Army of the Damned

VOLUME 8 Chapter 9

Miles from the territory of the Vampire Kingdom, Paul is inside the main headquarters of the Airbase. Its tarmac is full of private jets and cargo planes with main battle tanks and helicopters constantly patrolling the perimeter nonstop and thousands of skeleton soldiers visibly littering the entire area. Inside, the Five Star General is surrounded by other high ranking officers and suited players of differing Guilds, many of them visibly still not over the fact that they were in a battlefield a day ago and was just called in for a meeting out of the blue.

The meeting is already going and most of the people inside the tight room in the airport are intent on quietly listening to the debate occurring between a Guild General and the Guild President of the Men of the Woods.

"I am still going forward with my request to give lower officers the ability to command skeletons regardless of the size of the unit."

"General, I cannot approve of that request. We have a cohesion to adhere to and respect to the higher ranking officers who worked hard to attain the requirements to earn their ranks."

"But have you seen the effects of our bureaucracy and red tapes alongside only giving higher ranking Generals the ability to give our skeletons permission to enter new regions has almost cost us the entire Western front?"

"As I said, I cannot approve of that. Even if the other Generals were to approve, we cannot allow players to control larger Unit sizes. We all agreed to this as our Generals technically cannot die. You'll all respawn anyways."

"Look at what happened to General Jackson though. Since he was in command of Three BCTs from Eldwood, the moment the sword saint took him out of the game temporarily, lower ranking officers were forced to keep their offensives limited with their overall effectiveness halved and the casualties tripled. We might have an infinite amount of skeletons to arm and send, but the material used, most of all the vehicles are finite and Iron Mountain and the city of Zavalda can only keep up with our current demands for so long."

"We won't be here any longer. I'm just asking for a bit more time to put up with this, till next year and the first two or three months. We're so close and so near to getting home. The portal is already active, we just have to start making sure it won't send us to hell or some messed up version of Earth."

"Yes sir..." he sighed and looked the other way on the screen as the tired player leaned down and rested his head on his hand. "And thus, we all die because of some paperwork." With the General giving up, the Guild President looks at the other High Ranking Officer who is in a concrete fortress with large tunnels where Brigades upon Brigades of skeletons are marching out to a railway with container vans where they are loaded like compact soldiers.

"Yes Mister President, we have confirmed that we have mobilized at least three million players, more than any of those are commanding seven to eight skeletons in full combat gear."

"But seeing these reports from a Guild city that got its Mana Core corrupted, it opened a portal to the underworld... The Undead Horde we will meet possibly next year is far more volatile and scary, the reports from it already show the Demons... they have Land, Sea, and Air capabilities and operate like mad rabid combined arms full of scary armored demonic beasts."

"Ahem, General. As a Senator, wasn't the plan supposed to be AT LEAST TEN MILLION? How in the hell do you expect us to defend the scattered player Guilds and cities when Geraldia alone has more width than Europe and Russia combined?!"

"Well sir, we'll be turning to Plan B as expected with replacing the rest with skele-"

"Skeletons. General, do you think those mindless goons are enough to even defend a pint of land we have taken in Schon?"