Enforcer Manual
Chapter 568: Echo_1

Chapter 568: Chapter 568: Echo_1

Less than an hour into the landing battle of the Expeditionary Army in District 17, despair and panic had already enveloped these soldiers who were stepping onto the battlefield for the first time.

A grave error had occurred in the intelligence of the United Government; an unprecedented enemy was waiting for them beneath the city.

The airstrikes had indeed impacted the monsters within the city, but the soldiers soon realized that these mutants were not the easily crushable bugs as advertised in the United Government’s intelligence reports. Instead, they were unknown creatures that continuously evolved with the course of the battle. What chilled them even more was that the discipline of these mutants seemed to be stricter than their own.

Half an hour after the battle commenced, a group of mutants, covered with spores, penetrated the perimeter defenses of the Expeditionary Army through underground tunnels, directly reaching the temporarily constructed forward command center.

The unprepared commander and his guards were instantly turned into blood foam by a violent explosion, along with the district’s communication facilities being reduced to ruins, cutting off their contact with the Expeditionary Armies of the other cities.

But before they lost contact, most of the received communications were dire news.

Every landing force encountered a powerful counterattack from the mutants, and in several cities where the mutants were more rampant, the airdropped pods were almost immediately ambushed by burrowing creatures upon landing. Even the inexperienced recruits realized that these mutants were not only intelligent, almost on par with humans, but also prepared for the aerial assault.

The death of the commander was the last straw that broke the camel’s back, and the defensive lines against the mutants could no longer be sustained. The soldiers fled desperately into buildings and scattered throughout the city.

These "sacrifices," however, provided the United Government with a wealth of vital intelligence.

The "Eye of the Federation" also gave up attempts to explore the secrets of that sudden storm, focusing instead on the intensely heated battlefield. Even though the intelligence department had prepared for the possibility of a total annihilation before the Expeditionary Army had embarked, no one could have foreseen that this grand expedition would not last even a single night.

Surviving soldiers from various cities were trying to send distress signals to the United Government and the battle gradually transformed into a hunt by the mutants on the Expeditionary Army.

The most shocking discovery was the realization that within this army composed of mutants, there were also entities akin to "commanders," and their range and accuracy in intelligence communication far exceeded their expectations.

The Expeditionary Army of District 17 was among the first to commence the landing battle, but less than a quarter of an hour after the last airdropped pod touched down, the mutants in the city assaulted by District 12 had learned from the experiences of other cities. They set up ambushes near the landing zones, and the soldiers who landed were dismembered by creatures that emerged from underground before they could even establish a defensive line.

Now, the scent of blood, penetrating through the exoskeleton helmets, was overwhelming the nerves of every surviving soldier.

Taking shelter in buildings gave them a brief respite, yet looking at the mutants spread throughout the city, their only hope was to wait for air support from the United Government.

Some soldiers who had been injured during the retreat were isolated to other floors, because during the several-hour-long battle, the Expeditionary Army had discovered figures of their "comrades" among the mutants; however, they had become walking corpses, blending with the monster troops, emitting chilling roars, giving them good reason to believe that the mutants carried some highly infectious virus.

Among the wounded, some had been impaled by the mutants’ bone spikes, others had lost arms. Their exoskeleton armor provided little protection against the mutants’ attacks. The military-grade metals, said to withstand armor-piercing weapons, were ripped apart like toys before these creatures.

They were left by their comrades on the lower floors of the building. Though no one explicitly said so, their remaining value was to act almost as bait, giving early warning to the troops above.

Time was running short for them.

For they heard a voice echoing deep within their minds.

The voice urged them to return to the embrace of "Father God," reminding them that the mutants lurking outside the building were their real brothers.

This inexplicable voice momentarily suppressed the pain of their wounds and induced hallucinations, as if they had overdosed on prohibited substances.

They seemed to see the ultimate direction of the war.

The United Government’s pride, its mechanized troops, were crushed by those nameless, massive mutants. The scent of death spread to every city, and the century-long prosperity of the United Government was on the verge of collapse in the war that was about to come.

However, they were not the losers in this war.

The constant echo in their minds kept calling them to join the side of the victors.

Until, the sound of movement from within the walls snapped the wounded soldiers back to reality. Something was rapidly approaching them, and they instinctively raised their barrels, even though they were well aware that the bullets from their electromagnetic rifles could no longer deal lethal damage to those continuously mutating creatures.

Their fear of the unknown did not last very long; about a minute later, the creatures moving swiftly between the walls appeared in their line of sight.

They were mutants even more terrifying than those in the cities, resembling insects with their massive bodies making it impossible to discern what they had mutated from.

The spent shell casings falling to the ground represented their final act of resistance, yet their bullets could not leave even a scratch on these insects.

The giant insects slowly surrounded them.

The wounded soldiers even lost the will to flee; they had known from the start that the mutants outside would not spare them just because they hid inside a building.

Human strength seemed utterly insignificant before these insects. They watched helplessly as their comrades, wearing exoskeletal armour, were picked up by the insects’ forelimbs, and the squirming limbs on the insects’ abdomens bound them tightly to their bodies.

Everything looked as though these insects were preparing to enjoy their dinner.

Despair crushed everyone’s will, and they dropped their empty electromagnetic rifles to the ground, simply closing their eyes and waiting for death to come.

Until, they heard a gentle voice in the darkness.

"Don’t be afraid, Ms. Doctor is here."

It was unquestionably the voice of a gentle woman.

However, when they opened their eyes, excited at the thought of being rescued by the United Government’s medical team, the scene before them plunged them back into hell.

The gentle female voice came from those nameless insects.

All they saw were the insects’ crimson pupils, and an even more chilling thought emerged.

These insects...

They actually understood human language?

They watched in horror as the insects’ sharp mouthparts pierced into the napes of the bound and injured, and then...

The severed arms of the soldiers regrew at a visible rate.

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