True Apocalypse Game

"BANG!" The man in the trench coat pulled the trigger, headshotting a zombie that charged out of a building. He then let out a hearty laugh.

"Hahaha, fall in! We got in early, and our spawn point was a military base just outside New York City. We gathered a lot of gear, so we came straight into the city to pick people up! This Eagle Country equipment is seriously good stuff. Just what you’d expect from the world’s number one military power!"

"Sir!" Mick answered loudly as he climbed onto the tank the Legion Commander was on. Gerard followed close behind him.

At the same time, Salvation Army Warriors began to emerge from the surrounding buildings, holding various weapons, and joined the convoy.

Most of them had firearms, immediately bolstering the convoy’s firepower.

The Legion Commander shouted:

"Those with experience operating firearms and heavy weapons, stay on the perimeter to maintain vigilance and provide infantry support for the tanks! Everyone else, get inside the vehicles!"

As he spoke, the two ammunition supply trucks at the rear began distributing weapons like automatic rifles and grenades, and even grenade launchers and rocket launchers.

In the blink of an eye, several hundred people had gathered on this block, and every single one was armed to the teeth.

Meanwhile, the tank’s main cannon fired continuously, bombarding the zombie horde gathering in the distance.

Sophie couldn’t hold back any longer. Holding her revolver, she pushed open her door and rushed out.

Seeing the letter ’F’ on her collar, Mick, who was sitting on the tank, immediately waved her over and pulled her up.

Sitting on the exterior of the main battle tank and watching the horde of zombies surging toward them in the distance, Sophie couldn’t help but ask worriedly:

"Making all this noise is bound to attract a lot of zombies, right? When the horde hits, there’s no way we can..."

The Legion Commander and Mick exchanged a look and burst out laughing. They could both tell Sophie was a newbie.

In front of the Legion Commander, Mick made no effort to hide that he knew Sophie. He simply smiled and said:

"Compared to the massive energy released by modern firearms, the strength of a human body is completely insignificant. Even if their weakness is the brain, a heavy machine gun can tear their bodies in half or rip them to shreds. Even an automatic rifle can blow a bowl-sized hole clean through them, shattering their major bones and nervous system. And that’s not even mentioning the power of an artillery shell."

"So, as long as we can establish a continuous web of fire, the zombies won’t be able to break through, even in a horde. They’ll just keep getting torn to pieces and piling up. Movies and TV shows drastically exaggerate how strong ’zombies’ are. You have to remember, zombies come from humans. You know how frail a human body is, right? Even if you have to go for a headshot, it’s not hard. Just blowing the body apart works fine."

Hearing this, Sophie blushed with shame.

As a senior agent, her knowledge in this area was sorely lacking. She had actually treated fiction from movies as fact, making a bit of a fool of herself.

As they spoke, the tank they were on fired a high-explosive round, instantly blasting over a hundred charging zombies in the distance into a massive smear of red paste. The flaming gore splattered across half the street, and the stench of burnt flesh drifted over on the wind.

With no more Salvation Army Warriors appearing on their current street, the convoy, under the Legion Commander’s orders, began to move again, heading for the next block.

After the initial shock, Sophie gradually adapted to the situation. ’After all, if we die, we all die together. The worst that can happen is a one-day delay before we can log back into the game.’

Quickly getting into her role, she took up an automatic rifle and aimed at the windows above the streets they passed, picking off any zombies that peeked out as if to jump.

They only needed to focus on windows on the fourth floor and below. Any zombies jumping from higher floors would likely break their legs on impact. They’d move slowly after getting back up, only to be turned into red paint by the tank treads.

Many even splattered their heads open on impact and could be ignored completely.

Thanks to experience from previous missions, the players all understood that whenever they entered a mission world, they would be scattered, but not too far apart. They were usually near the same city, or even within a specific district of it.

Including the new players who had recently joined the game, the total number of Salvation Army Warriors had reached tens of thousands. Finding the majority of them within New York City was still quite easy.

Of course, some unlucky souls were inevitably infected or torn apart by zombies, getting forcefully logged out to wait for the next day.

But most of them should be able to survive.

The Salvation Army Warriors, after all, were all elites.

As they swept through block after block, more and more Salvation Army Warriors joined the Legion Commander’s convoy. In just half a day, their numbers swelled to over ten thousand.

Thanks to experience from previous missions and word-of-mouth passed from veterans to new players, the Legion Commander himself was like a rallying banner. He held immense prestige within the Salvation Army, so no one raised any objections.

And now, the Legion Commander once again displayed his exceptional talent for military command.

Although the current combat was more akin to urban warfare, under the Legion Commander’s command, the Salvation Army Warriors, supported by dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, fought with the unstoppable momentum of a conquering army on an open field.

The zombie hordes attempted to launch massed charges dozens of times, but on every occasion, the Legion Commander concentrated heavy firepower to annihilate them.

With a constant stream of ammunition being ferried in by supply trucks from the suburban military base, the Legion Commander used his artillery as if it were free. The sheer concentration of heavy firepower even made Mick and the others wonder if he was a high-ranking general in the Eagle Country’s army.

’Then again, it seemed not even Eagle Country’s own military personnel were this fanatical about heavy firepower.’

The ammunition found at the military base was so plentiful that the Legion Commander eventually issued personal rocket launchers down to the squad level. As for grenade launchers, they had more than enough to go around.

The number of tanks and armored vehicles in their ranks also continued to grow; they even acquired self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, rocket artillery, and more. Their force had transformed into a ferocious armored corps, capable of collapsing a skyscraper with a single salvo just to bury more zombies.

Against such overwhelming firepower, the zombies stood no chance.

On the rare occasion a Salvation Army Warrior was bitten by a zombie up close, the victim wouldn’t hesitate. They would simply turn their gun on themselves for a clean headshot and wait to log in again the next day.

Moreover, the warriors discovered that the zombies weren’t a monolithic entity; they were divided into different groups.

When they wiped out one group, another would simply watch from the sidelines without joining the fight, as if the zombie factions were hostile to each other.

Some zombie hordes didn’t even blindly attack humans. After determining that the Salvation Army Warriors’ firepower was too overwhelming, they would actually retreat and flee the area, seemingly to preserve their own numbers.

Because of this, they hadn’t encountered the scenario they’d imagined: millions of zombies from all over New York City attacking them at once.

Furthermore, the number of zombies in New York City was much lower than they had expected.

For a time, the morale of the Salvation Army Warriors was sky-high. ’We could flatten all of New York City in one fell swoop, save the entire Eagle Country, liberate the whole world, and rescue human civilization!’

After they had pushed through about a fifth of New York City and crossed Central Park, just as everyone was preparing to sweep south with unstoppable momentum and flatten the other boroughs, the Legion Commander suddenly ordered all units to halt, hold their positions, and remain on high alert.

Feeling the police armored car she was in come to a stop, Sophie, who was holding an automatic rifle, felt a flicker of confusion. ’What’s happening?’ she wondered.

After her brief exchange with the Legion Commander and the others, she had transferred to this police armored car. She’d been fighting valiantly the whole way, riding a wave of adrenaline, so she was caught off guard by the sudden halt.

"What’s going on? Why’d we stop?" Sophie asked the warrior beside her.

He didn’t answer, instead just raising a hand and pointing toward the distant skyline at the far end of the street.

Sophie followed his finger and saw a colossal, cloud-piercing tower looming in the distance, its form twisted and spiraling.

A single glance made her feel disoriented and agitated, as if her forehead had been struck by a sledgehammer. A sudden, unbearable restlessness surged within her, roiling with a frenzied killing intent, a desire to destroy everything in the world.

Subconsciously, she raised the muzzle of her rifle and aimed it at the warrior beside her.