Chapter 78: Reinforcements Have Arrived!
“The mutated creatures have crested the midway point of the wall. Prepare to open fire.”
Along the crest of the South Wall, Mori’s voice cut through the darkness.
Slapping in a fresh magazine, she rapidly scraped away the sludge clinging to her hazard suit. Tearing open a roll of medical gauze from a side pouch, she bound it over the lacerated fabric along her right forearm, winding it around several extra times.
This counted as field containment.
The situation was critical. As the captain of the South Wall strike team, she had to maintain a constant read on the battlefield; stepping away from her post was out of the question.
“Captain, something’s wrong.”
A team member’s call echoed from the left.
“Points of light beneath the wall.”
Mori swept her gaze downward. Scattered specks of luminescent blue were winking into existence, creeping closer along the base of the parapet.
Another abomination birthed from the swamp.
As those lights drew near, the surrounding air felt as though it had plummeted several degrees.
“All units, heads up. A swarm of marsh octofish is trailing behind the mutant frogs. Visual estimate puts them around forty. Defense team, ready your heavy arrows.”
Things just got complicated.
Those points of light, deceptively striking in the pitch black, belonged to grotesque chimeras of fish and spider. In the swamps beyond the South Wall, the environmental corruption had acted like a venomous crucible, mutating them into twisted horrors.
The lights were not the creatures themselves, but the clutch of eggs pulsing on their backs.
Their presence dragged down the ambient temperature. Once their prey turned sluggish and numb from the cold, they would parasitically deposit those dorsal eggs.
They never roamed alone; they moved in swarms.
This was intelligence Mori and her squad had chiseled out of repeated, blood-soaked skirmishes with the beasts.
Number 3 and Number 22 had perished from parasitic infection, their corpses swallowed by the mire.
Every scrap of data they held on the mutants beyond the South Wall was bought with the lives and blood of the city guard strike teams.
Without exception.
Unlike the mutant frogs, these abominations possessed almost no direct offensive attacks beyond freezing the air and infesting hosts.
The frogs spat corrosive slime and feared flame; a bullet through the skull dropped them dead.
The octofish, however, were unfazed by fire. The sub-zero chill they radiated would snuff out the guards’ cold-fire projectors.
The only way to ensure a kill was to punch a heavy arrow clean through the creature’s abdomen and the luminous egg sac on its back.
With both species attacking in tandem, once the octofish scaled the wall, they would severely cripple the efficacy of their cold-fire weaponry.
A coincidence?
Mori had no time to ponder the thought, barking orders in rapid succession.
“Open fire! Neutralize the frogs before the octofish reach the crest!”
“Eight, Seventeen, Nineteen, deploy the nets and coordinate with the defense team, move!”
“Defense team, the second the octofish enter the perimeter and hit arrow range, put them down!”
“Fire!”
Blue muzzle flashes and tongues of flame erupted along the battlements. Viscous, corrosive sludge shot upward from the darkness, splattering against the angled riot shields.
Rifle in hand, Mori squeezed the trigger. Bang, bang, bang—!
Every round dropped an ascending mutant frog.
The illumination from the octofish raised visibility along the outer wall, lending speed and lethal precision to the squad’s volley.
Yet light in the dead of night risked drawing other predators from the depths of the marsh; this had to end swiftly.
Whoosh—
Dropping the last frog scrambling up her sector, Mori holstered her sidearm with a flick of her wrist.
Grabbing a tether line, her combat boots kicked off the stone facade.
Bracing against the masonry, she crossed several strides over to Position Eight, catching a riot shield that was beginning to tremble.
Her eyes flicked to the guard’s cuff; corrosive slime that had bypassed the shield was hissing through the hazard suit, searing the flesh of Eight’s wrist.
“Hand me the net gun.”
She relieved Eight of both shield and launcher. “Get below and treat the wound.”
“…Captain!”
Without another word, Mori raised a boot and planted a firm kick straight into Eight’s midsection.
The harness at his waist engaged, sending Eight sliding smoothly down the rappel line into the inner courtyard.
Mori slipped instantly into combat rhythm. The frogs were being thinned out at a blistering pace, leaving only a scattered few.
The octofish had entered launcher range.
She leveled the net gun and took aim.
Thwump—
The moment the weighted mesh deployed, several heavy arrows whistled past in tight succession.
Thwack! Thwack!
Pinning the glowing blue specks to the dirt right as they neared the foot of the wall.
The firefight raged hot.
“Captain, Seven is hit!”
“Seven, fall back below!”
Half the blue lights were snuffed out.
“Report! Sixteen is out of heavy arrows!”
“Switch to nail drivers!”
The hiss of projectiles tore through the air beside her ears as Mori kept her gaze glued to the killing zone below.
The blue points of light were finally on the verge of total eradication.
“Ugh? Cap—”
A choked cry suddenly sounded from Position Two.
Mori snapped her head up. Dark green, reed-like fronds had coiled around Two’s throat, trailing back into the outer dark.
Mutant cattail!
The lurker that had harassed their perimeter last night had returned, seizing the chaos to ambush the team!
Mori went for her sidearm.
Bang! Bang!
Before her fingers could clear the holster, two shots punched cleanly through the cattail fronds.
Reeling in agony, the tendrils whipped back into the darkness, retreating deep into the marshes.
A figure descended smoothly via the inner zipline, touching down on the battlements and firing the two rounds without breaking stride.
Reaching out, she steadied the swaying form of Number Two.
“Beverly?” Mori recognized the newcomer.
“Captain Mori, responding with orders to reinforce. Relief supplies have arrived as well. Head down and take inventory; I’ll hold your post.”
“…Supplies?” Mori’s brow furrowed.
“Go take a look.” Beverly offered a faint smirk. “They won’t disappoint.”
…
Tonight’s engagement had gone terribly.
The first half of the night was barely over, yet four operatives had suffered breached suits and severe burns.
All from the frogs’ corrosive sludge.
The toxins in that slime spread fast, accompanied by relentless, searing pain.
Rappelling down the inner wall, Mori’s brow remained knit in a deep scowl.
The strike team had already sustained six dead and eight wounded.
The attrition was disastrous; the casualty rate, appalling.
Beverly had said supplies had arrived, but what could they possibly be?
A four-man squad of city guards was hardly enough to plug their defensive gaps…
Wait.
Mori’s boots hit the flagstones, only to find the guards Beverly had brought unpacking several oversized plastic sacks.
Twelve and Eight, who had rotated down to tend their wounds, were crouched around the sacks in a circle.
Eight turned, spotting Mori with a thoroughly dazed expression. “Captain… come take a look at what Team Leader Beverly brought us…”
A moment later.
The single deadliest combat operative in Seed City—Captain Mori of the South Wall Strike Team—wore an equally blank look on her face.
“You’re telling me these things are not only edible, but purge toxins, boost cold endurance, accelerate stamina recovery, and enhance reflexes?”
“Captain Mori, the pickled white radish requires three consecutive days of consumption to boost reflexes,” a relief guard chimed in. He and his squad leader had spent the entire journey frantically memorizing the tactical buffs of each dish, and he could now recite the menu in his sleep.
“Here’s the rundown of buffs we scribbled on the way over. The handwriting’s a bit rough, but it’ll do.”
Mori took the paper, her shock mounting with every passing line.
“…Where did this come from?”
“Outside the West Wall, an establishment called the Chinese Restaurant. The Commander verified the effects personally. It’s real.”
The guard placed heavy emphasis on those last two words.
Having had to process this absurdity in a matter of minutes himself, he completely understood Captain Mori’s current stupor.
After laying eyes on that surreal diner outside the West Wall and confirming that the provisions didn’t trigger a single alarm at the gate’s decontamination scanners, he, too, had felt like he was walking through a dream.
Anyone would react the exact same way.
Even Captain Mori… was no exception.
