Intervention

When Celia arrived at the high ground along with the reinforcements, Marianne, completely disregarding the people around them, rushed over and hugged her tightly.

“Celia!”

“W-Wait, there are too many people watching here...”

Fortunately, she did not show an overly emotional reaction, which Celia had worried about.

Even Marianne's father, Marquis Lumiere, was too exhausted to care about anything else at the moment. “We must return to the high wall immediately. The main force is currently...”

Celia finally managed to push the overly clingy Marianne away and shook her head at the Marquis's words. “Rest assured. The main force has successfully broken out and hasn't suffered heavy losses.”

Unlike them, Celia had been keeping in communication with the main force led by Count Merlin.

Although most of their forces had been trapped in the ant colony's nest, they ultimately succeeded in breaking through.

That trap was merely meant to buy time from the beginning. The ant colony had another goal in mind.

“From the very beginning, their target was our support unit.”

Celia revealed this fact with a grave expression.

Marquis Lumiere could only blink blankly upon hearing this.

“But why? Are those monsters after our supplies?” Marquis Lumiere couldn't help but press.

He couldn't fathom why the ant colony would ignore the main force they had successfully trapped, only to go to such great lengths to ambush their support unit instead.

“I don't know either.”

Even Celia, who was well-acquainted with the ant colony's behavior, could not fathom the truth.

Celia would never have dreamed that the ant colony's ultimate goal in designing all of this from the start was her.

“The enemy is here!”

“Prepare for battle! Only by fighting and winning here can we shake off our pursuers and safely retreat to the high wall!”

Celia declared in a deep voice, raising her hand to blast a scouting ant that was monitoring them from the sky with a spell.

The despair was not yet over.

Now, it was time to resolve the massive problem they had been putting off all this time.

【Elise confirmed the location of her prey. To capture the colony's nemesis designated by the Great One—to capture the human queen ant—Elise mobilized all available forces】

And this battle was destined to be far more tragic and brutal than any they had experienced before.

In the depths of the original nest's terrarium, Elise, who was waiting quietly, clearly saw Celia's face through the final gaze of the dying scouting ant.

“Prioritize targeting those with well-developed hind legs! Once they charge from a distance and disrupt our formation, the other enemies will exploit the gap!”

The massive ant army from all directions launched a fierce assault on the Holy Kingdom's army occupying the high ground.

This was all the remaining forces Elise had kept behind after sending most of her army to the western front, patched together with the newly hatched reinforcements hastily mobilized from various new nests.

For both sides, this was nothing short of a decisive battle.

If the Holy Kingdom's army lost, they would be completely wiped out; if the ant colony lost, all the efforts they had deployed during this period would vanish into thin air.

“Replace the bolt heads of the heavy ballistas! The carapaces of the reinforced enemies can only be penetrated by bolts crafted from their own carapaces!”

Celia naturally took command, directing the army's defense with all her might.

Sure enough, the troops commanded by her—someone who understood the ant colony better than anyone else—did not shrink back in the slightest even when faced with the swarming ants.

That was the predatory ant, a mutated species born after devouring the giant tiger beetle and tyrant tiger beetle.

They possessed massive bodies, overwhelming strength, and powerful mandibles capable of crushing a living warhorse along with its armored rider.

Indeed, the paladins and knights made multiple charges, only to be swatted away by the predatory ants' forelegs and chewed to pieces, armor and all, by their giant mandibles.

“Throw the lassos!”

Celia immediately ordered the knights to entangle a predatory ant with multiple lassos simultaneously.

At the same time, prepared oil barrels were hurled over, drenching the predatory ant's body.

In the face of a hard carapace and brute strength that even heavy ballistas and low-level magic struggled to affect, the desperate solution Celia came up with was fire.

The blazing fire seeped through the tiny crevices in the predatory ant's carapace, burning it from the inside out. Its legs twitched, and it was ultimately incinerated.

Although this method was highly costly, fortunately, the number of predatory ants was still small, making it barely manageable.

“There are too many of them!”

“There are enemies in the sky as well!”

But before they could even breathe a sigh of relief, new crises arrived in quick succession.

For on the plains below the high ground, the dense swarms of insects were still surging forward, blanketing the land.

In the sky, tiger hornet ants and Dragon Ants periodically appeared, launching sudden raids on them.

“C-Celia. Let's retreat! Break through from the weakest point while we still can!”

As the situation grew increasingly critical, Marianne dragged her exhausted body over to Celia's side, shaking her arm as she spoke with a trembling voice.

Marianne knew all too well that she was thoroughly depleted and could no longer fight at full strength; her usual arrogant expression had long since vanished.

Trembling with the fear of death, she had completely lost her will to fight.

“Don't worry. Trust me, we can win.”

Celia grabbed Marianne's shoulders and, for the first time, spoke to her in an informal, firm tone.

“Please, Marianne. Use the power the Goddess bestowed upon you to help me hold that position.”

Celia pointed to the most dangerous gap on the battlefield.

To make matters worse, a predatory ant that hadn't been dealt with in time was breaching the defense line alongside other mutants, attacking the backline forces that were pouring down fire.

According to Celia's assessment of the current battlefield situation, as long as they could successfully hold that spot, they could definitely hold out and turn the tide of the battle.

The only thing on Celia's mind was Marianne, whom she believed was destined to be a hero, now reduced to such an exhausted state.

This was thanks to Brandt constantly using healing magic to help her recover; otherwise, she would have likely lost her combat effectiveness long ago.

“Marianne, I promise you that we will achieve victory here. So, please also keep the promise you made in bed that night.”

To encourage Marianne, Celia brought up the agreement between them.

The promise they had made while lying in bed, wrapped in each other's arms, when Marianne had confidently declared she would do anything for Celia.

“...Understood.”

Marianne bowed her head and replied in a low voice.

Then, she turned around and headed back toward the battlefield.

Celia watched her lover's departing back with deep worry, unable to tear her eyes away for a long time.

But she did not see that the face of the departing Marianne was completely devoid of emotion, leaving only a cold resolve.

“T-The formation is collapsing!”

“The defense line has been breached! They're pouring in!”

The ultimate reason for the variable in Celia's calculations was that she had put too much trust in humans.

She would never have dreamed that instead of holding the most dangerous gap as requested, Marianne had fled with a few of her close confidants without once looking back.

Because of Marianne's desertion, a massive gap tore open in the already precarious defense line.

Seizing this opportunity, the ant colony poured in like a tidal wave, utterly tearing apart all the defenses Celia had painstakingly arranged.

Armed with sharp mandibles and venomous stingers, they began a one-sided slaughter.

“Marianne!”

Watching Marquis Lumiere nearby being attacked and dragged away by tiger hornet ants, Celia ground her teeth so hard they nearly bled.

In the distance, Marianne's pink hair flickered in and out of sight under the pursuit of the ant colony.

The sense of betrayal made Celia tremble all over, but what terrified her even more was that fear had finally begun to creep upon her as well.

She had participated in countless wars and had seen with her own eyes how the ants slaughtered people.

The moment she saw her guarding knight get caught in a spider ant's web and dragged away, Celia's face turned deathly pale, and she hurriedly pulled the magic scroll from her bosom.

“D-Don't come any closer!”

Screaming at the hideous ant colony rushing toward her, Celia activated the scroll.

【Elise detected a foreign object intervening in the hive mind】

At the same time, Celia's mind instantly detached from her body, transferring somewhere else.

Before her consciousness, a massive monster appeared.

From the cracks in its head shell, countless eyes glowing with a crimson light peered out, and its massive mandibles gaped open.

【Elise felt extreme rage】

The human “queen ant,” its nemesis, had actually dared to intrude into the colony's consciousness and appear before it.

The intolerant Elise mobilized the entire hive mind, instantly crushing Celia's spirit.