86: Chapter 86 The Shaking World

Dawn had broken.

The first rays of sunlight pierced through the gunpowder smoke shrouding Shanghai, falling upon the ruins of the Sihang Warehouse.

Japanese Army Lieutenant Colonel Tanaka Shinnobu stood amidst the rubble, his military greatcoat covered in ash.

The air smelled of charred wood, gunpowder, and a rusty, sweet metallic tang.

Blood.

The battle was over.

His troops were clearing the battlefield—a bloody but necessary task.

Tanaka Shinnobu had expected to see mountains of Chinese Soldier corpses, proof of the Imperial Army's pyrrhic victory.

He lit a cigarette, his hands shaking slightly.

The chaos of last night still lingered in his mind. Those strange flying insects, the chain of explosions behind enemy lines...

It was very eerie.

But a victory was a victory.

A platoon leader ran over, his face pale and his helmet tilted to one side.

"Lieutenant Colonel, sir!"

"What is it? Casualty report," Tanaka Shinnobu said, exhaling a puff of smoke.

"Our side... suffered heavy casualties. But the Chinese..." the platoon leader stammered.

"What about the Chinese? How many died?"

"Not a single one."

The cigarette dropped from Tanaka Shinnobu's lips.

"What did you say?"

"We found no bodies, sir! Not even one!"

Tanaka Shinnobu grabbed the platoon leader by the collar.

"Impossible! Four hundred men! They couldn't just vanish into thin air! Go look again! Dig three feet into the ground if you have to!"

The Soldiers began their search.

They searched for hours.

They found broken rifles.

They found tens of thousands of shell casings.

They found blood everywhere, staining the shattered concrete a horrifying dark red.

They found the bodies of their own comrades.

But there was not a single Chinese Soldier.

Neither dead nor alive.

It was as if four hundred people had simply evaporated from the face of the earth.

The warehouse was a tomb.

An empty tomb.

Tanaka Shinnobu walked through the ruins, his military boots crunching on glass and gravel. He looked at the hideous gaping hole in the west wall. He looked at the two spots where the tanks had been melted.

A chill, unrelated to the morning frost, rose up his spine.

This wasn't a victory.

This was a farce.

This was a ghost story.

The report was like a lit fuse, traveling all the way up the chain of command.

At the frontline headquarters, Major General Yamada slammed his fist onto the table, sending maps and teacups scattering.

"Vanished?! You're saying four hundred armed Soldiers turned into ghosts?! Find them! They must be hiding in the Concession!"

However, the search within the International Settlement yielded nothing. The maze-like alleys and buildings had swallowed them without a trace.

The news could not be contained.

The foreign journalists who had witnessed the entire battle from the other side of the river were the first to spread the story.

In a smoke-filled room at the Cathay Hotel, a reporter from The Times was frantically typing his telegram.

"The Defenders did not surrender. They were not wiped out. Under the cover of a series of mysterious explosions that threw the Japanese Army lines into chaos, they vanished. It is a miracle. An Oriental Dunkirk."

The story exploded across newspapers worldwide.

Front-page headlines in various languages were screaming.

Le Figaro: The Mystery of the Shanghai Phantoms.

New York Post: China's Ghost Battalion: Where Did They Go?

Asahi Shimbun: A National Disgrace: Enemy Defenders Mysteriously Vanish, Imperial Army Powerless.

In Tokyo, at the Army General Staff Office, the atmosphere was ice-cold.

The reports from the Shanghai battlefield were spread out on a massive mahogany table.

In the column for enemy casualties at Sihang Warehouse, there was a glaring, shameful blank space.

A staff officer noted in red ink next to it: Situation unknown, presumed missing.

Missing.

Not killed in action. Not captured. Missing.

The word was like a slap across the face of every officer present.

The Shanghai Expeditionary Army Headquarters.

General Iwane Matsui stood with his back to the crowd, his posture stiff as he faced a map of Shanghai.

He hadn't spoken for ten minutes.

The silence in the room was heavy and suffocating.

He finally turned around.

His face was calm, but a storm was brewing in his eyes.

"Colonel Hashimoto."

A man in a Kempeitai uniform stepped forward from the shadows.

"Present, General."

"I don't care about your methods. I only care about results," Matsui's voice was low, each word as sharp as a glass shard.

"Find them."

"Find out what happened that night. What was that explosion about? What were those flying things? Where did those four hundred Chinese Soldiers go?"

"I want answers, Hashimoto. Not excuses."

"I also want the head of the 'Ghost' who brought shame upon the Imperial Japanese Army."

Hashimoto bowed deeply.

"By your command, General."

When he looked up, his glasses glinted.

The battle for the warehouse was over.

The real hunt had only just begun.