Chapter 102: The Insect Tide Arrives

The sky was heavy with dark clouds, and rain fell in an endless torrent. It was the wettest season of the year, when a storm came every few days.

"Damn this weather," Gis muttered, wiping rainwater from his face. For a sentry, conditions like this were the worst imaginable. The curtain of rain blotted out heaven and earth, and he could barely make out anything beyond two or three hundred meters.

Gis, draped in a heavy rain cape, climbed the beacon tower. He saw the piles of firewood soaked through by the rain and could only shake his head with a bitter smile. The wood had been ruined completely; after the rain, it would all have to be taken apart and replaced with fresh, dry logs. For a post manned by only three men, that was no small task.

Gis was a soldier under Victor. He and two comrades had been ordered by Captain Nelson to garrison this outpost and keep watch. Their chief duty was to monitor the entrance to the Great Marsh.

After failing to find any trace of the ogres in the western mountains, Victor had concluded that the ogre tribe must be hiding in the Great Marsh, for the old ogres could not have simply appeared out of nowhere. He therefore ordered Nelson to build a guardpost at the marsh entrance, erect a beacon tower, and station three soldiers there. To ensure their safety, Victor had specially equipped them with three alchemical ravens. If the ravens gave warning, they were to light the beacon at once and withdraw on horseback.

The soaked rain cape was terribly heavy and uncomfortable. Gis decided to return to the hut and take shelter from the downpour for a while. The moment he stepped inside, Lev shouted at him, "Gis, you lazy brat. It's your watch."

Ignoring the mockery, Gis said with a flattering grin to a middle-aged warrior, "Boss, the rain outside is too heavy. I can't see a thing. Anyway, Dust Falcon is watching the marsh entrance, so I thought I'd come in and get out of the rain for a bit. Once it lets up, I'll go back out on patrol."

"Take a rest first. I'll go take a look," said Matthew, the middle-aged warrior, as he pulled on a rain cape and opened the door.

Outside, the roar of the rain was deafening. Matthew could not help shivering. He cursed himself inwardly. Had half a year of comfort made him fear even this little rain? Tightening his rain cape, he plunged decisively into the storm and headed toward the lookout platform.

Matthew was an old hand from Bear War Mercenaries, and for a month he had led two recruits in this watch duty. He knew full well that no matter how bad the weather was, the sentry post could not be left unmanned. If monsters really came, the first people to die would be them.

The entrance to the Great Marsh was a vast slope, and the watch station stood on a hill two kilometers from the opening. In normal weather, one look from here would reveal every movement at the entrance, but now, even straining his eyes to the limit, Matthew could see only about four hundred meters. Just as Gis had said, even if they went out on watch, they still could not see what was happening below.

Matthew hesitated, wondering if he should first take shelter in the shed. Then an alchemical raven cut through the rain curtain, flying crookedly toward him before landing at his feet and crying out shrilly.

"Little fellow, you're soaked through. You can't fly like that. Come on, I'll take you inside to dry your feathers and warm you by the fire."

Matthew was pleased to have found a reason to avoid the rain. He picked up the raven and was about to return to the shed, but the bird was not appreciative. Instead, its cries grew even more frantic.

The raven's unusual behavior caught Matthew's attention. He lunged to the edge of the platform, widened his eyes, and stared hard toward the marsh entrance. All he could see was a blank sheet of white, but his heart grew heavy all the same.

The ground trembled faintly. Matthew's expression changed. He dropped at once and pressed his ear to the floor of the sentry platform. The vibration became unmistakable, like the thunder of ten thousand horses.

"Enemy attack!"

Matthew kicked open the hut door and rushed in with rain streaming off him. Gis and Lev were startled, crying out in alarm, "Boss?!"

"Enemy attack! Burn the hut! Retreat!" Matthew grabbed a bucket and splashed lamp oil all around inside the shed. When he saw the two rookies standing there like idiots, he barked, "What are you waiting for? Light it already!"

The hut was damp outside and dry inside. Once the lamp oil was spread, it caught quickly. Thick smoke billowed upward, making it no different from a signal beacon. Only the next post in the chain could not see what was happening here at all.

The three men set the hut alight, grabbed their spears and short swords, and rushed out of the burning shelter. The moment they reached the outside, all three sucked in a sharp breath. Countless dark brown monsters had already surrounded them.

These creatures were about one point seven meters tall, with six limbs like centaurs, four of them used for walking on the ground. They had dark brown shells, and their heads looked like enlarged ant heads. They were like giant humanoid ants.

When faced with hopelessness, people responded in different ways. Some were cowardly, some brave. Matthew was of the brave kind.

He was a mercenary, and also a warrior. With no path of retreat, he chose to embrace the fate of a fighter.

"Kill!"

He planted his stance, twisted his waist, and drove the spear straight out. The sharp point tore through the curtain of rain and stabbed fiercely toward the nearest monster. Matthew's thrust was the product of long tempering; he had once pierced Sasan soldiers wearing chainmail. Though no longer young, that strike was still as sharp as a blade.

Green fluid splashed as the spear pierced the creature's neck, and the ant-man collapsed weakly to the ground. A surge of excitement rose in Matthew. These terrifying monsters were not invincible after all.

Yet the other monsters were even more excited. Their companion's death sent them into shrill, jubilant cries. The cries rose one after another, carrying far into the Great Marsh, where an even greater roar answered them. Endless waves of ant-men were responding to their kin.

Despair spread across Matthew's face. The ant-men swarmed in all at once, engulfing the seasoned warrior in an instant.

Seeing Matthew torn to pieces by the ant-men, Gis and Lev turned deathly pale. No matter how they tried, they could not lift the weapons in their hands. They could only kneel in the driving rain and tremble.

When the swarm finally parted, nothing remained on the ground but bloodstains, fragments of leather armor, and a spear.

Then a particularly large ant-man stepped forward, picked up Matthew's spear, and gave it a few practiced swings. In its hands, the fine-steel spear spun faster and faster, becoming a whirl of silver light and releasing a terrifying hum.

The ant-man drew its hand back, and the silver light vanished at once. The fine-steel spear pointed straight at Gis's forehead. When Gis showed no reaction, the ant-man leaned in close. Its immense, scissor-like mouthparts opened with a sudden snap, and it let out a savage roar at him.

In the ant-man's pair of compound eyes, Gis saw countless versions of himself, kneeling in the mud and water, face full of panic. His mind went blank. Only a few months earlier, he had been nothing more than an honest farmer, and faced with such a dreadful monster, he had not the courage to resist.

The ant-man slowly drew its head back out of Gis's sight, shouldered the spear, and moved away on its four limbs. The other ant-men followed after it, passing by Gis and Lev, who were still collapsed in the muddy water. Only when the last ant-man vanished into the rain did the two men finally understand: these monsters had not killed them.

Gis and Lev helped one another to their feet, gasping for breath. Tears mixed with rainwater as they streamed down their faces. They were overjoyed to have survived.

But the earth was still shaking. In despair, the two farmers discovered that a black tide was surging out from the direction of the Great Marsh entrance. It was an endless ant-man army.

One, two, ten, a hundred ant-men passed by Gis and Lev. They ignored the two men completely, but before the pair could feel relieved again, one ant-man knocked them flat to the ground. Countless jointed legs trampled over them until they were crushed into a mass of pulp.

The boundless ant-men spread through the Centaur Hills like a black tide. These were lands they had never before set foot upon. Today, they had come.

They grew in battle, plundered through slaughter, and fed upon death. That was the mission of the ant-men.

The hut was belching smoke. Even under the rain, the lamp oil continued to burn stubbornly through the timber. Swarms of ant-men marched past the hut. They did not know that a black raven was hiding in one corner, where its wet feathers were gradually drying in the warmth of the charred wood.

Ten hours passed, and the ant-man army began to thin out. By then the rain had lessened. The alchemical raven sprang from its hiding place and, taking advantage of the ant-men's inattention, quickly snatched up an eyeball, whose owner was impossible to tell, and swallowed it whole. That bloody eye would give it enough strength to fly back to the hill camp.

With a caw, the alchemical raven shot into the sky like an arrow. It had to warn Victor before the ant-man army arrived.

That too was the alchemical raven's duty.