An immense psychological shadow fell through the shattered ceiling, enveloping everyone in the shelter.
"Aaaaaah!!!"
Someone let out the first hysterical scream.
Then everyone began roaring.
Fear gave way to rage, to despair, to some crazed desire for death.
More than a hundred gun barrels pointed overhead, pouring out fire wildly.
Bullets struck the dark purple shield and ricocheted off with metallic clinks.
It was like shooting a steel wall with a slingshot. Utterly useless.
One soldier threw away his empty rifle, grabbed a fire axe, and charged toward the crack, leaping up and hacking with all his might.
The axe struck the shield and bounced away.
He fell to the ground, scrambled up, jumped again, and swung again.
Another soldier clutched an anti-tank land mine and charged, howling, toward the Demon Clan creatures pouring through the passage entrance.
With a boom, he and several lesser demons were blown to pieces.
Jieshibang watched it all.
He lowered his head and looked at the detonator in his hand.
He had already flipped open the cover over the red button.
He did not know when he had opened it.
Perhaps a minute ago. Perhaps just now.
His thumb hovered above the button, and a smile appeared on his dust-covered face.
His mind grew strangely quiet, and he began looking back over his life.
The books he had read all those years ago, his wife and daughter, the high spirits with which he had run for city lord, his dreams...
He raised his head and took one last look at the shelter, blasted beyond recognition.
He looked at the last hundred-odd people, screaming, firing, fighting the Demon Clan with their fists and teeth.
Then his thumb pressed down.
The detonator gave a faint click.
In an instant, a one-megaton nuclear warhead detonated in