The fighting in the narrow alleys was ferocious. The buildings lining the streets lay in ruins, and the air reeked of smoke, dust, and scorched earth. The cramped spaces restricted the soldiers' movements, making every step painfully difficult.
As the battle began, gunfire and explosions mingled into a deafening roar. Infantrymen vaulted over cover and charged toward enemy positions. Grenades flew into buildings, their blasts shattering windows and filling the air with smoke.
Soldiers on both sides fought viciously at close quarters in the narrow alleys. Bayonets and blades flashed in the darkness, fists and feet flew, and weapons clashed without mercy.
Wearing a black mask, Zoe slipped among them, weaving and dodging through the cramped spaces as she raced to find openings for a killing blow. Blood covered her from head to toe. She alone had killed more than seventy Survey Corps soldiers.
To protect her father and younger sister in the capital, she had all but become a god of slaughter, using her agility to launch one deadly attack after another against the Survey Corps soldiers unfamiliar with the terrain.
After Zoe slit the throat of a Survey Corps soldier in a stairwell, Oruo and Gunther lunged at her from behind.
"Aah!! Die!!" Oruo swung his long blade, his eyes bloodshot. Hatred consumed him; he had watched far too many soldiers die before his eyes.
Zoe jerked backward, taking a slash across her thigh. She whipped out two pistols and fired repeatedly at Oruo, only for Gunther to tackle her to the floor. Her pistols fell to the ground. She struggled desperately, but she could not match Gunther's strength, so she pulled the fuse on the grenade at her waist.
Zoe stabbed Gunther's hand again and again with her dagger, tearing it into a bloody mess. Yet Gunther