Chapter 178 | Swarm: I Became a Cataclysmic Disaster

Clad in shining silver armor and bolstered by reinforcement spells, the elven knights abandoned all attempts to protect Adela, charging in unison toward Celia.

Even if Celia could win in a one-on-one duel, she was currently alone, deep within enemy lines. Furthermore, she was in the middle of casting a grand spell to destroy the Prism Cannon. One slight misstep, and her barrier would shatter, leaving her body to be torn to shreds. She was in a critical situation.

“I've got you!” an elven knight shouted, unable to hide his excitement as he shattered her barrier, his blade mere inches from piercing Celia's body.

“...Huh?” However, his sword did not strike Celia as he had envisioned.

A split second before his blade could land, his own arm was severed. Blood sprayed, tracing a violent arc through the air.

The elven knight stared blankly at his severed arm, which was now flying away from his body.

“W-What is that?”

“It's a new monster!”

The knights who had rushed to attack Celia were instantly hacked to pieces, their mangled corpses collapsing to the ground.

The moment these entities landed, they swung their razor-sharp blades, ruthlessly slaughtering the elven knights.

Retracting their massive, sharp scythe-like claws, which shimmered with deep blue magic power, they encircled Celia to protect her.

The remaining elven knights watched their companions scream as they were torn apart, but none dared to step forward to rescue them. They could only retreat in haste, staring at these new creatures with hesitation.

They looked vastly different from any mutated Great Devourer they had seen before.

They were covered in a rough, pitch-black exoskeleton, and their eyes gleamed from beneath their armored heads—features similar to ordinary Great Devourers. However, the most striking difference was that they stood upright on two digitigrade legs, hunched forward, precisely wielding sharp blades with their four arms.

【Elise was pleased with her creation】

Indeed, these were the new Lictor variants Elise had sent to Celia for field testing.

Since she could splice human genes to create mage units capable of using magic, why couldn't she do the opposite and create warrior units capable of using swordsmanship? These creatures were born from that very concept.

Unlike magic, Elise had no direct method of absorbing swordsmanship, but a warrior in the colony had recently undergone significant growth. She was the second queen, Kerrigan.

Elise had used the data extracted from her sister, Kerrigan, to engineer these new units.

With her safety secured, Celia completed her grand magic without even looking back, a massive magic circle manifesting around her.

Driven to its absolute limits, her magic heart unleashed a spell that summoned a powerful bolt of lightning through the magic circle. The colossal thunderbolt struck and instantly vaporized the Prism Cannon, a weapon inherently hypersensitive to magic power.

“No!” Adela screamed as the colossal weapon they had pinned all their hopes on collapsed with a thunderous roar, reduced to nothingness right before her eyes.

...

After absorbing a portion of human genes classified as intelligent lifeforms, Elise possessed a vastly evolved brain. She constantly experimented with and conceptualized various genetic combinations. This was her duty as the queen.

“Infinite possibilities...” The power of imagination knew no bounds.

She could combine every conceivable scenario, continuously expanding her evolutionary tree. This was especially true when it came to engineering soldiers who would dedicate their lives to the colony.

Unlike Elise, who desired a beautiful appearance to win Lin Miao's affection, or Kerrigan, who sought to learn enemy martial arts to grow stronger, creating mere soldiers did not require the intervention of desire.

While desire could serve as a catalyst to achieve the impossible, it also brought severe limitations.

When engineering mutated soldiers for the colony, Elise completely excluded such desires. She designed and modified these mutants solely for maximum efficiency, optimizing their forms and abilities for peak combat effectiveness.

One of the mutants born from countless evaluations and filtrations was this new Lictor.

Its body was engineered to utilize the combat techniques copied from the colony's first warrior, Kerrigan. However, compared to Kerrigan, its physical frame was far bulkier and sturdier.

Its appearance resembled a bipedal monster rather than a human.

Yet, precisely because of this monstrous build, even if the Lictors' skills fell far short of Kerrigan's self-taught martial arts, they could still dominate close-quarters combat through sheer brute strength.

“Quick, hold them back!”

“At most, one minute and twenty seconds. Inflict as much damage as possible within that time, then withdraw.”

Elise watched the elves descend into panic over the collapse of the Prism Cannon, as well as Celia, who showed no signs of stopping even after destroying the weapon, intent on dealing maximum damage before retreating.

The Elven Empire's Third Legion, which had set out to purge the nest, was currently split into two divisions: the elven units responsible for rear artillery and operating the Prism Cannon, and the foreign race forces sent to lay siege to the front lines.

The forcibly conscripted foreign race forces were vast, numbering in the tens of thousands, whereas the elven-only units barely exceeded a thousand, making up a tiny fraction of the army.

Naturally, there were not many flying species present, and that small number would have been easy enough to defend against. The problem, however, was that the sheer force of Celia charging alongside the Lictors completely shattered the balance of the battlefield.

“No, hold the line!” The elven knights were caught entirely off guard by the assault led by Celia and her Lictors, who were even larger than beastkin as they charged forward with a deafening rumble.

Celia was the most powerful mage in the Great Devourer colony, and the coordination between a mage and knights was a classic, time-honored strategy across the continent.

Furthermore, their cooperation was as precise as clockwork, without a single wasted movement.

Guardian Adela of the Third Legion.

Sharing this consciousness, Elise watched as her loyal warriors protected Celia as one, allowing her to cast her magic freely. She could see exactly who Celia was targeting.

It was an elven woman clad in luxurious robes, wearing a golden laurel wreath upon her head.

Adela was nearby, responsible for overseeing and protecting the vital Prism Cannon.

In other words, killing her here would deal the heaviest blow to the enemy. The highest-ranking commander was right in front of them.

For an enemy lacking a hive mind, the death of their supreme commander would cause their organization to crumble rapidly. Celia did not miss this opportunity.

She intended to kill Adela within a single minute and withdraw before enemy reinforcements could arrive.

The time has come.

Observing the elven knights fall under Celia's magic, stripping Adela of her protection as the Lictors drew near, Elise commanded her units forward.

Adela desperately tried to dodge, her arrows shattering the head of one Lictor. In the end, however, before other guards could reach her, she was bound by magical chains fired from Celia's magic circle.

“W-Wait!” Although Adela screamed in terror, the Lictors swung their massive scythe-like claws without a moment's hesitation. Adela's body was hacked to pieces, and her severed head rolled onto the ground.

In that very instant, they took to the sky without a hint of lingering attachment, leaving the scene behind.

The guards who arrived too late let out wails of despair upon seeing the gruesome remains.

Their supreme commander had met a tragic, meaningless end alongside the ultimate weapon she trusted so deeply.

This meant the elves' offensive to secure their occupied territories and purge the Great Devourers—whose mere existence threatened their rear—had utterly failed. Far from being cleared, the invasion colony's nest rooted in their land had only grown larger.

“Report to headquarters immediately! They came fully prepared and are swarming in massive numbers! This is no longer a mere probe!”

Yet, the elves had no time to avenge their fallen kin, let alone plan their revenge for this humiliating defeat.

Sensing that the opportune moment had arrived, Elise mobilized all her forces prepared in the southern territories of the old Lucadia Empire and began a deliberate advance toward the northern border of the Elven Empire.

As the Third Legion's offensive collapsed, Guardian Ponuo of the Fifth Legion, who had been focused on defense, stared at the dense, oncoming black wave in speechless shock.

The earth, covered by the vicious, mutated Great Devourers, looked like a white sheet of paper slowly stained with black ink.

There were no traditional war songs or morale-boosting drumbeats, only the rustling sound of the Great Devourers' bodies rubbing together, carried by the wind.

“These maniacs...” Ponuo sighed under his breath as he looked at the screens flashing before him.

The displays showed emergency reports coming in from every sector of the Fifth Legion's defensive line.

Countless Tyrants enveloped in dark green defensive barriers were marching forward.

The flying species in the sky were as dense as swarms of midges over a summer lake.

The abandoned, unmanned outposts and positions in their path were effortlessly crushed and pulverized.

Panic-stricken elves desperately retaliated with artillery and magic, but the endless swarm of Great Devourers immediately filled the gaps left by explosions with their own bodies, advancing without a moment's pause.

“It seems it is time to end this war,” Lin Miao murmured as he observed the scene.

The Great Devourer colony, which had been growing and evolving without a moment's rest, was finally ready to put an end to this long, tedious conflict.