Chapter 808 797. The Escaped Ant Queen

A cavalry captain in full armor with a tower shield carefully stepped one foot into the entrance of the cave full of sour smell. The black blood that was about to dry up was a little sticky, sticking to the bottom of his boots, and every step he took seemed a bit stagnant. .

   Obviously, this expedition mission is not a good job, but since it is his turn, he has to go ahead.

  Suldak put his hand on the shoulder of the cavalry, and the cavalry captain turned to look at Suldak with a puzzled expression, and then at the battalion commander Intas.

"Let me do it..." Suldak didn't say much, and stepped forward directly, with a dwarf chain shield glowing with silver holy light on one arm, and a holy torch with a glimmer of light in the other , the first to walk into the cave.

  The cavalry captain hurried to follow.

This burrow was supposed to be an underground storage room in the temple, and it is said that it was occasionally used to detain heretics. This kind of multi-functional storage room was built together with the temple, and it is usually not too small. .

   It's just that the Statue of Liberty abandoned this place, and even the priests and priests in the temple have left cleanly. The temple in the town has been abandoned, and the weeds in the backyard are almost knee-high.

  The commanders of the two cavalry battalions saw that Surdak took the lead, so they quickly cheered up and led the elite cavalry to follow.

  The two of them led a group of cavalry to search for survivors in the town, but they found nothing all night.

Chasing the ghost-striped red ants that kept retreating, they killed all the way to the temple at the southernmost tip of the town, only to find that the basement was full of ghost-striped red ants, some of which looked like a wormhole, and many ghosts Striped soldier ants huddled in the cave and fought to the death.

  The cavalrymen blocked the entrance of the cave, and the ghost-striped red ants in the cave could only come out one by one, and then the cavalrymen cleaned it up one after another.

  Walking down the passage full of sour liquid to a depth of six or seven meters, the road ahead has become much smoother, filled with an unpleasant smell that can almost suffocate.

The light in the cave was a bit dark, and Suldak walked in the front holding the holy light torch. Although he was not wearing the magic pattern structure at the moment, he was wearing a thick full-coverage armor on the outside of the salamander leather armor. If it weren't for his face, his appearance after putting on the helmet and mask was not much different from other cavalrymen in the cavalry battalion.

Suddenly there was a thin and rustling sound from both sides, and two ghost-pattern soldier ants poked their heads out from the black holes on both sides of the cave. After finding Suldak, they immediately turned their heads flexibly, and opened their teeth and claws towards Surdak. Duck jumped up.

  The space in the corridor in the cave was so big, Suldak couldn't dodge it, so he quickly raised his shield to parry.

A pair of dark red contact pincers slammed into the dwarf chain shield fiercely. As a power-type second-level monster, the ghost-striped soldier ant itself is infinitely powerful. Although Suldak immediately put on a defensive posture, he was still caught This blow caused two steps back, and a layer of holy silver light appeared on the shield. The ghost pattern soldier ant seemed to have been scalded, and the sharp claws retracted, leaving only the light on Suldak's shield. Two shallow dents.

  Another ghost-striped soldier ant jumped up from the other side of Suldak, and the cavalry behind him with a tower shield hurriedly made up for it, holding the shield and bumping into the ghost-striped soldier ant.

  The cavalry behind quickly stabbed out the long sword in their hands, and the knight's long sword made of fine steel pierced the hard armor near the compound eyes of the ghost pattern red ant, making a piercing sound.

The halo under Suldak's feet lit up, and a faint magic circle flashed in his hand. The holy light torch hit the head of another ghost-striped red ant, and immediately smashed out the olive-shaped head of the ghost-striped soldier ant. Although a light brown liquid gushed out of the big hole, it caused the ghost-patterned soldier ants to bite Suldak's arm more ferociously.

  At this time, a long spear stretched out from behind, pierced deeply along the damaged part of the ghost pattern soldier ant's head, and immediately pierced the ghost pattern soldier ant on the barrel of the gun.

  Suldak nodded to Commander Intas who made a timely move behind him, and continued to explore.

  Walking inside, I discovered that the inside of the cave is a long, narrow and straight corridor with a very spacious space.

The dome of the corridor also has an arched structure, and there are masonry columns on both sides as load-bearing supports. There are secret rooms lined up on both sides of the corridor, but the ghost-patterned red ants are too large, and they have already closed the door of the secret room and many pillars. It was also broken, some masonry structures collapsed, and the earthwork on the dome dripped down, making it look dilapidated.

  The floor of the cave is covered with a viscous dark brown liquid that looks like dried blood.

  The red ants still smell obviously in the stone room, but they don't seem to dare to come out.

  There were many skulls covered in blood and mucus piled up in the corner of the cave, and the skulls were of different sizes. Only then did Suldak realize that the ghost-striped red ants had transported all the residents of the town and the garrison who died in battle here.

  Suldak walked to the door of a stone room, held a shield in front of him, and poked the torch of holy light into it to watch, only to see that there were actually two worker ants of a different size lying in this stone room.

That's right, they have the upper body of ghost pattern worker ants, but their appearance has completely changed below the abdomen. The dark red abdomen, which was originally the size of a wax gourd, has swelled into a huge ball with a diameter of two meters. , becomes translucent.

Illuminated by the light of the holy light torch, the huge abdomen of the ghost pattern worker ants showed a light red frozen shape. The huge abdomen propped up their bodies, making their front half of their bodies completely suspended, and their bodies lay on a corpse. On the pile, sucking the sour rot on it with the hard tubular mouthparts, seeing that the stomach is about to explode, and still trying to **** it, like two starving ghosts.

  Suldak resisted the discomfort in his stomach and withdrew.

Seeing the strange expression on Suldak's face, Commander Intas also went up to take a look. Suldak felt that when he turned his head back, his face was a little green, and he asked for it directly from a cavalry beside him. A fire scale bullet was thrown close to the stone room without even looking at it.

  With an explosion, a lot of frozen reddish materials flew out of the stone room, standing sticky on the pillar at the entrance of the stone room.

   After the strong explosion ended, Intas explained to Surdak:

"The honeypots of these red ants are also a way for them to store food. After they are completely full, these worker ants will adjust themselves to the top of the cave and die immediately. It will be used only when enough food is found, and it can be stored for a long time by hanging it in a cool hole in the ground..."

  Seeing that everyone was looking at him, Intas forced a smile and asked everyone:

   "Are you wondering how I know this?"

   Without waiting for everyone to answer, he explained:

"I participated in the beast tide ten years ago. At that time, I was a captain of the seventy-nine cavalry of the Bena Legion. At the beginning of the tide, these Constructed Swordsmen fought back and fought all the way to the edge of the Dark Forest. If it weren't for the inability to pass through the poisonous miasma around the Dark Forest, the Constructed Swordsmen might have directly captured the Dark Worm Valley. "

   "So... didn't take it?" Commander Hampton asked.

  Commander Intas nodded and said: "Of course, if it is really done, maybe the second city of Bailin Plane will be built."

Then he said in a self-deprecating manner: "Perhaps that battle was too easy. This time the Luthor Legion was stationed in the northern occupied area, but the provincial council actually transferred the main construction swordsman regiment of the Luthor Legion to Tara Pagan put down the rebellion..."

  No one said anything, and sent cavalry with repeater crossbows to clean up these worker ant honeypots along the way.

  Suldak always walks ahead.

  In his words, his dwarf chain shield is considered a magic shield, possessing a 'holy shield'.

  The basement in the temple really occupies the underground space of the entire backyard.

  In each stone room there are one or two so-called honeypots for worker ants. Of course, the room is also full of corpses that have been corroded beyond appearance, which makes the basement of the entire temple look like a tomb.

  Finally reached the end of the tunnel corridor, the dried black blood on the ground also stopped abruptly here, and a pile of abandoned and collapsed bricks and stones were piled up next to the wall, which looked like it was caused by a landslide.

   But just when everyone thought they had come to an end, Suldak found that the bricks and stones scattered in the corner of the wall did not have any bloodstains, and it looked like a new landslide not long ago.

  Under the illumination of the holy light torch, the blood on the ground spread like broken bricks.

  Commander Intas was also worried that the stone room would collapse, and couldn't wait to leave the smelly basement.

Seeing that Suldak stopped in front of the pile of broken bricks and rocks, turned around and returned, the cavalry who entered this basement were almost all the elite of the Seventh Cavalry Battalion, Intas waved his hand, and these cavalry immediately agreed Yes, everyone gathered together to clean up these broken bricks.

   Gradually, as these collapsed broken bricks were cleared out by the cavalry, a larger hole was exposed in the wall.

  The inside of the cave entrance is even deeper. There is no light in the dark cave, but there are some hard armor leather friction sounds coming from inside.

  The dried blood under the feet reached here, and it still extended into the cave, but it was relatively much less, and it did not condense into a thick layer.

  A cavalryman threw a torch wrapped in broken steps and turpentine into the cave under the instruction of Commander Intas.

  The torch flew seven or eight meters away along the cave, hit the stone wall and bounced to the ground, and the flame continued to weaken.

The light startled some ghost-striped red ants, and they scrambled out of the cave again, but just halfway through the climb, the ghost-striped soldier ants stopped, and then retreated cautiously along the cave, leaving only A dark and deep hole came out.

   "Queen Ant..."

  Intas and Suldak said almost at the same time.

  Suldak said without hesitation to the commander of the third squadron: "Go quickly and get some more people. If there is no problem with the city wall, call Andrew over."

   After speaking, Suldak walked in holding the holy torch.

  He found that this burrow should be newly dug by the ghost-striped red ants, and the excavation marks on the wall of the burrow are still brand new.

A group of ghost pattern soldier ant guards saw that Suldak was getting closer and closer. They crouched in the cave and continued to demonstrate to Suldak, but none of the soldier ants rushed up. Seeing Suldak As Dake and his group approached slowly, the ghost-patterned soldiers sprayed sour liquid towards Suldak.

  The cavalry raised their crossbows one after another, and a row of crossbow arrows shot over, immediately annoyed the ghost-patterned soldiers and ants.

  The soldier ants rushed forward again, and Suldak stood shoulder to shoulder with the two cavalry in front. There was no way to dodge in the cave, and all collisions were head-to-head.

The holy light torch in Suldak's hand emerged three times in a row with holy thunder and magic patterns, and the lightning flowed out horizontally, illuminating the entire cave. , Solve the ghost pattern soldier ants in the cave one by one.

  Stepping on the corpses of these ghost-striped soldier ants, they found that the stone cave dug by the red ants was actually connected to a natural cave.

   And the sound of the hard armor and skin rubbing came from inside the cave. This time, a scroll of Gathering Fire was shot into the dark cave. The magic scroll unfolded against the wind, and a flame ignited from the magic scroll, which floated down in front of the cave.

  Under the faint light of the fire, a group of ghost-striped male ants guarded a queen and slowly moved to the depths of the cave.

They moved very slowly, mainly because this queen ant was much larger than what Suldak had seen before. Its body was extending several meters from the abdomen, and its overall size was actually larger than that of the ghost-striped male ant. A section grew out, with a diameter of two meters. It looked like a giant sausage, and magic lines kept lighting up in the lines on the side of the abdomen.

  In the dark cave, the pair of bright red eyes exuded a piercing light.

There are dark red veins all over the dark body, and the three pairs of wings on the queen's back have completely fallen off. It is lying on a ghost-striped male ant, and it is moving to the depths of the cave surrounded by a large group of worker ants. Looked very weak.

   There are also a large number of ghost pattern soldier ants in the cave, and they swarm towards Suldak.

   It was obviously unwise for the cavalry to fight the ghost-striped soldier ants in the open area of ​​the underground cave, and Suldak didn't venture in to chase down the evacuated queen ant.

  Ghost-pattern soldier ants rushed up continuously, and the two commanders, Intas and Hampton, took turns rushing forward to share the impact of the ghost-pattern soldier ants with Suldak.

   Waited until Andrew, who exuded a strong fighting spirit, rushed to the cave, and the situation was considered opened.

  As a newly promoted second-rank warrior, Andrew's aura firmly suppressed the ghost-striped soldier ants, and with a butcher's ax to cut a **** path, he rushed into the mountainside cave again.

  In the center of the karst cave is an ant nest with countless human bones piled up. The ghost pattern worker ants have not had time to remove all the eggs in the nest.

  Besides, there are four ghost-striped male ants that have been sucked into empty shells in the ant nest. Their huge bodies are like statues guarding the nest.

  These white fraternal eggs have light green circular markings on the surface, and each one is very narrow and long.

  Andrew rushed into the ant colony and killed randomly, breaking through the formation of the ghost-striped soldier ants, forcing the soldier ants to keep retreating and guarding around the huge ant nest.

  The cavalrymen who kept rushing in not only surrounded the ghost-striped soldier ants, but also surrounded all the ghost-striped worker ants who were busy transferring their eggs.

The karst caves on the mountainside extend in all directions. Even if the ghost-striped red ants left some evacuation marks along the way, Suldak saw that there were no survivors here. After clearing the battlefield and taking away all the spoils, he led a group of knights to retreat to Prentus On the ground of the town, people were sent to block the excavated cave and the basement of the temple with masonry mud.

  (end of this chapter)