As dawn approached, warm rays of sunlight gradually spread across the land, but the morning light didn't bring the usual sense of peace. Instead, the entire defensive line was filled with an atmosphere of tension.
Hearts pounded, legs trembled, and sweat poured like rain as eyes stared fixedly ahead. Although there were many veteran soldiers among them who had faced doom before, the infectious atmosphere caused even them to break out in a cold sweat.
Only the commander remained expressionless, staring straight at the battlefield. As the spiritual pillar of the entire army, he could not afford to show any hesitation or panic.
A spine-chilling growl echoed as bizarrely shaped doom creatures crawled out from the perforated city walls. Seeing the four-part mouths dripping with liters of viscous fluid, Noid, seeing these horrific creatures for the second time, still felt his hair stand on end.
"Fire!" the commander roared.
Following his order, a rain of gunfire from thousands of barrels rained down, turning dozens of advancing doom into a pile of mangled flesh. But no one lowered their weapons, because as soon as the front line of doom turned into mincemeat, a multitude of others, several times their number, poured in.
The second round of firing began. The human advantage in weaponry was completely overwhelmed by the terrifying numbers of the doom species. Noid, who knew nothing about shooting, still managed to kill five doom. So how many doom would die when thousands of people fired at once? Despite this, the wave of monsters pressed forward like a guillotine hanging over their heads, steadily closing in on the defensive fortifications.
The defense towers had been continuously launching rockets from the beginning, instantly wiping out a large area of doom, only for the empty space to be immediately filled again. The sheer numbers were enough to make the soldiers despair. The commander, still poker-faced, shouted his orders.
"Deploy the net!"
Immediately, from the ground, a multitude of large, glossy black pillars, seemingly made of metal, rose up, gradually connecting with each other through a complex network of nets. This created a fence-like barrier surrounding the defensive line. The electrified fences were made of a very strong metal alloy, standing over 5 meters tall. The amount of electricity running through them was so great that the metal wires occasionally sparked with electricity.
Driven only by instinct, the doom creatures charged in without hesitation, only to be electrocuted, charred black, and fall down, smoking profusely. But that wasn't all. Since the previous night, the empty ground near the electric fences had been rigged with explosives. The explosives detonated, turning the corpses of the piled-up doom creatures into ashes. The blast also transformed the ground in front of the fence into a trench that cut across the outer city, over 100 meters wide and 20 meters deep.
The purpose of this trench was to buy time. The pile of doom corpses could not quickly stack up to create a path for the others to step on and cross the electric fence.
Having fought against the doom for 10 long years, humanity had to have come up with a few ways to deal with them. The goal was to minimize casualties, unlike in the early days when the army was sent straight to the front lines to engage in battles of attrition with the doom. It was because of these mistakes that in the early stages of the invasion, humanity suffered immense losses in troops and resources without achieving any significant results.
The time it takes for a baby to grow into an adult and be trained as a qualified soldier is long enough for the doom lord to create tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of doom, as long as it has enough energy. Therefore, even if all of humanity's resources were pooled together, it would be forever impossible to out-consume the doom.
The third round of firing began. With the barrier in place, everyone felt a bit more at ease, and the efficiency of killing doom increased slightly. Every 5 minutes, the commander would order a rotation to rest and let the gun barrels cool down, preventing them from overheating and exploding, which could harm those nearby.
Whenever the trench was about to be filled, the high towers would launch another volley of rockets to blast the pile of corpses to smithereens, preventing too many doom bodies from piling up.
From the very beginning, this was a battle of attrition. They only needed to hold their ground for a few hours until the troops from Rorgh City arrived, and they would be safe.
Why were the people here so confident that everything would be resolved once Rorgh City's troops arrived? Because Rorgh City not only had stronger military forces than Karj City but also held humanity's ultimate trump card. In comparison, even elite doom were nothing more than cannon fodder.
The battle had been going on for three hours. An estimated forty thousand doom had been obliterated here, covering a 10-kilometer area with their slimy residue. Suddenly, an unexpected event occurred: the doom retreated halfway through the battle. This puzzled the commander but also brought a sense of relief; after all, every minute of rest for the soldiers was a blessing.
Noid also breathed a sigh of relief and took off his armor. Although he had been sitting in one place and shooting, the armor still put a lot of pressure on his body. This armor could be worn for a long time by someone with normal physical strength, but he had been almost completely inactive for many years, so exhaustion was understandable.
All Noid wanted to do at this point was take a shower and collapse into bed. The stimulation he had experienced since arriving in this world had made him physically and mentally exhausted.
Everyone rested where they were. Some brought out food to regain their strength, while others sat and dozed off. Noid also leaned against a corner of the wall and fell asleep.
In his dream, Noid saw his warm home from his memories, and his parents holding his hand when he was a child. The happy memories passed before his eyes like a slow-motion film. Such beautiful memories were supposed to make people happy whenever they recalled them, but they only made Noid feel an agonizing pain, as if a knife was cutting into his heart.
The dream dissipated as a deafening alarm woke him up. Everyone around him stood up at the same time. Following their gaze, he saw the doom creatures approaching once more. But this time, interspersed among them were doom twice the height of regular ones, no less than three meters tall. They had more imposing bone spears and bony spikes than ordinary doom. The most significant difference was that their mouths were not split into four parts like regular doom but into five.
"Damn it! It's an elite doom!" someone couldn't help but curse.
Noid remembered when he used his authority to check, he saw that one regular doom was worth 5 accumulation points, and there were several other types, including the elite doom, which was worth 20 accumulation points.
Looking at the approaching doom army, along with the terrifying appearance of the elite doom, Noid's inner instincts were screaming a warning to absolutely not get close to this thing, or he would surely die. Goosebumps rose on his skin, as if his instincts were trying to warn him that something extremely bad was about to happen.