Chapter 674
In a hidden tunnel a hundred meters under the ground, a new bug’s nest was slowly coming to life.
Billis had sent out the remaining twenty-three thousand insects of the insect army in waves to scavenge and hunt for food, even at the risk of being exterminated by the elves. Though they did bring back plenty of woodland creatures, their casualties were no small number either. As many as one to two thousand insects were killed on a daily basis.
At the rate this was going, Billis would be in a desperate position with no insects at his command within ten days!
The remaining six magical mantises were made to stay by his side at all times, leaving him with a base of some high-grade combat insects. Far, far away at the edge of the west coast some of the insects and magical mantises that had been separated from the main army had managed to survive. They wandered into various corners of Fantasy Forest and hid themselves.
If Billis’ current location was compromised and his actual body was to be destroyed by the elves, he could still rely on the insect kings hiding in the other insect armies to revive himself. However, the price of such a revival was too immense. It was very likely to cause his power to decrease to the level of a beginner First Grade.
That was why Billis would never willingly use such a method to escape the enemy’s siege unless necessary!
After the attempts on the first few days, Billis had given up on the fantasy of requesting help from Lady Mary. It was his reckless act of seeking help that had allowed the Spear of Vengeance to track him down through the weak elementium flux he emitted.
He had been forced to abandon a ten thousand strong insect army during that battle to bait the enemy and draw them away.
The tunnels here were no more than one meter tall or wide. If those elven archers were to come down here, they would probably have to crawl forward uncomfortabely. If it were those elven soldiers with their blades, they probably wouldn’t even be able to draw their sabers, much less fight.
That was why a jack-of-all-trades profession like a druid was the most suited for battlefields that required adaptation.
“This isn’t right; we seemed to have been surrounded by the enemy!”
The serpent leading in front stopped slithering. He used his sensitive feel for physical movement to pick up on the familiar chattering and vibrations in all tunnels around them.
It was possible, perhaps, that large numbers of insects were swarming toward them through winding tunnels all around them. Insect assaults of this scale were sporadic since the swarm had been severely crippled.
“Why don’t we retreat first and report this abnormality to the higher-ups?” The gopher raised its body and betrayed a humanoid expression of hesitation upon its furry face.
There were, at this moment, eleven druid squads searching for that bug adept. Only five of those squads had Second Grade druid masters within their ranks. Sadly, they weren’t one of those squads!
That was why the gopher immediately cowered in fear upon sensing the movement of the swarm in the distance.
After all, their strength was limited in this narrow and enclosed space. They couldn’t cast their powerful nature magic at all. Otherwise, the resulting collapse of dirt and stone would be enough to kill them.
“Those insects would definitely destroy the marks we left behind if we were to retreat just like that. Our whole day’s worth of work would have been for nothing. Let’s not retreat or advance. Tor, take the fork to the right; there should be a stone hall thirty meters away from us. It’s not much room, but it should allow us to fight inside it. I have already sent a signal for help. We only need to hold our own for a while, and the surrounding groups will come and reinforce us.” In the end, the most senior Poison Arrow Toad croaked and decided on the strategy.
The three-person team didn’t hesitate at all.
The gopher and the toad leaped onto the serpent’s back and quickly pushed into the pitch-black tunnel. They then dove straight into the right tunnel at the three-way fork that appeared in front of them.
Mere moments after they left, the chattering sound closed in as a swarm of insects charged out of the tunnels and passages. They also unhesitatingly followed the serpent down the right path.
For a moment, the sounds of shells rubbing against each other filled the underground tunnel!