Kaius sent out a Starpho towards Guelph’s direction, then went back to find Lieutenant Bennet.

By the time Kaius found the lieutenant, all the regular zombies had been taken care of. All the civilians had been instructed by Lieutenant Bennet to seek refuge in Georgetown and already left.

“Kaius, everything went ok on your side?” asked Lieutenant Bennet.

“Yeah,” Kaius nodded. “Here, this is for you.”

Kaius took out the Tower Shield and handed it over to the lieutenant.

“Thanks! I’ll make sure to put this to good use,” Lieutenant Bennet exclaimed happily.

“Don’t get too happy yet. We’ve got another zombie horde headed to Milton,” Kaius explained what he heard from the radio.

“How many zombies are we talking about?” Lieutenant Bennet’s expression tensed up.

“Not sure yet,” Kaius shook his head. “However, I believe it should be no less than 1600, with plenty of rank 1 zombies.”

Kaius spent a few minutes and recounted his previous battle against Bob in Milton.

“To think a zombie like that exists. Milton will be in dire straits if it has to defend against such a large zombie horde led by an intelligent zombie,” said Lieutenant Bennet in a worried tone.

“But don’t forget, Antonio’s forces are no pushover either,” reminded Kaius.

“You’re right. If we play our cards right, this could be an opportunity for us to kill two birds with one stone,” said Lieutenant Bennet.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Kaius nodded. “Let’s go make our preparations. All the soldiers and civilians outside the city had been called back, so there’s nothing left for us out here anymore.”

…

Inside the local police station, Antonio, Alonzo, and all the important personnel had gathered inside a meeting room listening to a report on the zombie horde.

“… a conservative estimate puts the zombie horde size at 1800. At least 80 rank 1 zombies were spotted. They will reach Milton in about 4 hours,” a soldier finished reading the report.

“I want 300 soldiers defending the west entrance, 40 soldiers each at the north and south entrances, the remaining on east entrance,” Alonzo commanded.

“Sir,” the soldier that read the report saluted respectfully. “Based on our tally, we only have 360 soldiers left. We had not been able to contact Team Alpha and Team Bravo for the past few hours.”

“You couldn’t get in contact with Captain McDonald either?” Alonzo questioned.

“No sir,” the soldier replied.

“They’re probably dead,” Antonio interjected with a darkened expression.

“Damn it! It’s already hard enough to deal with this zombie horde, now we have to worry about whatever killed McDonald!” Alonzo clenched his fist. “Pass on my orders: have 300 soldiers defend the west entrance, split the remaining soldiers evenly on the other three entrances. Draft 4000 civilians and station 1000 civilians on each of the four entrances. All Captains and people from Titan Security are to follow my command and deal with the rank 1 zombies.”

“Yes, sir!” The soldier saluted respectfully and left to carry out Alonzo’s orders.

The entire city of Milton entered into a state of emergency. All the civilians had tense expressions on their faces. Unlike before, there was nowhere else to go this time. If Milton got overrun, everyone inside would die.

Four hours passed by in the blink of an eye.

All the soldiers were in their designated positions and readied their automatic rifles. Even when facing a zombie horde of this magnitude, none of the soldiers showed any signs of anxiety. These were all elite soldiers that were handpicked by Alonzo.

On the other hand, the unfortunate civilians that got drafted to help defend the city entrances all had frightened expressions on their faces even though they were standing at the back of the defense line.

Agggghhhhh…

Low, groaning sounds travelled over the horizon. One zombie after another appeared on Highway 401 and marched towards the city.

“Weapons hot!” Alonzo shouted.

Click! Click! Click!

All the soldiers switched off the safety of their automatic rifles and steadied their aim.

2000m…

1000m…

800m…

500m…

“Open fire!”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Hundreds of bullets shot out from the automatic rifles within seconds and gunned down the zombies at the front. However, even more zombies filled their place and continued to march forward.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

A dozen Bruisers ran out from within the zombie horde while holding large metal plates.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

The Bruisers held up the large metal plates in front of them, shielding the zombie horde from all the incoming bullets and allowing it to advance safely.

“This…!” One of the captains stared dumbfoundedly at the Bruisers’ use of metal plates. “How can mere zombies employ such tactical methods?!”

“We can’t let them continue to advance like this. All eight of you come with me to take care of these Bruisers,” Alonzo commanded his 3 Captains and the 5 Titan Security personnel. “Antonio, I’ll leave command of the soldiers to you.”

“Be careful,” Antonio nodded.

Alonzo led the way, followed by his three Captains, Elroy, and the four Titan Security personnel.

Alonzo’s group consisted of 2 warriors, 3 guardians, 2 assassins, 1 mage, and 1 cleric. While sprinting towards the Bruisers, Alonzo quickly shouted out his battle plan to the group, then glanced at his own status one last time.

Name

Alonzo Valentino

Class

Mage

Level

35

Health

Normal

Mana

1000/1000

Strength

29 (+3)

Vitality

32 (+6)

Dexterity

51 (+3)

Intelligence

110

Skills (active)

General

Intermediate Strength Enhance (25MP): temporarily increases Strength by 9. Duration: 30 minutes.

Intermediate Vitality Enhance (25MP): temporarily increases Vitality by 9. Duration: 30 minutes.

Intermediate Dexterity Enhance (25MP): temporarily increases Dexterity by 9. Duration: 30 minutes.

Intermediate Intelligence Enhance (25MP): temporarily increases Intelligence by 9. Duration: 30 minutes.

Ice Magic

Icicle Rain (15MP): shoots out (2 + Intelligence/10) ice pillars at a target location. Any target hit by the ice pillars will have their Vitality decreased by 2% for each ice pillar hit. Debuff duration: 10 minutes.

Freezing Field (20MP): unleashes a freezing field with a radius of (100m + Intelligence) in front of the caster. Decrease the Vitality and Dexterity of everything inside the freezing field by (5% + Intelligence/20%). Duration: 30 minutes.

Frost Armor (25M): Covers a target with frost armor. Target's Vitality increases by (5 + Intelligence/10). Anyone that comes into contact with the frost armor will have their Vitality and Dexterity decreased by 5%. Frost armor duration: 25 minutes. Debuff duration: 10 minutes.

Ice Burial (35PM): encases a target inside a coffin of ice. Durability of the ice coffin increases with caster's Intelligence. Target's Vitality decreases by 2% per second while inside the ice coffin. If target's Vitality falls below 30 while inside the ice coffin, instantly kills target.

Skills (passive)

Enlightened Mind: increases Intelligence by 1 per level.

Greater Mana Circuit: mana pool increases by an additional 15 points per level.

Natural Mana Sense: mana pool increases by 300. Doubles the natural mana regeneration rate.

When Alonzo’s group got within 50 meters from the zombie horde, everyone started to cast their body enhancement skills.

Intermediate Strength Enhance!

Intermediate Vitality Enhance!

Intermediate Dexterity Enhance!

Intermediate Intelligence Enhance!

The three guardians took the lead, followed by the two warriors and two assassins. Alonzo and the cleric stayed back.

Frost Armor!

Alonzo cast his armor spell on each person to further enhance their defensive capabilities.

Freezing Field!

The temperature within the vicinity suddenly started to decrease. A blanket of frost that spanned over 200 meters in radius descended upon the zombie horde. Alonzo had cast his skill expertly such that the edge of the Freezing Field just covered the Bruisers at the front, leaving his own group unaffected.

Roar!

The Bruisers shouted in rage as the chilling cold weakened their Vitality and Dexterity by 11%. They dashed madly towards Alonzo’s group with the metal plates held in front.

“Guardians! Defend!” Alonzo commanded.

Shield Wall!

Shield Wall!

Shield Wall!

Each of the three guardians materialized a shield and cast their skills. Since they each had a shield, Shield Wall was further strengthened.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

The Bruisers rammed into the translucent barriers ruthlessly. Under the onslaught of the dozen Bruisers, even the enhanced Shield Wall was starting to show signs of cracking.

“Warriors, frontal attack! Assassins, attack from behind! Cleric, Vitality Buff!”

The two warriors and two assassins took on the two outer most Bruisers on each side. The cleric cast an AOE spell on the guardians to buff their Vitality, thus strengthening the Shield Walls.

Icicle Rain!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Fourteen ice pillars accurately found their marks on the eight Bruisers that were not engaged by the warriors or assassins.

The Bruisers that were held back by the guardians could only stand there and use their metal plates to shield themselves from the ice pillars.

Icicle Rain!

Alonzo cast his spell again, but this time, all the ice pillars were aimed at one Bruiser.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The unfortunate Bruiser couldn’t hold on under the relentless assault of the ice pillars.

Clank!

The eighth ice pillar finally knocked the metal plate out of the hands of the Bruiser. The remaining six ice pillars swooped in and pierced four inches into various parts of the Bruiser’s body.

Arrrhhhh!

The injured Bruiser let out a pained scream.

“Assassins!”

The two assassins temporarily left their own targets and appeared behind this defenseless Bruiser.

Backstab!

Both assassins used their highest single target damage skill Backstab, which doubled their Strength and ignored 20% of the target’s Vitality and physical resistance if the next attack was initiated from behind the target.

Puchi! Puchi!

The assassins accurately pierced through the shoulder joints of Bruiser with their daggers, dislocating both arms and rendering them useless.

Roar!

The severely injured Bruiser roared out in rage and tried to retaliate, but by the time it turned around, the assassins had already left and reappeared in front of their original targets once more.

“Begone!” Alonzo clenched his fist at the Bruiser.

Ice Burial!

Transparent ice suddenly appeared from all around the severely injured Bruiser and encased it inside a coffin of ice.

Mmmmmmph!

Muffled cries of anger seeped out of the ice coffin. Bruiser tried to break free from the ice coffin, but with both of its arms dislocated, all of its struggles were futile.

Ticktock. Ticktock.

Bruiser’s Vitality was decreasing by 2% every second while inside the ice coffin. Its Vitality had already been decreased by 11% from the Freezing Field, plus 12% from getting hit by the six ice pillars, and another 5% from touching the Frost Armor on the assassins. After 18 seconds, Bruiser’s Vitality finally fell under 30.

Pacha!

The ice coffin, along with the Bruiser inside, shattered into a million ice shards. The poor Bruiser didn’t even have a chance to retaliate from start to finish.

Just as Alonzo was about to aim for the next Bruiser, the two assassins suddenly shouted.

“Flickers!”

Ten Flickers closed in on Alonzo’s group from the outer edges of the highway at rapid speed. The Flickers split into two groups of five and were planning on performing a pincer attack from opposite edges of the highway.

“Guardians, retreat and protect the backline! Assassins, intercept as many Flickers as you can. Warriors, provide support for the assassins!”

“Antonio, focus fire on the Bruisers!” Alonzo shouted into his military radio.

The frontline Bruisers that were about to speed up got suppressed by heavy gunfire and had to slow down their advance once more.

Ten blurs flashed towards Alonzo’s tightened formation at lightning speed.

Shield Wall! Shield Wall!

Shield Wall! Shield Wall!

The three guardians shielded the entire group with their translucent barriers that covered all four sides.

Freezing Field!

Left with no choice, Alonzo had to cast his AOE debuff spell in the middle of his group and made his allies suffer the Vitality and Dexterity penalty as well. However, the trade-off was worth it since the 11% Dexterity decrease affected the Flickers’ speed more on a relative basis.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

The ten Flickers swarmed Alonzo’s group from all directions and ruthlessly clawed the translucent barriers.

Under the relentless assault from ten Flickers, the three guardians’ faces became flushed as they were about to reach their limits.

Icicle Rain!

Alonzo shot out ice pillars all around him, causing the Flickers to fall back and giving the guardians some temporary reprieve.

Just as Alonzo’s group was about to launch a counterattack, two figures were tossed over from behind the frontline of Bruisers towards his group.

Looking up, Alonzo saw two regular sized zombies with overly muscular legs and a large belly flying towards them.

Advanced Scan!

Name

Bloater

Class

Rank 1 Evolved Zombie

Level

20

Health

Normal

Mana

20/20

Strength

25

Vitality

100

Dexterity

60

Intelligence

10

“A new type of rank 1!” Alonzo had an alarmed expression on his face.

Not wanting to give these new rank 1s the chance to display their abilities, Alonzo fired off a spell at the airborne Bloaters.

Icicle Rain!

Every ice pillar accurately hit one of the two Bloaters, knocking them away from the group.

Thump! Thump!

Two Flickers immediately stomped hard on the ground and activated their innate abilities. Their figures flashed and reappeared beside the two Bloaters almost instantly.

Thump! Thump!

The two Flickers activated their innate abilities again, except this time, they were carrying the Bloaters with them.

In the blink of an eye, the two Flickers appeared in front of Alonzo’s group and dropped of the Bloaters, then flashed away again. The other Flickers also retreated for some reason. With only Shield Wall separating the two groups, everyone could clearly see the bulging purple veins on the Bloaters’ fat bellies.

The Bloaters gritted their teeth and showed a strained facial expression as though they were constipated. The purple veins on their bellies bulged further, while their bellies started to inflate like a balloon at a rapid rate. An eerie green glow could be seen coming from inside their bellies.

Alonzo had an ominous feeling about the Bloaters’ actions.

“Assassins, kill them!”

Backstab!

The two assassins appeared behind the two Bloaters and lodged their daggers straight inside their brains.

“Good –” Alonzo was about to compliment the assassins, but suddenly noticed the Bloaters’ bellies continued to inflate.

“Guardians, reinforce your sh –”

Pop! Pop!

The dead Bloaters’ bellies exploded, spewing out deadly green acid everywhere in a 200m radius.

Sizzle! Sizzle!

All the Shield Walls were instantly melted through. The three guardians didn’t even have time to suffer the backlash from their shields being broken as the green acid melted through their bodies in the next second.

The deadly green acid continued on and pelted the two warriors that tried to back away. The front half of their bodies got melted off completely, causing all their blood and innards to spill out onto the ground.

One of the assassins tried to grab the cleric and fall back but was half a second too late. Both of their legs got splashed by the green acid, causing them to fall over and scream out in pain.

Only Elroy managed to push his speed to the limits and barely retreated in time while carrying Alonzo. Looking back, he saw the Flickers pounce on the assassin and cleric that had lost their legs and dragged them into the zombie horde. Instead of feeling angry at the sight, Elroy was secretly glad that the ten Flickers decided to focus on those two people, thus allowing him and Alonzo to retreat safely.

Back at the defense line, Antonio observed Alonzo’s defeat with a gloomy expression. Nobody had expected the zombies to be capable of executing such coordinated attacks.

Before Antonio had a chance to think of a countermeasure, the urgent voice of a soldier suddenly sounded from his military radio.

“Sir, this is the east defense team, do you copy?”

“I hear you, soldier.”

“Sir, we’ve spotted a massive beast tide from Mississauga and it’s headed our way!”

Antonio’s expression turned dark after hearing the bad news.

“How many cursed beasts are we talking about?”

“The regular ones are too many to count. The rank 1s number over 60 right now, but more are being spotted every few seconds. Also…”

The soldier’s voice on the other side of the radio became hesitant.

“‘Also’ what?”

“Also… we saw a cursed beast even larger than the rank 1s within this beast tide. We think it might be one of those things.”

Hearing the soldier mention ‘those things’, Antonio’s face turned ashen.

“Are you certain?!”

“Negative, sir! Our Scan skill couldn’t provide enough information. We need someone with Advanced Scan to come over and confirm.”

“Understood,” Antonio ended the call.

At this moment, Elroy just got back to the defense line with Alonzo. The duo walked up to Antonio with ugly expressions on their faces.

“Sorry brother, I…” Alonzo started to apologize.

“Save it,” Antonio held up his hand and interrupted. “We have another emergency. There’s a beast tide coming our way from the east. The soldiers stationed at the east entrance think there might be one of those things within the beast tide.”

“What?!”

Both Alonzo and Elroy became alarmed at the unexpected bad news.

“Elroy, go to the east entrance and use your Advanced Scan to confirm,” Antonio commanded. “If it’s true, we might have to abandon Milton.”

“Yes, sir.”

Elroy promptly got on a car and drove east.

A few minutes later, the anxious voice of Elroy came through Antonio’s radio.

“It is as we feared…”

Elroy shared the information he obtained from his Advanced Scan.

Name

Ash Spider Queen

Class

Rank 2 Evolved Cursed Beast

Level

50

Health

Normal

Mana

?/?

Strength

?

Vitality

?

Dexterity

?

Intelligence

?

Skills (active)

???

Skills (passive)

???

“Damn it! If only we had a bit more time. We have no choice but to abandon Milton now,” Alonzo shouted in frustration.

“Maybe not,” Antonio’s expression turned cruel. “We’ve been protecting all these useless weaklings for the past few days. It’s time for them to repay us.”

…

Elsewhere, a few kilometers northeast of Milton, Kaius and Lieutenant Bennet were hiding inside the Royal Ontario Golf Club. They were planning on ambushing Antonio’s forces from the east side while the soldiers were preoccupied by the zombie horde from the west.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Loud noises suddenly started coming from the east.

Kaius decided to summon a Starpho to go check out the noise.

After a minute, Kaius linked up with Starpho through Shared Vision. Countless cursed beasts filled his field of sight.

“This…!”

A gigantic beast tide was approaching from Mississauga and was on course to pass by a few kilometers south of their position.

Kaius shared his observations with Lieutenant Bennet. Both were shocked by the unexpected development.

“Milton is done for…” Lieutenant Bennet had a pale expression on his face.

“And we’re about to be done for as well if we don’t get out of here right now,” said Kaius in an urgent tone.

“Those 80,000 people…” Lieutenant Bennet let out a hopeless sigh.

Just as the duo were about to retreat in the northwest direction, the sound of trucks could be heard coming from the southwest direction.

Kaius adjusted the view of Starpho and saw ten military trucks headed straight towards the beast tide with horns blaring, as though they were trying to attract the attention of the entire beast tide.

“What are they up to…” Kaius frowned.

The loud horns attracted many of the cursed beasts’ attention near the front of the beast tide. When the military trucks were about 500 meters away from the beast tide, they suddenly turned towards the southwest direction and stopped.

Two people from each of the ten military trucks got thrown out the back trailer door. Afterwards, the military trucks started up again and drove southwest.

Kaius lowered Starpho a bit to get a better look at the people that got thrown out of the miliary trucks. Upon closer inspection, he saw that the twenty people consisted of children and the elderly!

The helpless children and elderly cried and screamed out in pain. A slash wound on each of their chests could be seen; fresh blood oozed out and dyed the front of their clothes red. With a wound on their chest, they didn’t even have the strength to run away; they could only crawl along the ground desperately.

Smelling fresh blood, the beast tide changed directions and headed towards these defenseless people.

The children and the elderly were frightened out of their minds upon seeing the incoming beast tide. Dirt filled their fingernails as they clawed at the ground and tried to pull themselves away in the opposite direction. However, their struggles were all for naught as the beast tide quickly caught up with them in a matter of seconds and swallowed them whole.

Seeing the beast tide devour the twenty people, the ten military trucks stopped once again and threw out another twenty people consisting of children and the elderly.

Sensing blood, half of the beast tide shifted directions and headed southwest towards the fresh batch of human bait.

Strangely enough, most of the remaining beast tide suddenly changed course and went after the military trucks as well. Only a small portion of the beast tide continued straight west towards Milton.

Standing at the back of the beast tide, the eyes of the Ash Spider Queen glowed with intelligence as she gave out new commands to the beast tide. She looked at the miliary trucks with a playful expression and decided to chase after them since she was curious what sort of trickery these insignificant humans were up to.

Just like a game of cat and mouse, the military trucks would throw out twenty people every few kilometers travelled, and the beast tide would devour the people and continue to chase after the military trucks.

…

Somewhere at the back of the zombie horde, two Flickers dropped off the half dead assassin and cleric in front of a chubby little zombie. It was Bob.

One of the Flickers slashed down with its claw and easily sliced off the right arm of the assassin.

“Ahhhhhh!”

The assassin screamed out in excruciating pain. A few seconds later, he died due to excessive blood loss.

Flicker took the arm and offered it up to Bob as a tribute.

Bob had a lofty expression as he accepted the arm and took a huge bite out of the bicep muscle.

“Ah… Fresh meat…”

Fresh human blood oozed out of the corner of Bob’s mouth as he chewed the tender meat with great satisfaction.

“This zombie has intelligence!” The cleric muttered in a weak voice as his eyes widened in shock.

“Why is meat talking…”

Puchi!

The other Flicker stabbed its claw through the cleric’s throat. Fresh blood gushed out and dyed the cleric’s clothes dark red. His eyes remained fixated on Bob as he took his last breath.

After devouring the entire arm, Bob’s gaze turned towards Milton.

“The people in this city… shall be the tribute… for the advent of Bob…”

“Hm…?”

The sound of truck horns could be heard coming from the southeast direction.