As Erza’s group retreated, Zack stood his ground, determio hold the line against the relentless wave of undead. The Vul's thunderous roar echoed through the street, each burst of fire carving fiery paths through the advang horde. Spent bullet gs rained down around him, piling up like a miniature hill at his feet. His bullets tore through the zombies, shredding them to pieces, with each shot pung through several bodies at once. Smoke and the stench of gore thied the air as the battlefield became a gruesome mess of shattered limbs and mangled corpses.

  “Ego, I’m almost out of ammo!” Zack shouted over the chaos, gng at the dwindling rounds in the massive magazirapped to his back. Even with his odifications to expand its capacity, the Vul’s insatiable appetite for bullets left him with only minutes of firepower. Fortunately, he had desighe magazio be quickly detachable for reloading.

  “Reinforts are en route, sir!” Ego’s calm voice replied through his helmet. Almost on cue, a transport helicopter appeared over the skylis rotors slig through the air. The cargo hold carried nine meical dogs, fifteen spiders, and crates filled with fresh ammunition. Five of the spiders had been statio the Mansion to guard it, leaving the rest for frontline deployment.

  Zack’s HUD lit up with a notification of an ining signal on an unfamiliar frequency. “Sir, someone is trying to ect. Should I patch it through?” Ego prompted.

  “Yes, let’s hear it,” Zack said, and a steady, authoritative voice crackled through his earpiece.

  “This is Antonny, captain of the air force,” the man introduced himself without hesitation. “I’m ung an artillery strike fifty meters ahead of your position. Clear the area—three seds!”

  Zack’s sharp ears picked up the low hum of inis. Within moments, the groued as a barrage of 30mm rounds smmed into the street. The shells exploded on impact, sending zombies flying in all dires, creating a brief but wele break in the endless horde. The road ahead was left cratered and sm, the remains of the zombies scattered in every dire.

  “Now that’s firepower,” Zack muttered with a hint of admiration, watg the devastation. Keying his s, he responded, “Antonny, you focus on the main horde. I’ll hahings here.”

  “You sure you manage on your own?” Antonny asked, his toinged with genuine , reizing a kindred spirit in Zack.

  “I’ve got backup,” Zack replied fidently, just as the transport helicopter hovered closer, l its cargo for deployment.

  “Alright then, good luck. Stay safe!” Antonny signed off, veering his jet toward the main horde, readying for another bombing run.

  Zack exhaled, knowing the small reprieve was over. The wave they’d faced so far was just the beginning. Turning back to the battlefield, he barked, “Ego, keep tabs on Antonny’s position and give me updates.”

  Suddenly, a shadow darted across his vision. A Hunter—one of the swift, lethal variants of the undead—was charging at him from a nearby building. Without even turning, Zack’s shoulder-mounted Gatling gun whirred to life, trag the creature with precision. The gun unleashed a rapid burst of fire, tearing the Hunter apart mid-leap, its shredded remains colpsing into the street below.

  “Threat ralized,” Ego firmed as Zagaged his suit’s propellers, lifting him into the air. From above, he could see Erza rallying her survivors at a stru site, attempting to fortify their position with makeshift defenses.

  It was a futile effort in Zack’s eyes. Against an endless horde of a million zombies, a few barricades and scattered ons wouldn’t st. Even a fully equipped military unit would struggle without heavy support. Landing near her, Zack wasted no time. “Get your people underground,” he ordered. “This base is mine now. I’ll hold them off.”

  Erza hesitated, staring at him in disbelief. “But… you hahem alone?”

  Before Zack could ahe sound of the helicopter overhead silenced her. The rear hatch opened, and one by one, his meical reinforts dropped down with heavy thuds, shaking the ground.

  “Activate bat mode,” Zaahe meical dogs’ blue eyes flickered to a menag red as they sprang into a. One climbed a sentry tower, anch itself with cws digging into the wood for stability. The survivors manning the tower stumbled ba fear, nearly falling off in their panic, but the meical dog paid them no mind. Its focus was singur: eliminating the enemy.

  A heavy mae gun mounted on the dog’s back came to life, unleashing a torrent of bullets into the approag horde. The remaining dogs quickly spread out, taking strategic positions on the scaffolding, transf the stru site into a fortress of automated firepower. Their collective gu up the battlefield, mowing down zombies by the dozens.

  Meanwhile, the spider drones scuttled to the perimeter, positioning themselves along the walls. Uhe dogs, they waited silently, ready to engage ohe first wave of ammunition ran dry.

  “Sir, this should buy us some time,” Ego reported. “Antonny’s bombing run has started.”

  “Good,” Zack said, stepping into the helicopter’s cargo hold to reload. He sed out his equipment, seg a bomb-loading partment to his back. Then, without hesitation, he leapt from the chopper. The suit’s propellers roared to life, propelling him into a trolled dive.

  The powerful thrust sent him hurtling downward, breaking the sound barrier with a series of sonis. Below, the zombies turheir decayed heads skyward, r and reag out as Zack shot past them. He ighem—these were only the vanguard. The true swarm was still gathering behind.

  Farther away, Antonny and his jets were hard at work. Flying low over the de part of the horde, Antonny barked orders to his team. “Prepare to drop wind-corrected bomb dispensers on my mark!”

  He pressed the unch button, releasing two glide-guided missiles. Their stabilizers unfolded mid-flight, guiding them directly into the ter of the mass. A split sed before hitting the ground, the missiles detonated, releasing a wave of scorg heat that obliterated everything within a dozeers. Limbs and ks of flesh were thrown into the air, raining down like gruesome fetti.

  “Deploying cluster bombs!” Antonny’s co-pilot, Cole, annouhe bombers flying behind released their payloads—regur isters scattering hundreds of bomblets over the horde. The ground was ed in a of explosions, fmes spreading like wildfire. Tens of thousands of zombies were ied, their remains reduced to ash. Eveated ones didn’t stand a ce, succumbing to the relentless bze.

  The bombardment wiped out hundreds of thousands in one run—a stark reminder of the overwhelming power of military force. But even this was just a drop in the o. The horde was still ing.