Chapter 235: The Past of This World

The underground fortress, which has a hundred different residential zones, has seen its main Gate No. 3 on the western side fall; Beast Entities roam the narrow streets unchecked, their mechanical slaughter leaving civilians unable to evacuate.

The soldiers scattered everywhere cannot mount an effective counterattack, and the isolated ones ultimately are killed by Beast Entities after their ammunition runs out.

Clack! Clack!

In the central Zone 1 of the fortress, dense gunfire still echoes.

Boom! Boom!

Occasionally there are fierce explosions or the roar of artillery, indicating the fortress has not been completely overrun.

At this moment, in Zone 6 nearest the eastern gate, a group of civilians from other residential areas scramble here in panic, sprinting with all their might toward the tunnel at the far end.

A cry of "Ah!"

At the rear of the crowd, a thin, breathless girl suddenly twists her left foot and, unable to keep her balance, falls to the ground.

The fall leaves her, already exhausted, unable to get up.

"Help…someone, please help me…" the girl croaks, lifting her head with difficulty and extending her trembling left hand in a low plea.

But her voice is so weak that even if someone hears it, they will not spare their precious time to escape to aid her.

A soldier who was covering the civilians' retreat and had just killed a Beast Entity turns to withdraw, glances at the girl whose hands are planted on the ground as she crawls slowly, then looks at the tunnel that lies just a stone's throw away…

"Get up, quickly!"

Without hesitation, the soldier pulls the girl up, letting her right hand rest on his shoulder while his left arm grasps her waist, and they slowly make their way toward the tunnel.

The soldier knows this action equals death, but when weighing conscience against a few extra minutes—or, with luck, a few extra hours—of life, he chooses conscience.

"Stomp! Stomp!" Beast Entities do not roar; they only make the sound of four legs running.

Hearing the increasingly close noise, the soldier, forced to act, turns with the girl and pulls the trigger with his one‑handed gun.

Clack clack clack!

Puff! Puff!

The low‑accuracy continuous burst still kills the Beast Entity closing in.

However, emptying the magazine solved that one, but they see more Beast Entities surge from the streets and rooftops.

"Don't worry about me… you run fast… thank you…" the girl withdraws her right hand from the soldier's shoulder and says weakly.

"…"

Hearing that, the soldier does not speak, loosens his left hand, and lets the girl sit back on the ground.

But with both hands free, the soldier swaps magazines, half‑crouches, and aims, indicating he is ready to fight the Beast Entities here to the death.

Thud! Thud!

Before the soldier can fire the newly loaded magazine, he and the girl hear footsteps behind them, and a black silhouette darts over their heads like a gust of wind.

Immediately after, they see a massive human‑shaped figure land before them and charge toward the fortress center.

Where the figure passes, all Beast Entities are smashed and flung aside; in narrow passages it simply bulldozes a path.

In less than a blink, the figure vanishes from view, and the life‑threatening Beast Entities are all dead, with no new ones appearing.

Everything happens too fast; the two cannot see the figure clearly, and the situation reverses in an instant.

Fortress Zone 1.

It is far more spacious than other zones; all facilities, buildings, and the surrounding iron mesh and walls make Zone 1 resemble a barracks.

Defensive works litter the streets and rooftops, and two light tanks stationed at the western edge confirm that Zone 1 is indeed a barracks.

Boom! Boom!

The two tanks fire their 105 mm cannons simultaneously, instantly shredding the street swarming with Beast Entities, leaving those near the blast a mess of blood and flesh.

Ding! Ding!

Two machine‑gunners half‑pop out of the tank turrets, handling. 50 cal heavy machine guns wrapped in wet cloth, shouting "Ah! Ah!" as they lay down intermittent fire to suppress the Beast Tide.

Fewer than a hundred soldiers build a position around the tanks, trying to block the Beast Entity onslaught, with a few remaining boxes of ammunition piled at the center.

The three‑story building rooftops on the left side of the tanks.

"Report evacuation progress!" a female officer in her early thirties, with a fierce scar across her left cheek, shouts.

"Nearly half the civilians have been evacuated to the surface," a soldier replies loudly, "but those guys are advancing too fast, the west side is lost! Captain!"

"Damn…" the female captain, whose magazine is empty, stands up and looks around.

From her high perch, she can clearly see the completely fallen western side of the fortress, and looks east…

?

Surprisingly, the east side remains stable; civilians are not panicking as expected, nor being slaughtered by small packs of Beast Entities, and many surviving soldiers are converging on their position.

At the same time, she also sees twenty warrior terminators who are slaying Beast Entities in reverse, and John, who at some point slipped past their position and has already entered the western streets…

???

"What's going on?" the female captain asks, confused.

Then, under her bewildered gaze, John and the twenty warriors sweep the western side of the fortress at a speed she cannot discern.

When the soldiers below notice that no new Beast Entities are appearing, and the situation seems off, the tens of thousands of Beast Entities that had been ravaging the interior of the fortress have already been completely slaughtered by John and his group.

John also appears in the street pointed to by the two tank barrels, gradually approaching the position.

"Keep your hands under control! No firing without my order!" the regaining composure female captain shouts.

When she and the soldiers beside her leave the rooftop and descend, John has already entered the position; seeing this, the female captain, ignoring John's superhuman size, proactively says:

"Earth United Military Defense Force, Captain Di Si Bai Lun, thank you for your assistance."

John nods in response to the thanks and coolly asks, "Captain, where is your highest commander?"

Having confirmed she can negotiate with John without obstruction, Bai Lun finally relaxes, but upon hearing the question, she replies with a hint of sorrow:

"They're all dead; now the highest‑ranking officer in the entire fortress should be me."

"Condolences," John says, his tone a little somber, and continues:

"Since that's the case, Captain, gather all your remaining personnel, assist the civilians to go to the surface and await evacuation, and you, come with me; I need more detailed intelligence."

Having said that, John gave the other no time to react, turned and walked to a spot not far away to wait.

As an officer who dislikes delay, Byron could also clearly discern the current situation.

She watched John's back, thought for only a few seconds, then surveyed the soldiers gathered nearby and ordered:

"You all heard what the big guy said; prepare to assist the civilian evacuation!"

———————

…

Shortly after.

Frontline Base.

Inside the Command Center of the central facility, Robert and a group of UNSC senior officers looked at a three‑dimensional top‑down model of a city displayed on the sand table.

It was called a city, but the degree of assimilation by the colonizing race far exceeded that of Rabat, the capital of Morocco.

The surface had almost lost any trace of human architecture, covered with abundant luminous plants and densely packed hundred‑meter‑long "embryos".

Based on the displayed latitude and longitude and related data, it indicated that this assimilated city was indeed Paris, the capital of France.

Currently, the fighting in Rabat has ended.

From the arrival of two OriginalBody‑led legions to the conclusion, the whole process took no more than twenty minutes; had it not been for concerns about surface civilians and underground fortresses, it would have ended even faster.

Another transport fleet was rushing toward Rabat, preparing to transfer all surviving humans to the Frontline Base.

And John, through Captain Byron, gave Robert and the others a rough understanding of this world's situation.

"Now" is July 12, 2030; eighteen years earlier, on July 4, 2012, the French coastal city of Le Havre suffered an attack with the same rhythm as Elizabeth City.

First, a massive number of Beast Entities surged from the sea surface, followed by a hundred‑meter‑tall giant monster.

The result was completely opposite.

Before the giant monster could appear, Le Havre, with only 200,000 inhabitants, was overrun by Beast Entities.

The French military, once it reacted, immediately launched fighter jets and prepared to seal off the area surrounding Le Havre.

The giant monster that then leapt out of the sea made France, and indeed the world, realize it was the real threat.

The arriving air squadron's machine guns and air‑to‑ground missiles, among other conventional weapons, were like scratching an itch on the giant monster—unable to cause even a speck of damage.

The French forces are not UNSC and lack a light cruiser capable of blasting the giant monster in one shot, but they possess humanity's strongest weapon: nuclear bombs.

On one side are the nearby towns about to face the giant monster and Beast Entity invasion, and the townspeople; on the other side is the international upheaval after the nuclear strike.

The French president acted decisively, dispatching a two‑seat Mirage 2000N into the sky to drop a tactical nuclear bomb with a 500,000‑ton TNT equivalent on the giant monster.

The precise detonation of the nuclear bomb finally killed that giant monster, as well as the incalculable army of Beast Entities.

This left a deep impression on Tis Byron, a first‑year high‑school student living in Belgium bordering France; according to her account, people called that day "Invasion Day".

On Invasion Day, the French forces dispatched a CBRN unit, successfully clearing the remaining Beast Entities that fled the outer radiation zone, and the air force also locked onto a portal located in the shallow sea area.

Byron also noted that the news and various programs those days repeatedly broadcast content related to "invasion", "aliens", and "nuclear explosions".

It was said that humanity's investigations and research on the portal, trying various methods—including another nuclear strike—could not close or destroy the portal.

Thirty days after Invasion Day, France faced a second wave of attacks, but this time the French forces and humanity were naturally well prepared.

Without using nuclear bombs, they conducted relentless bombing; the French forces easily dealt with the second wave, greatly boosting people's confidence in confronting the monsters.

After all, the first invasion was too sudden; to reduce casualties, a tactical nuclear bomb was the best choice.

The sixtieth day marked the third wave.

Thus, people figured out the monsters' attack cycle, and each monster was stronger and harder to kill than before.

But at least there was only one portal at that time.

On July 4, 2014, two more portals opened, one in Sydney, Australia, and another in the shallow sea area of Vancouver, Canada.

The emergence of three portals gave rise to the United Government and the United Military Defense Forces, and humanity as a whole became unprecedentedly united, working together to combat the monster invasion.

On July 4, 2016, two portals opened in New York and Mombasa, Africa; on September 3 of the same year, Paris was the first to be destroyed by the giant monster's invasion, and nearly one‑third of Western Europe was affected.

As time passed, more and more portals opened, and the increasingly frequent invasions made people see the reality—

That the coming of the "End of the World" could not be stopped at all.

Earth's environment grew ever harsher with the monster invasions, gradually becoming unsuitable for human habitation.

Facing this situation, humanity seemed to have only two options.

1. Escape Earth.

2. Hide underground.

Actually there is a third: continue abusing nuclear bombs…

If this option is chosen, humanity could eliminate itself without the monsters.

With this world's technology and the combined effort of all humanity, it is indeed possible to send a very small number of people to the Moon and Mars.

But whether they could establish a foothold and sustain long‑term life on the Moon or Mars remains uncertain.

Moreover, human hearts are the most complex; once the first option is adopted and the vast majority learn they are awaiting death, society is highly likely to plunge into uncontrollable turmoil.

Therefore, the United Government announced the "Underground Fortress" plan on January 1, 2018.

Due to time pressure and the convenience of mobilizing manpower and resources, people had to build sturdy fortresses with complete recycling systems hundreds of meters below, or even deeper, in each city.

In the year the fortress plan began, Tis Byron, who had lost all her family, joined the army and was dispatched with her unit to defend West Africa.

2012 to 2026.

Fourteen years of war sharply reduced humanity's total, from a peak of nearly nine billion to five billion.

At the end of 2026.

Fifteen portals opened worldwide, and monsters that had "evolved" many times were about to ravage the surface, forcing the remaining humans to retreat underground.

But before moving underground, the United Military Defense Forces dropped massive numbers of nuclear bombs on all portals, instantly eliminating hundreds of millions of monsters and completely destroying the ecosystems near the portals, affecting the entire globe.

However, destroying the surface environment was no longer within the consideration of senior commanders.

Although the army could not deal with giant beasts that had some resistance to nuclear weapons, it could kill small-sized Beast Entities; thus, for the next four years, people, using sturdy facilities, maze-like tunnels, and layered gates, hid in fortress cities and barely survived.

But this merely delayed the speed of humanity's extinction.

Bailun said their inhabited and defended Labate Fortress was relatively fortunate; they had lived underground for nearly three years before the monsters tasked with assimilating the ecological environment finally arrived.

Initially, small groups of Beast Entities harassed them, and the Labate Fortress could cope with ease.

Labate, with only thirty thousand residents, could not match the self-sufficiency of larger fortresses such as Mosike and Duolundu.

By June this year, large numbers of monsters arrived in succession, increasing the pressure on Labate.

In July, ammunition ran low, casualties kept rising; without the arrival of the Holy Blood Angels and the Sparta Corps, the ultimate fate of the Labate Fortress would be obvious.

(End of Chapter)