Doomsday Pillars

The sun's orange glow would soon be replaced by the curtain of darkness lit by the night's stars in an hour. Alex stood on top of a four-meter concrete wall, staring at the peaceful horizon, which would soon be filled with deadly beasts.

There were four main gates within the Star Base. The Main Gate in the south, River Gate in the east, Pillar Gate in the west and the Mountain Gate in the north, facing the mountains.

Alex noticed the returning scouts so he quickly called the battalion commanders into the headquarters. He started the meeting by saying, "Commander Farell, please give out the report."

"Out of the twenty-five battalions that were formed, only fourteen managed to get inside the base in time. The other eleven battalions are in Antiga City, in the east, awaiting orders."

For the battalion commanders, other than Farell, Alex recognized Adnan, Rangga, and Russel from the special forces, and Bayu, previously one of the Black Snake Gang leaders as well as nine other commanders Alex hadn't really met. Each of these commanders was in charge of 1,000 men; adding Major Sandi's 2,000 Starbase Guards, the total number of people ready to fight were around 16,000 men.

"The largest threat we saw were from the south, mostly mutated rats. There're at least 30,000 of them. There're also sightings of mutated cats, at least 5,000."

"What's the strategy?" Alex asked.

"Do we even need a strategy? These are only rats and cats. With our high walls and firearms, they won't stand a chance," said Bayu, who had fought a lot of these rats and cats during his patrols. 

Farell glanced at Alex, he seemed to agree with Bayu's analysis.

"I'm afraid it will not be that simple," said Alex. In his previous life, Alex had heard of a similar case in one of the bases in the Philippines. Hordes of mutated beasts attacked due to the scent of high stage eggs.

A mutated python normally would never leave its eggs, it would keep the eggs safe by covering in some kind of gelatinous substance, which would cover the eggs' scent. When Alex had eliminated the mother snake and took the eggs from its nest, the scent roamed free.

The sense of smell differs among species, with some having keener abilities than others, some species had been born with genes devoted to smelling. Rats, for example, had highly sensitive noses, some rat species had even been trained to detect land mines. 

Humans, on the other hand, had their brains to help them out of a tricky situation, but for many animals, it was their nose that helped them to survive. The human nose had about 5 million olfactory receptors that allowed us to detect odors. Cats, for example, had a far better sense of smell with up to 200 million receptors. 

Aside from cats and rats, there were many other animals who had a better sense of smell such as snakes, monkeys, and even bears. A bear could detect an animal's carcass from about 30 kilometers away.

Bears were one of the things he was actually worried about. Although bear sightings weren't much in Bali, he explained that bears would've also mutated, and this caused the rest to look anxious.

"Can't we just take the eggs away from the city?" asked Farell.

"It's too late, I'm afraid. The eggs have been here overnight, even if we took it somewhere else, these beasts would come stomping this base first because of the strong scent. So, I urge everyone to not underestimate this and prepare for the worst."

They then discussed strategies. They decided the four gates would be guarded by three battalions each while the remaining two battalions and the guards unit would act as a reserve force in the center, reinforcing whichever gate needed them the most.

The Starbase had a double-wall defense system. The concrete wall and the stone bern. In front of the two-meter tall stone bern were two meter deep ditches. Although these walls and ditches were effective against the zombies, Alex wasn't so sure if it would be a good idea to hold ten thousands of rats. He was worried if thousands of animals crashed into the wall at the same time, it would destroy the wall. Therefore, the plan was to open all gates and have the soldiers funnel the beasts and fight them inside.

Farrel and Sandi would stay in the center with a total of 4,000 men under their command, Adnan would guard the south, Rangga the east, Russel the west gate and Bayu the north gate. Each with three battalions, totaling 3,000 men. 12,000 men were barely enough to cover the 13 kilometers of concrete walls, however, they had to make do with what they had.

The expected enemies were mutated rats and cats, the rats were on the lower list of threats, but Alex knew these cats could climb the walls. Therefore, before the siege occurred, he ordered everyone to stay in the warehouses along with picking up weapons, mostly pickaxes.

Alex's thought about the upcoming battle was half and half. If things went well, this disaster would become a fortune. Tens of thousands mutated beasts as well as hundreds to thousands of spirit stones were being delivered to his doorstep. But of course, they needed to win the battle first.

"Move, move, move!"

Every soldier took their positions. One battalion stood in a half circle formation inside the gate using melee weapons, while the other two battalions either stood atop of the gate holding out firearms or were spread around the gates. 

Alex also prepared in each gate some special toys to use.

The rats arrived first in the south gate. As soon as they were visible, the battalion commander shouted, "Phalanx formation!"

One thousand men gathered into a tight defensive formation holding spears and shields up in front of the gate.

The rats were only a couple meters away, some hundred cats were within the horde. They then funneled, which was the only thing they could enter from. And just before they reached inside—

Wwooossssshhhhhhh!!!! Wwooossssshhhhhhh!!!!

Several breaths of fire shot out like a fiery dragon god purged the unholy beasts attacking the human settlement in the south gate. These were flamethrowers. Alex had bought them before the Doomsday had started. He spread the twenty flamethrowers in between the four gates...

The mutated rats faced the full wrath as they got burnt to the crisp. Loud, multiple squeaks resounded in the south gate. As for the rats that had managed to get past the breath of fire, rows of sharp teeth-like spears, peeking through the gaps of shields, pierced them! The spears served as skewers and the flames served to barbeque them.

Pa!... Pa!... Pa!... Pa!... Pa!... Pa!...

The south gate's defense held, and the entrance became clogged. Due to that, some of the rats circled the walls and found the other three gates in the west, north and east gates. The same scene repeated in each gate.

An hour later, the sun had set and the stars were peeking.

RRRrrrr!!... RRRrrrr!!!...

The mutated cats started showing up and started climbing the walls with the sharp claws and powerful legs. These cats were natural hunters in the night. Cats were good at detecting movement in low light, they had an acute sense of hearing and smell, and their sense of touch was enhanced by the long whiskers protruding from their heads and bodies. These enhanced senses allowed cats to hunt effectively at night.

This meant trouble for the soldier up the wall. Due to their enlarged bodies, it felt like fighting dozens of jumping tigers. The firearms troops, equipped with AK47 and 556 cartridges, began shooting at the moving targets.

DRATATATATATA... DRATATATATATA...

Fighters using sabers also joined the fights but casualties soon started piling up. Unfortunately, most soldiers were still at the middle stage mortal realm. Seeing the soldiers starting to have trouble, Alex gave an order via radio. 

SHHHH!!! SHHHH!!! SHHH!!!

KABOOMM!! KABOOMM!! KABOOMM!!

Multiple grenade launchers were shot all around the gates, it was like fireworks in the night. Not only did it kill dozens of unfortunate mutated beasts, it also lighted up the gasoline-filled ditch before the stone bern.

WHHHHOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHH!!!

A circle of fire lit up the Starbase, as hundreds more beasts were burnt, and moved away from the base. The night had become as bright a day momentarily as the beast massacre restarted.

DRATATATATATA... DRATATATTATA...

"Send in the reinforcements!"

Ten battalions of soldiers rushed from the east, these reinforcements came fully armed and brought along half a dozen APVs with machine guns blazing their way into the east gate's entrance.