Heavy-Armored Ants

The marching speed had to match the heavy steps of the golems.

The mages taking turns controlling and maintaining the golems were chatting in groups of twos and threes.

“Golems that have only just begun to be improved already have this kind of performance. Golems will definitely be the main stars of warfare in the future.”

“I'm glad I chose this path. Ten years ago, when I said I wanted to major in golemology, people mocked me and said I'd only be able to do civil engineering on construction sites. Now, I'm the one who's winning.”

Sitting on a swaying chair on a golem's shoulder alongside his colleagues, Mix was no exception.

His high vantage point allowed him to clearly monitor the surroundings.

From time to time, he released his crow familiar for aerial scouting. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but desolate, abandoned ruins.

‘How terrifying, the Great Devourer.’

This was once a common sight along the border, but now, because of the arrival of the ant swarm, humans had fled in droves. This abandoned land felt eerie in every corner.

Here, he truly felt what the apocalypse meant.

If the worst happened and those terrifying monsters crossed this borderland, spreading to the Empire or even further, what would happen then?

The baseless imagination made him feel cold all over, and Mix couldn't help but rub his arms.

“Huh?”

Just then, as he scanned the surrounding landscape through the eyes of his crow familiar, something suddenly burst into his field of vision.

A dense black wave, completely covering the ground, was surging precisely in their direction.

“What... what on earth is that...” Mix instantly froze in place.

Seeing this, a colleague on the shoulder of an adjacent golem immediately shouted, “What's wrong? What happened?”

But Mix didn't respond at all. He remained frozen in place, unable to believe what he was seeing, his lips trembling uncontrollably.

“Monsters! Ultra-huge monsters are coming!”

In the end, what squeezed out of his throat was an instinctive scream.

【Elise firmly believes that as long as these giant enemies are eliminated, the remaining enemy forces will be completely suppressed in an instant.】

These mutated heavy-armored ants and saw-jawed ants, which could only be described as ultra-large, were the latest weapons Elise had created with massive resources after devouring giant beetles.

Deploying them meant that Elise had already calculated that victory in this battle was absolutely certain.

And Elise's method of dealing with the golems was not some ingenious tactic or surprise attack as the humans imagined.

It was a clash of pure, raw strength. That alone was enough.

“No way, this is fucking insane...”

Count Louis, who had clearly seen those monsters with his own eyes, couldn't help but curse out loud.

They were too big, ridiculously big.

In terms of body length alone, they actually exceeded the golems.

It felt as if a large house with an attached warehouse was charging straight at them.

At first glance, the heavy armored exoskeleton on their bodies looked incredibly thick, but unlike the golems, they had six legs, and their mobility wasn't hindered in the slightest.

“De-deploy the golems! Quick! Immediately!”

At a time like this, anyone would place all their hopes on the golems.

The golems, hurriedly forming a defensive line, prepared to meet the monsters charging like bulls.

‘If we hadn't spotted them in advance, the consequences would have been unimaginable.’

Count Louis secretly felt relieved. Fortunately, he had ordered continuous scouting.

If these monsters had launched a surprise attack without warning, they wouldn't have had any time to prepare and would have been instantly crushed.

“We must stop them! We spotted them in advance and are fully prepared. We will definitely win!”

They weren't just sitting idly by, relying solely on the golems. The mages were hurriedly preparing combined magic.

Powerful Flame Bullets with high-arching trajectories sliced through the sky in unison, raining down toward the oncoming ant swarm.

“The sky!”

But the swarm would not just stand there and take the hit. They immediately launched a counterattack.

The Dragon Ants appearing in the sky dropped the venom-pot ants they carried in unison, launching an aerial bombardment.

The imperial army immediately used pre-prepared magic scrolls to cast wind magic, while simultaneously redirecting their combined magic to retaliate toward the sky with flame spear spells, minimizing casualties as much as possible.

But for the swarm, merely distracting them slightly was already enough.

“They're... they're going to crash! Ahhhh!”

Finally, a giant heavy-armored ant, charging frantically, slammed its sharp horn violently into a golem.

The golem, which had stood completely unmoved even when surrounded by the swarm in the previous battle, shook violently under this terrifying impact.

Sitting on the golem's shoulder, Mix looked at the pair of crimson compound eyes flashing from the heavy-armored ant's head, and instantly felt his breath catch in his throat.

He instinctively felt that those eyes did not belong to an ordinary monster venting its inner desires and emotions in a fierce battle.

Those eyes were colder and more indifferent than the scene before him, lacking even a trace of killing intent.

“Huh?”

Just then.

Heavy-armored ant's giant horn firmly wedged under the golem's armpit, slowly lifting upward.

The heavy golem, made of earth and stone, actually began to tilt and topple over bit by bit.

“No, please! No...”

Falling off the golem and slamming heavily onto the ground, Mix struggled in excruciating pain. The last scene he saw was the massive body of the golem collapsing right toward him.

‘If strength and size aren't enough, then just obtain more strength and a larger body. But how far can this path really go?’

It wasn't just the golem Mix was riding that failed to hold and began to collapse.

Like dominoes, the golems that were supposed to be solid barriers were knocked down and shattered one after another.

Lin Miao watched quietly as the swarm used pure strength to defeat the golems, which should have been the strongest entities on the battlefield.

Breaching the enemy's lines, countless follow-up swarms charged toward the panicked enemies.