March of The Dead (MotD)

Yexam slumped against the stone wall of the trench. He was exhausted, hungry, and bloody.

It was not his own.

When the Blue-skinned Devils had crawled out of the water, it had caught the Zalarians by surprise, but the were still a hundred yards away from the first trench and with only a small buckler to protect themselves. It had been a slaughter.

When the Flying Argalon reached the trenches, they were repelled by a forest of long and barbed pikes driven into the ground. They were either foolish enough to dive down anyway, turning into a pincushion, or they hovered awkwardly over them, unsure what to do, and made easy targets for the Rifles.

The Zalarians were proud of their training and seeming ease at which they were holding off the enemy, even with the surprise of the swimming Devils.

Cheers had broken out among the trenches when the fast boats came into range, and the Mana Cannons had rained hell upon them. Most shots missed, but only one had to land to either render the boat inoperable or outright sink it. Yexam even smiled a little cruelly when he saw the Demons in the boats scrambling out of a sinking ship just to be pulled down beneath the waves by the weight of their own armor.

The battle was going very well for the Zalarians, but the Demons just kept coming, using hundreds of lives to buy inches. But inches turned to feet, which turned into a yard, then another, and another.

Thousands littered the beach, turning the water red and the sand crimson and black. But the Blue-skinned Devils finally reached the first trench. Despite the advanced training of the Zalarians, the Blue-skinned Devils revealed their true talent, in addition to their apparent ability to breath underwater, they were wicked agile, capable of twisting their bodies in impossible angle while striking back.

Even worse, the Devils grabbed the Rifles of the dead Zalarians and began to use them against the second trench, where Yexam was.

This caught many Zalarians in the second trench by surprise, costing them their lives. This was the first time the Demons had shown any understanding on how to use the Rifles. By the reports from the front lines, the Demons had failed to use them before.

They had apparently learned.

The man beside Yexam took a shot to the shoulder. He had fallen off the berm, so Yexam ducked down and put pressure on the wound and called over a medic.

Finally, once the first trench became full of Demons, the fuse was light. The trench went up with a resounding explosion. The shockwave had caught Yexam off guard, and thrown him back. It had taken several minutes before his head stopped spinning and several hours before his hearing returned.

Yexam slumped back onto the Fire Step, allowing him to look up over the berm. His vision still blurry, he fired blindly, knowing it was better to have more bullets fired down range, regardless of their accuracy.

His sergeant had drilled it into him, 'All it takes is one shot, accuracy is good, but quantity is better.'

The explosion of the first trench had created a long crater, much less defensive, but still a dip in the terrain they could use to take cover. And they did.

The Mana Cannons focused on the ships that still came, even as their wrecks filled the water, the others just went around them.

A pile of potato sacks filled with sand was stacked in front of the transit trench. Three small holes were left where a Rifle Barrel could be shoved through and fired.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

And so, the slog began.

Shots were exchanged, but no land was given or taken. The Zalarians were determined to stay in their fortified positions while the Demons seemed content to take their time. Yexam suspected they were digging and building their own defenses.

Hours passed and the sun began to set, turning the sky red and purple. It was a beauty that contrasted with the horror on the ground.

The enemy that sought to eradicate all of Humanity was just a hundred meters away, yet Yexam sat with his back to them, knowing that it might as well have been a world away.

The Mana Cannons never stopped, becoming a dull background.

A pair of soldiers walked down the trench, one pushing a cart with a large pot of soup and the other passing out bowls. Yexam chuckled sadly to himself at the humor as another cart pushing pair came right after the food, passing out Mana Crystals to replace any that had worn out after all the Rifle use, or even handing out new Rifles entirely.

Still, the young man took two Crystals, one to replace his old one and the other to serve as a backup.

He noticed that the glow of his first Crystal was much darker than the new one.

Unfortunately, no one had figured how to accurately judge how many more shots a Crystal had in it, or how to make it a uniform amount. Some seemed to fire dozens before being worn out and shattering, while others could only fire one or two dozen. Yexam had once even had one that fired almost a hundred shots before it shattered.

Regardless, with the Crystals stored away in his pockets, Yexam grabbed his bowl of soup and downed it, noting how his friend was absent from beside him. Not dead but injured and taken back to the doctors in the rear. No doubt safer than Yexam at the moment.

News of the beach attack would have likely reached the Capital by now, but Yexam wondered what assistance, if any, they could spare. They had been under siege for years now.

After he emptied his bowl, he passed it back to the food cart as it passed back around. Now with his hunger taken care of, he leaned his head back and tried to take care of another one of his issues.

He did not get the chance.

"Fourth Falx Unit, you are being sent back to the barracks!"

That was his Unit. Yexam opened his eyes to see his squadmates around him grabbing their gear and standing up with slow tired movements.

Yexam did as well but approached the man who had given the order, "Who is relieving us?"

"The Second Tigers. They are already here." The man pointed to a unit of one hundred fresh soldiers, likely having just come from the rear.

"The General does not want exhausted solders on the frontline, so when he can, he is rotating units to get proper rest and resupply. Now off with you!"

Yexam nodded and joined the rest of his unit as they marched up the transit trench towards the bunkers, but instead of staying there, they were told to get to the rear of the second set.

As they slowly moved, they saw all the soldiers, all with their weapons, all ready to fight.

It was a magnificent sight that improved their morale, but Yexam could not help but wonder if they would survive. He did not doubt their skill, but he had underestimated the determination of the Demons. They had thrown thousands of lives away just to capture the first trench line. There were four trenches and two lines of bunkers.

Would the Demons really spend so many lifes, so much time, just to capture the beach? Afterall, even after they captured the two sets, they would still be over five miles away from the Capital, and in range of their Cannons with a network of trenches of hidden bunkers inbetween.

But the more Yexam thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that they would spend all those lives.

The Zalarians had turned their entire country into one massive fortress and mesh of trenches and tunnels, yet now, only two of the four cities remained. Tens of thousands had laid down their lives both in defending and taking that land, and thousands more would continue to do so.

And that was not even including the warfronts of the other countries.

Finally reaching the rear, his unit was ushered into an underground barracks with row upon row of bunkbeds, where another battered Unit was already settling in.

His unit claimed their own bunks and laid down, falling asleep in moments, but exhausted as he was, Yexam laid awake, finally comprehending the numbers of this war.

Tens of thousands had died just today, the vast majority of which were Demons, yet still more were arriving. If so many died just in one day here, just how many died every day at the cities? How many hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, died every week? And how many had died since the war began?

'Just why were they so desperate to claim this world?' Yexam asked to himself. He could only come to the conclusion that they were running from something. As sleep finally overcame him, his dreams were consumed with nightmares of what could make such a mighty people flee.