Doomsday Pillars

DDay +53

The city center of Semarang is 305 kilometers squares in size. It used to be the home for more than 1.5 million people. It has hundred thousand houses, 10 high rise buildings, which are mostly hotels, and a few large famous religious buildings. Java’s oldest church, the great mosque, a pagoda, and the oldest Chinese temple. These architectural landmarks showed the Indonesian’s unity with people from different religions and race.

Two days prior, the gathered survivors launched a mission to eradicate all the undead from the Semarang city and the results were satisfying. The combined forces of 20,000 survivors led by Alex and Rico including the fighters brought by the regent did a fantastic job in clearing out the area.

The regent arrived in Semarang city aboard a navy battleship. He only brought with him 300 fighters, but all of them were Death Squad soldiers. These Indonesian elite special forces were recruited only from the best of the best.

After the disease spread out, unfortunately there were only around 900 Death Squad soldiers who survived the infection. These elite special forces were the main reason the regent was able to quickly control the central Sumatra from the undead.

When the regent finally was able to connect the high-frequency radio signal, and get in touch with Alex, he quickly brought 300 of these men to Semarang City.

The 300 men that was brought by the regent were all surprisingly at the peak stage Mortal Realm. They were veteran fighters with peak strength and each of them was not weaker than Alex’s elite units. These 300 Death Squad soldiers were strong enough to be compared against 10,000 regular fighters.

In the last three days, the survivors had infiltrated Semarang city from all sides, they went through every house, buildings, malls and the ten high rise towers. Now, all teams have reached the city center, they predicted that by the end of the day, the City of Semarang would already be sanitized.

Alex separated himself with the units. He was going around all over the city to check the situation of the army together with his stone golem. He’s trying to minimize the battle casualty. He was mainly looking out for cases of those Stage two black zombies that would be found within the city center. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Alex suddenly stopped in one of the famous landmarks. This building had a huge red wall and gates. Inside the gates, theres a big 10 meters tall bronze statue of man in front a huge red palace. It’s the oldest Chinese temple called the Sam Po Kong. Alex stopped in this particular building when he saw a familiar figure standing by himself in one corner of the palace.

When Alex approached, a dozen men suddenly moved in on him, but when the men recognized Alex, they slowly moved back to their posts to continue guarding the perimeter of the temple. Alex finally reached the man, it was the regent.

The 60 years old man, had a certain charm despite his age, but there’s also an aura of strength in him that would give pressure to common men. Fortunately, years of experience made Alex one of the exceptions.

Alex could tell that the regent had already consumed spirit stones and at the peak stage Mortal Realm. Alex believed that the old man in front of him would gradually become the same heroic figure from Alex’s previous life. The West Regent, protector of the west.

"I hope I am not disturbing you, regent."

"Not at all Mr. Alex."

Alex tried to figure out why the regent was standing in this place. The regent saw the stone golem standing next to Alex with interest..

"What do you call this thing?"

"Its a stone golem Regent, its a medium level artifact"

"I see... interesting"

The regent turn around and went staring back at the huge stone wall with engravings. The stone wall is a 5 meter high and 50-meter wide stone sculpture. It tell a continuous story of a certain famous person.

"Alex, do you know whose story was written in here?"

"Yes, but I know only a little bit, regent. As I recall, this wall tells the story of a great admiral of the seas, Zheng He."

"Yes you are right..."

Zheng He was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China’s early Ming dynasty. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family. During the 14th century, he led an expedition across Africa and South East Asia, into Java and to this Semarang city.

According to medieval Chinese sources, Zheng He commanded seven expeditions consisted of 27,800 men and a fleet of 62 treasure ships supported by approximately 190 smaller ships. He’s voyages have been described as the great fleet of gigantic ships, far larger than any other wooden ships in history.

He created such an impression with the locals that prompted them to build one of the most majestic buildings within the center of the town as a memory and honor to the admiral.

The regent then start reading the writings on the engraving,

"We have traversed more than 100,000 li of immense water spaces and have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising in the sky, and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds day and night, continued their course as rapidly as a star, traversing those savage waves as if we were treading a public thoroughfare..."

The regent continued,

"The 14th century, 600 years ago, the age of Heroes..."

The regent was lost in thought for a while. He then continued,

"I believe it wasn’t because the Admiral title, nor his armada that defined him as the hero of his time. But rather, it is because of his courage to go blindly into the new frontier facing the unknown. In some ways, it is somewhat related to our situation right now, is it not?"

"Yes regent, I agree."

The regent turned around to face Alex while smiling,

"I feel fortunate that despite my age, I still have a chance to be part of the new age of heroes."

A few hundred meters away from where Alex and the regent were standing, the streets of Semarang city were filled with people battling against the undead. The gunfire sounded like thunder, the roaring of the mutated zombies and the clashing of melee weapons could be heard.

The three days battle started from three corners of the city of Semarang, they employed this strategy to ensure the complete annihilation of the undead in the vicinity. The 10,000 fighters from Semarang and the Madurese led by James Randall and Alex’s elites took the east side, General Rico with his 10,000 fighters from Jakarta took the west side, while the regent’s 300 Death Squad soldiers took the south side.

After three days of thoroughly going in each street and buildings, the three groups were also finally nearing the center of the city. As they were getting closer to the center, there were occasional encounters with each other. However, it seemed that the more they went closer to the center, the more mutated red zombies they fought. Due to that, the third day was harder than the previous two days.

Alex’s elite group of 50 was the first to reach the center of the city. The city’s center had a roundabout interchange going to the six main streets of Semarang. It was surrounded by large buildings such as hotels, schools, and shopping malls.

The groups needed to advance until they reached the city center’s roundabout interchange. The noise from the fight on the streets roused the undead from the surrounding buildings. There were now thousands and thousands of the zombies flowing into the street like a tsunami.

Theo was standing in the middle of all of the fighters, but even then, he still felt anxious. Sometimes, he felt unlucky to receive his psychic abilities. Because ever since Alex found out of his special skill is, Alex forced him to train harder and even put him in this suicide team, "I am a priest for Christ’s sake!" He can’t help but comment to the group.

"As I said earlier, I think we rushed in too far and too fast."

The beautiful short hair blonde girl with glasses next to him gave him a weird look.

"Oooo!! Please shut up with all the whining and just stand behind me!, I will protect you!."

Theo stopped trying to understand this girl named Cindy a long time ago. This girl is normally calm and smart, but she would suddenly turn into a..... whatever she is when she sees an enemy.

Alex actually assigned Winter the ex Navy seals in charge of the elite team whenever he’s not around, but James Randall always liked to play commander.

"Yes, this is actually a bit too much, but don’t worry reinforcement from the south is coming."