‘It seems they cherish these guys quite a bit, keeping them hidden until now. In other words, taking down even one of them will deal a massive blow to them!’
Arthas's eyes lit up. The Tyrants were their highest priority for surveillance and elimination.
Not only because they were extremely dangerous, but also because they were high-tier units that the colony could not afford to lose easily.
Most importantly, everyone knew that if they could secure the corpse of a Tyrant—which the colony would fight to the death to retrieve—they could extract a large, finely processed magic stone from it.
“They're attacking the artillery!”
“Hmph, I knew they would use venomous stings and pincers, so I had them covered with crystallized magic stones.”
Seeing the tiger hornet ants attacking the ground artillery with their venomous stings, Arthas sneered.
Admittedly, when they first appeared, their venomous stings had indeed pierced the defense barriers, causing massive losses.
But things were different now. They blocked the stings with thicker barriers and fired back with magic missiles, attempting to shoot down the Tyrants.
And it wasn't just the artillery.
The knights on the wall had also prepared magic stone bombs to deal with the giant-jawed ants and scorpion ants.
“Did you really think we were such easy targets?! Ha, a direct hit!”
Arthas clenched his fists as he watched the continuous chain of explosions.
No matter how magic-resistant the Tyrants were, they had never withstood such overwhelming firepower.
The tactics they had prepared were flawless. Or so they believed.
“...What is that?”
However, as the heavy smoke cleared...
Arthas stared in disbelief at the scene before him, letting out a dazed sigh.
The tiger hornet ants, which should have been shot down, were flying completely unscathed within a protective barrier that looked remarkably like their own.
“They're not dead! They have some kind of unknown barrier around them!”
“Oh no, the defensive line has been breached! Hold your ground!”
At the same time, screams and shouts echoed from all directions.
Taking advantage of the Imperial army's panic, the other Tyrants—who had similarly deployed barriers using the psionic energy channeled through their magic hearts—began their slaughter.
...
The Tyrants' simultaneous deployment of barriers completely turned the tide of the battle.
The artillery and the knights' personal weapons were instantly rendered useless, and massive cracks appeared in the defensive line.
The panicked Imperial army fell into complete disarray, allowing the ant colony to surge in. The soldiers who had been holding their ground suffered devastating casualties, falling one after another.
‘Why barriers of all things?’
Watching the colony achieve yet another leap forward through the screen, Lin Miao naturally had this question.
Why did Elise choose defensive barriers as the first technology to mimic?
“...I see. The structure of barrier magic itself is very simple and intuitive.”
Celia, who shared the same question, was the first to figure out the reason.
The main reason was that it was the easiest type of magic to mimic.
At this stage, where more experiments and preparations were still required, attempting trial production of technology naturally meant prioritizing the simplest and most basic structures.
Barrier magic, which merely required releasing energy and maintaining it in a film-like shape to block enemy attacks, was precisely the easiest to copy.
“Furthermore, this directly neutralizes the enemy's most powerful weapons.”
In addition, the output of the barriers on the Tyrants was precisely designed to withstand the exact firepower of the Imperial army's primary weapons.
The magic shells fired by the mages, the magic wave cannons of the ordinary soldiers, the spell rounds of the knights' personal weapons, and so on.
These weapons, which had once dealt devastating blows to the ants by piercing their exoskeletons—which were otherwise immune to ordinary cold weapons—were now completely useless.
By creating barriers capable of withstanding this firepower, Elise turned the Tyrants into a vanguard that ripped through the enemy's formations.
“Abandon the first line of defense in sectors three, two, and four! All forces, retreat to the second line of defense and plug the gaps!”
As the sun set completely and darkness enveloped the land...
The ant colony, having finally breached the high wall, chased the panicked Imperial army and flooded into the defensive line.
In the darkness, every rampage of the deep purple-glowing Tyrants was accompanied by a chorus of screams and panicked cries.
There were even many who died from friendly fire.
Under the urgent orders issued by the Commander-in-Chief, Duke Arthas, after careful consideration, the routed Imperial army scrambled back to the second line of defense, barely managing to escape with their lives.
“How could this happen...”
Arthas slumped to the ground, muttering to himself.
The moment the ant colony became capable of mimicking and replicating their magic, their technological superiority—one of their greatest weapons—turned into a fatal weakness instead.
Worse still, the army's morale had suffered a devastating blow.
This was the price that had to be paid for Astaroth's constant propagation of the power of their advanced magitech civilization as a means to win over and control the populace.
【Elise confirmed that the enemy's morale had collapsed】
Although they had not yet breached the second line of defense, Elise was highly satisfied with the destruction of the first line of defense and its facilities, as well as the collapse of the Imperial army's morale observed by her frontline forces.
In the pitch-black night, the barriers of the Tyrants shimmering in all directions were enough to instill immense terror in the Imperial soldiers.
‘Did she even calculate this?’
The barriers themselves possessed a powerful visual deterrence.
Lin Miao couldn't help but shudder. He suspected that Elise had intentionally displayed this power to break the enemy's morale.
Her formidable learning capability was not limited to magic alone.
Elise's comprehension of her enemies—the humans—had also reached an unprecedented height.
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