“The monsters are rushing over! Run!”
The sturdy high wall had finally fallen. The first to suffer complete destruction were the residents of the towns and villages located slightly off the retreat path of the high wall defense forces.
If they could have followed the retreating soldiers, they might have had a slim chance of survival. But having been completely abandoned, they could only watch helplessly as the swarming ants closed in, turning them into lambs for the slaughter.
This village was one of them.
By the time the news of the high wall's fall, the ants' advance, and the order to evacuate arrived, the dense swarm of ants had already neared the village.
“Everyone, run! Run as far as you can! We will hold them off!”
Ivan, a paladin who happened to be dispatched to this village to handle some affairs, had no choice but to raise his sword to buy time for the villagers to escape.
However, with fewer than thirty men, trying to block a swarm of over several hundred ants was like throwing eggs against a stone.
“No! You should come with us and evacuate as quickly as possible!”
The terrified villagers tried to persuade him.
Ivan shook his head with a firm expression. “This is the mission the Goddess has bestowed upon me. Before everyone has safely evacuated, I will not take a single step back.”
This is what a true paladin is.
Deeply moved by his noble spirit of sacrifice, the villagers dared not waste any more time. They hurriedly packed their belongings and fled.
In the chaotic village amidst the frantic evacuation preparations, Ivan held his longsword, quietly gazing toward the north, waiting for the impending wave of ants.
They're here!
Finally, accompanied by a dense buzzing of wings, a writhing black wave surged from the northern horizon.
Tiger hornet ants were the first to slice through the sky, launching a surprise attack on the village, followed by countless ground forces sweeping through everything in their path.
Watching this, Ivan channeled his holy power to its absolute limit.
“If you want to pass through here, you'll have to step over my corpse first!”
Ivan brandished his longsword, charging toward the countless ants rushing at him.
For the Goddess he believed in, and to save these innocent villagers.
He firmly believed that as long as he staked his all, a miracle would surely happen.
【Elise has ordered the predation of prey.】
Those who refused to surrender and dared to resist, bearing the divine protection of the Goddess.
These were precisely the prey Elise permitted them to devour.
Elise ordered the slaughter of anyone who dared to oppose the ant colony, including Ivan.
In the next instant, Ivan's attempts to resist were completely crushed like a sandcastle hit by a giant wave. He was ruthlessly pierced and torn apart by venomous stings and sharp mandibles.
Contrary to his noble will to sacrifice, Ivan, who had made a reckless decision, did not even last a minute before becoming food for the swarm pouring in from all directions.
In the end, no miracle occurred.
Because the Goddess who was supposed to bestow miracles was not aligned with her servants' thoughts; her interference force was continuously weakening.
“How can this be... Sir Paladin is...”
Ivan's tragic end was clearly witnessed by the fleeing residents.
The villagers had not even managed to fully escape the vicinity of the village.
The ant colony immediately turned its sights toward these new prey.
【Elise has ordered that any prey tainted with even a sliver of holy power must be slaughtered without mercy.】
In truth, it was not just official priests and paladins; the number of people who harbored the Goddess Hestia's power within their bodies was far greater than one would expect.
Even those who had only gone to war once for the Goddess would have borrowed holy power from the priests during battle.
“No! Help me!”
The ant colony surged into the screaming crowd of refugees, precisely picking out those who carried holy power within their bodies, ruthlessly biting them to death and devouring them.
Ten-year-old Ed sat paralyzed on the ground, helplessly watching his neighbor being dragged away by a spider ant.
There were no adults left to protect him now.
The adults were either too busy saving themselves, fleeing in panic, or had already been caught and killed by the ants.
Just then, a gladiator ant appeared in front of Ed.
This monster, capable of slicing a person in half in an instant with its razor-sharp mandibles, gently touched Ed's body with its antennae.
Confronted by the ruthless predator, Ed was frozen in sheer terror, unable to move.
“...Huh?”
Yet, in that moment, the gladiator ant turned its head away from Ed and walked right past him.
It turned and lunged at a middle-aged adventurer fleeing nearby, severing his neck in an instant.
A cool female voice echoed beside the young boy: “You will not die.”
Ed looked up toward the source of the voice, asking with a trembling tone, “W-Who are you?”
The female voice remained entirely emotionless as she spoke word by word, “The Great Devourer will no longer harm you, but this land will belong to them. Go south with the survivors, and never believe in the Goddess again. Only then will this hell come to an end one day. It definitely will.”
With those words, the figure slowly walked past Ed, who remained slumped on the ground.
She was a beautiful woman with long silver hair. Even the ants passing by her did not touch her at all.
To Ed, she looked somewhat dangerous, her body covered in an exoskeleton similar to the ants.
Yet at this moment, her face was filled with infinite sorrow, and she was silently weeping.
【Elise cannot understand Celia's emotions. It only knows that this is the Great One's will.】
What Celia was feeling right now could not be described as simple sadness.
How could I possibly understand? This is probably an emotion that even I cannot accurately fathom.
Lin Miao sighed with a solemn expression and shook his head.
【Elise regrets not being able to acquire more nutrients.】
“It is indeed a loss. How should we make up for it?”
In accordance with Lin Miao's wishes—and thanks to Celia accurately conveying this intent to Elise—the ant colony had not harmed those who did not possess the Goddess's power.
But while they obeyed, to Elise, leaving these easily obtainable, free prey uneaten was fundamentally incomprehensible.
In its view, now was the time to devour as many prey as possible to accumulate nutrients.
In Elise's eyes, humans were nothing more than food.
It had been so in the past, and it would likely remain so in the future.
Casting his other emotions aside for the moment, Lin Miao, as a god, began to contemplate how to appease Elise.
Worst-case scenario, I can just throw more food into the terrarium. Feeding them a single mealworm is more cost-effective than feeding them a human anyway. But... this method is only a temporary fix.
Lin Miao agonized over how to solve this problem.
Ultimately, there were only two solutions: either find more new food, or hunt down more of the Goddess's servants who could serve as food.
“Hold back those monsters! This is the great destiny bestowed upon us by the Goddess!”
“Once this defensive line is breached, everything is over! We must hold!”
Right now, the second method seemed far more feasible.
That was to completely crush the final struggle of the Goddess Hestia to avoid being driven out of Terra, thereby harvesting a massive amount of prey.
Following the ant colony, Celia, who had turned everything along her path to scorched earth, had also arrived here.
This was the final line of defense, built along the river, right in front of the Holy Kingdom's capital.
Now, in the eyes of the Church members who had once supported her, Celia had become a lackey of the Outer God, a witch.
Looking through the eyes of her scouts, Celia stared at the Holy Kingdom's Saintess, Marianne, who was clad in magnificent silver armor and wore a crown, and bit her lip tightly.
Beside Marianne, Grand Duke Lucas spoke, “Marianne, you said you wanted to talk to her? Don't be ridiculous.”
Marianne, who had also clearly seen Celia's appearance through her telescope, let out a scoff and said something that shocked everyone: “But we have to try, don't we?”
She actually wanted to negotiate with Celia.
Can we win? But this time, I have nowhere left to run. This is an oracle handed down by the Goddess herself...
But contrary to her relaxed expression, Marianne's back was already drenched in cold sweat.
The Goddess Hestia had already handed down an oracle to Marianne, commanding her that she must win this battle.
But to Marianne, now that even the high wall was gone, she stood absolutely no chance of victory against the fully mobilized ant colony.
“Maybe a miracle will happen? If I talk to her, perhaps the fallen Celia will suddenly come to her senses and blow herself up along with the monsters.”
Driven to a corner, Marianne began to babble nonsense.
Although the people around her looked at her with skeptical eyes, no one dared to voice any opposition.
After all, who knew if a crazed Marianne would use her mace to bash their heads open first.
In the end, a messenger carrying Marianne's resolve ran toward Celia's direction—or rather, toward the ant colony.
The flag carried a signal indicating a desire for dialogue.
However, before the messenger could even get close, he was brutally dismembered by the ant colony.
Watching this, Celia let out a self-deprecating laugh. “Marianne, even though you've become the Saintess now, you are still too naive.”
Celia was merely an individual parasitized by a Gene Stealer and enslaved by the colony. She only possessed her own will through Elise's rage and Lin Miao's assistance.
Contrary to the misunderstandings of others, she had no authority to begin with.
Everything depended on Lin Miao's will.
And the Queen Ant, Elise, accepted Lin Miao's will and turned it into reality in her own way.
Marianne naively believed that because of Celia's existence, the ant colony—which had once been a natural disaster itself—could become an entity capable of dialogue. To Celia, who was of the same age, this thought was simply too naive.
【The servants have launched an offensive.】
“The outcome was decided long ago, Marianne. Between you and me, one of us must die here.”
The ant colony had only one purpose: to completely eradicate the Goddess's forces gathered here and turn them all into food.
Celia put her mask over her face and raised her staff.
Without any battle cries or war drums, the ant colony, acting as a single entity, charged toward the enemy's main camp on the opposite bank of the river at the exact same moment.
“They're rushing over!”
“How is that possible?! Among those monsters, we didn't see any mutated species capable of running on water!?”
The soldiers of the Holy Kingdom panicked.
According to the intelligence they had gathered previously, only water strider ants, which had been transplanted with the water strider's ability, could move on the water's surface.
But now, they couldn't see a single water strider ant.
【Celia is paving the way for the army.】
But there was actually no need for them.
Celia grabbed the leg of a tiger hornet ant flying behind her and instantly took to the sky.
She swept over the heads of the charging ant colony, passing through the dense artillery fire, and instantly rushed to the very front.
“Freezing magic... to think its scale would be this massive!?”
The mages of the Holy Kingdom, who were frantically casting spells, were completely stunned.
As Celia landed by the riverbank, she unleashed a massive spell once more.
She lightly tapped the water's surface with her staff, and a terrifying freezing magic instantly spread out, completely freezing the entire river.
The ant colony immediately surged onto the frozen river, pouncing on the terrified Holy Kingdom soldiers.
They charged at full speed, biting through the defensive barriers, converging into an unstoppable, terrifying force that crushed everything in their path.
Even the sturdy high wall had failed to block this massive torrent, and now, unable to even utilize the river—their final hope—the Holy Kingdom's soldiers quickly fell back in defeat.
[Goddess of Light: Ahhhhh! I will definitely kill this bitch!]
Sensing her impending defeat, the Goddess Hestia let out a desperate roar in the Divine Net forum.
She has other strongholds anyway, so why is she acting so angry?
Lin Miao clicked his tongue in disgust as he read her post.
Hestia's actions stemmed from nothing more than her desire to expand her own influence.
Compared to Lin Miao and his servants, who had staked their lives and existence, this punishment was far too light.
The Holy Kingdom's army retreated all the way to the capital, engaging in a brutal street-by-street battle. However, the defense line they had barely managed to maintain eventually collapsed entirely.
A one-sided slaughter was about to begin.
Rate on N.U.
