Chapter 134: Defensive Desperation at Tianfeng

Tianfeng isn’t that easy to defend…

Our strength is still somewhat lacking…

Perched at the edge of the rooftop, Yenir idly swung his legs. Beside him lay a withered zombie head, its sparse hair and sagging features barely suggesting a middle-aged man. Nearby, Li Dafu—summoned as a lookout—clutched a steel bar in trembling hands, fearful of falling.

The dilapidated building they occupied was an unfinished property development from before the apocalypse, situated just to the right of Tianfeng’s first defensive line.

Weathered over time, the entire building had fallen into ruins and now teetered on collapse. This was why the Military had abandoned using it for defense.

Yenir silently assessed Tianfeng’s initial defense setup and wasn’t optimistic.

Everything appeared well-planned, and the soldiers’ basic competence was evident.

Traps, obstacles, overlapping firepower, and a host of specialized weapons were all deployed, but…

the critical force needed to counter the mutants was still too few.

For starters, there were hardly any Spiritual Energy Sniper Rifles; Yenir had only seen one elite squad armed with them—no more than ten in total.

Using bullets and artillery against the mutants was futile. While ground armored units could handle first-stage mutants, facing second-stage ones was like stepping into a death trap. With systemic nerfs, artillery explosions barely harmed mutants above stage two. And with the monsters’ ever-emerging abilities—a mere splash of acid could dissolve entire armored teams—things looked grim.

Once a high-speed mutant broke through the defenses, even a well-armed position would be obliterated in an instant.

Thus, the Spiritual Energy Sniper Rifle—usable by fighters who weren’t Awakeners—was absolutely critical.

Unlike Awakeners who could only fight at close to mid-range, this rifle, serving as a hybrid between system equipment and a conventional weapon, perfectly filled the gap.

But then again, Tianfeng’s poverty meant they couldn’t obtain many of these rifles.

“There just aren’t enough Awakeners,”

“There are only about two thousand Awakeners in the entire Safe Zone—over a thousand stationed inside, and just around six hundred at the front. What use is that?…”

“Out of six hundred, fewer than two hundred are for ranged combat… are the others just meant to throw their lives away?”

Shaking his head, Yenir watched the Awakeners’ task assignments with exasperation—it was an eyesore.

It was clear the commander was following textbook tactics—pairing fighters in teams of two, one ranged and one melee for roaming combat, and even assigning 100 Agility Type fighters as rapid-response reinforcements. The problem was, this outdated strategy required high-level suppression support…

And it was only on a small scale…

The plan was sound: use a triangular minefield to tear open the corpse horde’s front, provide covering fire to create a safe corridor, then have melee fighters charge in to eliminate the most dangerous mutants while the rest of the Awakeners acted as bait to relieve the pressure. Air support would likely deploy second-stage elite forces for decapitation strikes.

However, if even one third-stage mutant—or worse, a few Second-Stage Peak Fighters—appeared, the whole plan would collapse.

Under the assault of high-stage mutants, there wouldn’t be any time to react. As soon as the first wave of Awakeners fell, the defensive line would immediately be torn apart.

In his previous life, during the later years, Yenir—who had commanded over a hundred battles, both big and small—could instantly spot these flaws.

“No wonder Tianfeng fared so poorly in my past life. Without support from the Military Region, the Safe Zone would have been lost…”

“This Xiao Hai has clearly been through a lot. He even thought of setting up defensive lines outside the city to stop mutants from breaching the walls and causing huge casualties. But did he ever consider that once outside, you lose the benefit of thick defensive lines?”

“With this setup, the ranged fighters might as well stick together and the melee fighters do the same—form a tight bucket formation and concentrate fire to eliminate as many mutants as possible…”

“And arrange obstacles in the rear so that if the battle turns sour, the Awakeners can retreat while still fighting, gradually wearing down the mutant numbers.”

Watching the Military’s arrangement, Yenir couldn’t help but complain.

If his own men had planned it this way, he’d have torn their heads off.

Then again, it wasn’t entirely Xiao Hai’s fault. Throughout China, peace had reigned for ages—except along the coasts, where sea beasts occasionally attacked. Many third-stage commanders hadn’t seen real combat in a long time. The fighters’ basic skills remained intact solely because Tianfeng was too poor to acquire better equipment, and Xiao Hai had to roam around providing support for extra income.

Cowering to the side, the timid Li Dafu listened in bewilderment as Yenir continued his commentary. Though he didn’t fully understand, he could sense that Yenir was truly formidable.

“Master, hearing you say that—are they all doomed?!”

Li Dafu asked curiously. After absorbing Yenir’s detailed analysis, even he felt that the folks below were practically waiting for their end.

After a moment of silence, Yenir suddenly offered a faint smile.

“No.”

“Because they still have me…”

…………….

“Report in! Report in!”

“The vanguard of the corpse horde has breached the warning line! They’re rapidly advancing toward the defenses!”

In the hastily established command room, a scout assigned to monitor the horde sprinted off a just-parked attack helicopter and dashed into headquarters, clutching aerial images tightly.

Receiving the images, Xiao Hai’s face grew grim as he studied the vast horde from the aerial view and immediately ordered a bombing run.

“Deploy the first wave!”

“Alert the entire Military—prepare for battle!”

Although the bombing might not truly threaten the mutants, any pressure relief was welcome.

Following the order, several attack helicopters and Spiritual Energy Fighters soared skyward, streaking across the horizon.

……

“Boom! Boom!”

“Boom!! Boom!!”

The explosions rumbled like a relentless shower of thunder.

Armed with heavy ordnance, the fighters alternated dropping various shells, raining them down like hail. Amidst the vast corpse horde, each explosion burst into a dense black cloud, and the shockwaves shattered nearby zombies into fragments.

The blasted fragments of corpses flew like chunks of falling meat, soaring high before crashing down again. Under this overwhelming firepower, the zombies—devoid of fear—only ran in numb desperation, with occasional streaks of bloody entrails hanging overhead as the ravenous creatures instinctively grabbed and chewed.

Inside the aircraft, the soldiers in charge of bombing looked pale as they watched the dense black specks below. Thanks to their surveillance equipment, they could clearly make out the grotesquely decayed faces, many of which belonged to enraged mutants leaping repeatedly in an attempt to snatch them.

Because of some mutants’ terrifying bounce, several soldiers who had hoped to use machine guns at low altitude had to abandon the attempt.

Multiple times, as the aircraft descended to around a hundred meters, they nearly had their craft attacked by creatures resembling clawed frogs. At one point, a creature suddenly extended a cannonball-like tongue that nearly pierced their vehicle.

“Some of these zombies look like they just died…”

A young, newly recruited soldier swallowed hard as he watched the swift zombies below. As the apocalypse wore on, the earliest generations of zombies had become withered, like dried-out, bone-tissue jerky—with some having only sinews left connecting their feet. But these ones looked surprisingly fresh.

“Did you never go to school?”

The pilot preparing for departure blurted out in surprise—though he himself didn’t find it odd.

“These fresher ones must have just spawned from the system. If you’ve been to the Rotten Corpse Forest, you’d know that even mutants spawn there.”

The questioning soldier froze. He’d heard of it but never seen it firsthand. In truth, he had only been recruited recently for his impressive physique after spending three years doing mandatory labor.

“So they really do spawn—and in such numbers?”

“Does this mean we’ll never run out of these monsters?!”

Staring at the terrifying scene before him, he couldn’t help but ask anxiously.

Inside the cockpit, the pilot found the question too naive to voice as a joke. After a moment’s silence, he sighed:

“Yeah, we’ll never finish them… If they weren’t so reluctant to attack us, humanity would have been finished long ago…”

Perhaps spurred by the sudden onslaught of the horde, the pilot admitted, his heart feeling inexplicably heavy.

After years of peace, many believed the apocalypse was over.

But it seems…

the end of the world has never truly come to an end.