Under the successive attacks of Andrew, Gulitum and Wolf Knight Tago, it only took half a month for the Lord's Army to cross the stone arch bridge across the lake.
Learning from the lessons learned last time, in order to prevent the Lord's Army from encountering a massive counterattack by the ghost-striped red ants just after they stepped over the stone arch bridge, the sixty crossbows brought by Surdak this time had just arrived at the Stone Bridge. The Lord's Army soldiers
An arc-shaped fortification was built right at the stone arch bridge to completely protect the exit of the stone arch bridge.
There are at least hundreds of ant nests densely arranged at the foot of the mountain. Some thin and swaying red figures can be seen at almost every hole. They have been completely frightened by the Lord Army soldiers, and all the ghost-striped red ants are unwilling to do so.
Comes out easily.
The attack method of the ghost-patterned soldier ants is very simple. It spits acid and pierces the armor of the enemy with its fangs as sharp as scimitars.
They have dark red hard carapace, can climb steep walls freely, and are extremely fast.
Once the ordinary heavy armored infantry soldiers of the Lord's Army leave their bed crossbows, they have no good way to deal with these ghostly patterned soldier ants.
Only those construct knights, almost all of them have a magic weapon, and under Andrew's careful teaching, they have mastered the ability to kill ghost-marked soldier ants.
So on the stone arch bridge, the main force fighting these ghost-patterned soldier ants head-on was basically these construct knights.
The Construct Knights were unable to charge on the stone arch bridge. They basically fought on foot. After occupying the stone arch, more than two hundred Construct Knights stood in front of hundreds of ant nests at the foot of the mountain.
It seems a bit unsightly.
The heavy armored infantry raised their shields and surrounded these ant nests. The ghost-striped soldier ants hid in the caves and spit a large amount of acid at the heavy armored infantry regiment outside. For a while, the heavy armored infantry regiment could not get close at all.
The ghost-marked soldier ants did not dare to climb out of the cave, because there were not only spearmen waiting outside, but also some bed crossbows with bowstrings fully drawn. These magic crossbow arrows purchased by Surdak could easily pierce the ghost-marked soldiers.
The hard skin of ants.
The battle to eliminate the ghost-striped red ants suddenly came to a stalemate at the entrance of the ant nest.
There are hundreds of deep wormholes at the foot of this giant mountain.
The heavy armored infantry soldiers of the Lord Army could only surround the entrance of the cave, because once they lost the support of their ballistae, they would not be able to defeat these ghostly patterned soldier ants.
Surdak also didn't want the Construct Knights to rush ahead. Who knows what dangers there might be in the anthill. These half-armed Construct Knights were his real wealth.
Only Andrew relied on his being a Level 2 strongman, and his body was wrapped in fighting spirit and he rushed in. He tried several times but failed to rush in.
Because there are densely packed ghost-patterned soldier ants inside, they occupy every inch of the cave. If Andrew wants to rush inside, he can only kill them all the way. There is a time when a second-level strongman is exhausted. After his fighting spirit is exhausted,
You can only quickly exit the ant nest.
Although the Lord's army was unable to rush into the ant nest for a while, the ghost-marked red ants were also suppressed by the Lord's army and did not dare to come out of the ant nest, which made Surdak much more calm when making combat deployments.
In order to reduce the pressure on the front line of the Lord Army, Surdak allowed the following adventure group to pass through the stone arch bridge and come to the battlefield here to continue hunting ghost-patterned soldier ants.
Facts can prove that the power of the people is infinite.
These adventurous groups came to the battlefield at the foot of the mountain, bringing with them a variety of hunting methods.
Since winter has come, the weather here is getting colder and colder, and white frost has already formed on the rock walls in the early morning. Therefore, when these adventure groups are fighting, in order to fight against the ghost-striped soldier ants spitting acid, they will spray acid into the ant nests.
Splash water, in such a cold weather, the ghost-striped soldier ants fighting at the entrance of the cave are all wet. The loss of temperature makes the movements of the ghost-striped soldier ants at the entrance of the cave become very stiff.
In order to maintain a fighting distance, some members of the adventure group fixed hooks and sickles on the tips of five-meter-long knight spears. They worked together to extend the long hooks into the hole, looking for a few ghost-patterned soldier ants inside to escape from the cave.
After pulling it out, the members of the adventure group hiding outside the cave quickly dismembered the ghost-patterned soldier ants.
Some adventure groups even prepared hunting nets. These mesh wires are so tough that even the strong ghost-patterned soldier ants cannot break them. Every time they seal the hunting net at the entrance of the cave, they can always capture fresh ghost-patterned soldier ants.
.
In the rear camp, there were suddenly some temporary leather-making workshops and butcher shops that processed red ant meat. These first shops were basically processing red ant meat sausages that were easy to store and carry, and they also purchased soldier ant tusks.
The businessman, whose stomach is full of acid, transports some corpses of soldier ants back from the battlefield almost every day.
The fresh meat of some red ants is roasted until golden brown, sprinkled with some herbs and salt, and then put on the stall for sale.
Soldiers returning from the front line would occasionally eat two skewers of delicious red ant meat in front of this street stall.
Suldak ordered Andrew to lead a team of Constructed Knights to patrol the battlefield every day. They must deal with emergencies in a timely manner.
For example, a ghost-striped male ant that is bigger than a war elephant suddenly emerges from a cave somewhere, or some giant ghost-striped soldier ants are ready to rush out of the ant nest and launch a counterattack.
Only second-level powerhouses like Andrew, Gulitem and Wolf Knight Tago are capable of handling these emergencies.
At the gate of the Lord's Army's frontline camp, there is a huge notice board. The notice board announces the names of the top 100 soldiers in the military camp, as well as the merit points they currently have. This merit ranking is almost every morning.
Everything changes, some people's rankings will rise quickly, and some warriors will be injured due to their bravery, and they will only appear briefly on the merit list, and then they will be quickly pushed down the rankings by others.
On the other side of the gate of the frontline camp, the exchange reward items shown on the merit exchange list almost made the members of the adventure group outside look at them.
Especially the magic pattern structure at the top of the list attracted the attention of most people.
Whenever this happens, the soldiers in the camp feel like they are on fire. Many people hope that the group leader can put them on the battle list a few more times.
In the Lord's Army camp, every day's topic was almost inseparable from achievements.
…
The reason why this place is called the Dark Worm Valley does not refer to this huge mountain, but to the huge space inside the mountain. According to the information obtained by Surdak, if you want to enter the Dark Worm Valley, you must pass through here.
Wormhole.
But currently, the ghost-patterned soldier ants are blocking the entrance of the cave with their lives, and are fighting against the lord's army almost every day.
And no matter how many ghost-marked soldier ants die, there will be more ghost-marked soldier ants to replace them later.
Of course, there are also a lot of casualties on the Lord's Army every day. After many Lord's Army die in battle, they will be cremated that night. Finally, a handful of ashes will be put into a jar, and their companions will take them back with their pension.
's hometown.
As for those soldiers who were injured on the battlefield, they should first be grateful to have saved their lives on the battlefield, because there is no problem with the ghost-striped red ants taking prisoners. The losing side on such a battlefield will always have to face death.
The lucky wounded are almost always rescued by their companions, and they are quickly moved to the rear.
The first-aid tent established by Nika behind the military camp has now been gradually opened to the members of the adventure group. Of course, a certain medical fee will be charged, and the medical fee will vary according to the severity of the injury. Of course, if you really encounter that kind of serious situation,
If you don't have much money, Nikka will also treat you.
Most of the adventure groups here come from the Green Empire, which believes in the Statue of Liberty.
When they saw the ball of light in Nika's hand, at first they thought it was the priests of the Statue of Liberty who had returned. Only when they learned that Nika was the saint of the Dawn Goddess of the Twin Goddess Temple in Dodan Town did they realize...
It turns out that the Twin Goddess Temple in Duodan Town was actually blessed by the gods.
There are many such people in the Green Empire: even if the Goddess of Liberty leaves with all the priests, there are still many people in the empire who are willing to flatter Lady Liberty, hoping that the goddess's blessing will one day return to the Green Empire.
But there are not many devout believers in the Statue of Liberty among these adventure groups.
The members of the adventure group follow the natural law of survival of the fittest.
Therefore, when you encounter the saints from the Twin Goddess Temple treating the wounded in the military camp, not only will you not feel disgusted, but you will also feel that this Twin Goddess Temple is really blessed by the goddess. This is really good. If you suffer some injuries that cannot heal naturally in the future,
Then go to the Twin Goddess Temple in Duodan Town and seek treatment from this saint. Many injured members of the adventure group will think so.
Of course, at this time, Nika never thought that the Dawn Temple would attract some believers from the adventure group because of this operation to eliminate red ants.
…
Suldak took the magicians in the mage group and began to draw the topography outside the Dark Worm Valley in the military camp tent.
When Lance's team of mages took the risk to investigate around this huge mountain, the magicians who explored the terrain around the giant mountain unexpectedly discovered that there was a huge tunnel leading to the interior of the mountain on the east side of the giant mountain that had not yet been covered by snow.
The lava cave is even covered with green moss around the cave entrance.
However, after discovering that there were traces of ghost-marked red ants in the cave, the magician who ventured to explore the terrain finally gave up the idea of exploring into the dark cave.
In fact, Lance had wanted to see how high this mountain peak that shot straight into the sky was. Unfortunately, the magician flew high into the sky and failed to reach the top of the mountain after penetrating the clouds. Instead, he was almost swooped by pengs from all around.
attack.
Lance drew the outline of this huge mountain on parchment and explained this huge mountain to Suldak.
"It is much larger than the Oak Mountain where Helensa City is located. There is even no comparison between the two. If we really want to describe how big this mountain is, I think it might be bigger than Bena City.
It's a bigger circle." Lance explained to Suldak: "And it is not surrounded by other mountains connected to it. It is more like a solitary peak standing in the northern part of the Invercargill Forest."
Lance stood in front of a hand-drawn mountain peak and used a quill pen to draw a cave gate on the right side.
As a magician, he has a very good talent for painting and can vividly show the appearance of the cave.
Lance explained to Suldak:
"There are cliffs all around here. Only between the two stone bridges on the east side is a huge cave, and the entrance of the cave is very high. The entrance is thirty meters high and more than ten meters wide. To reach the entrance of the cave, you have to at least go from
At the foot of the mountain, we climbed a steep mountain wall nearly 100 meters high, and we still don’t know exactly where it leads. Our magician investigator was attacked by a roc and was forced to retreat."
"Is there any other way to let the army enter the cave?" Surdak asked seriously.
Lance nodded, used a quill to draw two curved arcs at the entrance of the cave, and then said: "Yes, there are also stone arch bridges like giant tree roots on both sides of the entrance, but these two stone arch bridges are
It's very long. If we want to reach the foot of the eastern mountain from our current camp, we have to walk at least twenty kilometers eastward. If we want to go up from the stone arch bridge, we need to continue walking five kilometers eastward until we reach the edge of the Poison Mist Swamp.
"
Suldak nodded.
Lance then smiled and said to Suldak: "In this area, it is really dangerous to ride on a magic harpoon to conduct reconnaissance. We magicians have been avoiding the rocs these days and have been going around here. There are
Didn’t you find what this mountain looks like?”
"What?" Surdak asked.
"A huge tree stump!" Lance replied, then pointed at the huge sketch on the parchment, and added to Suldak: "A giant tree with roots countless times larger than ordinary tree roots, even if we cross the
The stone arch bridge across the lake looks like the exposed aerial roots of this tree, and even the texture on the cliffs looks like bark."
After hearing what Lance said, Suldak also said:
"Actually, I have long suspected that this is a world tree that has been dead for a long time... and its body has been completely petrified. In this case, the huge cave that your magicians explored is probably a giant tree cave, and that cave can be directly connected
The belly of the mountain..."
A bold idea suddenly came to his mind, and he said to Lance: "We won't get any advantage by entering the ant nest. We might as well explore the cave. Maybe this is the real entrance to the mountain."
He tapped the map with his pen.
Surdak felt that it was necessary to take a look at this matter in person. In order to mobilize manpower to explore the cave with him, the frontal battlefield situation here must be stabilized.
Surdak planned to take Gulitem, Gary Decker and Selina with him to explore the cave.
If in danger, Aphrodite can also run out to help by summoning a magic circle.
Andrew, Wolf Knight Tiger and Samira will stay on the battlefield here. They are all second-level experts who can exert their full strength on the frontal battlefield. With them sitting here, even if the ghost-marked red ants launch a massive counterattack,
Andrew also has a way of holding on for a while.
Worried that the ghost-striped red ants here would take the opportunity to counterattack, Suldak prepared some small gifts for them before leaving...