Despite the cartoonish overy, she could ses dahe brute—known as the Lord—was nearly four meters tall, a hulki barreling forward like a tank.

  Sophia acted without hesitation. She leaped off the ptform, sprinting toward Annie. “Annie, MOVE!” she shouted, shoving her out of the creature’s path just in time. The Lord’s massive frame collided with Sophia instead, sending her flying like a ragdoll. Her MV-01 suit smmed into the steel wall with a deafening crash, leaving a dent before she crumpled to the ground.

  “Sophia!” Annie screamed, horror filling her voice.

  Sophia coughed, blood trig from her lips. The outdated suit cked modern shock absorption, leaving her badly injured from the impact. Her vision swam as she struggled to speak. “Aay back…”

  But the Lord wasn’t do roared, raising its massive fists to crush Sophia where she y.

  Annie’s eyes darkened, her pyful demeanor vanishing. “Tarantu,” she ordered, “turn off the image filter.” The battlefield’s true, bloody horror filled her vision as the cheerful overy disappeared.

  Her fury erupted. “Don’t you dare hurt my sister!” she shouted, ung high-tensile spider silk from her mech’s arms. The sticky threads tched onto the Lord, slowing its advance as Annie dug her meical legs into the ground, brag against the strain.

  “Tarantu, power warning! Insuffit energy!” the AI alerted her.

  “I don’t care!” Annie roared, pushing the mech to its limit. The silk stretched tighter and tighter until Annie suddenly let go, snapping the tension.

  The impact sent Annie’s spider mech flying through the air, propelling her like a missile straight at the t Lord. As she hurtled forward, she extended her arm bdes, log onto the creature’s exposed back.

  With a metallic screech, her bdes pierced deep into the monster’s flesh. The Lord roared in ahrashing its massive arms to knock her off. But Annie held on, moving with the precision and grace of her mech, dodging its wild swipes while driving her bdes even deeper. She aimed for its neck, hoping to sever its spine.

  The creature’s fury only grew, its massive muscles rippling unnaturally, as if something alive squirmed beh its skin. Its wounds began healing at an arming rate, knitting together as if pain only fueled its strength.

  "I do this! My brother told me I could!" Annie shouted, her voice fierd unwavering.

  With a final, determihrust, she buried her bde into the creature’s neck wound, tearing it open further. In one swift motion, she pulled a miissile from her belt and jammed it into the gaping wound.

  “Tarantu, set detonation for three seds!” she ahrough gritted teeth.

  “Three!”

  “Two!”

  “One!”

  Annie leapt away from the creature just as the timer hit zero. In midair, she fired a strand of spider silk, yanking Sophia to safety with her.

  The explosioed in a fiery burst, obliterating most of the Lord’s t form. The bst lit up the battlefield, scattering zombies and momentarily halting their relentless advahe shockwave even tore apart a se of the steel pnt, leaving its defenses crumbling.

  “Oh no,” Annie realized, panic setting in. Without the pnt’s walls to hold back the swarm, the zombies would flood in. She pushed Sophia into cover, brag herself for the wave.

  Despite the destru, Annie wasn’t about to back down. She charged bato the fray with her spider mech, cutting through the undead with swift, deadly precisiowin bdes sshed relentlessly, her movements almost a blur. She was a one-woman army holding the line against the eide.

  But the zombies kept ing, p in from every dire, choking the streets and overwhelming what was left of the steel pnt’s defenses.

  “I’m sorry, Sophia,” Annie whispered, her voice heavy with guilt. “I messed this up…”

  “You’ve done more than enough,” Sophia replied, her determination cutting through her pain as she joihe defensive line.

  Nearby, five spider mechs and the meical dog, now out of ammo, switched to melee bat, tearing into the horde. On the roof, Charles and his team fired desperately into the mass of zombies below, but the flood was unstoppable. The steel pnt was drowning in the undead.

  Boom! Boom!

  Explosions suddenly rocked the battlefield as bombs rained down from above. Three bombers and a fighter jet roared past, dropping payloads that ighe zombie ranks in massive fireballs. The releide finally broke, the fmes carving a path through the swarm and scattering them.

  With air support clearing the horde, Annie cheered, her exhaustion momentarily fotten. “Sophia, we held the line!”

  The steel pnt had survived—just barely.

  Across the city, Zack hovered above the zombie-ied streets, monit the battle through updates from Ego, his AI panion. He had already marked the steel pnt as a fallback point a five additional spider mechs as reinforts.

  “Did they hold?” Zack asked, his voice calm but tense.

  “firmed, sir. The defense held,” Ego replied.

  “Good. Retrieve the spiders,” Zack ordered, already pnning his move.

  “Should we send them to the stru site?” Ego inquired.

  “No. Redirect them to me,” Zack said firmly.

  The spider mechs weren’t just expendable soldiers; they were designed for strategic versatility. Uhe more expensive meical dogs, the spiders were equipped with a self-destruct feature. Using them as suicide units was cost-effective, though Zack still preferred not to waste resources unnecessarily.

  “Position the spiders here,” Zack said, marking five points on his HUD map.

  As he spoke, Zack’s gaze shifted to the zombie horde below—a vast, bed sea of charred bodies and rising smoke. The battlefield looked like a vision of hell.

  “Threat detected at three o’clock,” Ego alerted him.

  Zack turoward a small hill to his right, where nearly a hundred mutated zombies stood motionless, guarding something. Among them were t Lords, their powerful frames far more menag than the regur undead.

  “So, this is what you’ve been hiding,” Zack muttered, narrowing his eyes.

  H closer, he focused on a massive zombie at the ter of the hill. It was nearly five meters tall, its muscur frame covered in rock-like gray skin. Long, goril-like arms dangled low to the ground, and glowing silver liraced its body, making it look like a monstrous silverback.

  “New variaed. Rec data,” Ego said. “Shall we call it the Silverback?”

  “Works for me,” Zack replied, his gaze fixed on the creature.

  “The Silverback appears capable of leading other zombies, indig human-level intelligence,” Ego tinued. “Extreme caution is advised.”

  Zack smirked. “If it’s carbon-based, it’s kilble.”

  He desded toward the hill, drawing the attention of the undead. Below, the Silverback let out a guttural roar, pounding its chest like a goril. The sound echoed across the battlefield, challenging Zack.

  “You really think you’re King Kong?” Zack muttered, raising his hands.

  He fired trated energy beams at the Silverback, but they barely left a mark on its dense, rock-hard skin. The creature roared in rage a high into the air, nearly reag Zack’s position.

  “Well, that’s new,” Zack said, readying himself for a real fight.