Master of Time

Chapter 55: Natural Selection

Growling could be heard all around, keeping everyone on edge, day and night.

The monsters do not sleep. They do not eat.

They are always restless, searching for and hunting down the living.

It is all in an attempt to increase their numbers.

That seems to be their only purpose in life.

Unlike in the countless fictional horror stories written in the past, the undead does have any physical weakness.

Decapitating does not kill them.

They apparently do not need eyes to see. They don't need to breathe either.

Dismemberment only incapacitate them until they manage to reassemble themselves somehow.

Full dismemberment is required. Doing a half-ass job of severing limbs only actually makes them much more dangerous due to the increased number of independently-moving body parts.

The only way to truly put down these abominations is burning them to ashes.

However, the flames must be hot enough to incinerate bones. No one wants to have burning skeletons roaming the world, setting everything alight, converting more zombies into skeletal undead.

Even then, there is a great risk of summoning forth something even worst.

This is because like energy, magical energy cannot be destroyed or created. It can only be transformed from one state to another.

The Nazis have learned all about the dire consequences of being half-asses over the decades worth of experimentations and researches, thus it is one of the reasons why they are resorting to using nuclear weapons.

Only nuclear fire can truly destroy any remnant of the monsters, stopping their evolution or mutation dead in its track.

It also thin out their numbers, preventing a terrifying convergence event. It has happened once before in Australia, and it takes an enormous amount of firepower to kill the oversize abomination.

That titanic monster cannot be killed even by countless nuclear detonations. Aside from its incredible size, dwarfing everything in sight, its instant regeneration is something to be feared.

Even with their undead number being thinned out almost daily, their existence alone has caused some irreversible side effect.

With deadly miasma constantly oozes out of their body, poisoning the air and the earth. Nothing grows within their wake.

The world is actually dying thanks to the product of human ingenuity, experimenting in forces they do not yet fully understand.

Hans still remembers the day when the first undead arose.

Under the constant barrage of bullets, the undead creature proceeds to bite off the face of a scientist and kills several more before being put down by a couple of flamethrowers.

It still manages to tackle one of the soldiers onto the ground despite being on fire.

That soldier did not make it, unfortunately. He died on his way to the hospital due to severe burn over most of his body. He was then cremated to prevent unwanted reanimation.

In fact, anyone who died in Germany must be cremated and buried in concrete to prevent an outbreak.

Even the ashes are contaminated with tainted magical energy, infecting all living things.

That is how dangerous these things truly are.

In spite of that, the Fuhrer himself orders the researches to continue no matter the cost. He had even increased the funding, hoping to attain immortality at the expense of the entire world.

At his current old age, he is very desperate. He is no longer the great man who lead Germany to victory over the Soviet and the American.

The man is just a paranoid corpse, holding onto his final breaths.

So many loyalists have been sentenced to death for speaking out against the Fuhrer. Their family exiled into the radioactive wastelands known as the rest of the world.

Hans and his sister are all that left his their family after their exile to Japan.

Japan is the only country that still has some resemblances of society outside Germany.

As allies during the Second World War, Germany did not bomb Japan into oblivion.

Germany only killed most of her people and then executed the imperial family to prove that there is no such thing as divine destiny that the Japanese constantly spewing about.

Seeing their emperor and his entire family being hanged publicly finally breaks the Japanese spirit. The zombie outbreaks crush what is left.

Due to the destruction of the country and its industries and economies, the Japanese are surviving on the scraps that Nazi Germany left behind.

Without foods or supplies, they are dying a slow death, just like everyone living outside Germany.

Even so, those people have not suffered more than Hans had.

Being branded as a traitor to Germany is a fate worse than death. His father and mother have suffered unimaginable torture alongside with the Jewish people and the undesirables.

Hans could only save his little sister with all the merits he had accumulated over the years.

Due to her young age, his sister would have been raped repeatedly until she died by countless of men, who have lost any sense of morality and humanity in a world gone mad.

His mother did. Her mutilated body is nowhere to be found afterwards, so Hans couldn't even cremate her and give her a proper burial.

Before what left of his father join him and his sister in their exile to Japan, his father was experimented upon after the torture. His father was injected with liquefied bloodstone.

What becomes of his father makes his stomach turn despite all that he has seen.

Hans grips his sniper rifle tightly, trying not to remember the pleading face of his father, begging to be put out of his unending torture and misery.

A son being forced to kill his father – this is what his beloved Germany has become.

It is no longer the beautiful country from his childhood, desperately struggling against the titans of the world.

The Titans are killed now, but what has replaced them isn't any better just like the Olympians in Greek Mythology. The new God of the world toys with human lives everyday.

Hans wonders when a Hero would appear from the remnant of humanity, rising up and bringing down Germany just like in those stories. He would love to see the day when that happened, but it is all just wishful thinking.

"Hans!"

A young man breaks Hans out of his thoughts.

He turns towards the person, whose face is covered with dirt and mud.

In that person's rather small hands is a loaf of broken bread and a bowl of transparent soup. It is his daily ration, which he shared with his sister. Foods is hard to come by in what remains of Japan.

"I save this for you, big brother."

The man speaks up once he is on the scaffold, overlooking a deforested area, separating the research facility from the city. The numerous snipers are watchful of anything approaching.

Each kills will earn them a little bit extra foods, but each wasted bullet will get them punished.

Due to her looks, his sister must disguises herself as man. However, as her chest begins to develop, it becomes increasingly harder and harder to keep her safe from all the men living in the research facility and nearby encampments and barracks.

"I have already eaten already. Those are yours."

Hans responses despite the faint growling in his stomach.

"Please don't lie to me, big brother. Please eat. You need your energy, so you can take care of me. If you don't, I will not eat either."

Seeing how his sister would not eat without him, he concedes and takes a few bites. The bread is very hard and the soup is tasteless, but with his current station, he is unable to get his sister real foods.

"How is that boy you have been seeing?"

Hans asks, causing his sister to blush. Before she could answers, a huge explosion rocks the earth. She turns towards the no-man lands, finding one of the landmines has been triggered. Her brother did the same just as another landmine exploded.

The dusts and debris reveals a shape of something bulky.

"What is that!?"

One of the snipers calls out as he looks through his scope. He fires at what appears to be the ground, but the bullet hits a translucent barrier.

The bullet explodes in mid-air as the barrier becomes invisible again. Whatever this is, it is invisible to the naked eye.

"Something is there. Shoot it!"

Before the man can fire again, a red beam passes through him. It looks like a net rather than a beam.

The sniper in his hand breaks into pieces as his body crumple into bloody diced chunks.

The smells of burning flesh could be noticed.

Even the scaffold he is standing on is sliced into pieces by the beam. More red beams shot forth from the air, slicing through each of the snipers with perfect accuracy in rapid succession.

"Brother!"

His sister pushes him out of the way as the red beam passes through his spot.

She looks at him before red lines appears on her face. Her hand reaches towards Hans before her body broke apart along with the scaffolding.

Hans is too shocked to even utter a single word. He stares at what becomes of his sister. It looks like someone cuts her up into perfect-size cubes.

Rapid gunfire masks his anguish screams.

They come from several mounted gun turrets around the base, all concentrating on a single target.

Hans grabs his rifle and turns towards the invisible monster.

A barrage of bullets is crashing against it. However, none of the bullets manages to pierce what appear to be some kind of shield despite being enhanced by magic.

Even magic bullets cannot penetrate their barrier.

The bullets did, however, reveal what is being hidden behind the cloaking field – a silhouette of a tank.

It appears that the Nazis want to test out their new spell. This isn't the first time they have done such a thing. Conducting live test is the best way to get useful data.

From what Hans understands, concentrated fire will eventually collapse the shield. Once that is done, he will kill the person who kill his sister. He finds a spot and takes aim, readying for the moment.

To the side of the monster, something sparks in mid-air.

A lightning flies forth, striking the mounted turret before jumping to another turret and another one until all the turrets are reduced to burning wreck.

That kind of weapon shouldn't be possible – at least not in a single salvo.

More lightning comes, ripping apart towers and killing all the men within them.

Before Hans could get his mind around what is happening, the air pulsates.

The atmosphere then being sucked into a single point before exploding outwards instantly, washing over everyone and everything.

The powerful shockwave knocks down the wall and sends everyone flying.

Hans groans and coughs out bloods after being sent crashing in the wall.

The impact didn't do more damage than the shockwave did. What kind of weapon that could do such a thing to a human body? He knows for a fact that Germany isn't that advance yet.

With all of his organs pulverized beyond help, Hans struggles to look towards the huge opening in the wall. He wants to see what kind of monsters Germany has awoken this time.

There are more than one of those monsters are out there, closing in onto the research facility.

From the gunfire all around him, they are coming in every direction. And with their might, nothing can stop their advancement.

Nazis soldiers are reduced to bloody cubes by laser blasts, being fried by beam of lightning, or being send flying by air cannons.

This is the first time they are so outclassed technologically or magically.

And these aren't the undead. No, they are war machines!

In fact, Hans could see dozens from their tracks on the ground.

One of tank drops its stealth field and channels power into the kinetic barrier, blockings all projectiles as it glows red hot.

Hans saw the Hydra symbol painted its side, glaring deadly at all of its enemies. The tank turns to face him. Its turrets point in his direction.

Intense heats erupt forth from the twin barrels, melting stones and steels like they were butters on a frying pan.

Hans closes his eyes as the flames burns away his sin.

He will join his sister soon, but he regretted not witnessing the fall of Germany for himself.