** Trent POV **
The situation has shifted, we abandoned the outer ouposts, and after doing so a massive wall has formed running across the land from coast to coast, it's impossible to build something like that so quickly, but every attempt we make to get anywhere near it results in the one approaching being fired upon, and we dare not risk our high ranks to test the power of these fortifications so for now, we've deemed the area a No-man's land, and advised the hunters to heed the warning on the signs placed outside the walls.
While the council of elders plotted their next move, the city had lost a great amount of power due to the failed subjugation of the mystery force led by the young man, and now something even worse can come instead.
As a result they're fear has overruled their pride and they reached out to the other cities for support in suppressing whatever lies beyond the wall.
But with winter so near, they cannot lend support until the new year, but when that time comes we can assemble the might of the nearby cities to quell this threat to our region, and in doing so aquire the power behind them to raise ourselves up to ever greater heights.
"No sense driving yourself crazy looking for something you can't see from here."
"I swear there are time I can see that great wall even from this far away. Can we really win against something that can create something like that so quickly?"
"Guess we'll find out, but if we get the 7th's and even 8th involved they won't stand a chance."
"Isn't that risky, what if the cause is an 8th order Mutant beast? That would break the long-peace wouldn't it?"
"As if beasts could build something like that, it's probably just an awakened with a latent ability with the Earth allowing them to form up great walls like this out of the very earth itself. Coupled with a lost military cache that they've used to arm the walls created through their skill."
"If that's the case we could break through just by rushing the walls with numbers, but what if they have worse weapons from the cache? That's like asking people to mark to their doom?"
"That's what the 5th's and above are for, no weapon wielded by the hands of man can harm a 5th and above, they'll protect the lower ranks who rush the walls against cannon fire and the like."
"But first we must survive the winter snows."
"That's right, the city will get by pretty well, but they anticipate 30% losses from all the outposts due to the increase in tithes taken to make up for the abandoned zone."
"We're lucky their powerless to resist or we'd have an uprising on our hands."
"Hahahaha they can dare to dream, but in the end their just awakenless who cares what happens to them, they're lucky we've not made them our slaves to work day and night."
"Guess you're right, come on let's get to the training hall, if war comes in the spring, best we power ourselves up as much as we can until then to increase our chances of survival and spoils from our achievements."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
** Beast POV **
"What was that?"
"You heard me you oaf, we've felt the disappearance of a good number of 6th rank mutant beasts in the east."
"Are the humans starting to move already?"
"No it doesn't seem to be the case, instead from what we've heard from the beast slaves within the cities they've actually been withdrawing against a different foe."
"Hurum… could those undead humans finally be making a move after so many years of inactivity?"
"Calm yourself Wolf lord, it's unlikely the undead care not for anything so long as it doesn't come close to them, and I doubt any Mutant would approach them for the sake of hunting, theirs no point the gems aren't worth it and you can't even it them when you kill them."
"Hurrrrrr you're right about that Viper Lord…. Ugh I can still remember that aweful taste that time I tried to eat one, Humans are so tasty why is it their undead can be so foul?"
"Elephant Lord, hypothesithez that these undead represent just how rotten to the core humans really are, in the end they are either food for us, or reveal their true nature by turning into one of those things."
"Well even still with winter approaching if there is a new threat we need to know, but even if we had flying mutants go they'd not be able to return till winter."
"Will this throw off our plans against the humans?"
"Doubt it, if anything this new threat will aid our plans."
"That's good, too many years have we sacrificed the young just to make the humans lower their guards enough for us to take this chance."
"Don't worry, we'll be able to take down a few of their cities before their 8th ranks can properly respond and even if they do, we Beast Lords will step forward to stop them.
Humans don't want to break the peace, unlike us.
Humans might be stronger when at the same rank, but we like always outnumber them. While only a single 8th rank survived the last war, now we've got close to 50 once again while the humans have 8-9 from what we know. If this war happens like we intend, we can get rid of most ofthose even if it costs us all of our own, but they will have to sacrifice many of their cities in the process, and in the next ensuring peace we who have claimed even more habitats will be able to recover much faster and a few decades more will all we need to finally wipe out the miserable humans once and for all."
"Well let's keep a few for the farms, can be getting rid of the tastiest meat after all."
"Ha ha ha humans in cages, being bred for food long have I dreamed of when that day comes."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
** General POV **
Across the world things progressed as they always had, humans retreated within their steel cities to last their way through winter, while many of the mutant beasts entered hibernation in their own domains to do just the same.
While not true for all mutant beasts, the majority likewise hideaway once winter came, while others who grew out winter coats could brave the harsh sub-zero temperatures and continue to remain active year round, doing all they can to locate food, and hunt the human outposts unable to defend themselves or even receive reinforcements from the Fortress cities.
Winter was the beasts advantage, this was the time when humanity's growth was slowest since they could only work off whatever they had managed to gather in the summer, were they to run out they could risk braving the cold and dangers to aquire more materials, but would you really risk going out along or in a small group without the knowledge you'd have backup if something went wrong?
All the while the beasts you were trying to hunt were either in hiding themselves or had become specialized to surviving in winter.
It's like hunting in the dark and wearing a blindfold.
Sure it can heighten ones senses but that doesn't matter if you die before that can happen.
Adding on to it this year brought a new threat to the world, venturing out against the world as it was plus the new unknown lurking beyond that wall would mean utter and certain death, so even if humanity ran out of materials or even food they'd long turn to starvation or even caniballism before they'd bother to venture out and risk their own life and the loss of something they could even use.
The rest of the nearby cities in former Europe had gotten wind of the emerging presence within the heart of human territory however the best they could do was make promises to send forces towards Trent if it was still standing come spring thaw, or to reclaim the city if it had already fallen to the beasts or other forces by the time they'd arrived.
Losing a Fortress city was a big thing to the humans, while the resistance against the beasts was fairly unified this didn't stop humans from being humans.
Their lust for power created the desire to rule multiple cities even if you couldn't dominate the lands around them, but with control over more than one you'd have more reasources and more manpower to keep venturing out securing more cities under your grasp until there comes a point when you can consider yourself one of the true rulers of humanity and ascending up to the demi-god rank, where you could call yourself the ruler of a nation.
But even then there was territory already carved out by the few Human demi-gods who already existed and those not yet bound to one, still resisted unification under old world hatreds and nationalities, only power could truly unify since without power you opinion meant nothing.
** Axiom POV **
When I saw the first signs of winter coming, I dreaded having to spend it in this place but now… the snowfalls came and our work ceased, we were allowed to hole up in our provided homes, even given basic cultivation materials.
We are still captives (slaves) right?
We get 3 meals a day, a secure place to sleep, even free materials for cultivation isn't our life here better than it ever was back in the city?
During our downtime we started branching out to talk with the other's who'd come here same as us.
We all followed the same missions but no attempt to rescue us ever came, which we all concluded meant the cities had already written us off for dead.
No doubt our rivals had already made their moves against our families and loved ones, and as much as the thought caused my blood to boil I couldn't bring myself to blame the commander, not even his soldiers.
We'd come to disrupt the utopia that was this place so we deserve the punishment of having our own slices of heaven turn into hell, maybe we can return with the power of this place to spread this Utopian feeling back to our home cities to rescue everyone whose been harmed.
~ ~ ~
He he he who cares about the city, all I need is right here, the commander is awesome, sure we need to work 8 hours but we get provided all the food we need and now that winters come we even get soul gems to cultivate!
Beyond that his forces are truly equal and I'm thankful for that, we may be trapped here but at least theirs women!
They might have a rough exterior but after all the month's I've been here I finally began to wear one of them down, persistence is the key.
Not in a creepy way I just kept saying hello when we passed, striking up a banal conversation taking a simple step forward each time until I got her to agree to try my home cooking.
It wasn't anything great I'd admit but compared to the rations anything cooked is better.
She didn't show any sign of enjoying it but I caught a simple facial tick that meant she was pleased.
I don't know where she came from but to me her stony expression was all I ever wanted.
Finally I went for broke and asked her out, for real just walked right up and asked her to be my girlfriend.
Right there in front of her fellow soldiers and everything…
To my astonishment she agreed, commenting how it was approved by the commanders orders or something but I didn't care I just heard the happiest words of my life.
Since we'd become a couple we were granted a unique perk of being given a shared unit where we could live together, this was the first strike causing the dam to burst as before I knew it couples were forming up between us captives, the soldiers and even each other.
This military base which was so structured had quickly become a tight-nit community.
Pretty sure there will be more than a few people applying for time off before the snows begin to melt as our population is sure to grow.
**Commander POV**
Who says winter is hell?
Trapped inside with my lovable Game Waifu's, with almost all the comforts of modern life.
Ok sure it wasn't nice enough for us to go out on a skiing date or vacation, but we could still go for a walk to check out the scenary within the base, seeing how the structures looked vastly different being coated in snow, finding the joy in stamping down our feet to create perfect imprints of our boots into what was once a pristine coating of the ice crystals that had fallen from the sky.
The job of a commander was never over, that was true I'd still be required to completed a few tasks each and every day.
But compared to when we were active this was nothing, easy even.
The winters here were long, from the gathered information, ½ the year was winter and the peaked in the middle the nights getting so treacherous it was unsafe to even leave a window open let along go outside.
Thanks to the system we had adequate winter clothes to deal with the beginning and the supplies to allow everyone to radiate their homes for the darkest spell, the total loss of life due to the environment within our territory should be the lowest it had ever been even possibly before the apocalypse.
Thanks to the engineer corp working with the Psychic initiates, and plus the system we managed to extract and recreate compact disks with movies and tv shows, even data chips that possessed a library of literary works I had read in my previous world pulling the raw data straight out of my memories.
Thanks to their work the downtime quickly passed by as not only I but the other soldiers and even our slaves bedded down and immersed ourselves in this guilty pleasure.
On top of that or rather perhaps because of the entertainment the final want came to light, one that was bound to happen which I had approved of long ago, but coupling between my soldiers and the captives started to form, there were even couplings between captives from different groups and cities but at the end of the day the total number of singles began to decrease at an alarming pace.
I'm thankful that when deploying my soldiers I could choose the gender of the deployment otherwise we'd have a big old sausagefest going on, with the few women hunters probably being attemptedly forced into things they didn't want to happen not by my soldiers but by their fellow hunters.
My men could restrain themselves if I commanded it, but the same was not true of slaves, so long as they could get away with it they would try, sure we could intervene but posting a soldier to always stand on guard over ever slave was such a waste of our manpower.
At the end so long as the couples are happy I'm happy and as indicated by the system the pairing of the natives with my soldiers would lead to an increase of humanities numbers, which mean so long as I could possess enough natives we'd have what was required for a seed population such that even if the rest of humanity were to wage an unending war with us, we'd still have the minimum genetics required to breed up a new non-suicidal version of humanity.
The main requirement was that all couples were voluntary and had the consent of both parties, though it seems that it took the natives approaching not only my women, but also my men for these couple to form, there'd yet to be a case where one of my men, approached someone asking them out.
Perhaps the command from earlier needs to be revised but I don't want to make them think it's obligatory or anything.
Oh yeah… guess I should also point this out, I had mentioned before about my Waifu's… ß yeah that's right multiple, and no I didn't cheat on Zofia with a native.
During the first month of Winter when I wasn't spending time working or with Zoe, I still conducted my gacha pulls, and well, I got myself my Second Super Soldiers plus 2nd Command Support staff officer.
That's right, got a first Gen Tanya Adams, and also pulled Lt. Eva Lee the commanders assistant from the 2nd game.
Tanya was pretty brusque and wasn't really one for forming attachment to, honestly it felt like she had more of thing for Boris than anything.
But she was Gen 1 after all, in that game she played for both the Allies and the Soviets, well if you played multiplayer that is.
Here dual wielding Colt M1911s with practically an unlimited amount of C4 made her easily one of my deadliest subordinates and well if she didn't want to be with me in that way, I wasn't opposed, I mean I already had Zoe and when she arrived, the newest Lt. blushed incredibly furiously at seeing me and Zoe holding hands.
Didn't take long after that for her to confess to me…
Wait maybe that's why my male soldiers are holding off their mimicking me…?
No couldn't be could it?
So with both Support Lieutenants from the second game at my sides I kept myself really warm this winter.