With a swift pull, the monstrously large arrow is pulled out of the abdomen of a 501st infantrywoman. The removal of the foreign object from her body makes the soldier bite hard on the cloth that is held over her mouth, her painful scream is thus muffled. With heavy intakes of air, the soldier slumps her head back on the operating table, still conscious as she lets the medics work frantically to patch up her wound.
The arrow, launched by a zombie Archer, had pierced her body armor and knocked her five meters backward. With it still lodged inside her, the field medics had booked her an express trip to the rear line. Their expedited transfer has saved the female soldier's life in the end. Given the damage dealt to her by the amount of kinetic energy that the arrow dumped all at once, just a minute slower would have been costly to her life.
Cases like this particular soldier are not uncommon in this field hospital. However, it has to be said that she has been among the more luckier ones. Despite the grievous injury she has suffered, given enough medical care and sessions of healing spells, she will make a full recovery. A few other 501st members aren't as lucky, having experienced close-combat run-ins with melee-oriented zombies. These soldiers arrive with excessive blood loss, severed limbs, or a slit neck. It takes the entire medical staff going into overdrive, even risking mana burnout for excessive usage of healing spells, to keep them alive. The zombies, due to their enhanced nature, haven't discriminated between humans and non-humans. Their superb physical ability and extremely sharpened blades can cut through magical barriers and body armor with surprising ease. This means only Ravens and high-ranking Crusaders can go toe-to-toe with them and come out unscathed.
When the Ravens are busied putting out fire elsewhere though, these unfortunate squads have to contend with any zombie or demon that breaks through the no man's land. Demons, they're dumb enough to be cordoned into one place and shot to mincemeat. Zombies though, have the survival instinct to know a trap when they see one. In such cases, they go into a frenzy that can quickly cut down half a squad of airbornes if they're not being careful. Usually, the impromptu tactic will be for a member with good melee or defensive ability to distract them while the others attack the zombies from other angles. The plan works, most of the time, and it works best when there's enough room to maneuver. The infantry squads must keep the terrain in mind whenever they initiate CQC with a zombie or a group of them.
That said, there are cases of expert martial artists in the 501st Airbornes who do the heavy lifting whenever they can. These martial artists mostly hailed from races like elves and beastmen, utilizing their sword arts and tough bodies to minimize the damage the zombies can do. Knowing that even with their skills, they are still outmatched in terms of sheer power, these melee experts fight battles of attrition until the chance arises to take out their enemy. It's quite annoying to tackle the zombies though as their survival instinct kicks in regularly and one misstep will result in losing a limb, or even worse, death. The largest case of fatalities comes from encounters with these melee-oriented zombies.
Surprisingly, the coffins-toting Liches are the easiest to take out despite their ability to fire lasers. This is because they're ungodly slow despite their heavy firepower. Even if they manage to get close, concentrated fire from rifles and machine guns will do the trick and put them down for good. Zombie Archers though, are deadly snipers who know how to hide and move from cover to cover. They are glass cannons, alright, but ones that have the basics hammered into them through magical means. To deal with these Archers required the 501st to employ their own marksman. Thus a strange duel between bows and arrows versus guns descends onto Auschwitz. It has to be said that an Archer's arrow packs the might of a ballista in it so the threat is very real, just as the unfortunate few have experienced.
This back-and-forth of mankind versus the demonic force continues for hours with rare intermissions in between. So far, the 501st have taken hundreds of casualties with 1/3 of them being fatal. While the number may be small on paper, one has to know that every single 501st soldier is an expensive investment in terms of resources due to their experience and elite training. Just losing one of them is more than enough to affect the quality of the division for a period of time. There's also the fact that the 501st can't keep on expending munitions like this. A literal endless horde is not what they're equipped to deal with, in fact, not a single nation has an army able to deal with what they've been facing. Without the around-the-clock fire supports provided by their divisional artillery and naval CAS, the 501st Airbornes would have called for a tactical retreat much, much earlier. In that case, casualties would have been staggering due to the horde's mindless rush. Suffice to say, the 501st Airborne Division would have faced a very real risk of being wiped out on their first deployment. Even now, that threat is still looming over their heads like the Sword of Damocles, testing their combat cohesion to the very limit. If they so much as to show a hole in the wall, the horde may still capitalize on that hole and enlarge it until the situation is irrecoverable.
Hence, officers of the 501st strive their very best to command the frontline troops, organize the supply lines, and coordinate with fire support. Even when they're injured, they must still lead the men and women around them. They swallow their blood so they can bark out orders. They choose to cut off their limbs so that a hasty patchwork can immediately set them back on the frontline. They jump onto the back of a demon with nothing but a rifle and their bayonet. If their subordinates can battle tooth and nail with a threat far beyond what they're armed to fight, then Belkan officers endeavor to put in no less amount of effort. If they can't save everyone, then they will be damn if they don't try to bring as many of their lads and gals back home as possible. Such fierceness from their leadership is what kept the morale of the 501st, and by extension the whole Belkan military in the future, to always remain high, unbroken in the face of adversity.
For the longest time ever since the impromptu defensive battle for Auschwitz started, new orders have trickled down to the frontline troops. Their perseverance has paid off, and now, the heavy hitter has arrived in the AO. The reinforcement is the majority of the 509th Bomber Wing, with four of the B-40 Polar Bears armed with Cloudmakers. This means that just those four aircraft alone are carrying a total of 160 tons of ordinance. And that's not mentioning the plethora of 500 kg bombs that are carried by the rest of the deployed 509th Wing.
"All 501st elements, start performing a tactical retreat as planned. Fight and retreat. Fight and retreat." The general order was broadcasted on repeat five times before further precise instructions were given if needed.
Prompted by the commands, soft-skinned units of the 501st start mounting up on either the Puma IFVs or riding atop the Leopard MBTs. Slowly, but surely, the vehicles start reversing out of the combat zone, loosening the encirclement around Auschwitz's castle in the process. Compensating for the loss of firepower that was keeping the demonic horde at bay, Guns-a-go-go gunships return to the battle space, unloading ordnance once more on the mindless rush. For units that were stationed on rooftops and high ground, Ospreys either landed or hovered with their ramps down for the soldiers to hop aboard. When ground elements are safely evac, the gunships, and Ospreys take to a higher altitude, clearing the airspace for low-flying Phantoms and Harriers to perform one last incendiary bomb run, thus trapping the horde in the belly of the castle once again. Stragglers that escape the burning mixture are targeted by the 501st riding the Ospreys or the Guns-a-go-go gunships with impunity.
Once the area was pacified, the VTOLs cleared the airspace fully, leaving it wide open for the Polar Bears to come over. Once in the drop zone, the Polar Bears armed with Cloudmakers deploy the bombs at max altitude while others remain in reserve. Seconds later, eight supersonic bombs penetrate the roof of the castle, going all the way below ground and hitting whatever's beneath it. A split second later, another earthquake shakes through the entirety of Auschwitz. This time, it's caused by the Cloudmaker exploding simultaneously beneath the foundation of the city. The chain reaction ultimately causes the total collapse of the hill the castle is on, and thus, down goes the castle too. This culminates in a landslide that sweeps over a major portion of the city while causing numerous sinkholes to appear everywhere, swallowing buildings and corpses into the dark pits below. The rumbling of explosions and shifting terrain can be heard from kilometers away. The visual spectacle the process creates should have made for a jubilating site after everything that happened if not for this.
*SKREEEEEEOOOOOONGK*
A monstrous, ear-splitting roar can be heard piercing through all other sounds. The shockwave from that roar alone reaches even the bombers flying at their maximum altitude, the surprise crews even though they are being shot at by flaks. The sound, primal, oppressive, and otherworldly, travels far and wide. Right this moment, everyone across the entire world can hear, and feel that roar raising goose bumps along their skins, if not feeling caressing their souls like a hungry beast. The mental presence of this threat is that large, and the implication of it will be far-reaching. Yuki better come up with another plan to sweep this matter all under the rug, and soon. But planning can only happen when the mess is truly dealt with, this time.
Finally, after an unknown amount of time, the thing that has been a literal money pitfall rises up and greets the world.
*SKREEEEEEOOOOOONGK*
Breaking through the rubble that covered its half-silicon, half-crystalized body, a Demon, one of the largest if not already the largest to be in existence, trampled everything around it in rage. With three heads and six tails connected to a large, oval body with a broken crystal carapace, this Demon is like a cross-breed of a Genbu and a Hydra. One that can be classified as a Kaiju due to its sheer size and scale, reaching 300 meters in height alone and weight in excess of 100000 tons at least. As the beast continues its mindless thrashing, presumably due to it losing most of its carapace due to the Cloudmakers, Yuki and the CIC, ONI, and everyone involved in this operation analyzes the newly surfaced threat. The time for being shocked and wary is over, now is the time to calculate and react accordingly.
The draconic heads have pink crystal stripes, acting as eyes while the tails have crystal chambers running all over their length. The Demon seems to have fine control over its body parts and sports surprising agility. Close combats will be ill-advised and if the draconic heads are of any indication, it can shoot out range attacks too. During their brief scan of the Demon, the crystal chambers on the tails pop open, revealing, or to be more precise, birthing, new demons and zombies. That does explain the endless horde from earlier and from the look of it, the tails can also be used as blunt weapons too. Curiously, there exists a mouth-like appendage at the end of each tail. Other than that, crystal armor covers its upper portion with the thickest part being the main body carapace. The main body's armor is somewhat compromised, however. Yuki, alongside many intelligence officers and the brainiac trios, surmises that the fastest way to defeat this particular Demon is to destroy the main body.
That said, destroying the main body requires blowing through the remaining crystal armor with unknown durability. During that time, the Demon may move away and birth even more of the horde, thus overrunning Sardegna, maybe even more. This means Belka has to dedicate resources to keep it occupied and to whittle it down for a killing blow. But coming up with a plan is way more than implementing it on the field. Belka as a whole has no idea what the real capability of this Demon even is. Frankly, the men and women will be going in blind, and for Yuki, that's one annoying thing to deal with.
And it's not like she can just wipe it out with a press of a red button. She still has units on the ground, being brought back to the FOBs. Until they are out of the blast zone and until she can ensure the absolute destruction of the Demon, Yuki needs to be patient, calm, be collected. It's not a stretch to say that the fate of the entire world will be decided with this one battle.
TFTC!!
presumably due to its losing most of its carapace due to the Cloudmakers
Presumably due to *it losing most of it carpace...