"I know." Carl Delon cut him off, his voice hoarse but steady. "One thousand six hundred against fifty-three thousand—fighting them head-on would be suicide. But they didn't come to fight us in urban warfare. They came to find somewhere to hide and recover their strength. Africa is huge. It can hide fifty-three thousand rats."
"That's why they chose Africa," Sam picked up. "The terrain is complicated, the population sparse, and the demon hunters' forces are scattered. They want to drag this out and catch their breath."
"How long are they going to drag it out?" Dean asked.
The screen fell silent for a second.
Wu Heng answered the question for them. "Until they recover enough strength. Until Heaven possibly reopens. Until divisions appear within our ranks. Or until Hell makes another move. Any turning point they can wait for."
He paused.
"So we can't let them stall."
"Give the order." Liz's voice was calm. "Let us wipe them out completely."
"The purge will continue." Wu Heng shook his head slightly. "But not now."
He brought up a new set of monitoring data.
Above the African continent, a translucent pale-gold energy shield was slowly taking shape. The shield covered an enormous area, stretching from the southern edge of the Sahara Desert to the northern Congo Basin, spanning more than two thousand kilometers from east to west.
"Holy Light Bastion." Wu Heng pointed at the screen. "A defensive fortification Bartholomew built with all his remaining power. Its energy intensity is extremely high. Conventional weapons can't penetrate it. If we force a breakthrough, our casualties will exceed acceptable limits."
The screen went silent.
"So we just watch?" Dean's voice was low, thick with suppressed fury. "Watch more than fifty thousand murderers hide inside a turtle shell, wait until they recover, then come out