The soldiers on the high wall erupted into cheers as they watched the missiles unch. For most, nuclear ons were little more than a cept—an abstract force of destru they didn’t fully uand. Amid the celebration, however, a few began to feel uneasy. “Where are those missiles targeting?” Scott shouted, his voice trembling. His expression was one of pure hreater even than when he faced the tide of millions of zombies earlier.

  As the ander of the city’s defenses, Scott knew what nuclear ons were capable of. If one was detooo close to the base, it wouldn’t matter how many zombies were killed—everyone in Washington DC would perish. “Go! Find out where they’re targeting!” he barked.

  A squad of soldiers, nervous but determined, broke into the trol room, braving the blood-soaked age within. What they found chilled them to the bone: a room filled with mutited corpses, blood pooling on the floor, and a satellite map dispying fshing red markers. The se was transmitted back to Scott. For a moment, he froze, staring at the red is. Then, after a few seds of silence, he ughed hysterically, relief washing over his face. “Haha! We’re safe! The targets are hundreds of kilometers away!”

  The yield of the nuclear bombs wasn’t particurly high, and at that distahe base was out of immediate danger. Radiation clouds would take time to drift over—if they reached the base at all. “Wait… hundreds of kilometers?” Scott’s face suddenly turned pale as a horrifying realization struck him. Whoever took trol of the nuclear missiles wouldn’t waste them oy nd. If the targets were hundreds of kilometers away, it could only meahing. “The zombie tide stretches for hundreds of kilometers!?” he screamed, finally grasping the true scale of the threat they faced.

  Otlefield, Zack didn’t waste time after issuing the and to unch the missiles. “Ego, how long until the Avalon arrives?” Zack asked.

  “Three minutes, sir,” Ego replied.

  “Good. I’ll bring the Fearless Warriors back. Let the meical beasts hold the line for three minutes,” Zack ordered.

  The seven Fearless Warriors, drenched in blood but unbroken, began to fight their way out of the horde. Their once-pristine armor was now coated in gore, making them look as though they had emerged straight from the depths of hell. Yet, not a single one had fallen. As they retreated, the meical dogs and Spiders surged forward, their melee units taking up the fight. The two Goliath, haviied their sed ammunition s, y down once again, unfolding their eleagic railguns and carving through the tide with lier line of devastation.

  Even so, the endless wave of zombies pressed on, threatening to overwhelm the defenses. “I’ll hold them off!” Erza shouted, fmes already dang at her fiips.

  “Air support will arrive in two minutes and thirty seds,” Zack replied tersely before activating his thrusters and s toward the rear of the horde.

  Lillian joihe retreating Fearless Warriuiding them onto the Aegis, which took off to follow Zack. Mid-flight, Ava and her unmanned armors joihe formation.

  As Zack led the charge, Ego’s voice rang out. “Sir, be careful!” Before Zack could respond, a blinding white light erupted on the horizon. A dozen mushroom clouds rose in unison, their fiery brillianentarily turning night into day. The nuclear bombs had detonated.

  For a moment, Zack was struck by the sheer magnitude of the explosions. This wasn’t the trolled devastation of cloud bombs or missiles—this was destru on a godlike scale. It was as if a dozen suns had desded to Earth. “Check the radiation shielding!” Zack shouted into the s.

  “All systems funal,” Lillian replied.“Shielding intact,” Ava added calmly.“Perfect dition,” the Fearless Warriors said in eerie unison.

  BOOM—!

  The sound of the nuclear explosions reached them long after the initial light, a deafening roar that shook the air itself. The infrasound and ultrasonic waves rippled through every frequency, followed by a hurrie-force bst. Even though Zack’s team was well outside the primary bst radius, they still felt the impact as a physical force. Ihe true zone of destru, the effects were apocalyptic. Millions of zombies, along with vehicles, buildings, and every trace of the ndscape, were obliterated. The ground was gouged out into a dozen craters, each several kilometers wide. Shockwaves sent waves of earth and debris crashing outward, leveling everything in their path.

  When Zad his team finally ehe nuclear zohe destru had settled, but the t mushroom clouds remained—a grim testament to the devastation. Even hundreds of kilometers away, civilians could see the clouds rising into the stratosphere. “Stay clear of the dust clouds,” Zastructed, carefully navigating around the fallout zones.

  Despite the power of the nuclear strikes, their impact was limited. The dozen bombs had wiped out tens of millions of zombies, but this was only a fra of the overall horde. What remained of the tide was still massive, though now divided into smaller groups of a million each by the lingering mushroom clouds. “Divide and quer,” Zack muttered, a faint smile pying on his lips. “The wisdom of our aors.” With that, he dove toward one of the divided hordes, where the suspected leader of a million-strong zombie wave awaited.

  As Zack dived toward the horde, thousands of mutated zombies with swollen, toad-like jaws turheir heads skyward, as if sensing his presech they again? Spitter…” Zack muttered, immediately reizing the peculiar zombies. These were the same le attackers he had entered while testing the cloud bombs, their primary on being bursts of pressed air shot with on-like force.

  But somethi off. “This isn’t just pressed air…” Zack realized, his sharp eyes catg the unnatural way the Spitter zombies’ jaws swelled like overinfted balloons. Suddenly, the S dropped to the ground, their distended s infting rapidly. Moments ter, thousands of them opeheir mouths simultaneously.

  Boom!

  The sound of pressed air rupturing filled the battlefield as bck spikes shot from their gaping maws. These weren’t the harmless air bursts Zack had entered before. Each spike was a sharpened bone spur, its poiip desigo pierd kill. At the tail, squid-like appendages fred outward, stabilizing the projectiles mid-flight. “What’s the point of zombie evolution?” Zack muttered, baffled by this adaptation. But there was no time to ponder.