The horde actually slowed.

For the first time all night, it slowed.

Not because the infected feared the tanks.

Not because they understood danger.

Not because they were retreating.

They slowed because the battlefield in front of Outpost Echo had become a wall of steel, fire, and heavy armor.

The armored battalion pushed forward under the glow of burning fields.

Abrams tanks formed the center.

Bradleys rolled on both flanks.

Strykers and MRAPs filled the gaps between them.

JLTVs carried infantry teams who dismounted behind concrete barriers, wrecked vehicles, and hastily placed sandbag positions.

Everything fired.

Everything.

Tank cannons thundered.

Bushmaster chain guns hammered.

.50 caliber machine guns roared.

Mk19 grenade launchers thumped.

Riflemen fired controlled bursts into anything that survived long enough to reach small arms range.

The night had become pure violence.

Inside the lead Abrams, Sergeant Ramirez pressed his eye to the thermal sight.

The entire world glowed white.

Not from heat.

From bodies.

The infected filled his screen so completely that he had to keep adjusting gain just to see separation between targets.

"Front. Massed infected. Four hundred meters," the gunner called.

The commander answered instantly.

"Canister. Fire when indexed."

The loader moved like a machine despite sweat running down his face.

"Canister up!"

"Fire."

BOOM.

The tank shook violently.

The canister round burst outward across the open field.

The effect looked like a giant hand sweeping across the horde.

Hundreds of infected disappeared in one shot.

Bodies shredded apart.

The front rank collapsed into the mud.

The coaxial machine gun immediately opened fire.

BRRRRRRT.

Ramirez watched the tracers cut through survivors attempting to climb over the shattered remains.

Then something huge emerged from the smoke.

Not a normal infected.

Not a runner.

A Hunter.

Its body was larger than a man, hunched forward with elongated arms dragging through blood and dirt. Several rifle rounds struck its chest, but it kept moving.

Fast.

Straight toward the tank.

"Hunter front!"

The commander snapped his head down.

"Load HEAT!"

The loader grabbed the next round.

"HEAT up!"

The Hunter lunged across a pile of bodies.

"Fire!"

BOOM.

The 120mm shell struck the creature center mass.

The explosion swallowed it completely.

Black flesh, bone, and burning fragments scattered across the field.

The commander stared through his periscope.

"Target destroyed."

Then another Hunter appeared.

Then another.

Then three more.

Ramirez slowly cursed.

"Command, this is Spear One. Multiple Hunters on our front."

The reply came through static.

"Copy, Spear One. Engage and hold."

Ramirez almost laughed.

Hold.

That was always the order.

Hold the road.

Hold the line.

Hold the base.

Hold humanity.

The Abrams fired again.

BOOM.

Another Hunter vanished.

The battalion kept advancing.

On the right flank, a Bradley crew fought through a flooded barangay road lined with ruined houses.

The vehicle crushed bodies beneath its tracks while the gunner swept the 25mm cannon across the street.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Explosive rounds tore through infected rushing from broken doorways.

A squad of infantry moved behind the Bradley, using the armored vehicle as moving cover.

"Contact left!"

A soldier fired into a storefront.

An infected slammed through the window and took three rounds in the chest before dropping.

Another lunged from a rooftop.

A rifleman raised his weapon and fired upward.

The creature fell hard onto the road.

Then the Bradley’s turret snapped toward a cluster pouring through an alley.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

The alley exploded.

Concrete fragments burst outward.

Bodies collapsed in piles.

"Reloading!"

"Move up!"

The squad advanced behind the Bradley.

Boots splashed through muddy water mixed with blood.

The air smelled of smoke, diesel fuel, and rotting flesh.

Then the radio crackled.

"All units, large mass pushing from northeast. Brace for contact."

The Bradley commander looked toward the thermal screen.

His face tightened.

The northeast street was turning white.

A new wave was coming.

Fast.

He keyed the platoon channel.

"Brace! Northeast mass!"

The infantry dropped to knees behind cover.

The Bradley stopped.

The turret rotated.

Then the horde appeared.

Hundreds of runners burst through the smoke.

They sprinted over wrecked motorcycles, fallen signs, and broken concrete.

Their bodies moved too fast for dead things.

The Bradley opened fire first.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

The street became a tunnel of explosions.

The infantry joined in.

Rifles cracked.

Machine guns roared.

Grenades detonated among the charging variants.

Dozens fell.

Then dozens more.

But several reached the first infantry position.

One runner tackled a soldier to the ground.

The man screamed as the creature snapped its jaws inches from his face.

Another soldier rammed his rifle muzzle into the infected’s skull and fired.

The head burst open.

"Get him up!"

Two men dragged the fallen soldier back while the rest kept shooting.

The Bradley reversed several meters and fired again.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

The runners finally broke apart under the weight of fire.

But the soldiers had no time to celebrate.

Another wave appeared behind them.

Far above, Specter One saw the same mass.

The AC-130 banked into position.

Inside the gunship, the sensor operator tracked the northeast push.

"They’re closing on friendly armor."

The fire control officer spoke calmly.

"Danger close?"

"Two hundred meters."

The officer did not hesitate.

"Thirty millimeter only. Walk it outward."

The gunship’s 30mm cannon opened fire.

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Rounds stitched across the ground just ahead of the armored line.

The explosions cut a clean barrier through the infected wave.

Bodies disappeared in rows.

The fire walked outward, away from friendly troops, shredding anything still moving.

The Bradley commander looked up as the gunship fire carved through the horde.

"Good shooting, Specter."

The gunship replied.

"Keep your heads down. We’re not done."

Then the 105mm howitzer fired farther ahead.

BOOM.

A dense mass of infected vanished.

Then another round landed.

BOOM.

Then another.

BOOM.

The AC-130 turned the road ahead into a cratered killing ground.

Back at Outpost Echo, Sergeant Reyes watched the armored battalion carve through the horde.

The sight looked impossible.

For hours, the defenders had been drowning beneath bodies.

Now the field ahead burned with friendly armor.

Tanks fired in sequence.

Bradleys swept the flanks.

Infantry held behind them.

Air support circled overhead.

For the first time, the defenders were not merely surviving.

They were pushing back.

A young soldier beside Reyes laughed breathlessly.

"We’re actually pushing them back."

Reyes kept his binoculars raised.

"Don’t get comfortable."

The soldier’s smile faded when he looked beyond the armored line.

Because far past the explosions and muzzle flashes, movement still filled the horizon.

The infected were retreating nowhere.

They were bending around the armored force.

Trying to flow past it.

Trying to reach the weaker gaps.

Reyes grabbed his radio.

"Command, Echo Actual. Horde is shifting east of the armored line. Repeat, shifting east."

The answer came immediately.

"Copy. Redirecting artillery."

Seconds later, the eastern horizon lit up.

HIMARS rockets arrived in a screaming barrage.

WHOOSH.

WHOOSH.

WHOOSH.

The rockets struck the shifting horde with brutal precision.

Explosions ripped across the fields.

The infected trying to bypass the tanks disappeared under fire.

The armored battalion continued advancing.

Slowly.

Meter by meter.

The road became covered in corpses.

The fields burned.

The air shook.

Then the ground trembled.

Not from tanks.

Not from artillery.

Something else.

Inside the lead Abrams, Ramirez saw the thermal shape first.

A huge silhouette moving behind the next wave.

Bigger than a Hunter.

Much bigger.

It walked through the horde, pushing infected aside as if they were nothing.

The commander leaned forward.

"What is that?"

The shape emerged through the smoke.

A mutated giant.

Nearly twice the height of a man.

Its skin was thick, swollen, and dark.

One arm was massive, dragging along the ground like a club.

Rifle fire struck it from multiple positions.

It ignored the rounds.

The creature charged.

Straight toward the armored line.

Ramirez keyed the radio.

"Spear One to all units. Large mutant front. Engaging."

The commander shouted.

"Sabot!"

The loader moved instantly.

"Sabot up!"

The gunner placed the reticle on the creature’s chest.

It kept running.

"Fire!"

BOOM.

The sabot round left the cannon at incredible speed.

It struck the mutant center mass.

The impact tore through the creature and threw it backward into the horde.

For a moment, it vanished beneath bodies and smoke.

Then it moved again.

Still alive.

Ramirez’s eyes widened.

"You’ve got to be kidding me."

The creature rose.

Half its chest was gone.

Still moving.

Still charging.

The commander shouted.

"Fire again!"

The loader slammed another round in.

"Up!"

"Fire!"

BOOM.

The second sabot round hit the creature in the head and upper torso.

This time the mutant exploded apart.

Its body collapsed in pieces across the road.

The tank crew went silent for half a second.

Then Ramirez exhaled.

"Target destroyed."

But ahead of them, more shapes were moving in the smoke.

More large silhouettes.

The horde was changing.

The armored battalion held its line.

The guns kept firing.

The aircraft kept circling.

The artillery kept falling.

And across the burning fields of Pampanga, the fight only grew worse.