Chapter 139
While the Balhut Cult Headquarters enjoyed a brief period of peace, sharing their diplomatic achievements gained through the international organization, the situation at Ulsan Airport was completely different.
There, a fierce battlefront had emerged as they fought against the Immortal Cult in an all-out war.
But what tormented the soldiers the most was…
“Damn Undead! How the hell are they moving in this freezing cold!?”
“They’re a goddamn nuisance!”
Even in this bitter cold, the Undead army moved flawlessly, executing their strategic maneuvers with unwavering efficiency.
No matter how harsh the blizzard, the Undead showed no signs of fatigue as they relentlessly assaulted the Ulsan frontlines.
Of course, if the battle were purely a frontal assault, the fortified Ulsan Airport, defended by the Balhut Cult, would easily crush the incoming Undead army using their fortifications, traps, and defensive weapons positioned along the approach routes.
But…
“Looks like the enemy isn’t stupid!”
“Honestly, though… If they were smart, they wouldn’t be picking a fight with us in the first place!”
The real problem was that the Undead Army wasn’t just blindly throwing themselves into battle.
Even though they were Undead, meaningless attrition warfare would only deplete their available forces, something the Immortal Cult couldn’t afford.
Even with their endless numbers, if they lost over ten thousand troops, the damage would be unsustainable for their forces.
So instead of throwing themselves at the fortress, they had to think of an alternative strategy to counter the Alliance forces.
And the most efficient tactic available to the Immortal Cult was…
“They’re flanking us!”
“They’re avoiding the fortified Ulsan Airport and hitting us where it hurts! I mean… it’s the obvious move, but still!”
In simple terms, rather than attacking the fortified Ulsan Airport head-on, they chose to strike the supply lines of the Alliance forces.
Having seized control of all the bridges leading to Northern Ulsan, the Immortal Cult had countless alternative routes to bypass Ulsan Airport and attack the supply convoys.
And if luck was on their side, a special detachment could even strike the main base of the Balhut Cult itself.
To the Immortal Cult, this plan was so tempting that not using it would have been absurd.
“Our food supply trucks are under attack!”
“Goddamn Undead! Even dogs don’t interrupt people when they’re eating!”
But of course, the Alliance forces weren’t oblivious to the importance of their supply lines.
In a defensive war, securing a steady supply chain was everything, and the Alliance’s high command knew well that their supply convoys were the lifeline of their entire war effort.
That’s why…
“Our commander saw this coming and set up outposts ahead of time!”
“Hey, you Undead bastards! These outposts are reinforced with bulletproof armor!”
Jung Dong-gun had anticipated this situation before arriving at the battlefront.
To protect the supply lines, he had ordered the construction of outposts at every critical chokepoint, or at the very least, surveillance posts to monitor enemy movement.
And now, those precautions were paying off.
With guard posts and fortified outposts set up at key locations, the Alliance forces could immediately detect any Immortal Cult movement and respond in real time.
Whenever an Undead special detachment was spotted, the Alliance’s rapid-response patrol units would be immediately deployed to eliminate them.
For the Immortal Cult’s raiding teams, this meant instant death.
Their strategy relied on surprise attacks, but with their stealth advantage nullified, their effectiveness was completely crippled.
“This is such a hassle.”
“We always need to have a contingent on standby.”
Still, the defensive measures came at a cost.
A portion of the Alliance’s military forces had to be permanently assigned to guard duty, which in turn weakened the defense of Ulsan Airport itself.
More importantly, soldiers were unable to properly rest, as they had to remain on constant alert.
In the long run, this would slowly drain morale and combat efficiency.
“They’re even trying to cross the mountains now.”
“Did they forget? Korea’s terrain is brutal, and let’s not forget the monsters in those mountains.”
Seeing this, it became clear that the Immortal Cult’s entire strategy had shifted from attacking the fortress to targeting supply lines.
They must have realized that as long as winter lasted, the Alliance forces wouldn’t engage them in open battle, so their flanking maneuvers continued relentlessly.
The most troublesome part was that they weren’t just using roads—they were sneaking through the mountains as well.
However, the Alliance commanders and soldiers laughed at this strategy, knowing that the mountains of Korea would naturally eliminate the Undead.
“Those idiots!”
“The monsters in the mountains will take care of them!”
But…
“…Wait. What?”
“The monsters… are gone?”
A terrible realization set in.
Listen carefully—expecting anything always leads to disappointment.
The Alliance forces should have never counted on the monsters to stop the Undead in the first place.
Contrary to their expectations, the monsters that should have been obstacles in the mountains had already been dealt with.
“Wow! We just hit the jackpot! Fresh corpses for our Undead army!”
Instead of being a hindrance, the monster corpses in the mountains were actually being converted into reinforcements for the Undead army.
For the Alliance forces, this was beyond disastrous.
In reality, there was a very simple reason why the mountain monsters didn’t pose a threat to the Undead forces—
They had already been turned into Undead soldiers.
“…They froze to death?”
“Monsters froze to death?! What kind of bullshit is that?!”
“That’s a lie, right!?”
The monsters residing in the mountains had been unable to withstand the hellish winter of the Korean Peninsula and had frozen to death.
In the summer, the region was plagued by torrential rains and extreme humidity, making it uncomfortably hot.
For monsters that had migrated here from outside regions, they had assumed that this was a warm climate and had failed to prepare for the harsh winter.
While the native creatures of the Korean Peninsula had been busy preparing for winter, the monsters had been preoccupied with their territorial disputes and infighting deep within the mountains, utterly unaware of the coming cold.
By the time winter finally arrived, only a select few had the instincts to adapt, while the majority of the monsters either froze to death or starved due to their lack of food storage.
For humans and native creatures, the harsh winters of the Korean Peninsula were a fact of life, and preparing for winter was second nature. The Alliance forces had simply assumed that the monsters had done the same.
“Emergency! Emergency! Code Red!”
“Deploy mountain troops to scout the area immediately! Launch surveillance drones!”
The news sent shockwaves through Ulsan Airport and even reached the Balhut Cult’s high command, where the general elections were underway.
Immediately, the Alliance forces deployed American-imported drones and their trained mountain troops to track and eliminate the Immortal Cult’s special detachments before they could infiltrate deeper.
“We have to monitor the mountains now?”
“So the frontlines have expanded again.”
The Balhut Cult had come to a grim realization—the monsters in the mountains could no longer act as a buffer zone.
For the monsters to regain their former dominance, winter would have to pass first.
Not all the monsters in the mountains had perished, but those who had survived had been forced into hiding, sheltering deep within caves to endure the cold.
With the mountains no longer acting as a natural barrier, only the Balhut Cult could stop the Immortal Cult’s special forces from using them as infiltration routes.
“We’ve located them.”
“Alright, let’s go eliminate them.”
To counter this new threat, the Balhut Cult established a mountain response unit.
Using drones for aerial reconnaissance, they could detect enemy movements in advance and dispatch their mountain troops for quick elimination.
Of course, the ability to deploy military drones in a post-apocalyptic world was already an impressive feat, but the Balhut Cult had secured the right to import American military hardware through their diplomatic relations.
Using American-imported drones, mountain surveillance became a viable strategy.
In fact, even before the apocalypse, the Korean Forestry Service had frequently used drones for mountain patrols.
They had employed drones to rescue lost hikers, track illegal poachers, monitor unauthorized logging, and even catch illegal waste dumpers in the mountains.
Through the Balhut Cult’s administrative authority, they recruited former forestry officials who had worked in national parks, gaining access to their pre-apocalypse expertise.
“Get the hell out of our territory!”
“Thanks to you bastards, we’re forced to climb mountains multiple times a day in this freezing cold!”
The mountain troops, now trained in combat-based mountaineering, successfully eliminated the Undead units attempting to traverse the mountains.
With this, the Balhut Cult had countered every strategy the Immortal Cult had attempted.
This back-and-forth battle of tactics continued all the way until Bahamut attended the international summit after the general elections concluded.
The Alliance and the Immortal Cult had engaged in a relentless war of attrition, exchanging blows with neither side making a decisive breakthrough.
“At this point, shouldn’t a negotiation delegation be forming?”
Even within the Balhut Cult, it was clear that this war had no clear end in sight.
They knew that their forces couldn’t launch an offensive until winter passed, but they were growing frustrated with merely enduring the attacks.
Their troops were being stretched thin, and the fortress garrison at Ulsan Airport was gradually depleting.
For the Alliance, the constant loss of manpower was making the idea of a ceasefire with the Immortal Cult increasingly appealing.
“We’ve been winning so far. Wouldn’t they be even more exhausted than us?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the hope.”
Since all of the Immortal Cult’s major tactics had failed, the Alliance forces assumed that their leadership must be growing desperate.
They decided to hold out hope for a negotiation delegation, but…
“The Undead are attacking again.”
“Do they have unlimited resources or something? Do they ever even tire?”
No matter how strong-willed a human soldier was, repeated defeats were bound to break their morale eventually.
And while the Undead themselves felt no fatigue, the Immortal Cult’s leadership was still human.
They needed food, shelter, and warmth to survive, especially in the bitter cold of this winter battlefield.
In fact, to cope with the stress of war, even the leaders of the Immortal Cult needed pleasures such as delicious meals for comfort.
And the Balhut Cult was quick to analyze this weakness.
“Just how much are these guys eating per day?”
In the Balhut Cult, even the rank-and-file soldiers were concerned about food supplies—so how was the Immortal Cult not facing the same problem?
“They’re Undead. Undead don’t need food.”
That much was obvious—but…
“But the Cult’s leadership and their human followers still exist, right?”
“Oh… right. That’s true.”
The Immortal Cult still had human commanders, mid-tier officers, and civilians among its ranks.
Unlike the Undead soldiers, these humans needed food to survive, and in this harsh winter, they required even greater caloric intake to endure the cold.
“We’re fully equipped with winter gear, and we’re still freezing our asses off.”
Even with proper cold-weather equipment, the Alliance soldiers were struggling against the frigid temperatures.
Many were secretly praying for the formation of a negotiation delegation to broker a ceasefire, at least until winter ended.
“Commander, sir.”
“Is there good news?”
“No, sir. Another Immortal Cult raiding unit has been spotted. They just won’t give up.”
The high command of the Alliance forces was fully aware of the plummeting morale among their troops.
At Ulsan Airport, where the entire front was being coordinated, Jung Dong-gun turned to Han Seong-geun, hoping for positive news, but received nothing but grim updates.
“Sigh… so there’s still no negotiation delegation?”
“We’ve even posted calls for negotiation on Ulsan’s community networks, but they’re ignoring them entirely.”
In other words, the Immortal Cult had zero interest in negotiating with the Balhut Cult.
Jung Dong-gun sighed deeply—there was no easy solution in sight.
In fact, the situation was even more perplexing than expected.
“If they won’t even consider negotiations… what the hell are they planning?”
He had assumed that after proving their strength, negotiations would be inevitable.
Yet, no delegation had arrived.
“…Do they seriously plan to fight to the death?”
No matter what, waging a total war with the goal of annihilation required absolute conviction.
Even if the Immortal Cult succeeded in defeating the Balhut Cult, they wouldn’t gain much in return.
“We haven’t even seen their leadership in person. What the hell is this hostility about?”
“We have no idea.”
Since negotiation wasn’t an option, Jung Dong-gun made his final decision.
“Then we’ll just have to force them to the negotiation table—by any means necessary.”
—
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