Chapter 160: The Ritual Sacrifice

Like a raft about to go over a waterfall, Alex felt himself teetering on edge as he spoke into his Comm. “All brigades,” he said into the device—but then he hesitated.

He could sense the anticipation around him as he paused. He couldn’t believe he was really about to take a risk of this magnitude, and he could scarcely help but second-guess what, under any other circumstance, would be the kind of decision he’d scoff at had someone else made it. And yet, faced with seemingly insurmountable time constraints, he’d known on some level that it was always going to come down to this. There was never going to be another way.

But so many will die because of this…

Indeed, from the very start of this operation, there was a part of him that knew an all-out, reckless, and head-on assault would be the only way to emerge victorious today outside of indiscriminate killing. Still, he didn’t expect to go through with it on nothing more than the word of a vampire from another planet that he hardly knew. And he certainly didn’t expect to feel such a powerful sense of hesitation in the seconds before giving the order.

Is it really right to ask them to do this? he wondered, suffering a brief, but powerful moment of doubt.

In many ways, Alex was torn. Truly, there was so much internal conflict within himself. Putting aside those who’d already died, there would be many more yet to perish in the coming moments. And what made all of this weigh so heavily on his heart was the plain fact that, strictly speaking, none of them actually needed to die or be put in harm’s way due to the presence of Queen Vayra and her Elvish warriors.

With the Elves fighting on their side, it actually wasn’t necessary for anyone here to sacrifice themselves. And that was not an exaggeration, either. Quite literally, not a single leveled member or soldier fighting here on behalf of the Lords of Justice genuinely needed to take part in this battle—well, at least in the technical sense. The moral one, however, was another story.

The dilemma here was simpler than it seemed for being so ethically perilous. Basically, Queen Vayra and the more than three-hundred Elvish warriors she’d brought along with her could accomplish their shared mission here all on their own. As a matter of fact, Alex was fairly certain that, freed of all constraints, they could annihilate the entire city and turn it into rubble in less than a half hour. They could knock down every building and snuff out every life in Shadowfall Coast, and it wouldn’t even be difficult for them. That was the extent of how powerful the Elvish were in comparison to humanity.

And yet, for the sake of the countless innocent people residing helplessly inside the city, Alex was prepared to spend the lives of his own side in order to ensure such a scenario did not come to pass. But was that truly fair? Was it fair to ask so many young men and women to die? Was it fair to lead them to their death when the Guild of Gentlemen were responsible for all of this? When the Elves were more than willing to solve this problem for them immediately and decisively?

Complicating matters even further was the possibility that, even if they did everything perfectly, they might still run out of time and end up watching the Elves annihilate the city. In this hypothetical scenario, their deaths would be a waste. So yes, the temptation to merely sit back and let Queen Vayra take care of everything was growing on him. Nevertheless, in the name of decency, it was resisted.

We can’t go that route, Alex thought to himself. We can’t kill indiscriminately just because it’s easier for us. Our humanity depends on it!

Of course, it wasn’t just human lives he risked, either. The Elves, too, would be put in mortal danger by virtue of having to be careful in their targeting. If they were able to use their full speed to rampage through the city while killing everything in their path, they would be at their most unstoppable and untouchable. Horribly enough, it was exactly that kind of scenario for which their abilities seemed best suited. No, the threat to them was in slowing down: in being selective.

By being selective, discerning, and fighting in a more conventional way, the Elves would be susceptible to falling for traps, ambushes, unexpected “tricks,” and other fatal machinations the enemy had planned for them. Restraining themselves from going overboard would be the very thing that opened them up to the possibility of suffering casualties—perhaps many. This, put simply, would not be the case if they were allowed to bulldoze their way through the city, destroying every structure without regard for who might be inside; of course, this was something they were going to do anyway if the situation was not resolved very, very soon.

There’s no easy path out of this, Alex thought, the pressure of this moment bearing down on him. There’s no situation where this ends without thousands of more lives being extinguished.

Looking ahead of him at the northern highway in the distance, Alex could hardly control his rising doubt over whether Olivir could actually do as he claimed: whether he was truly capable of helping the Lords of Justice’s army charge the highway without being massacred and wiped out. And much of that doubt was due to the enemy’s superior rocket artillery, which made up the backbone of their outer defenses.

Unlike the Lords of Justice's artillery that had been dug out of storage from the last conventional war more than a century ago, and which, by any measure, had been considered antiquated and obsolete even all the way back then, the Guild of Gentlemen had access to H207 MLRS vehicles, which were essentially trucks with multiple high-tech launchers that had better range and deadlier force than their own shoulder-mounted RPGs.

Thus far, all the orders Alex had given had been for the sole purpose of trying to gain a strategic and tactical positioning advantage over the enemy, and the reasoning for this was obvious. As things stood, if he ordered his forces to charge the north highway, the MLRS units would rain down so many rockets so fast that every infantry brigade under his command would be wiped out before they could even cross half the distance.

Aware of this, Alex had been moving slowly and methodically. The goal until now had been to maneuver their own artillery within range so that they could begin attacking the enemy’s frontline troops while keeping their own forces just out of range of direct fire from the MLRS artillery. The only problem with this strategy, however, was that it was a tactic meant for a typical, conventional siege battle expected to play out during the following days and weeks. But he didn’t have that long. And the people of Shadowfall Coast didn’t have that long, either!

For this reason, Alex found the conviction he needed to proceed with such a reckless course of action. In a world where there were no good choices, the only sensible one was that which was least bad.

I’m trusting you, Olivir, he thought as he filled his lungs with air. Please don’t let me down.

Following that final thought, he at last gave the command.

“All brigades, this is Command One!” Alex said powerfully into his Comm. “All brigades, advance to Highway North! 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th artillery: advance to Vantage Point A and concentrate all fire on the enemy’s MLRS! 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th light infantry: withdraw from Highway South and advance immediately to Highway North. Prepare for a full-scale frontal assault. 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th mechanized infantry brigades: advance on Highway North and engage from the left flank with maximum force! Get moving! Go, go, go!”

The sound of armored battle tanks revving up their engines joined a storm of running feet, and together, it was like a collective stampede. Before his very eyes, tens of thousands of men and women, along with numerous vehicles, all began to make directly for the northern highway.

“Queen Vayra,” he said to the woman. He spoke quickly to her, not even bothering to turn his head and look at where she stood right beside him. “Can your Elves capture the south highway on their own?”

Initially, half their force was going to push north, and the other half was going to push south. That had changed thanks to Olivir. Now, it would fall upon the Elves to capture the southern highway all on their own. Fortunately, they seemed up to the task. Without even replying, Queen Vayra nodded then slipped away, likely to rally her Elves. Alex was now too focused looking north to pay her much heed.

“Here we go,” said High-Lord Kolorn Besh. Alex quickly glanced at him, and for just an instant, the level of trust he saw in the older man’s eyes floored him. Not only was Alex a new member of the man’s guild—and the political world itself—but he, a man with no familial ties to anyone of import, had been made third-in-command, and now he was being entrusted with steering the fate of the entire guild and possibly even North Bastia itself. It was truly remarkable.

“Thank you for trusting me,” Alex said, speaking a bit loudly to be heard over the storm of troops to both their left and right, who passed them by as they stood together a moment unmoving.

High-Lord Besh reached out, cupped his right shoulder blade, and squeezed. “I know this was the last thing in the world you wanted to end up doing when I convinced you to join. Believe me when I say it's not lost on me just how much you’re being made to endure.”

Alex lowered his head respectfully to his guild leader. “None of this is your fault. No one could have predicted the Guild of Gentlemen would rope us into this madness. When I joined the Lords of Justice, we were neutral in the war between the Guild of Gentlemen and the Royal Roses. It’s not your fault that that’s changed.”

Kolorn released his grip on Alex’s shoulder and then patted it a few times before returning his arm to his side. “I know that,” he said. “Even still, I want you to be aware that I’m not blind to how much you must be hating this right now. Just know that the feeling is mutual.”

“I appreciate that,” Alex replied, meaning it sincerely.

Returning his attention ahead of him, he watched eagerly and nervously as his forces advanced. Due to the abrupt and chaotic change in strategy, the light infantry brigades, which had been approaching towards the southern end of the city, were hurrying to change course and catch up. The mechanized infantry brigades, on the other hand, were about to be entering what was likely to be a very heavy, very intense combat area ahead of them. But not all moved with equal enthusiasm; one brigade in particular seemed to be lagging behind the others.

The 12th…

Given the shellacking they’d sustained during Alex’s earlier failed, experimental charge, the battalions that made up the 12th mechanized infantry brigade, along with their armored vehicles, were proceeding at slightly less than full speed towards the northern highway, and it was probably deliberate on their part, too. It was also not entirely unexpected, either.

Having sustained heavy casualties during such a humiliating retreat, it was difficult to blame the 12th for being more hesitant this time around. Thus, rather than leading the charge yet again, the other brigades took point, and like before, each brigade was accompanied by a few small squads that were made up entirely of leveled guild members, and it was these squads that led the pack.

Alex opened his mouth to order the colonel leading the 12th to wrangle his lieutenants to move faster, yet before he managed to speak, his attention was diverted by the sight of multiple smoke trails that appeared parallel to one another along the section of road where the highway met the city—right around the entrance to 1st avenue. What followed this smoke was the sound of hissing, and glancing upwards, Alex could see that a massive volley of rockets had just been fired.

In a trance-like state, Alex then watched as these rockets reached the apex of their climb before turning downwards and dropping through the air towards his rapidly advancing troops—many of whom were now beginning to enter within direct range of fire from the Guild of Gentlemen’s forces that were dug into trenches or behind sandbags in the heavily fortified portion of the north highway. This, of course, was exactly what Alex had known would happen if he ordered them to charge straight in—it was also what he’d feared would happen. Aside from the Guild of Gentlemen succeeding in acquiring another nuclear weapon, it was his worst-case scenario come to life.

And yet, despite this, as Alex watched the rockets descend, he had a somewhat muted reaction as he observed them coming closer. Lower and lower they fell, along with the tell-tale, high-pitched whistling, which grew in volume as they seemed poised to make impact. But even as they drew ever nearer, Alex did not fret or worry, because he naturally just assumed that Olivir had something up his sleeve. After all, the vampire had promised him as much. Because of this, even as several of the rockets were about to touch down, Alex still did not feel any great sense of concern. The confidence and certainty with which Olivir had assured Alex of success had actually managed to convince him to ignore what his own two eyes were seeing.

But that all changed immediately as the very first rocket at last made impact.

For just an instant, the initial emotion Alex felt was confusion—and then despair. Raising his arms, Alex shielded his eyes as an explosion of orange flame as well as a blast of dirt and grass rocked the field of battle. This was followed by another blast, and then another after that. Then there were dozens of explosions taking place all at once, and all concentrated in one specific area. The ground trembled, screaming voices filled the air, and a screen of dust so thick it momentarily obscured the entire battlefield was kicked up, taking nearly a half minute to recede and return some degree of visibility to the grasslands. When it did, Alex felt an avalanche of nerves and disbelief go off inside of him like a DEHV alarm.

What…what just happened? he thought, the muscles in his jaw spasming in shock and denial at what he saw.

“Olivir!” he shouted into the Comm. “Olivir, what’s going on?”

Having run right into the enemy’s line of fire, the result was as Alex should’ve expected it to be—yet for some reason, he had not. Was he stupid? He must have been, because of course this was what happened. Of course it did! How could it not? This was the expected, predictable outcome. Why would he assume it would have gone any other way?

With the dust finally settled, Alex was now able to perceive the mangled, blasted-apart corpses of what looked like more than two-thousand men and women along with the smoking husks of dozens of their battle tanks and APCs. Some troops were crawling on the ground with missing limbs, and a great many were screaming, whimpering, or moaning.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Bells,” someone moaned. He was a middle-aged, level-1 man whose arms had been blown off and who was wriggling on the ground. “Bells, help me! Where are you, Bells?”

Alex didn’t know who he was referring to, be they a fellow soldier or someone from his memories. The man just kept on wriggling along the ground until, finally, he simply stopped moving. It was impossible to say if he’d died or if he was merely unconscious. Blood poured out of the stumps where his arms had been, and his face was now buried into the dirt. If he was indeed alive, it wouldn’t be long before that ceased to be the case.

Speechless, Alex struggled to comprehend the horror he had just witnessed firsthand: the sickening sight of what looked like the aftermath of two-and-a-half battalions from the 11th brigade finding themselves caught directly in the middle of an artillery strike. Blameless men and women who were only here because Alex had brought them. People who were fighting for a future that Alex had promised.

What have I done?

Alex shook his head. He needed to be strong, yet he was momentarily left stunned by the number of people who had just died. And things were only going to get worse at this rate, not better. Right now, even many of those in the impact area who had somehow miraculously survived the rockets were finding themselves cut down by the enormous barrage of gunfire coming from the entrenched troops in the northern highway. The Guild of Gentlemen were clearly not in a merciful mood. With a seeming deliberateness, gunners were targeting the downed and wounded as if to hatefully ensure they never stood up again.

Did I really expect something different?

Up until the moment that Alex had seen their bodies, he’d honestly thought…he’d actually been so stupid as to think that the vampire would somehow utilize some kind of incredible, long-range magic and…and do what, exactly? Alex didn’t even know. He had no idea what he’d been expecting. He’d just been so taken in by Olivir’s confidence that he’d allowed himself to be swayed into making such a deadly, irresponsible gamble with the lives of so many people: one that had clearly not paid off.

So many of them just died in an instant, and it’s my fault, because I knew it would happen. I ordered them to run out into artillery fire while praying for a miracle. I took the word of one person on faith, demanding no evidence or explanation before taking such a huge risk. How could I have been so stupid? What has happened to my judgment?

Beyond the impact area, the rest of the mechanized infantry weren’t faring all that much better as they pressed on ahead into a steady storm of gunfire. Though most of the advancing infantry did their best to keep themselves behind or to the side of the nearest tank or APC, they were still out in the open and in a target-rich environment. Therefore, even though a good three-quarters of incoming enemy gunfire pinged off the armored vehicles rather than strike at flesh, a significant number of bullets nevertheless managed to find their way into warm bodies.

“Gahh!” screamed a young man who appeared to be only slighter older than 18. He clutched his chest and fell forward onto the ground, writhing in agony. “I’m hit! I’m hit! Fucker got me. Medic! Medic!”

“I’m coming!” shouted a rifle-wielding medic who’d been running along behind the rear of an armored tank. “You’re gonna be okay, my guy.” She dived at the ground and came into a sliding, crouching position, and then she pulled around the pack on her shoulder, unzipped it, and began removing various medical devices as she hovered over the young man. “Just lie there still and—”

Her words fell silent, and suddenly, the medic fell forward onto her face as a bullet penetrated the back of her skull before entering into her brain and killing her instantly; this, as the young man released a blood-curdling scream as both his legs were stricken with bullets, wounding but not killing him. Then his screams turned into howling wails of pain as a round fired from the enemy seemingly pierced his groin and castrated him. This scene, and many more like it, repeated itself all over as the barrage of gunfire continued to cut down more of the brave, level-1 soldiers of the Lords of Justice.

Alex trembled with rage and self-disappointment. This was his own fault. He had caused this. And as bad as things were, this was actually something of a reprieve, for it would only get worse once the MLRS were reloaded and ready to fire another barrage of rocket artillery.

Why did I trust Olivir with this? Gods, what have I done?

Alex struggled to pull himself together, but it was difficult. This, after all, was the exact type of disaster he had so desperately wanted to avoid bringing about. Of course this plan was never going to work. What could just one man—who looked like a boy—possibly do to have such an outsized impact on the war effort? What trick could he possibly have up his sleeve that would be so significant and vast that it would warrant Alex sending scores of level-1 people to their death in such a stupid way? Put simply, Alex had been desperate, and he’d wanted to trust the vampire. He’d let his emotions and not his brain do the thinking for him. And this was the result.

“Olivir!” Alex shouted. “Answer me!”

No reply came from the Comm, and now, Alex had to struggle to contain himself. His shock, disbelief, and disappointment were consuming him. His mind became awash with theories, possibilities, and explanations for whatever just happened, and none of them were helpful.

Did Olivir flee? Or did he simply fail? Or was it possible he never intended to help in the first place? Maybe he’d simply made an honest miscalculation. Or worse, perhaps he’d been attacked by surprise. Maybe the enemy had sent a covert unit to deal with him. There were so many reasons this could have happened. So many possibilities.

But none of them mattered right now, did they?

No. No, not right now. I can figure this out later. Knowing what just happened won’t change anything.

Ultimately, Alex knew that this was hardly the time to find answers. Therefore, he gave up on calling out to the vampire, who was not bothering to answer him back anyway. Instead, he turned his head to look at High-Lord Besh, whose face had gone white with fear. It was as though he sensed that the end of his guild was imminent. There was real confusion in his eyes: true uncertainty. Did he regret trusting Alex as much as Alex now regretted trusting Olivir?

It doesn’t matter!

Alex ripped his mind away from his insecurities and channeled all his focus on evaluating their current position, and Gods, it was not good. The mechanized infantry were getting demolished, and many were no longer pushing forward. Tanks were exploding, and APCs caught on fire were burning troops stuck inside alive. Though return fire was sent the enemy’s way, their forces were shooting from an open field at enemies behind well-fortified cover. Worse, the Guild of Gentlemen chose this moment to finally send out some of its leveled members, and now, glittering blue wisps of magic were whipping across the grasslands and detonating more armored tanks and infantry.

They were losing.

“Queen Vayra,” Alex said into the Comm. “Please respond.”

“What is it?” she replied, sounding annoyed.

“We need backup. We…we’re getting slaughtered. Can you return?”

“No. We’re busy, human. Deal with your own problems.” There was a grunt followed by the sound of a man crying out in pain. “We have our hands full. I’ve already lost two of my precious Elves. These humans have come up with treacherous schemes to trap us. They will suffer!”

Alex scowled defiantly. He refused to lose this fight. Everything was on the line. If he had to run in there himself, he would. In fact, that probably wasn’t a bad idea. Right now, anything he could do would be better than doing nothing at all. If they did not break through immediately, the enemy’s rocket artillery would soon be ready to fire again, and at that point, they’d sustain losses so great they’d have no choice but to call off the entire invasion and instead let the Elves massacre hundreds of thousands of people.

“All brigades,” he said into his Comm. “Listen closely! We need to—”

“I know this might be tough to accept,” a youthful voice said over the Comm, interrupting him. “But I guarantee, once you’ve had time to really think about it, you’ll agree I did the right thing.”

“Olivir?” Alex shouted into the Comm, surprised to suddenly hear his voice. “Where are you? What happened?” There was no reply, so Alex again called out to him. “Olivir,” he repeated. “Why did you tell me to order a charge? Why didn’t you help us? I thought you said you—”

Alex gasped. Whatever he’d been about to say was swiftly forgotten. Above him, well ahead of his estimates, he spotted yet another incoming barrage of rockets, and this one seemed even larger than the last. How had they reloaded so quickly? How were there even more in this attack? And why were they a bright orange in color? What in the name of the Gods was going on here?

“All brigades listen carefully,” Olivir said, surprising Alex yet again, this time by speaking as though he were in command. “Get out of the way. Anyone standing near the dead is going to join them. Stand back and then be ready to breach!”

Alex was so bewildered he wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t sure how to react, either. Should he cut Olivir off from the Comm line? Or question him? Alex was starting to wonder if he’d been outright betrayed. Exactly what had Olivir done—and why? These were questions that burned in his mind. And at the very least, they were soon answered. Alex did not have to wait very long to find out.

As the second volley of rockets crashed down onto the field of battle, it was at this point that Alex realized, much to his amazement, that they were not rockets at all. He wasn’t exactly sure what they were. Hundreds of bright orange balls with black, smoking tails made sizzling, hissing sounds as they flew directly down onto the battlefield—and made straight for the previous impact zone. For whatever reason, they were striking an already struck target, within which all people were already either dead or so badly wounded they would no longer be able to fight.

What’s going on here?

Much like the rockets had only just done, these orange-bodied, black-tailed, vaguely rocket-shaped masses of energy slammed into the ground, one after the next. But that was emphatically where the similarities ended, because unlike the rockets, the explosions did not result in more kinetic damage being done to the terrain, nor did they cause the ground to rumble or a boom to echo in the morning sun.

Instead, these orange, sizzling projectiles bounced directly off the ground, and it was only then that they exploded, each one turning into what looked like a shower of a thousand individual orange sparks, bright enough to be well visible even amid the early daylight. Once “exploded,” these sparks reminded Alex of a colony of fireflies, only tremendously denser and glowing far brighter. For a time, these orange, glowing lights hovered in place several feet above the ground before, all at once, they were gone, vanishing into the air.

And then, suddenly, there was movement.

A lot of movement.

Screams filled the world, but this time of pure horror as opposed to pain. Some even came from High-Lord Besh, who stood beside Alex. He couldn’t blame the man. Alex himself was tempted to release a cry of terror. Before his very eyes, the mangled, destroyed, battered, and butchered corpses of more than a thousand dead level-1 soldiers began to twitch and stir. With audible crackles, this movement continued, until in defiance of all decency, the dead literally began to rise again.

They’re getting up!

Anything with at least one arm and one leg began to return to its feet or foot. Even with brain matter oozing out of heads or blood dripping out of destroyed eye sockets, the men and women who’d perished only moments ago in battle were now in the process of standing upright. Only, they were no longer the people they had just been. They were changed, now. In a way that Alex had never before seen—in a way that he had never even known was possible. In a way that horrified him.

HP

52/52

Name

Private Hersh Linzeg

Level

5

HP

52/52

Name

Corporal Valina M’inzala

Level

5

There were so many of them, and all were level 5. They differed only in name and appearance. Some did not manage to rise to their feet due to bodily injury, and they instead disintegrated, fading away into a sand-like substance, leaving nothing behind—not even ashes for their family to bury. The rest, however, began orienting their bodies towards the north. And since they were in the same condition they’d died in, merely looking at them filled Alex with a natural sense of terror and disgust. Still, he maintained his composure, as he thought he was finally piecing together what had happened.

“What have you done?” Alex asked over the Comm, barely able to find his voice. “Please tell me this isn’t what it looks like.”

Once more, Olivir did not reply. Yet Alex had the sense his questions were going to be answered via a very public demonstration, as this newly raised army of resurrected corpses began to make loud, angry growling sounds, their bodies causing snapping and popping noises as well. With that, they all began to move. And at first, they merely shambled—but soon after they then began sprinting at stunningly inhuman speeds towards the north highway.

As they ran, they reached out with their arms as though desperate to grab onto something. Everyone, be they a level-1 troop or a leveled member of the guild—everyone did their utmost to scramble out of the way as these…these things raced past. And as though finally seeing what was heading towards them, all gunfire from the north highway came to an immediate halt as these snarling, highly vocal creatures began growling even louder and louder with an unmistakable note of hunger and desperation.

“GREEEAAAAAAHHH!” they screamed. “GREAAAAAAHHHH!”

Whatever these things were, Alex felt safe assuming they were no longer the men and women they’d been. No, there was no trace of humanity in their purely animal-like behavior. They continued to viciously growl as they sprinted or hopped forward, and then finally, after ten seconds that felt a great deal longer, the first of them reached a barricade, behind which was a trench where about twenty members of the Guild of Gentlemen could be seen confusingly staring at the creature.

“GREEEAAAAAAHHH!” it screamed.

And then it began to flash like a light switched on and off, its entire body glowing a darkish red. With that, it ran headfirst into one of the many sections of the barricade—and it exploded like a miniature rocket, blasting around a mixture of sand, concrete, and in some cases, steel. This first explosion was followed by a second, and then by a third. All along the western flank of the northern highway, these monstrous, resurrected corpses began slamming into the barricades that served as a divider between them and the enemy, and piece by piece, it became undone.

But there were still plenty of the monsters left.

These creatures continued on, all while releasing their nonstop growling shouts. One by one, they jumped into the trenches, disappearing from view. Each time, the sound of an agonized scream would follow, and then came another explosion. These things were literally leaping onto people and self-destructing. One after the next, a creature would jump inside a trench, and then a mixture of blood and body parts would get kicked up into the air before falling back down into the trench and out of view.

And yet, still there was more to come. Alex, never blinking once, watched in utter disbelief as the monsters invaded the enemy’s fortification, jumping headfirst at their armored vehicles and destroying them the same way the Guild of Gentlemen’s rocket artillery had destroyed so many of their own. These formerly human creatures…they were creating an absolute calamity of fear and destruction.

“Lord Oren,” High-Lord Besh whispered to him.

“I know,” Alex replied, nodding. “I know.”

There were no other words for the sight of this.

“GREEEAAAAAAHHH” they screamed as terrified, confused, and badly panicked men and women either fled or began opening fire onto the creatures, causing 1s and 2s to pop up above numerous heads and occasionally inflict significant damage, but never enough to slow or deter these twisted, demonic entities.

The level of fear was so great that it caused a young man to scream loudly enough that Alex could hear his words even from all the way over here. “Get it off me!” the man screamed. “No! No! Noooooo—”

Boom!

Alex shook his head. “Olivir, this isn’t right.”

“This is the path to the fewest deaths,” he replied, finally deciding to speak. “I’m sorry if it isn’t pretty. I hate doing this more than you hate seeing it, dude. I promise. Now please tell your guys to get in there and fight. That’s all that really matters in the end, doesn’t it?”

Alex had to begrudgingly admit that Olivir was correct. Completely without regard for the morality of what he’d done, the fact of the matter was that, true to his word, he’d given them a way in. A real chance to breach the city. To actually succeed at what had seemed impossible as recently as thirty seconds ago.

“You…you turned people into mobs.”

“No,” Olivir replied over the Comm. From the way he was speaking, he sounded out of breath. “I just reanimated their corpses. That’s not the same thing.”

Alex clenched his hands into fists. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t right at all. How much of all this was Olivir’s intention? Did he intend to sacrifice all those people? He must have. He must have deliberately convinced Alex to send them in with the knowledge that they would die to the MLRS systems. This just didn’t sit right with him. It didn’t sit right with him at all. But what really unsettled Alex—chief above everything else—was that Olivir was probably right about what he’d said: that if Alex ended up dwelling on this situation for a few days, he would probably end up agreeing with the vampire’s actions, as horrible as they were.

And that frightened him far more than these disfigured monstrosities that wore the faces and wounds of fallen heroes.