Chapter 128
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 128
Chapter Title: Empty Shell (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, Bellona no longer showed any trace of the monstrous chimera she once was.
Yet Scrumm could instinctively sense it.
He knew whose intense hatred and killing intent was directed at him, and how it had been forged.
'Pulverizing Extremity...!'
As dark blue flames engulfed Bellona's body, Scrumm shuddered.
A being little more than an empty shell without a heart or mind could never reach even the fringes of that realm, no matter how many eons it trained. Yet Bellona had stepped into it.
'No. It's different. What the hell is that?'
But as he watched Bellona charge with four gleaming black swords, Scrumm quickly realized it wasn't his Pulverizing Extremity at all.
The Pulverizing Extremity embodied a warrior's pride.
It had been born from an old orc warrior, a respected master who had trained for ages and finally achieved enlightenment under a deity's blessing.
That was why the Pulverizing Extremity was honest. And its honesty made it powerful.
But the realm Bellona displayed now was far from honest.
Pride, honor, nobility, and a martial artist's heart had no place in an ant hive.
Killing intent bent on slaughtering you. Hatred that loathed you. Obsession and madness fixated on those.
Bellona's realm, unthinkable for any normal intelligent being, had been born from that.
"Kuhak..."
Scrumm poured every ounce of strength into swinging his sword to block the ferocious strike, but blood began to seep from his body.
Neither could withstand the clash of their power and bodies any longer.
The problem was that even as Scrumm's muscles tore and his skin split, Bellona—fused with her armored ant—could regenerate her crushed exoskeleton and shattered blades with cellular regeneration until it was completely depleted. She could fight to the end.
"No!"
Finally, one of Bellona's swords severed Scrumm's arm.
At the same time, Scrumm thrust his sword through Bellona's abdomen, prepared to sacrifice the limb.
Berggren winced at the erupting shockwave and cried out in horror, but before he could intervene, a long tail extending from Bellona's staggering lower body whipped like a scorpion's stinger and pierced Scrumm's chest in one motion.
"Foolish..."
Pinned by Bellona's tail and lifted off the ground, Scrumm spat blood and grimaced.
Through Bellona's half-shattered helmet from the brutal fight, the face of a beautiful woman with flashing red eyes was partially visible.
To Scrumm, that face looked far too young.
The differences between orcs and humans only made it more striking.
"The realm of no-mind has no end or correct answer. Do you intend to live a meaningless life, forever repeating battles...?"
Though born a monster and raised as one, she had blossomed absurd talents through innate ability and will.
Scrumm pitied Bellona's fate—endless fighting and strife, piling up hatred like a vengeful spirit with such gifts. He sighed.
He knew the end of hatred and revenge was always emptiness and void.
As a being over a hundred times older than Bellona—who was barely past one year old—it was a fitting lament.
"Yeah."
But Scrumm said that because he didn't truly grasp what the ant hive, including Bellona, really was.
Everything before his eyes.
If they devoured it all, they would hunger for the entire universe next. For them, emptiness and void were one and the same.
As Scrumm froze at her casual affirmation, Bellona raised her sword to end the skewered orc's life.
"?!"
That was when Berggren threw himself in with all his might.
He leaped from the ground, spun in midair, and slashed—severing Bellona's tail in one stroke and rescuing Scrumm.
Bellona's eyes, twisted in rage, turned toward him, but Berggren had already grabbed Scrumm and leaped back.
"Retreat...! Everyone, retreat!"
Even if Scrumm had been saved, the front line had long since crumbled.
The roaming swarm, moving as one with Bellona, was shattering the allied forces' formation and continuing the massacre.
Orcs, dwarves, humans—they all turned and fled, unable to endure any longer. Everyone knew fighting on meant total annihilation.
"Kill them...! All of them!!!"
The enraged Bellona commanded her swarm: pursue the fleeing ones to the end and leave not a single survivor.
"We must fall back to the homeland. If those strengthened bastards regroup and come at us, we can't hold the plains anymore."
Scrumm, barely escaping with his life thanks to his subordinates, gritted his teeth as his vision blurred.
The sacred ground and homeland they had to reclaim was right there.
Yet they had been defeated at its doorstep and forced to flee again.
And this time, the odds of being cornered with no escape were even higher.
[Asmora judges that the time has come]
Empowered by Bellona's awakening, the roaming swarm had crushed the allied forces of the two invading powers.
The western front's threat was gone, and conditions were now ripe for a counterattack.
This also meant Asmora and the great swarm could fully commit to their ongoing war with the elves.
The biggest gain was the new variant type, the Askalons, proving their full might.
Having gathered solid data using Bellona's roaming swarm, Asmora planned to deploy them to break the elves desperately holding the line.
Once the front collapsed and their lands were seized one by one, the elf-centered empire would crumble, and most of the continent would fall into ant hands.
"But they've already shown they can communicate somehow. They'll definitely prepare countermeasures for the Askalons' magic, one way or another. Plus, they've already suffered heavy losses from our allies' magic."
Seira pointed out the concern amid the plan.
The elves had already been devastated by magic from cordyceps-infected mages. An entire legion had been halved.
They surely knew of the orc-dwarf alliance's defeat via their deities as well.
Elves being far more adept at magic than them, Seira predicted the new magic-wielding soldiers might not shine as brightly as hoped.
"Heh."
But at Seira's observation, Asmora smirked instead.
"...!"
Seira, not grasping the meaning of that smile, stared tensely at Asmora—until something silently approached and gripped her shoulder.
Chills racing through her, Seira whipped her head around in shock.
That wasn't all Asmora had prepared.
Asmora had long enjoyed piggybacking off Bellona's hard work. The reverse was true too, of course.
"How long do we have to sit here preparing defenses? Lately, even the flies have stopped showing up."
"Still, orders should come soon, right?"
This was right after the second legion was halved by the ants' counterattack and fully pushed out of the old Lukadia Empire's south.
The newly arrived fifth legion was now holding the front.
And its commander, Guardian Erdin, grumbled while surveying the peaceful surroundings.
The central council had ordered them to absolutely avoid rash moves and just hold position.
With Seira pausing her raids on rear facilities and warehouses, there was even less to do. The front remained in storm-before-the-calm silence.
"...All retreating after defeat? Orcs, dwarves—all of them? They even allied up and still lost?"
At that moment, the elf empire's top brass, including Central Council Chair Sarael, reeled in shock at the news.
The orcs and dwarves—who had been at each other's throats—had allied, clashed head-on with Bellona's roaming swarm, and been virtually annihilated in retreat.
The panic here outdid even the front lines, where ants could swarm any moment.
"Th-this ruins all our plans, doesn't it?"
Someone stammered.
Their original goal was to build strength while the western alliance pinned the ants, then push up in one go.
In that process, they'd prioritized quietly eliminating ant nests in the old Vanest Kingdom and colonies—without provoking them—to maximize gains.
That elf greed for profit was why Asmora could block them with minimal resources while supporting Bellona more.
Yet these foes, thought winnable despite difficulty, had allied and still retreated.
The entire plan was derailed.
"What do we do, Chair?"
"This is..."
Sarael flinched under the stares.
Followers of deities would naturally look skyward in such times.
Hoping for any guidance.
"We can no longer afford to wait."
Sarael made the call.
Maximizing gains was long gone.
Now was the time to act.
"Internal cleanup remains priority. Order the guardians now: burn every last horrific nest of those infiltrating worms with full force."
First target: wipe out the invasion swarms that crossed the sea where elves were vulnerable.
Invasion swarms were like cancers growing inside.
Ignore them even briefly, and they'd explode in numbers, toppling the entire force overnight.
"They'll suffer heavy losses if we take those. I'll go block them."
The ants knew it too. Seira volunteered to hold the line there.
She had started shaking elf holdings with the invasion swarm in the first place.
With Asmora's approval, she took to the skies and returned.
Countless elf imperial troops were already surrounding the territories they held.
'We've got plenty of reinforcements.'
Seira gazed at the Askalons tearing from cocoons in the nest ahead of all-out war.
They were making every preparation possible here too.
"Turn the entire nest into a fortress. An impregnable stronghold they can't breach."
Confirming the assembling elf soldiers, Seira threw everything into fortifying the nest, by any means.
Defense wasn't familiar to ants.
They were always the hunters attacking prey; they'd rarely fought fiercely to protect something.
'I have to make it work.'
Clenching her fist, Seira was convinced it was her role.
Asmora's swarm, even absorbing human genes, was still growing—but Seira believed she had unique contributions.
'If I do this...'
Her standing in the swarm mattered to her.
Above all, recognition from the deity Jin-hyuk would let her keep speaking up.
She wasn't the only one craving Jin-hyuk's attention—Asmora too.