Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

As the simplest command was issued through the control of the soul, countless Gastrea roared and surged forward like a tsunami.

Russia immediately mobilized its troops and took immediate action!

Russia doesn't have numbered zones; instead, it has fortresses standing beneath megalithic monuments. And the Chekhov fortress at the forefront has already begun operations.

Below this fortress, converted from an old-fashioned missile silo, lies a place without heating, with murky air and a pervasive smell of rust, mold, and excrement.

In the dim emergency lights, one could see narrow, coffin-like metal compartments with tightly closed gates. Inside, a small figure was huddled.

The door hinges screeched as the heavy blast door was pushed open. The sound of boots on the frosty concrete floor was cold and heavy. Several officers entered, led by Major Vasily, a bulky man wrapped in a thick thermal coat, his cheeks stained crimson by vodka and the harsh environment, carrying a short whip.

"Get up! You filthy little rats!" His roar echoed in the confined space, thick with the sound of phlegm.

"Our guests have arrived! It's your turn to welcome them!"

He was met with a numb rustling sound. The gates to the cubicles opened remotely. The girls slowly and mechanically crawled out and lined up in the middle of the passageway. Most of them were between six and twelve years old, wearing uniform, thin, and stained gray jumpsuits, barefoot, their feet covered in chilblains and cracks.

Each child wore a heavy black metal collar around their neck, with indicator lights flashing faintly red, as if they were a herd of tamed livestock.

They are the 'Witch Legion'

Ironically, post-apocalyptic Russia is a 'caste state'. Because it's the largest human settlement, the unlimited acceptance of Belarusian refugees created a massive financial burden. Combined with the devastating impact and spread of the Libra plague, this led to the emergence of something resembling a caste system in post-war Russia.

Refugees from Veliky Minsk were considered the lowest class of people, and among them, the Children of the Damned were not even treated as human. They didn't even have freedom; they were captured and collectively raised, only released in droves when needed to deal with Gastrea.

"Outside! It's the Zodiac! It's a real monster! Do you know what that means?"

The girls were silent. A numb silence.

"This means that the only value of your existence, you 'witches,' has come to be realized!" Vasily's voice carried a cruel excitement.

"The disgusting virus inside you makes you more resilient than cockroaches, stronger than wild beasts, and gives you some strange little tricks. Now, it's time to use these 'talents' to tear apart those even bigger monsters for our motherland!"

Seemingly dissatisfied with the sparse responses, several officers stepped out of the ranks and kicked the first few girls in line hard, yelling at them to speak.

And these girls, who had been tamed and lost their humanity and sense of self, answered with hollow and lifeless voices.

"Yes, for our motherland!"

Changing the style doesn't stop it from killing! : 146. Kill them all except the children! (Bonus chapter)

"That bastard, he's a traitor to humanity!!!"

Rentaro Satomi, watching TV, slammed his fist on the table in anger, his face filled with hatred.

Yes, that's what he thinks, and that's what all 'normal humans' think.

There's nothing wrong with that, is there? Driving Gastrea to destroy humanity would be considered an outright act of treason in any country.

So what if Tsurugi is for the cursed child?

Of the 750 million people who are barely surviving today, the children of the curse still only make up a tiny minority, and these children are so insignificant compared to the entirety of humanity.

What's wrong with sacrificing such a small group of people for the sake of humanity and for the greater good?

Go to hell!

Dongjiang doesn't care about the so-called bullshit majority, the so-called great sacrifice, or the so-called bullshit big picture!

If someone tells you to consider the bigger picture, it means you're definitely not part of that bigger picture. Anyone who takes it for granted that a minority should be sacrificed to satisfy the so-called majority is an absolute and utter bastard!

Of course, there are also people like Rentaro Satomi in there.

Indecisive and fussy, she talks about protecting the cursed children and changing their lives, but her actions bring about no change whatsoever.

Huh, what's the point of all this talk? Just kill them all!

It's your fault for making me unhappy!

Inside the Chekhov fortress, the final mobilization has been completed.

After being indoctrinated by these adults with their high-sounding rhetoric about the motherland and humanity, Major Vasily concluded...

"Your destiny is to die!" he said with righteous indignation to that young face, now filled with numbness and emptiness.

"Use your disgusting bodies to feed the monsters outside. Even if you can hold them off for just one second, that's a great achievement. Your life is only worth that one second, understand?"

The girls remained bewildered. Perhaps she didn't understand the full meaning of death, but she understood 'to die,' 'to rush out,' and 'to kill.'

These words, along with the electric current from the collars, the whipping, the cold cubicles, and the perpetually empty stomachs, constitute their entire understanding of the world.

They nodded very slowly, almost imperceptibly.

Vasily stood up, brushed imaginary dust off his coat, and his face broke into a mixture of disgust, contempt, and the relief of impending mission success. He turned to the officer behind him.

"Inject them with the medicine and open the passage to the seventh attack point. We'll prepare the rear lines, and once these monsters can't hold out, we'll open fire immediately."

The officers began injecting the girls with a murky drug, their needles piercing their slender arms and necks without mercy.

After the drug was injected, the girls' bodies tensed up noticeably, their breathing became rapid, and an abnormal flush rose on their pale faces. A strange excitement ignited deep within their empty eyes, but this power was beyond their control; it was merely a brief and painful fuel ignited by the drug.

They were then shoved and pushed, like sheep being herded, towards an upward-reaching, colder, and damp passage. At the end of the passage was a heavy alloy gate, beyond which lay the deadly tundra, tens of degrees below zero, ravaged by countless Gastrea. Above the gate, a glaring red light spun.

"Open the door," Major Vasily commanded, his tone as casual as if he were opening a warehouse door to dispose of a batch of expired garbage.

Gears whirred, hydraulic systems hissed. The heavy gates slowly opened to both sides. In an instant, the hellish scene outside, accompanied by a biting wind, lashed violently into the passageway!

The girls' thin bodies shivered in the howling wind, their gray uniforms billowing to their skin and emphasizing their ribs. Looking out the door, all they saw was a terrifying scene that defied all human comprehension.

The moving mountain of flesh and blood, the eerie blue meteors tearing through the sky, the ever-changing chunks of flesh bred with endless plagues. The boundless, roaring tide of monsters, like a chorus of billions of evil spirits, assaulted their nerves, which had been dulled by drugs and suffering.

Fear? Perhaps, but that fear has long been covered by a deeper numbness. After all, they have been trained so that even death no longer evokes terror in them.

Major Vasily's voice, coming through the loudspeaker beside the gate, drowned out some of the wind noise; it was cold and clear, delivering his final mobilization.

"Go, witches. Use your blood to stain the claws of those monsters. This is the only and last thing you—the children of the curse—can do for humanity."

The children of the witch army, whose life force had been distorted by the drugs, were like a few ice crystals thrown into a boiling oil pan, instantly swallowed up by the surging living tsunami composed of countless Gastrea from Stage I to IV.

However, the expected, instantaneous carnage did not occur; instead, a bizarre scene unfolded that chilled everyone to the bone.

The leading Gastrea, resembling a skinned giant ape with a tortoise-shell-like back and dozens of eye-shaped tentacles, paused its frantically waving tentacles just as it was about to wrap them around a girl. It was as if it had received some kind of command. The eyeballs at the ends of the tentacles rolled blankly a few times, sweeping over the girl's frail body as if she were a lifeless rock.

Immediately afterwards, the monster's massive body gently set down the girl who was still attacking it with her inferior weapon, in a way that was inconsistent with its ferocious image. Then it rushed past her, even deliberately avoiding scraping against the bone spikes and carapace edges that might have grazed her.

The same thing happens to every cursed child.

They stood bewildered amidst the monstrous tide. No monsters attacked them, and there was no bloodshed. They gripped their cold, steel daggers tightly, their arms trembling with the force, yet they did not know where to stab.

The river silently landed in front of them.

"Sleep well, children, when you wake up you will be greeted by a new world that belongs to you."

Tsurugi spoke softly and gently, releasing a Goetia magic that hypnotized the group under the power of desire. After putting all the children to sleep peacefully, she lit a warm campfire for them.

He raised his head, as if piercing through countless obstacles, and met Major Vasily's gaze. The warmth from before vanished instantly, replaced only by cruelty and mockery.

"Only you lowly and stupid dogs will be killed, these children, the children you call the cursed children. For better or for worse, I will protect them, while you, you vile dogs, will only be devoured and excreted like shit!"

His words were not just a declaration to himself, but to everyone!

He certainly knew that such words would only make things worse for some children—but animals are creatures that only know pain and danger, and only then will they stay away from them, fear them, and respect them.

"Fire! Aim at those little bastards and fire!!!"

Enraged Major Vasily roared at the top of his lungs, but the next second, countless chilling sounds came from inside the fortress.

The friction of flesh and blood, the collision of bones—only Gastrea could produce such sounds. Vasily's face turned ashen, fear and horror instantly filling his heart.

These Gastrea appeared in their fortress!

The Bloodhorn Nest, standing in the center of the Gastrea, opened its doors behind layers of defense, and countless Gastrea rushed out from a blood-red door that suddenly appeared!

The entire Chekhov base fell in an instant.

A young soldier tying his shoelaces was smeared in the face with slime sprayed by a toad-like Gastrea. He screamed in agony, frantically scratching at his rapidly festering and melting face before collapsing to the ground, writhing in agony. Several soldiers operating equipment were ambushed by woodlice-like creatures that emerged from beneath their feet. Their sharp limbs easily pierced their bodies, pinning them to tables, chairs, or walls, while their mandibles devoured them frantically.

Screams, cries, curses, gunshots, the cracking of bones, the scraping of carapaces, the splattering of slime… all these sounds blended into a symphony of hell. The stench of blood, entrails, the putrid stench of gastrulation, the acrid smell of strong acid corroding metal and burning flesh—a nauseating stench that instantly filled the entire space.

Major Vasily was jolted awake from his daze by the increasingly close and clear screams and explosions. The command center's piercing intrusion alarm had already sounded, and the red lights were spinning wildly.

"What's going on?! Where did this attack come from?!" He stood up abruptly, staggering slightly from fear.

"Major! The lower levels, the living quarters... are completely lost! Gastrea have appeared inside the fortress! The number is unknown, and they are spreading upwards!"

"A bloodied officer, who had just escaped from below, roared, one of his arms twisted unnaturally.

"Seal off all access to the command center! Activate the internal defense gates! Now!" Vasily roared.

Before the words were even finished, several ventilation grilles on the ceiling were simultaneously smashed open from the inside! Several slippery, sucker-covered, dark purple tentacles emerged first, followed by smaller but more agile and ferocious Gastrea creatures, resembling enlarged centipedes and spider hybrids, swarming in through the ventilation openings!

"Fire! Fire!"

Futile screams and wails eventually subsided into silence. Amidst the carcasses being devoured, Vasily stumbled backward in horror, tripping over the edge of the control panel, his pistol flying from his hand. His obese body fell to the ground, and on the screen before him appeared Tsurugi's face.

“I’m an officer! I have value! I can…” Vasily stammered, waving his hands wildly, trying to secure a final preferential treatment for himself.

"Eat this fat pig, and prolong his suffering as much as possible," Tsurugi ordered the Gastrea with a smile.

The next moment, countless Gastrea surged up, devouring, biting, and sucking. Countless mouthparts, countless tentacles, and countless tiny sharp teeth slowly and continuously gnawed at and devoured his body under Tsurugi's command.

These graphic and gruesome images, so graphic and cruel that even Germans couldn't accept them, were forcibly projected onto all media outlets around the world by Tsurugi, who wanted to force everyone to see this scene!

Countless people were filled with anger, fear, hatred, and vomiting, while Tsuruga took a deep breath, savoring the overwhelming death and pain, and revealed a pleased smile.

He had a great fondness for savoring this kind of death; the suffering of the guilty made every cell in his body sing with joy!

But this is not the end; this is just the beginning.

Without hesitation, Tsurugi opened his arms, and in an instant, countless Gastrea gathered in front of him as if they had been waiting for a long time, emitting bursts of hisses, as if they were expecting something.

"Don't rush, we'll... take it one at a time," Tsurugi said with a smile, looking at them.

The gold energy extraction device was released, and soon, these gastrulators rushed into it one after another.

Their bodies were ground to dust, and their souls were released, but Tsurugi didn't need to torture them at all. The long pain that had bound these souls to these bodies had already transformed into the purest gold energy!

Glug glug glug glug~~~~

Cancer, standing at Tsugumi's feet, also reached out towards the door, but Tsugumi patted her head gently and said...

"Don't rush, girl. Don't you want to be free after you've taken your revenge?"

Gululululu~~~~

Cancer retracted its antennae, conveying a sense of grievance.