【Elise wanted to hunt the enemies who had fled into the fortress and were constantly bringing in reinforcements via the seas and rivers.】
The new prey that Lin Miao had fed her, the water striders, temporarily distracted her from her anger, but the memories accumulated in the hive mind would never simply vanish.
Elise needed an outlet to vent this reignited fury.
And the sacrificial lamb she chose was the Imperial army led by Count Louis, who had currently transformed the city of Rupelin into a fortress and cowered inside.
For a colony with an extremely strong sense of territoriality, it was absolutely impossible to tolerate enemies setting up camp on their land.
“The Great Devourer is charging!”
The Imperial army, which had barely managed to catch its breath inside the fortified city, fell into despair as they watched the swarming ants.
The forces of the main nest deployed in full by the Queen Ant, Elise, were not something a mere fortress could ever hold back.
A pincer attack from both the sky and the ground commenced simultaneously. The fortress shook violently under the frantic impacts, teetering on the brink of collapse.
In the sky, the Dragon Ants carried the venom-pot ants, launching an endless bombardment.
On the ground, the heavy-armored ants and saw-jawed ants, having already proven their power, were unable to scale the walls, but they targeted the weakest sections and rammed them frantically with sheer brute force.
Holding out until reinforcements arrived had become practically impossible.
“They're jumping up again! Stop them!”
“Hurry, get this thing off me!”
Yet they could not even stop the ants that were launching a blatant siege.
Merely blocking the ants that could leap onto the walls in a single bound or crawl straight up the stone structures left them completely overwhelmed.
The Church personnel, including Celia, who had fought countless siege battles against the swarm at the high walls, had long since taught them all the tactics for handling emergencies. However, the panicked Count Louis and the Imperial command failed to execute these strategies effectively.
“Quick, get the wounded to the rear... What is this?!”
Just then, a knight who had swung his sword to save his subordinate suddenly paled in shock, shouting in panic.
Something had flown over, stickily wrapping around the arm he was about to swing.
“What is this... Argh!”
He tried desperately to tear off the sticky, cobweb-like substance, but he was instantly yanked away by a force several times his own, falling from the wall into the sea of ants below.
The ones shooting silk from their abdomens to “fish” the knights off the wall and devour them were a brand-new mutated species of the swarm.
They possessed bodies as large as warhorses, with exceptionally long, flexible legs, and their abdomens were highly developed, much like those of the bombardier ants.
In fact, before Lin Miao had fed them the large beetles, the very first things he had offered them were spiders.
From massive tarantulas to orb-weaver spiders skilled at spinning webs, and even venomous spiders whose poison could cause instant death, he had fed them all kinds of arachnids.
Having devoured various spiders, Elise created these mutated spider ants, which were now continuously shooting silk. They literally “fished” high-value prey, such as the knights and mages desperately defending the walls, pulling them down to be eaten.
“Let me go! Let me go, you monsters!”
Even the exceptionally strong and skilled knight commander was utterly helpless.
Clutching a spear infused with magic power, he fought valiantly, slaying countless ants. Yet, the silk flying from all directions wrapped around his body, instantly binding him so tightly that his immobilized form could only struggle helplessly.
The silk connected to the spider ants was quickly grabbed by the other surrounding ants, who pulled together with immense force.
Operating with mechanical precision, the collective force unleashed by the swarm in an instant was comparable to dozens of oxen.
“Aaaah!”
Even the powerful knight commander stood absolutely no chance. He was dragged away in an instant, plunging into the dense swarm below with a blood-curdling scream.
【Elise felt that even taking the disparity in strength into account, this battle was far easier than expected.】
In the end, the Imperial army's final resistance was utterly shattered, and the fortress walls were breached, collapsing into ruins.
The heavy-armored ants charged into the city, easily smashing the Imperial army's makeshift barricades with their heavy horns and massive bodies. The endless swarm followed close behind like a black tide, completely crushing and trampling the last remnants of resistance.
Throughout this process, Elise clearly sensed one thing: the difficulty of this battle was absurdly low.
The moment their golems were rendered useless, the once-high-spirited Imperial army that had initiated the war became as fragile as straw.
Compared to the previous battle at the high walls, this was as effortless as autumn winds sweeping away fallen leaves.
‘Is it because they received too little help from the gods?’
Lin Miao thought to himself that this was likely the difference made by the amount of assistance provided by a deity.
After all, the Imperial army stationed here had received almost no other blessings aside from those modified golems.
No one had been bestowed with special power, nor had anyone received a dedicated divine artifact.
【Elise sensed a fundamental difference. The enemy's movements, attitude, organization, and tactics—everything was completely different from the human colony she had fought before.】
“No way, she even noticed that?”
However, Elise, who had her own calculations, reached a conclusion entirely different from what Lin Miao had expected.
This caused Lin Miao to widen his eyes in sheer surprise.
The swarm had long since become familiar with human behavioral patterns through the countless combat experiences accumulated over this period.
They already knew that humans were different from themselves, heavily swayed by emotions.
They also knew that unlike themselves, who acted as one through the hive mind, every human individual possessed an independent consciousness.
【Elise's curiosity toward humans grew even stronger.】
【Elise wanted to understand humans on a deeper level.】
【Elise ordered the live capture of the human colony's “Queen Ant.”】
“...”
But Elise's train of thought did not stop there.
As she continued to ponder, she ultimately wanted to fill the gaps in her cognition in her own way.
And the beginning of it all was her desire to gain a deeper understanding of these humans, whom she had previously treated as mere prey to supplement her nutrients.
“No! Don't leave me behind! You bastards! You animals...”
It was a complete accident that Count Louis, the commander of the Imperial army, was targeted by her detection net.
It just so happened that he wore the most magnificent armor and robes, and the swarm already knew that the higher a human's status, the more they liked to dress flamboyantly.
Consequently, as he was retreating, he was identified by the swarm as the “Queen Ant” of the human colony.
“Nooooo!!!”
Watching his subordinates abandon him and flee, Count Louis let out a desperate, terrified shriek before being firmly seized by the charging ants.
Although he was not dismembered on the spot or had his head crushed like the others, being wrapped layer upon layer in sticky spider silk and dragged along made him the swarm's “first prisoner.” At this moment, he would have preferred to die on the spot.
【Elise looked forward to using this to punish the other human colony's “Queen Ant” who had infuriated her.】
Elise planned to understand humans by analyzing the captured Count Louis.
Her reason for doing so, of course, was to capture and kill the entity that had been constantly grating on her nerves.
「Bloodline Regulation LV4: Allows the regulation of produced individuals using information obtained from devouring prey, creating entirely new classes.」
「*Scope of obtainable information expanded.」
【Elise shed her skin once again.】
At the same time, she also acquired a brand-new power that could accelerate all of this.
After sweeping through the Imperial army occupying Rupelin, Elise devoured the entire harvest of this battle and completed another evolution.
There was now much more she could devour and understand.
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