Today's clouds are red in color, as if indicating that today is a bloody day.
The short but cruel scouting battle ended. The warriors of the God's Envoy King collected the corpses and returned behind the city wall. The red fire ant scouts basically retreated with injuries, taking away valuable information.
The blood from the scout battle was not enough to dye the sky red.
The countdown to the start of a more bloody siege battle has begun, and the Legion of the God's Envoy King is making final preparations for the "Cage City".
——I am the dividing line——
In the morning, it happened to be "Cao"'s turn to take her two companions, the Flying Knights, on duty. They were closely monitoring the movements of red imported fire ants near the old nest of the ant, and were ready to warn the protagonist at any time.
When the flying knights were staying in the tree before, they encountered a sneak attack. A small group of fire ants somehow appeared on the tree where the flying knights were staying, and were secretly approaching the flying knights' stopping place.
This tree makes it easier to observe the nest, so it has become a fixed monitoring location.
Fortunately, the Flying Knights had encountered several such sneak attacks before and already had a sentry system in place. The sentry discovered the sneak attack in advance and called his companions to fly into the air in time to be vigilant.
"Grass" also confirmed from this that the fire ants did notice these flying knights on their side and did not lose their vigilance as they were ordinary flies!
After such an episode, the flying knights could only try their best to hover in the air for reconnaissance. When their mounts were really tired, they would land on a slightly higher place to rest for a while, and frequently moved their base to prevent another sneak attack.
Near noon, "Cao" saw several fire ants running back to their nests. These were the fire ant scouts who had just returned from [Xinyang City].
Their return was like pressing the start button. After a while, the messengers of fire ants were seen running from the central tree nest to the surrounding tree nests.
The tree nest of the fire ant family, which is occupied by fire ants, is composed of multiple tennis ball-sized nests on the branches. The red fire ant troops are dispersed and stationed among them.
When the messengers from the central tree nest went out to communicate, another team of troops went out here, escorting the surviving ants, and went down the tree towards the territory of red fire ants.
These belly-lifting ants also support the queen and carry eggs, larvae and pupae. They are like black slaves who were snatched away from the land of Africa. Under the whipping and urging of the escorting soldiers, they embark on a road of blood and tears with no return.
After the captive ants were taken away, the fire ants came out in full force. Countless warriors swarmed out of various tree nests, the streams gathered into small rivers, and the small rivers gathered into pools.
After gathering on the ground in the woods, more than 6,000 red fire ant warriors formed a long column along the pheromones left by the scouts, walked out of the woods, along the river beach, and killed in the direction of [Xinyang City].
Fire ants are extremely fast. They usually march faster than big-headed ants and pavement ants, as if they are charging all the way.
Under the sun, the carapace of each red fire ant warrior is fiery red, like an elite red-armored army. During the march, the fire ant warriors kept opening their jaws and salivating, as if they were biting fiercely at non-existent enemies or prey.
The tree nest of the ant family is very close to [New Yang City]. When the sun is still high, the red fire ant army has arrived outside [New Yang City] and begins to gather into a somewhat messy formation during the fast long-distance march.
The fire ants gradually arrived outside [Xinyang City] in columns. The protagonist has already received a warning from the flying knight, and leads the defenders to prepare on the city wall in advance.
For a moment, the protagonist has the heart to go out and plan to defeat the vanguard of the enemy before the army of red fire ants arrives.
But considering that the red fire ants do not have a clear distinction between forward, center, and rearguard, but arrive continuously, it is difficult to defeat the entire enemy army in one go. If the war goes unfavorably, it will be difficult to escape.
The protagonist no longer plans to take risks, but instead relies on solid city defenses to fight with peace of mind.
The red fire ant army assembled on the river beach, facing the easternmost tower of the [Xinyang City] defense system.
Judging from the defensive terrain, if the fire ants want to attack the ant mound in [Xinyang City], they have only two options.
One is to directly break through the city wall and kill in a straight line towards the nearest ant mound area. However, this requires the full resistance of the defenders to attack the city. It is a head-to-head approach with no tricks.
The other way is to bypass the defense line along the river beach.
The western defense line of [Xinyang City] is close to the city wall, completely covering all roads. The city wall on the east side cannot extend all the way to the beach and river because it is difficult to build a city wall on the river beach and the city wall will be completely submerged during the flood season.
Therefore, the city wall can only be built at a higher place, above the water level even in flood season. But in this way, a gap is left on the river bank that can be detoured into the peninsula.
But even if the fire ants found this road, it would not be easy to walk. The city wall of [Xinyang City] made a special turn here, and the attackers had to brave a road full of bullets to get around.
——I am the dividing line——
Seeing that many fire ants have gathered together, the protagonist orders the ballista to attack first.
The gathering point of the red fire ants is not too far from the city wall. Perhaps according to their previous experience, such a distance will not encounter long-range attacks from acid, and can shorten the charging distance.
But the shooting distance of the ballista far exceeds the experience and imagination of the fire ants.
[Xinyang City] At the corner of the city wall facing the river beach, there is a tower with two ballistas on it. The protagonist also set up the command post in this slightly higher place.
At the same time, the defenders mainly gathered in this section of the city wall. At present, the 2nd Army is responsible for the defense of the city wall, the 1st Army serves as a reserve in the rear, and the 3rd Army has separated some troops to guard other parts of the city wall.
With the current total strength of the Divine Envoy King's army, it is unrealistic and unnecessary to deploy heavy troops on the nearly five-meter-long city wall. Therefore, we only focus on deploying defenses in the attack direction of fire ants.
When the stone bullets fired by the two ballistas fell into the fire ants' formation one after another, they were obviously confused by the attack they had never seen before.
Ants are too small. In this world, the impact of natural disasters on ants is far more severe than what humans suffer.
For example, if an apple falls from a tree and hits someone, several laws will be born. But hitting the ant army will cause dozens of casualties!
The fire ants were initially confused whether the attack was a natural disaster or an enemy attack. But when the ballistae hit the army of red fire ants with a fixed frequency, their commander understood.
What surprised the protagonist was that after a slight panic at the beginning, the fire ants quickly organized themselves. Even the continuous stone bombings, which caused dozens of casualties of fire ants, did not waver in the slightest.
Like Spartan warriors who were not afraid of death, they resisted artillery fire and completed the preparations before the attack.
