Army of the Damned

VOLUME 11 Chapter 6

With a towering red sky over them, and the three portals over the city. A player soldier with a balaclava and goggles covering his entire face looked down on the asphalt road below him as he hid behind a pile of sandbags. He could audibly hear the rockets flying, bullets being flung just right above him into an enemy behind a wall of sand that protected him from the unyielding advance of an invader from another realm. "Copy Two One! Hammer them more! I need to ask for a request to High Command to allow us to start striking buildings! What? I don't care! They're like a hurricane with a brain! They're using cover and debris! Weapons are effective but not to its max effect!" The Sergeant on the radio kept screaming with the top of his voice to the point that his tone was slowly giving out while choppers whizz meters above them.

The imposing stature of the once lively city was now overwhelmed by something larger and cosmic, with three dark portals hovering over it and the clouds completely painted with blood. The hints of color that were once so many people are used to gone and completely taken over by one singular tint. Inside the Outposts he was in, the player could see the other soldiers with trembling hands and feet, others gripping the muzzle of their rifles intensely as they tapped their feet. Though their faces were hidden by their goggles and balaclava, he could feel the stress and fear oozing from the resting players.

Though the air was already cold, it felt even colder and carried with it a smell of death and destruction unbeknownst to man as a foreign smell from a realm no person should ever go into has been mixed with the air of what was normal and should be. Though one would feel normal, one cannot help but get an uneasy feeling that something strange and weird has entered the atmosphere, as if the habitation of the world on the other side was also being teleported into the planet as the smell of ash and fire ran with the wind, the corpses of the zombies piling on top of the skeletons without any flesh left on their bodies.

Benign was no longer a word that could be used on the atoms inside the city, but so was foreign. With all that is acceptable to the human eyes now painted over with a color that has come out of nowhere.

Invaded, not only physically, but also mentally. Sight, hearing, and smell, all was mixed with what was routine to something distant, external, and even fully alien to what the players are used to. The player sat behind the sandbags, gripping his assault rifle close to his chest as his senses were overwhelmed. Though it has only begun, he already felt like a crushing feeling was being thrown onto his back. A feeling as if his very soul and being was being invaded, now what was once a blue sky that could give relief to a battered battlefield, there was none so inviting. But instead a gaping maw in the space itself, spitting out the horrors of Gods not yet known to man and beast.

The ground then rumbled as Infantry Fighting Vehicles and Main Battle Tanks rolled behind the man's cover and into the street. There cannons firing in full force while his squadmates were firing in one direction in full auto, wastefully consuming ammo as they violently switched mags, giving it all they got with a fierce determination. Coming from the street, another soldier hops over the sandbags and drops his butt right next to him. He gave the visitor a peace sign as he silently cowered on his position.

"Oh Corporal, sir. Nice to meet you."

"Ah Private. What're you doing here?"

"Out of ammo. Just waiting for the truck to arrive."

"Is that so? It's already here. We're just clearing the area a bit before unloading."

"I wonder... Do they have a General?"

"Well, does Hell even have a proper army?"

"Seems to be like it sir, they're pretty organized so far."

"Well, I don't count sending thousands of skeletons at us as a proper army. They're more like grinding us down with sheer numbers. I don't think the artillery limit will stay that long."