Chapter 61: First Wave
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From the highest point of the command tower, General Shao Yong stood with binoculars, flanked by Lin Mei and key division leaders.
What they saw in the distance sent a chill through every spine.
"...My god."
A sandstorm howled across the horizon, swallowing sky and land in a golden tempest.
But it wasn't the sand that terrified them.
Beneath it—within it—moved something darker.
Through the curtain of dust, tens of thousands of Taotie swarmed like a tidal wave of living shadow.
Monstrous shapes crawled at incredible speed, snarling and leaping, their bodies packed so tightly together they looked like a single dark mass coming toward the Wall.
"There are too many..." whispered a young soldier beside the railgun nest.
The sight from atop the Wall was overwhelming.
Each Taotie beast soldier was a titan of flesh and hatred—over 10 meters long, easily the size of a tank.
Their bodies hunched low to the ground, all muscle and armored plates.
Eyes gleamed faintly beneath their armpits, a grotesque adaptation from their ancient lineage.
Their heads bore the cursed iconography of Taotie—demonic, tribal, alien—etched into bone.
Their mouths were filled with jagged fangs that never stopped grinding, gnashing with anticipation.
And they were fast.
Too fast.
"Range?" Shao barked.
"Seventy kilometers and closing fast. ETA less than twelve minutes," replied a tactical officer, his voice tense.
"We're out of satellite view—storm interference."
Shao slammed his hand against the railing.
"Then we meet them the old way."
He turned to his generals.
"Crane Army—activate all aerial drone clusters. Tiger Army, prepare multi-line bombardment grids. Lay overlapping mines across sector B through H. Deer Army, deploy intercept scouts in fast hovercraft—ambush squads behind the dunes. Eagle Army, prepare counter-battery fire."
"Bear Army?" Lin Mei asked.
Shao exhaled slowly.
"Bear Army will hold the Wall."
Across the upper tier of the fortress, the Bear Army deployed: shield units lined up in phalanxes behind blast barriers, rotating magnetic gauntlets charged and humming.
Behind them, suppressor units loaded heavy caliber autocannons and EMP rounds into their exosuits.
They formed the spine of the defense—the immovable wall behind the Wall.
The countdown had begun.
The sandstorm struck first.
With a deafening roar, it slammed into the Wall like a tidal wave of grit and wind.
Visibility dropped instantly to near zero. Even infrared sensors struggled.
And then came the scream.
High-pitched, piercing, unnatural—hundreds of Taotie screeches echoed as they surged forward, covered by the storm.
They launched themselves at the Wall's northern face in horrifying numbers.
"Contact! Multiple sectors breached!"
Dozens of Taotie leapt through the air, crashing into shield barriers.
Explosions erupted as proximity mines detonated mid-leap.
Machine guns opened fire, tracer rounds ripping through the storm.
The air filled with the deafening thunder of railguns and the deep, rhythmic booms of anti-material cannons.
The first wave slammed into the Bear Army's line—and bounced off.
The magnetic shields held firm, repelling the beasts with kinetic shockwaves.
Soldiers shouted through the smoke, holding formation.
When the Taotie tried to burrow under the wall's foundations, the Tiger Army responded—launching seismic depth charges that shook the ground and collapsed the tunnels.
"Don't let them climb!" an officer yelled.
"They're scaling the north tower!"
Dozens of Taotie had begun to pile atop one another, forming a grotesque living ladder to reach the battlements.
Snipers, equipped with heat-vision visors, picked them off one by one—but it wasn't enough.
A group of Taotie leapt over the wall's outer layer and crashed into the upper platform.
Combat erupted.
Bear Army soldiers engaged with stun batons and shock lances.
One soldier was caught by a Taotie's jaws mid-charge—his exosuit crumpled like paper, his body gone in seconds.
But his squadmate retaliated, plunging a shock-spear into the creature's side, releasing a burst of 40,000 volts that dropped it twitching to the stone.
Elsewhere, a Deer Army squad launched a flanking maneuver in hovercraft through the dunes.
Bursting from behind the sandstorm, they unloaded thermal rockets at the densest cluster of Taotie on the flanks—blowing limbs and bone shards into the air.
"Cranes inbound!" Lin Mei's voice crackled through comms.
From the skies, formation wings of jump-jet commandos descended like lightning, firing high-pressure air bursts and rail-darts that tore through exposed Taotie.
They engaged directly, diving into nests with zero hesitation.
Despite every kill, for every Taotie they downed, five more appeared.
The main gate buckled under the pressure.
Massive Taotie bruisers—beasts nearly 20 meters in length—charged the central bastion in coordinated packs.
Their claws tore into steel, their jaws cracked stone.
Reinforced bunker sections groaned, then exploded in a cloud of dust and gore as several units breached into the outer courtyard.
"Fall back to inner defenses!" Shao commanded.
The battle was no longer about winning. It was about surviving long enough to adapt.
"Status report!" he roared.
"Tiger Army's mechs holding south flank—losing two APCs per minute. Bear Army reports 30% casualties on north platform. Crane Army requesting air support to resupply sniper wings. Eagle battery running dry—reloading railgun capacitors!"
"Damn it," Lin Mei muttered.
"This isn't a siege—it's a massacre."
Shao clenched his fists.
And then he heard it.
A sound—deeper than the rest. Not a scream. Not a roar.
A pulse.
Faint. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat from beneath the earth.
"They're not fighting blind," Shao realized.
"They're coordinating."
The King was guiding them.
And he hadn't even revealed himself yet.