Chapter 88
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 88
Chapter Title: Great Invasion (2)
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"What the hell is that noise?"
"Quit talking nonsense and hurry up with the supplies..."
After a brief moment of joy, the imperial soldiers who had resumed battle preparations by hauling gear and digging trenches began to sense something off, one by one.
It was already late at night, long after sunset. Relying on lighting magic and torches for their nighttime work, they hesitated with panicked expressions.
"The ground! It's the ground!"
The source of the gradually approaching noise and vibrations was right beneath their feet.
Almost simultaneously with the soldiers' horrified shouts, the solid earth erupted with deafening booms, and colossal monsters burst forth from below en masse.
These were burrowing ants, specialized for tunneling with their massive front legs and immense muscular power, having carved a straight path from deep underground in one go.
Unlike the barriers pretreated with magic deep into the bedrock, there was no way an improvised temporary outpost could block the burrowing ants' tunnels.
"Block them! Monsters are bursting from underground!"
Another fierce battle erupted in the pitch-black night.
The ants that ascended through the burrowing ants' tunnels scattered in all directions, launching chaotic melee assaults on the flustered imperial forces. Unlike the previous fight, the empire's troops had no time to prepare properly, forcing them into close-quarters brawls with the ants.
"Fire the flares, now!"
"Where?! Where the hell are they?!"
The enveloping darkness of the night was a problem in itself.
Mages hastily launched illumination flares to light up the area, but by then, the ants had already prioritized and slain key figures like the mages, seizing the momentum.
Light had rarely ever been an obstacle for the ants.
They were accustomed to navigating dim tunnels by sense alone, and among the abilities absorbed from the diverse creatures devoured by Asmora was night vision that pierced the darkness.
Asmora is confident of victory.
Asmora's calculations, watching the enemies fall like autumn leaves, pointed unequivocally to victory.
The imperial forces, holding their own under Count Leonikt's command, had no choice but to yield to Asmora's superior ability to swiftly adapt strategies and deploy the right counters.
"These bastards... truly insidious and cunning creatures."
Count Leonikt sighed at the sight of his knight commander, slain by Seira while caught off-guard and separated from his comrades during the ambush.
He had given his all, but the outcome was already sealed.
From the moment the surprise attack succeeded, the ants had transformed into indiscriminate predators herding their prey amid the hellish chaos of the dark mountainside, massacring all who resisted.
If they were annihilated like this, the mining defense line would collapse, and the vital large-scale magic stone mine they were sworn to protect would be destroyed.
"Please surrender."
"So the rumors of you ants understanding human speech are true. Then, witch, are you truly the betrayer of humanity who destroyed the Holy Kingdom?"
"I won't deny it."
Seira's mask crumpled slightly as she stood before the sword-drawn count, revealing part of her face.
Her expression—one blue eye and half-exposed mouth—brimmed with pity, a stark contrast to the merciless figure who had incinerated assailants with magic moments ago.
"Even so, those who can live must live. You don't wield divine magic, so as long as you don't oppose us, Belzahad won't harm you."
"Nonsense...! You're invaders. What knight surrenders to invaders and opens the way?!"
Seira poured her heart into persuading him to save as many lives as possible, but the count only bared his hostility with gritted teeth.
At the same time, he drew something from his bosom.
Realizing it was a launcher device for instantly triggering spells, Seira's eyes widened.
"Stop! Are you trying to kill all the other soldiers too!?"
"They were all conscripted under His Imperial Majesty's sacred edict and the laws of the realm. Their sole purpose is to obey orders and block the enemy! I'm sure they'd all take pride in it."
With eyes flashing at the flustered Seira, Count Leonikt activated the device.
The explosion spells, secretly planted by his mages in the outpost and mine, operated on a mechanism similar to the one Seira had used alone inside Arcaina Zero to demolish facilities with blasts.
"Explosions!!!"
"No! My arm..."
Seira, who had deployed a massive barrier centered on herself, bit her lip as explosions she couldn't fully block with her power detonated in sequence.
Many ants were caught in the blasts too, but the screams echoing amid the explosions from all sides were all from imperial soldiers ensnared in the suicide attack.
Asmora considers this a meaningless suicide attack.
In contrast, the ants showed little reaction.
Especially for ants, who could discard all individuals as expendables for the hive, suicide tactics were already a staple, long proven effective.
Asmora merely mocked Count Leonikt for his heroic self-sacrifice alongside his subordinates—not because it was inefficient or ineffective.
"For the... great... Empire..."
"Do you think your subordinates, sacrificed so one-sidedly, would agree? They surely had a chance."
Clearing the acrid smoke with wind magic, Seira looked down at the charred body of Count Leonikt sprawled on the ground, her expression now coldly set.
"...It doesn't matter. With this... you've taken heavy losses... I already knew you had no more egg-layers... Just a few hundred left... You can't stop reinforcements now..."
With the rear units ordered to retreat in advance, the count seemed satisfied with destroying the mine and halving the ants' numbers at such a cost.
Seira bit her lip, watching the ants retrieve his corpse.
Obstacles to her mission of saving even one more life weren't just the ants.
Other deities unwilling to abandon greed and arrogance, and their subordinates fully corrupted, willing to sacrifice masses, were major hindrances too.
"My Queen. It's true our forces have been greatly reduced by the enemies' suicide attacks, so to continue operations in imperial territory, we need resupply."
The imperial forces had failed to defend the mine, with nearly half dead.
Yet for that sacrifice, the ants' already limited numbers had dwindled significantly too.
Seira judged they could no longer act with the remaining troops.
Asmora plans to test a new production process.
But Count Leonikt's assumption was likely off the mark.
Asmora hadn't sent production bodies with their bloated bodies alongside the infiltration force precisely for contingencies like this.
Beyond transporting reinforcements from the old Holy Kingdom nest, Asmora sought to experiment based on this event.
The inspiration came from Bellona's nomadic hive, which maintained mobility in harsh conditions through extracellular digestion, enabling swifter troop deployment.
Asmora attempts extracellular production.
Drawing from that idea, Asmora tried extracellular production.
The plan was to replicate the full process normally done inside a production body's massive abdomen, but in nutrient pools laid out externally.
"...!"
It was a plan that left even Seira speechless.
Beside the stunned Seira, decomposer insects—fully inheriting the inner energy absorption ability gained when the ants awakened as Jin-hyuk's subordinates—began spraying digestive fluids over heaps of countless corpses dragged onto flat ground by worker ants, forming vast pools.
'It's not just evolving the abilities it has. It's thinking for itself, experimenting, and continuously advancing.'
Seira shuddered at Asmora's capabilities, far more advanced than when they first met, as she stared in a daze.
"Plant 'seeds' into the nutrient pools."
Seira murmured softly, watching the process unfold smoothly.
The nutrient liquid produced by the decomposers wasn't mere sustenance; it incorporated mana, demonic power, and other inner energies from the prey, making it extraordinarily potent.
Asmora directed them to drop seeds—pre-sent via production bodies—into the pools.
These walnut-sized crystals were synthetic eggs. Normally formed inside a laying body's body, they absorbed nutrients there to grow into predetermined variant types.
"Then the seeds absorb nutrients and grow into cocoons on their own..."
Seira gasped as the nutrient pools, brimming with countless seeds, bubbled furiously, rapidly spawning enormous cocoons through division.
The worker ants merely waited, then retrieved and transported the cocoons.
Fully nutrient-loaded, the cocoons would then mature independently, hatching into their respective variants.
'What if this scales up massively?'
This was born from roughly 20,000 lives, mostly frail, unskilled conscripts.
Thus, the ants emerging wouldn't even reach half of half that number.
But what if this happened at a fortress garrisoned by hundreds of thousands of elites?
Imagining vast plains of nutrient pools fueled by endless sacrifices sent chills down Seira's spine.
Asmora orders an attack for the next objective.
And that wasn't the end.
To pin down the empire's forces near the barrier, Asmora had moved large troops there. Now, eyeing the flustered enemies milling about, it urged Seira's infiltration unit—with bolstered forces—to hurry to the next target.
'Full-scale war with the empire is about to kick off. He's staying quiet on the community because he knows he's in deep shit.'
Astragon had already grasped the severity and was desperately devising countermeasures.
His subordinates were doing the same. All their movements were plainly visible to Jin-hyuk's eyes.
The Lukadian Empire was a mighty power to begin with. And Deity Astragon was no novice without talent.
Even with the ants' exceptional prowess, including Asmora, Jin-hyuk couldn't afford to relax.
"...So what's exactly the problem?"
"Our company's competitiveness is weakening due to our rivals' growth. Without bolstering our forces to appeal to the government or securing key tech, management will get tough."
That said, Jin-hyuk wasn't lounging at home watching his ants.
He had to heed Baek Jin-seong's request for help; the man was practically running Hunter Company Hangyeol in his stead.
"You need promising recruits?"
"Not necessarily prospects—just hunters to strengthen our roster. Normally, the Great One would pick them..."
Baek Jin-seong glanced warily.
An eye for talent was crucial for a hunter company president, but companies run by deities were mostly decided by the deities themselves.
"Let's give it a shot."
After a moment's thought, he nodded.
Unlike other deities who ascended through personal prowess, he was still a solid mid-tier deity now.
Enough to gain some recognition in the deity community.
Unlike other deities limited to indirect influence elsewhere, he could wield unique power here on Earth, his homeworld.
Recruiting personnel for system maintenance and repair quests.
'This is usually handled by dispatching subordinates... What if I do it myself?'
What caught his eye was a shared quest on the Earth community forum—everyone established and joined it—for maintaining the hunter system.
Deities requesting repairs post the quest; fulfillment grants the fix.
They invest in subordinates or claim it themselves.
He planned to gobble them up using his unique status.