Defiance of the Fall

all out against the zombies, though only the Zhix horde was larger than her army.
She didn’t love the fact that they were forced to push unwilling people to the front-lines, but the very fate of their planet was at stake.

“Good job.
You killed enough controllers to keep us occupied for over an hour,” Mark said while handing Thea a water bottle as she entered the command tent.

Controllers were what they called the zombies that kept the enormous sea of braindead zombies in line.
Normally they shouldn’t have been able to constrain themselves with so many living targets nearby, but they had always kept a semblance of order even when the armies tried everything to trick the undead to splinter from the main horde.

But they finally managed to find some clues, partly with the help of Big Blue, and through chance encounters with the controllers.
They finally learned that every single zombie in the horde was controlled by a stronger zombie.
However, it didn’t seem there was a single undead strong enough to control over a hundred million zombies, so they had created an efficient hierarchy with the help of the mutant zombies with improved mental capabilities.

One low-tier control zombie was able to give simple commands to roughly a thousand normal or elite zombies.
It was thanks to them that they didn’t simply run off to hunt for something to bite.
These low-tiered control zombies were in turn controlled by mid-tier captains, such as the ones that Thea just killed.

One of them could control between ten and fifty low-tier commanders, meaning that one mid-tier zombie could control up to roughly 50 000 zombies depending on their strength.
And things followed that pattern with high tier controllers, though Thea had only managed to find and kill one of them.
Presumably, some peak controller was keeping the whole army in check, or perhaps it was the Corpse Lord herself holding the reins.

In either case, they soon learned that targeting the mid-tier commanders was the most efficient tactic to destroy the cohesiveness of the zombie horde.
Killing a low-tier commander would only let a thousand zombies loose, and that wasn’t worth the trouble.
Thea could personally kill that number with a couple of windblades.

Killing a high-tier commander wasn’t really efficient either, as the mid-tier controllers were usually smart enough to stay put and wait for orders.
But when a mid-tier commander was killed their subordinates almost immediately turned to small raiding parties that unhesitantly rushed the waiting armies of the living in the distance.
Only when another commander reined them in fast enough would they stay put within the zombie horde.

“How are things going at the main front?” Thea asked as she took a swig from the canteen.

’

“It’s pretty desperate,” Mark said with a grimace.
“If those insectoids didn’t bolster our numbers we would have been overrun by now.
But the constant bombardment is rapidly depleting our cache of old-world weaponry.
Over a thousand tanks have been destroyed just over the past day.
The undead truly refuses to give up on their chosen path.”

“Well, that would ruin the array they’re making,” Thea nodded.
“How long can we keep going?”

“Three days, perhaps four,” Mark sighed.
“A few days longer if our searches for military bases are successful.
But sooner or later the constant barrage of the undead will reach a tipping point where our line breaks and all hell breaks loose.”

“Maybe I should head over there?” Thea hesitantly ventured.

Things were rough on their end, where over a thousand people died every hour, but it was nothing compared to the mayhem at the front.
Those people were tasked with contesting every step forward the undead took, by any means necessary.

“No point,” Mark said with a shake of his head.
“Our work here is helping them as well.
This army killed almost three million Zombies yesterday even though our elites are at the main army.
We’re stealing their momentum and making sure that the leaders of the horde doesn’t send all their powerhouses to the frontline.”

Thea sighed and nodded with some helplessness.
It just felt bad that she stayed here in relative safety while her family members were risking everything to stop the horde in their tracks.
But she was the only one who was able to constantly hunt the control zombies to splinter the horde.

“What about the other hordes?” she asked.

“Nothing new,” Mark said.
“Port Atwood’s people are still missing.
The Sino-Indian Alliance is fighting a losing war, only nipping at the heels of the army.
They will not be able to stop the advance of the horde unless something drastically changes.”

’

“And the movement from the invaders?” Thea asked.

“They are staying clear of us and are focusing on the minor undead hordes.
There seems to be an implicit agreement where all the armies avoid each other, targeting only the undead.
The zealots are quite terrifying according to our reports, turning every battlefield to hell on earth.”

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Thea mulled over the information, though it seemed not much had changed the past hours.
Everyone was desperately struggling to stop the Undead Empire, but they were powerful enough to take on the combined powers of all forces without even revealing all their cards.
Almost no one would be able to stop them if their leaders joined the fight.

“What about Zac? Any word from him?” Thea asked.

“Nothing.
There has been no sighting of him for two weeks.
Some believe he is in closed-door cultivation since reaching level 75, that he’s aiming to break through to E-Grade.
But our informants believe he has found the Underworld and is busy taking control of its riches,” Mark said with some dissatisfaction.

Thea frowned as well, not understanding what Zac was thinking.
The idea was for him to quickly close the other incursions before joining the battle against the undead, but he only closed a handful of them before disappearing.
He hadn’t even gone to help his own people from what they could tell, since he would have to have used their network to get close to the Dead Zone.

She truly hoped he could appear sooner rather than later.
Things were turning pretty bleak, and the world needed a hero.