Coogler looked down the empty, ruined street, the shadows of the buildings making the lane feel like a dark, suffocating tunnel.
The remaining 150 police officers and soldiers had also arrived at the South Eastern Perimeter. They all get ready with the swords, bazookas and other weapons to face the monsters.
"They're coming," Azoff shouts, pointing down the street, "The ones who ruined our lives, killed thousands of innocent citizens."
"The monsters may be just a few minutes away from us!" Coogler shouts at his highest, "We can't say how many of us will get out of here alive! But I will say one thing, we can't let them go away. It will be the last day of humanity!"
It was time for another battle, a battle which will decide the future of humanity. This battle will decide the future of the people of not only Elyria but many other cities, towns or villages.
In the distance, an enormous, deafening chorus of roars vibrated the air. Through the haze of twilight, the soldiers could see hundreds of dark, towering figures, moving with a horrifying speed.
They were no longer running; they were a black tide surging toward the newly formed line.
"Eyes up! Swords ready! Remember the neck! For Elyria!" Coogler raised his sword high. His voice, clear and loud despite the distance, cut across the roars.
"Form ranks!" Azoff's voice cut across the street like a whip. "We push those monsters back into the forests. Elyria does not fall on our watch!"
Major Coogler and Major Azoff stood at the front, both holding their swords high with their right hands, ready to take down the monsters. A large Total of 400 police officers and soldiers stood behind him, grim-faced, sweating beneath their helmets that already felt too heavy.
The first monster stepped from the shadows. It looked at the soldiers, making a low, wet, horrible noise with its huge jaws, showing it meant to kill them immediately.
The first line of soldiers unleashed a volley of fire with their guns, the sound a deafening, unified crack. They fired continuously at the monster with their full force.
Bullets slammed into that monster's twisted, blackened hard skull, making it shudder violently and slow its charge, but the creature remained on its feet. As if the bullets were nothing for it.
Before the echo of the gunfire died, the grounds erupted. A wave of monsters, dozens, then scores, poured from the tree line and the shadows of the nearby destroyed buildings, moving in a frenzy of crawling, leaping, and inhuman sprinting.
The screams began a heartbeat later, a high, terrible sound swallowed almost instantly by the chaos.
The first ranks of soldiers were annihilated by those monsters in no time.
One was snared by a massive, shell-like hand and dragged beneath the dense underbrush; his gun clattered on the pavement, his final, choked scream cut short as his throat was ripped out.
Another soldier was pulled down from the line, his modern armor screeching and bending under claws that pierced the hardened steel like cheap foil.
Another monster seized a soldier and tore him in half, ripping his upper body from his legs. A second soldier lunged, sword raised to strike the monster's neck, but the creature slammed him away with a casual backhand, sending him tumbling through the air.
"Hold your line!" Major Coogler bellowed, a primal sound that barely cut through the carnage.
Coogler runs as fast as possible towards the line breach, his heavy blade cleaving through the neck of a monster that had its jaws clamped on a soldier's leg.
Thick, black and dark blood, more like oil than blood sprayed across Coogler's face and uniform, momentarily blinding him.
"Push them back!" Major Azoff shouts.
"These motherfuckers are just impossible to kill!" A soldier lets out his inner voice to speak loudly.
"They have the ability to regenerate, it's like that they are almost immortal." Another soldier speaks out.
"We can't let them destroy Elyria Town!" A military captain speaks out loudly at a different position, "We must stop them before it's too late!"
Another monster had grabbed a soldier with both hands and then it slowly tore him in multiple pieces, first his left leg and then it tore apart his body in half and then crushed his skull with its right hand.
The other soldiers were watching the whole scenario with horror, their eyes were fully terrified by the horrible scene.
But it didn't stop those soldiers who had already witnessed those scenarios earlier that same day.
The soldiers charged on those monsters with much planning this time, they were able to kill many more monsters this time, then they had killed in their first battle.
Major Azoff moved with brutal, focused efficiency. He used his shield not for defense, but as a hammer, shattering the knee joints of one creature before decapitating it with a swift, horizontal strike of his sword.
For every monster they felled, three more took its place. The soldiers' formation dissolved into a series of desperate, individual fights. They were drowning in the tide.
Grenades were tossed, blasting chunks of earth and monster, but even dismembered monsters writhed and kept crawling until their brains were destroyed.
Bazookas fired continuously, still it was like no effect, the lines shattered. It always did.
By nightfall, the air was cold and silent, save for the crackling of distant fires. Only 25 soldiers, a mere fraction of the force, staggered back through the safe house's gate.
This mere number of 25 soldiers wouldn't have survived if Coogler and Azoff hadn't agreed on forcing back to the safe house, when the number of monsters weren't slowing down.
The soldiers limped, crawled, or were carried, their eyes filled with the horrors they had witnessed. Their uniforms were shredded rags, stiff with dried blood, most of it belonging to the friends they had just left behind.
Major Coogler and Major Azoff were the scarred remnants at the rear. Azoff's face was hollowed out with exhaustion and grief.
Coogler, covered in deep, weeping gashes, dragged his sword, the blade's tip cutting a furrow in the dirt. He did not speak a single word about the 375 soldiers and police officers who had fallen to the onslaught.
He didn't need to. The crushing silence of the two Majors filled the safe house, telling everyone the terrifying, impossible truth.