Face the Sun, Devil Team Recruits!

Cairo.

Blood stained every street and alley, the stench of rot hanging heavy in the air. Imhotep the High Priest was dead, yet the curse of the Ten Plagues of Egypt he left behind continued to spread.

Frogs with skin secreting toxic venom crawled over stone walls.

Plague flies buzzed incessantly.

Whoosh—Boom!

The British bomber squadron had spiraled completely out of control. Their fuselages were shrouded in black undead mist, and the pilots, reduced to withered skeletons, instinctively piloted the primitive bombers, diving toward the city center and dropping explosives indiscriminately along their path.

BOOM!

BOOM~

Wall bricks and sand exploded outward. The Bone Legion, Plague Warriors, jackal-headed Desert Soldiers, and the Pharaoh's Royal Guard—along with members of the East Sea Team—were all wounded by this indiscriminate, wide-area bombardment.

"Kazan."

At the ocher-colored city gate, Kobayashi Yoshito gripped his sharp short katana tightly. Kalla of Gloom swirled around him, a pale purple ghostly aura shielding his body.

As the power of Kazan of the Blade Soul spread beneath his feet, a buffing effect enveloped him.

"Gene Lock, open for me!"

"Die! Witness my blade!"

The strength in his previously aching wrists surged. With a slight flick, his short katana slashed down with precision.

Sizzle. The pitch-black power of the ghost god imbued the weapon, slicing the lunging plague-ridden residents in two.

He followed up with an Uppercut, using the momentum to launch a corpse into the group of bone undead charging from behind.

"Hold the line, everyone!"

A cold, clear female voice rang out from a corner. Kitagawa Nacai, clad in Life Heavy Armor, gritted her teeth and thrust her cross into the ground.

Instantly, golden holy light erupted.

A Nature Prayer domain expanded from the cross as its center. Within a ten-meter radius, wounds on any friendly unit began to knit together, and stamina slowly recovered.

A supply point had been generated.

"The downside is that I have no heavy weapon to use now."

Soft light bloomed from her fingertips as she cast Slow Heal repeatedly on the wounded members of the Royal Guard nearby.

Seeing their healer discard her primary weapon, several observant rookie reincarnators moved in to provide protection.

Outside the fray.

A slender figure darted through the undead army like a lone wolf—it was Zhao Yingkong.

As a blank-slate assassin who had unlocked the first stage of the Gene Lock, she pushed her agility to the limit. Her movements were ghostly; she stepped on corpses and walls, leaping with the grace of a cat, dodging the bone-blade slashes of the sand-corrupted Jackal Warriors time and again.

During this, she utilized the properties of her Runic Scimitar and Guardian Stone Talisman to strike at the vitals of the fodder, reaping heads with clinical efficiency.

But as time passed, the stone talisman at her waist grew scorching hot. The power inscribed within it had been pushed to its limit and could dissipate at any moment.

Finally, as a wisp of black undead mist from a plague-ridden skeleton soldier coiled around her ankle, Zhao Yingkong whispered the incantation:

"Nile-duat Mert, Amentikhe m!"

The Power of the Underworld River manifested, instantly generating a gray barrier to resist the erosion of the undead aura.

The moment she pulled back to retreat, Zhao Yingkong habitually activated the Protection of Horus.

Golden light shimmered around her, shielding her from the toxic swelling caused by the plague. Throughout it all, her blade never ceased its rhythm, continuing to reap lives!

Pop.

With a dull thud, the stone talisman hanging at her waist crumbled into sand.

Even with her agile movements, facing the endless tide of the undead, her wounds gradually multiplied, and her stamina and condition began to decline.

She bit her lip, glancing at Kobayashi Yoshito, who was unleashing the power of Kazan not far away, and then at Kitagawa Nacai, who was maintaining the Holy Light Domain. A hint of awkwardness flickered across her perpetually cold and arrogant face as she turned her head, wanting to ask for support.

However, she didn't need to speak.

A qualified healer must have a grasp of the big picture, constantly monitoring the movements of the main damage dealer.

"Slow Heal." As soon as the stone talisman showed signs of shattering, Kitagawa Nacai had already begun chanting, green light glowing in her hands.

Immediately, a mobile magic circle appeared beneath Zhao Yingkong's feet.

"Holy Purification."

The golden light connected seamlessly.

As the dispelling power flashed, the negative auras that had been inefficiently eroding her flesh were washed away.

What was that stupid woman being so tsundere for? Wouldn't it have been better to come over sooner? Kobayashi Yoshito thought with a sharp tongue, jumping out of the range of Kazan of the Blade Soul to rush over and provide cover.

"Ghost Step."

His entire form turned translucent, the afterimage of Kalla helping him deflect incoming attacks.

The three of them formed a coordinated formation.

"Take this. I've reinforced it with the power of the Soul Bender; it has an innate, powerful resistance to negative status effects."

The stone traced a parabola through the air and was successfully caught by Zhao Yingkong.

As the battle group contracted, it conversely pinned down a large number of Jackal Warriors and Undead Soldiers, preventing them from leaving the city and spreading the plague curse.

Kitagawa Nacai stood guard in the center, her Holy Light Domain remaining active as she alternated between healing and purification.

Zhao Yingkong, relying on her extreme agility, maneuvered within the magic circle of the Blade Soul Kazan, activating the new stone talisman to accelerate her decapitation speed.

Kobayashi Yoshito, at 25C, tanked damage while dealing output. With him as the center, hundreds of elite guards from the Pharaoh's contemporary guard legion closed in.

Even if there were life-and-death conflicts in the real world, here on the cursed battlefield of Cairo, everything could be set aside.

The war continued unabated.

"Baka, I can't cut through anymore. Face the sun!"

The new reincarnators of the East Sea Team, relying on stone talismans and scimitars, struggled to resist alongside the Native Guard Legion. However, the sheer number of undead was overwhelming, and a sense of despair began to spread once more.

"It's time for a banzai charge, my vampire boss."

Under Kobayashi's shove, the middle-aged, stiff-looking man who had been silent the entire time, carrying two nuclear backpacks, finally moved.

"East Sea Team, BANZAI!!!"

His voice was laced with a morbid fanaticism.

With twice the physical fitness of a normal human, and supported by the accompanying healing circle and the effects of the stone talisman, he was able to continuously push forward into the tide of the undead.

One thousand meters.

Two thousand meters.

Before long, unable to charge any further, the created being pressed the activation key on the spot. A light that even the sun could not obscure exploded outward; the two nuclear backpacks, equivalent to a hundred tons of TNT, detonated in a directional nuclear blast.

BOOOM!

A mushroom cloud rose.

The high-temperature shockwave swept outward. The cursed beings caught in the forefront were vaporized on the spot, leaving not even withered bones behind.

The sandy shells on the bodies of the Jackal Warriors that swarmed forward melted and cracked under the extreme heat, their cursed bodies torn apart by the shockwave.

Sand particles were lofted a hundred meters into the air!

As the radiant heat waves and shockwaves spread in layers, the cold black mist that the undead relied on for survival was directly evaporated and dispersed.

Calling a nuclear explosion a "super mini-sun" was not inaccurate at all.

"So, now it's my boss's turn."

"In the 1575 Battle of Nagashino, facing the Oda Clan's arquebusiers, the Takeda Clan's Red Cavalry charged out. That is the courage of Japan."

"I admire it greatly. Now it's your turn. Charge, charge bravely!"

As she spoke, Kitagawa Nacai patted the shoulder of the man beside her.

Every exploited worker had reason to hate capitalists, especially Kitagawa, who had started as a model and was constantly rushing through press releases with barely any time to rest.

Zhao Yingkong: "..."

At this moment, the girl, led astray, couldn't help but wonder if she should also go to America to stock up.

The results really seemed quite good.

BOOOM~

The city wall shook again. Within three hundred meters of the nuclear blast center, all undead creations were wiped out, and the pressure immediately lessened significantly.

The only problem was that the surviving warriors, whether natives or reincarnators, would now have to deal with the nuclear radiation.

It was also at this moment, on an inconspicuous battlefield at the edge, that the old man Jingu, who had greedily overextended while leading a guard detachment, was quietly surrounded by Undead Soldiers.

Under the extreme pressure of death, his pupils constricted, and the power within his body surged.

The First Stage of the Gene Lock opened.

But his foundation was ultimately too weak. Just as he erupted with a sliver of power, he was swallowed by the swarming cursed legion, unable to even let out a scream.

A faint soul fluctuation was quietly extracted.