Back on the wall, Holland switched magazines, steady firing at the beasts below.

The dome had a unique feature that could let the soldiers in and out and keep the monsters out, but that feature was being pushed to the extreme.

The energy signatures of everyone belonging to the Crescent Base had been registered, allowing them passage through the dome.

But with the chaos and overwhelming information the dome had to sort through in milliseconds, there were bound to be some strays.

Holland had taken upon himself to target those strays, preventing them from causing more chaos in the back line.

His aim was accurate, wasting no shots on the beasts that found their way in.

Some of the camp’s forces had also retreated under some instructors’ orders. Their mission, unknown, but Holland wasn’t in a place to think of that.

The front lines were getting thinner even faster now that a chunk of the forces had been withdrawn for some unknown cause, and the amount of beasts slipping through were increasing in number.

Some even made it to the bottom of the wall, trying to climb their way up before getting their heads blasted off their bodies.

The instructors Josh and Angy had been gone for quite a while now, and darkness had covered the sky once more, making the fight even more difficult.

The loud shockwaves and tremors felt on the wall were constant assurance, easing his heartaches.

The instructors were still fighting, holding those monsters off.

If they could hold their own here, then they had a chance at being rescued.

Those were the words Holland told himself, trying with each shot to clear his mind of any thoughts.

Thoughts lead to fear.

Fears lead to mistakes

And mistakes lead to death.

Only in a state of stillness could he fight unaffected by the fickle emotions of hope and despair felt by the human heart.

The hope he had felt earlier had vanished.

The fear and uncertainty had vanished.

Both replaced by his flickering eyes and rapid firing of his rifle.

The past two days had been a test of will.

To be honest, he had no idea how long he had been on the wall.

It felt like a week. A very long one.

Watching the camp being surrounded by a literal sea of beasts, their greatest hope and defense being smashed through like a piece of paper.

Watching the second dome vanish mysteriously like smoke.

Watching the beast continue unaffected by the laser cannons fired continuously from the wall.

All this, along with no word from the higher-ups about rescue from the Origin Camp.

Each of these happenings was disastrous enough alone, but he just happened to have a front view seat to all of them.

He was at the "safest spot," compared to the foot soldiers, but that idea only lasted as long as the domes did.

The moment the last dome fell, the beasts were coming for them on the wall first before going forth to tear the camp behind them to shreds.

He had heard of a couple of ruins from the first war on the planet, back when the humans had first tried to capture the planet.

To think he was about to become part of a new one.

A small smile tugged at the edge of his lips at the thought that had managed to slip in.

For a moment, he tore his eyes away from the battlefield in front of him and looked at the situation on the wall.

The cannons were still being fired and cooled one at a time to keep the attack constant.

The six hour switch between the gunmen on the wall was pretty much gone, the full force being deployed since instructor Josh and Angy left the wall.

The recruits had dark circles and listless expressions on their faces.

The soldiers were better off, having experienced the harshness of war on other planets, but even they were starting to lose their fierce edge.

They had fought wars, but not a losing war like this after all. They wouldn’t be here, if so.

With his sense of stillness broken by this moment of observation, Hollands stomach growled, and he reached to feel his pocket and smiled bitterly.

The movements of the beasts before this attack had already kicked the camp into a bad spot, and they had been surviving on their reserves for a while now. A development that caused increased tension between the recruits in the camp.

And now they were in war.

Had it been any other time, they might have held. But they were in the worst state possible for a siege .

The reality of the ongoing battle, the way his fellow recruits missed shots with their dizzy eyes and fatigued hands, gave him a glimpse at the depth of the beast’s intelligence.

There was no way any of this was a coincidence. It was all part of a plan they had been conceiving for who knew how long.

The military as a whole had been slow to notice and act against it, and now they were reaping the consequences of their blinding pride.

They had defeated the beasts once, and they could do it again. That was how each one of the higher ups thought.

Even the soldiers who never participated in the war to claim the planet. A war that happened even before some of them were born.

And now that arrogance had come to bite them in a painful way.

Even if rescue made it here, a lot of them were going to die. That was absolute.

"Shoot the fucking gun, kid!!"

A soldier beside him noticed him spacing out and yelled at him in anger.

His reddened eyes and spittle barely had an effect on Holland, who had come to terms with reality.

Fear was born from a lack of understanding.

A lack of acceptance towards a reality one was against.

Holland understood his situation. He accepted the high possibility of him dying on this wall.

He wasn’t happy with that outcome, but he had no power against it, so he didn’t try to resist it blindly.

That didn’t mean he had given up his will to fight.

No. He knew his chances. He knew there was a chance at survival, and he was betting on that slim chance with everything he had in him, till his last breath left his body.

That was his resolution.

Survive.

His eyes were back on the battlefield, his mind having reached new levels of concentration as he shot several beasts off the wall, killing multiple with a single shot.

His precision startled the ones around him, his rain of bullets pushing back the beasts in his section running towards the wall.

The soldiers at the wall had been grounded down to their last line, and the gates still remained closed with no reinforcement coming from the other side.

But that was no concern of theirs. Their role was to keep the wall standing.

Whatever plans the higher-ups had in store, it wouldn’t survive if they didn’t hold the line.

Each one of them understood that despite the growing fear and resentment in their hearts, but played their roles as soldier — they followed orders.

The instructors Josh and Angy were the same. They had been fighting for hours now, keeping those two creatures from the dome.

The shockwaves from the battle could still be felt by them on the wall....

’Wait!’

Hollands pupils constricted into tiny pin holes as his surroundings set into him.

Beyond the guttural sounds of the beasts and the mixed cries of pain of the beasts and soldiers, there was....silence.

A silence that hadn’t been present before, replaced with the sounds from the clash of powerhouses in the distance.

"Did they do it? They did it!"

Holland’s eyes shone with light, renewed energy coursing through his body as he attacked with even more vigor.

The instructors weren’t back yet, but the oppressive aura he had felt when those beasts appeared was nowhere to be felt either.

It could only mean two things.

The beasts had fallen, and the instructors were fighting their way back or hiding somewhere to recover their energy

The second possibly was bad news for the camp — both instructors had fallen along with the beasts.

Regardless of which, Holland could feel his odds of survival raise a little with the fall of those two monstrous beasts.

There were still several unknowns in this battle, like the strange beam that tore through the first dome like paper, but the odds against him had fallen, even if just a little.

"CAN’T YOU FEEL IT? THE INSTRUCTORS HAVE WON, THE BEASTS HAVE FALLEN!!"

"WE CAN WIN THIS!!!"

Holland cried loudly on the wall, his words garnering the attention of the soldiers around him, lighting up their eyes with hope as they came to the same conclusion as him, spreading the word across the rest of the wall.

With reinvigorated hope, the soldiers and recruits began to fight again with a sense of purpose, reflecting in their attacks.

Holland watched them fight even harder, with fading guilt.

He had deceived them.

Even with the fall of those two monsters, they were losing this seige anyways, but Holland was true to his goal — survival.

And he was ready to do anything to realize that goal.

His efforts were wasted, though, as the blue light of the barrier flickered before regaining its strength and glow, causing his heart to leap.

Unfortunately, that small moment of weakness was enough for a bunch of beasts to push their way in.

But that wasn’t enough to crush the pathetic morale he had built up in the others.

Like the silence he had observed, he was the first to pick up on it, too.

The sharp tremors that reached their feet in slow intervals, each one resembling a footstep.

He was wrong.

There was a third possibility he didn’t consider.

The instructors were dead and had failed to stop the beasts.

The odds against his survival had just grown higher than before.

1 Day till Destruction.