Chapter 91
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 91
Chapter Title: Land Grab (1)
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"No way... All these people are refugees?"
"We have no choice. Those demons built their nests and spread their poison, rotting the water and poisoning the soil. No one can farm or live there anymore."
By the time Emperor Shuber dispatched the latest weapons produced in Arcania Zero and his elite troops to the southern empire, the ants had already turned the south into a wasteland and begun their erosion nesting strategy.
Marquis Herman Broier, the commander who led the forces under the emperor's special orders, stared blankly at the screen displayed by the mages.
Behind the endless procession of ragged refugees stretched a devastated landscape: sticky pools of nutrient solution, swarming cocoons, and worker ants scurrying about, dumping scavenged nutrients into the pools from every direction.
"Is this truly the land of our great empire...?"
Marquis Herman, who had never ventured beyond the barrier and the capital, sighed with a pale face.
He could hardly believe his own eyes.
When he first heard tales of the war against the demons.
And when he witnessed the fierce battles at the barrier firsthand, it had been a holy war worthy of legends—a brutal clash of blood and steel.
The sight of the empire's proud warriors standing against the endless hordes of outer god monsters pouring from what was once considered barbarian lands beyond the barrier would surely become epic tales of heroism for future generations, should any survive to tell them.
But the scene before the marquis now was no heroic saga.
It was nothing but a horrific, apocalyptic ruin: homes rotting away, water and earth stolen, the very foundations slowly eroded.
Feeding the countless refugees right now would surely drain the national treasury dry.
"W-We must stop them. We can't let those demons defile the empire's land!"
"But we can't be too hasty. They've already built countless nests like that one. If we're careless, we could get surrounded and wiped out from all sides."
Opinions divided among the shocked staff officers.
Some insisted on marching immediately to burn every nest, while others argued it was already too late and urged maximum caution.
"...We'll move out now. We weren't sent here to defend—we're here to annihilate the enemy. Besides, defending is pointless now. Their breeding speed outpaces anything we can do."
In the midst of the chaos, the marquis quickly set a course.
Currently, the ants had destroyed key facilities like mines and labs, then splintered into small units for erosion nesting across the entire south, rather than gathering in massive swarms.
Armed with cutting-edge weapons and elite troops, they were unlikely to be easily overwhelmed.
'If they cluster together in one spot and charge us, that'd be ideal. Come on, do it. Then we can wipe them out and burn them all at once!'
The marquis actually hoped the ants would sense the threat and mass for an assault.
After all, the toughest pests weren't the ones right in front of you, but those scattered everywhere, clinging to survival.
Asmodah avoids full-scale war and focuses on expanding nests.
The problem was that the ants had already figured it out.
"Burn that disgusting nest to the ground!"
Marquis Herman and the imperial central army assaulted the nearest ant nest.
This site, guarded only by numerous worker ants and a handful of defenders, had clearly once been a peaceful rural village.
But the vast fields that should have rippled with abundant crops were gone.
Windmills that once turned on the hills lay in ruins, and homes were overturned by ant raids and fleeing refugees.
Not a single livestock remained; even their bones had dissolved into nutrients.
The earth, exposed to the poison, was barren—not a blade of grass survived. The only life stirring was these poison-immune mutant ants.
What had once been a village sustaining hundreds now held only spider ant webs, traps, and a fog of acrid purple poison.
"Purify it. Leave not a single one alive!"
At the marquis's command, the enraged imperial army stormed the nest, driving out the poison with massed magic spells and slaughtering the defending ants.
"This stuff works great."
"If you knew the ingredients, you'd faint. It's made from dried ant shells ground up with other materials."
"Pfft..."
A mage chuckled while popping mana boosters into his mouth and casting spells, earning a pitying look from his comrade.
"Don't worry. The poison's cleared, and we've proven no side effects after countless uses."
Like Seira once had, they too were researching ants and developing countermeasures.
"Commander, no enemies left. Victory. But..."
"Burn it all and clear the debris first, then talk."
Meanwhile, worker ants fled clutching cocoons, ending the battle in mere minutes.
Entering the ruined village-turned-nest, Marquis Herman furrowed his brow.
A win was a win, but it felt hollow.
"How many such nests have we identified so far?"
"At least... over 200. And that's without counting how many more they're breeding right now."
His cautious adjutant forced out the words.
Burning one nest wasn't victory.
The battlefield was the entire imperial south. Even now, ants expanded nests, killing countless citizens or driving them to flee.
The growing refugees were a ticking bomb for the central government.
"Hurry...! If we're late, the empire falls! And send word to the prime minister."
"What shall I say?"
"We need reinforcements. This is a war unlike any before."
Realizing the crisis, Herman abandoned dreams of earning divine favor from Astragon through heroic feats.
Glory could wait; now was a desperate fight for survival.
'Even if we win, isn't it already too late?'
His gaze sank in sorrow upon the poison-tainted land.
He couldn't even guess how long it would take to restore.
"Truly vicious."
The erosion nesting led by Asmodah in the imperial south was, even to Jin-hyuk, a relentlessly brutal invasion tactic that left him clicking his tongue.
'And it resembles Nejahhel's minions. From entirely different worlds and situations, yet they arrived at similar methods. Is this what they mean by "all rivers lead to the sea"?'
Jin-hyuk's strong reaction stemmed from how Asmodah's self-devised strategy closely mirrored the outer god Nejahhel's minions: opening gates to erode and conquer Earth.
It had been over a decade since parts of Gangwon Province fell to those otherworldly beasts.
Now, reclaiming it was the nation's mission and politicians' top slogan.
Moreover, the empire couldn't split forces to counter every new nest.
Thanks to their hive mind's rapid info exchange and decision-making, the ants always moved a step ahead—clustering or dispersing as needed.
"Enemies!"
"I-In the sky!"
Clumsy imperial moves led to detection and annihilation by ants swarming from all sides.
Whether reckless mercenaries seeking glory or enraged refugees armed for revenge.
The invasion hive, now producing flying types like hornet ants and dragon ants, spared no foes.
The imperial south was already an apocalypse, its order and law shattered.
Asmodah predicts the human hive will collapse if this regime holds for just a few months.
That was Asmodah's goal: erode everything the empire built until its civilization regressed, not advanced.
Even that sturdy barrier would eventually fall.
"Great One, please hear my prayer."
In such a moment, within a nest built in a razed small city's ruins, Seira prayed to Jin-hyuk with eyes closed.
"The queen's judgment to avoid full war and erode from within is clearly the best path to victory and survival."
Over the past days, watching the world turn to ash, Seira closed her eyes in anguish.
Conventional war limited sacrifices to combatants.
But the ants' ecosystem destruction promised millions of potential deaths.
"Above all, Belzahad's current power can't sustain life in a barren, nutrientless world."
"...You're not wrong."
Seira's point didn't end there.
She had realized the ants' actions would doom future ants too.
Asmodah's massive hive mainly fed on vast northern mushroom farms.
Those fungi, grown on untamed forest giants, could sustain millions of ants... but not infinitely.
The ants hadn't learned to survive barren wastelands without trees or mushrooms.
Even feed from Jin-hyuk's ranch had limits.
'Photosynthesis is tough for now. For ants to advance, they need a new system.'
Jin-hyuk had searched, but animals with photosynthesis-like abilities at ant scale were rare and imperfect—mostly microbes.
As Seira said, thriving in total desolation remained impossible.
Meaning Jin-hyuk's ants were still part of the ecosystem.
Transcending it was distant; for now, they had far to go.
"But the nearby superpower, Lukadia Empire, and the deity ruling it pose a real threat. Asmodah will go all-in to eliminate that danger."
Via oracle, Jin-hyuk explained to Seira why Asmodah pursued such extremes.
The empire's rapidly advancing magitech could become fatal; for survival, the ants had to destroy it.
"I... I'll do what I can."
Hearing this, Seira bit her lip, unable to deny it.
She, having visited Arcania Zero, knew the empire's potential best.