Chapter 43 An Army Of Mutants

Chapter 43 An Army Of Mutants

There are even more sweepers than we originally predicted. More than ten retrofitted heavy trucks. Two giant supply trucks behind the attack trucks. Several dozen Shatterlands motorcycles, several dozen giant riding lizards, and many bigfoot birds.

How many sweepers are there? At least three or four hundred, and that's a conservative estimate.

I know combat power has nothing to do with raw numbers. These sweepers are all brutal, ferocious mutants who joined together to wreak havoc upon the world. Compared to ordinary sweepers, they have better weapons, more power, and are far more fearsome opponents.

It's incredibly rare for a battalion of more than three or four hundred sweepers to appear within a few hundred kilometers of this region. A battalion like this is completely capable of laying siege to an outpost with a population of around ten thousand, and they've appeared at just the right moment when our strength and morale have yet to recover.

Now they've breached the outer perimeter without even needing to fight.

The two sides are roughly three hundred meters away from each other. One strange, bizarre-looking mutant after another comes into view. More than eighty percent of these sweepers are highly mutated, with twenty percent being moderately mutated.

There are around ten mutants who are particularly striking. They have ugly faces and are of differing sizes, but all of them are at least three meters tall and about four times as bulky as an ordinary human being. I wouldn't believe mutants like this could exist if I wasn't seeing them with my own eyes. These creatures don't look like humans at all. They're nothing more than vertically walking behemoths.

But if you think the only advantage these behemoths hold is their great size, you'd be completely wrong. Their chests, arms, and thighs are completely covered in steel plates, and their weapons are giant warhammers that weigh more than two hundred kilograms. These aren't human beings. They're walking, steel-clad mobile fortresses.

In the Shatterlands these giant mutants are generally referred to as maneaters. Maneaters possess incomprehensible amounts of strength, and when they use those enormous warhammers they can cave in even armored vehicles with their blows. A single ordinary maneater would be able to effortlessly dominate a squad of over ten outpost guards. But the ten-plus maneaters here are all armed to the teeth. They'll definitely pose an enormous threat to Blackflag.

Clank. Clank.

Right at this moment, yet another large group of highly mutated sweepers appears, and they line up neatly behind the maneaters.

These sweepers aren't as terrifyingly large as the maneaters, but they're still twice as bulky and muscular as ordinary men and roughly two meters tall. They're fully outfitted with self-manufactured sets of metal armor and helmets. They hold steel shields with their left arms and heavy war axes with their right.

These creatures are known as sweeper thugs, and they serve as the medium infantry for sweeper battalions. Only one in every ten sweepers is chosen to become a thug, so they're all particularly fierce. They're dressed in heavy metal helmets and thick metal cuirasses, making them look almost like giant metal cans. As for their heavy war axes, those things can lop off limbs as easily as one might pluck a flower.

The rest of the sweepers aren't outfitted in such an orderly fashion, but they're still quite well equipped for a Shatterlands army. Some have sabers, some have warhammers, some ride giant lizards, and some drive vehicles.

Thirty or so comparatively short mutants are particularly eye-catching. These mutants have only been moderately mutated, and it's possible to tell they were once human. Most of them are equipped with longbows, firearms, and other long-distance weapons.

I feel as though I've seen a ghost. How the hell is it possible for sweepers to be equipped with firearms?

They have heavy shock troopers, medium infantry, riders, archers, formations, combat tactics, and complete sets of weapons and gear. In the Shatterlands, this is essentially a proper army.

My hands tighten around my shotgun. We just survived a beast wave that nearly destroyed us. Now we face something worse. Something organized. Something that thinks and plans.

The sweepers stand there in their formations, waiting. They know we're weak. They know we're exhausted. They know this is their moment.

And there's not a damn thing we can do to stop what's coming.