photographed the body of an infant who had been trampled to death by the crowd. Then he cautiously continued onward.

He was covered in dust, dried blood smeared across his face, and looked utterly bedraggled.

He was a war correspondent, a high-risk profession, but he had always felt that God watched over him.

He had been to the battlefield in Yanzhou and ventured deep into occupied territory. He had photographed the fierce, brutal battles between savage gods and humanity, and mushroom clouds blooming over the battlefield.

Yet every time, he had returned in full health, and he believed it would be the same this time.

The army he had been following had broken into a panicked rout before even encountering a savage god. Now he was all alone.

But he