Unending Locusts

After the wave of shelling ended, the enemy sent several thousand more men to infiltrate the city. The Zerg did not take this lying down; they had a portion of the hydralisks submerge into the city, hiding in the upper reaches of the remaining buildings. From their high vantage points, they rained spines down upon the enemy support units.

A few lurkers hid underground, launching a surprise attack. Their blades swept across an area spanning kilometers, impaling every soldier in their path.

“Bang! Bang bang!”

Two soldiers were holding their firearms, shooting into the distance.

Suddenly, the stone slabs nearby buckled and surged. A massive zergling abruptly burst from the ground and bit one soldier’s head off in a single crunch.

“Captain!”

The nearby soldiers cried out in alarm.

Bang!

A shot rang out, hitting the zergling directly in the back.

Its chitinous shell shattered, and a large spray of flesh mixed with slightly corrosive fluid splattered in all directions.

The terrifying impact blew away nearly a third of the insect’s back. It immediately let out a roar, its body suddenly accelerating as it lunged twenty meters in an instant. A horrific tail swipe sent a soldier in front of it flying.

The spikes on its tail pierced through the man’s internal organs and slammed his entire body against a wall. The sheer force then tore through his torso, snapping him into two pieces.

Thud.

The man was still alive when he hit the ground, but he clearly wouldn’t last more than a few minutes.

“Damn it.”

Bang!

Another shot was fired, and the zergling was finally taken down with a headshot.

“The vitality of these creatures is terrifying.”

Seeing another large swarm of locusts approaching in the distance, two warriors jumped down from the platform they were standing on, swinging their longswords to cut them down in swathes.

The soldiers above aimed their guns at the distance, firing continuously.

Two soldiers carried over a crate of ammunition, quickly distributing it to each warrior.

The consumption rate was too high.

“Are these things never going to run out?”

Someone couldn’t help but complain. Over the past three days, they had killed more locusts than they could count. Their company of fifty men had already killed over nine hundred, including two zerglings.

Of course, their losses were also severe. Under the continuous assault of insects that disregarded their own lives, their front line had been pushed back repeatedly.

At this point, almost the entire legion’s defensive line had shrunk into a single corner of the city.

The occasional counterattacks created by heavy firepower were not enough to wipe out the enemy. Within five minutes, their vision would inevitably be drowned once more by a sea of locusts.

In fact, Xia Jin had treated large border cities like this as primary targets for her offensive.

This was because the Swarm had already advanced at least several dozen kilometers in the surrounding areas. Only these heavily defended strongholds remained. If the tens of thousands of troops stationed here were not completely wiped out, they would pose a massive threat to the advancing army’s rear.

After all, these were no longer ordinary ancient warriors, but modern soldiers equipped with firearms.

It would be one thing if they were equipped with standard rifles like people on Earth, but these weapons were designed to deal with powerhouses. Even a Tier 7 zergling couldn’t withstand them. Aside from using locusts to pile up bodies, Xia Jin couldn’t think of a better solution.

After nearly three more hours of high intensity combat without regard for losses, the final ten thousand men were swallowed by the insect tide.

To speed up the assault, fifty infestors and twenty lurkers were deployed here. Relying on various ambushes and frequent infections, they finally broke the defending enemy’s resolve.

After all, no one expected that while they were hiding safely inside a house, three or four meter high spikes would suddenly burst through the floor.

Worse still, when an infestor rushed forward and sprayed a paralyzing mist, a single sting could cause the defenders' own powerhouses to defect.

Men turned to attack their own comrades without hesitation, all while the locusts were aggressively pushing forward and constantly spitting acid across the battlefield.

One could only imagine how difficult such a battle was.

Once the entire border city was under control, a barrage of shells rained down from the sky, launching a frantic counterattack against the Zerg occupied area.

The Swarm responded by mobilizing twenty 200mm heavy cannon bugs and three hundred unicycles to return fire toward the enemy’s launch positions.

Both sides’ artillery units suffered terrible losses.

However, as countless locusts approached the enemy artillery positions several or even a dozen kilometers away, the enemy was forced to abandon some of their heavier weapons. In particular, most of the outdated magic crystal cannons with a range of only three or four kilometers fell into the hands of the Zerg.

The elf bugs then brought up the regular soldiers of Clear, using the captured cannons to advance toward the enemy.

Since Xia Jin treated magic crystal cannons as consumables anyway, all the magic crystals were sent to the front as if they cost nothing. Batch after batch of magical bombardment continued almost without pause.

Because the fire density was so high, small elemental storms even began to form on the front lines.

Terrifying air currents tore through solid fortifications. The temperature fluctuated between freezing and scorching, making the atmosphere of the battlefield exceptionally bizarre.

Everyone on the front lines was left in a state of utter misery.