“T-They've been spotted! It's those things!”
Naturally, the Imperial army had mobilized along all fronts, searching the sea in an attempt to sink the Leviathans acting as transports.
After discovering the stealthily moving Leviathans through detection magic, the Imperial navy fleet hurriedly set up magic artillery on the sea's surface and began bombardment.
【Elise ordered an attack on the gathering enemy forces】
If the Leviathans had been just a bit faster or dived a little deeper, they could have easily avoided the offensive unscathed.
But Elise did not do so.
Because the more they avoided conflict, the slower the troop transport would be, and the greater the losses would become.
Thus, she decided to take this opportunity to completely destroy the obstructive Imperial navy fleet.
“Aaargh!”
“They're surfacing!”
The Leviathans surfaced simultaneously, opening the armor plates and passages on their backs.
From inside the dorsal carapaces—harder than tortoise shells and impenetrable even to the bombardment of magic artillery—countless tiger hornet ants soared into the sky, unfurling their wings.
Elise had long anticipated this situation, so the majority of the transported forces were combat-capable flying mutants.
They seem quite a bit weaker. Back at the high wall, they even deployed combat golems and all sorts of bizarre magitech devices.
Watching the Imperial soldiers screaming as they plunged into the sea under the assault of the tiger hornet ants' sharp jaws and claws, and the warships sinking one after another, easily pierced by the venomous stingers of the Tyrants, Lin Miao began to doubt their feeble combat strength.
At the high wall front, the psychological warfare between the Imperial army and the watchful ants was still ongoing.
Compared to the rapid development and combat strength displayed there, the strength of the Imperial navy seemed no different from the past.
“If only I had paid more attention to the sea!”
Astaroth, the culprit behind all this, was looking at the exact same scene as Lin Miao, clutching his hair in frustration.
Astaroth and the Lucadia Empire were paying the price for their lopsided technological development.
The fields that received investment progressed at breakneck speed, while the neglected fields remained stuck in the past. This developmental imbalance had become their fatal weakness.
【The vassals confirmed that the enemy fleet had been completely annihilated】
Utilizing diving ants that had absorbed the abilities of creatures like water striders, the ant colony predated all the survivors who had fallen into the sea, and then continued executing their operational plan.
Only the half-submerged wreckage of masterless warships remained on the sea's surface.
Right after Elise broke straight through the Imperial navy fleet responsible for guarding the coastline...
...the news naturally spread throughout the entire Empire.
“Lord Guardian, the humans of the Empire report that a massive horde of monsters has landed and is advancing inland after destroying their fleet on the eastern coastline.”
“I have never trusted those foolish humans.”
Meanwhile, the elves, who were destroying the nests of the Great Devourer and purifying the contaminated lands in the southern part of the Empire, also heard this news.
“It is merely more prey to hunt.”
Virgil, an elf dressed in pure white robes, did not even blink after listening to the report.
“The great Elven God has already given us all the answers. We shall eradicate those monsters and become the rulers of this land.”
His green eyes, unique to pure-blood elves, sparkled.
Within his line of sight, a colossal treant, its entire body covered in intricate magic circuits and gears, grabbed the corpse of a dead gale ant and stuffed it into its open chest.
Inside its massive body, the mutated ant corpse—which was the size of a warhorse—was crushed, pouring out as transparent crystals.
The elves discovered that the mutated ants acting as combat troops contained a significant amount of magic power, and they in turn began to extract and utilize this energy.
Stable magic power inherent in nature, a force more violent and destructive than magic power, and even a strange substance mixed with unknown energies... Still, it's quite useful.
The power used by the ant colony was a mixture of absorbed magic power, battle aura, holy power, and all other energies, but the elves did not care about this at all.
An elf spoke up, “But is this really alright? If word gets out that we are capturing refugees of the human Empire to use as slaves...”
A cold sneer curled Virgil's lips. “What is wrong with collecting spoils of war on the battlefield? Without us, those incompetent fools would have lost the entire continent to those monsters. They should be grateful we spared their lives.”
At this moment, those gathering the crystals at the treant's feet were not elves, but a crowd of humans clad in rags.
Rate on N.U.
