On the day when Zhu Jue personally led the coalition of civilized ant tribes to fight the Imperial Army of Paving Ants, and on the day when "Jianiu II" and others held a secret meeting in the satellite city, a major event also happened while marching to the northwest of the ant kingdom's territory!
After completely wiping out the domestic resistance of the Thin-footed Ants, hundreds of thousands of Destroyers crossed the border that morning and attacked the areas controlled by the Marching Ant Nation, declaring that the war had officially spread to the territory of the Marching Ant Nation.
So far, since the beginning of this spring, the Destroyer's military force has spread to the four civilized ant territories in the region, and has entered the center of the region. The strategic space left for the civilized ant coalition has been greatly compressed!
When the Destroyer invaded, the first ones to come under pressure were some of the Divine Envoy King soldiers left by Zhu Jue in the frontline buffer zone.
Previously, in order to protect the logistics supply line of the battlefield of the Thin-footed Ant Nation, Zhu Jue wiped out most of the indigenous ants between the territories of the Thin-footed Ant Nation and the Marching Ant Nation, connecting the two territories into one, and along the transportation A number of small fortresses were built.
Now, this narrow area controlled by the fortress has become the outpost and buffer of [Hope City] where Zhu Jue's troops are stationed, while the main force of the marching ant army is stationed not far to the southeast of [Hope City].
During the Destroyer's attack, the vanguard troops were divided into three groups, with two to three hundred thousand soldiers in each group. According to the Flying Knight's investigation, there were millions of Destroyers gathering in the rear, as if the black streams converged into small rivers and rivers. Become a sea!
In this battle, the force deployed by the Destroyer has exceeded the peak force invested in destroying the kingdom of sharp-tailed ants, honeypot ants, and thin-legged ants.
The Destroyer forwards who were the first to go south were blocked by large swamps and dense forests on their left and right sides. Although the large number of indigenous ants living in them were scattered, their combat effectiveness was not weak. Tianqi fell behind in the middle.
As for the Destroyer in the middle, which has the most powerful troops and poses the greatest threat, its advancement route is exactly the transportation line originally used by the Army Ant Clan to assist the Thin-footed Ant Nation. The terrain is flat, and there are only many God-Kings who seem to be vulnerable along the way. A small fortress of the Legion. Therefore, the Destroyer in the middle advanced very quickly on the first day, capturing four fortresses and killing hundreds of defenders.
Unexpectedly, the very next day, the mid-lane Destroyer suffered an unexpected setback.
The fifth fortress guarding a pile of rocks next to the flat ant road is larger than the first four fortresses. It is a defense fortification carefully constructed by Zhu Jue. Although it is not expected to be able to block the destroyer, it must at least serve as a defense for the rear.[ Hope City]'s build-up delayed, so the defensive arrangements were very careful.
This fortress is completely built on rubble, with a solid foundation. The underground structure is built in the cracks of the stones. The ground part is built with gravel and ant concrete. Because the ant concrete building materials are saved, a large number of locally sourced stones are mixed in. Therefore, the average thickness of the walls is 3 centimeters, and the bottom is even more than half a decimeter thick. The defensive power is amazing.
When the arrogant Destroyer brigade bypassed the fortress and advanced, leaving only more than 3,000 Destroyers to attack the city, they soon suffered.
The land outside the fortress was densely covered with cone-shaped pits. The Destroyers didn't take it seriously and rushed over. Unexpectedly, many Destroyers accidentally stepped into the pits and immediately slipped down. The pits were densely covered with holes. The trap has sand and gravel rolling down from the inside of the trap, making it difficult for ants to escape once they step inside.
What's even worse is that antlion larvae emerged from the bottom of some pits, grabbing the Destroyer with its powerful jaws and dragging it underground.
These ant lions were seized by the Ant Alliance from the destroyed red fire ant country. Zhu Jue kept them in the country. He originally planned to use these ant lions as an auxiliary defense method for important nests, but the ant lion traps cannot be effective unless they are densely packed. Large effect, too dense will affect the normal production of the nest, and the larval stage of the ant lion is limited, and it is useless once it reaches adulthood. This makes its status very embarrassing, and it is eventually abandoned.
Zhu Jue just kept a small amount of ant lions in the country and kept hundreds of ant lion eggs. After the defeat from the Thin-footed Ant Kingdom, thinking of using waste, they airlifted dozens of ant lion eggs to the front line, catalyzed them in warm underground greenhouses, and arranged them around some fortresses.
There are 24 ant lions arranged near this fortress, but there are hundreds of pit traps. This is a masterpiece of ants "exploiting" the ant lions: every time they dig a trap, they tie it with dung beetles. The ant lion on the rope was pulled out of the ground and forced to dig in another place. This is why there are so many traps.
It was already autumn. If the Destroyer didn't attack again, these antlions that had hatched against the clock would have died of the cold, or they would have barely reached adulthood but would have been unable to reproduce. Now that the Destroyer has come to kill them, these ant lions are letting their instincts come into play!
However, the ant lion trap had limited effect after all, and it only temporarily delayed some of the Destroyers. The defenders mainly had to rely on the fortifications themselves.
Those Destroyers who fell into traps without ant lions were trapped on slippery slopes and had to wait until the gravel rolled down by the struggle filled the pit before they could climb out, and by this time they were exhausted.
However, traps with ant lions were scrapped faster. Among the first batch of attacking Destroyers, there were many White-bellied Destroyers. Once caught, they would self-destruct decisively, even if it killed their companions who were also trapped in the trap. The self-destruction killed himself and the ant lion, and also caused the trap to be leveled...
One-fifth of the roaring Destroyers were trapped in the ant lion trap, and the rest quickly attacked the foot of the fortress.
This fortress is not a typical fortress in the style of the King of Divine Envoys. It has no city walls, forts and trenches. It is more like a bunker. The approximately cylindrical fortress has some shooting ports. The large holes are for the crossbows and the small holes are for the fortress. There were dozens of holes, large and small, made by soldiers throwing fire bombs.
The Destroyers wanted to use the old tactic of blowing open the hole with the White-bellied Destroyer and then swarming in. However, the few White-bellied Destroyers who escaped from the ant lion trap only made shallow dents in the bunker wall. , only destroying some concrete blocks and rocks.
When the dozens of White-bellied Destroyers were exhausted, the Destroyers did not open their mouths. Instead, they suffered hundreds of losses from ballistae, fire bombs, incendiary bombs and other attacks, and had to retreat in despair.
Subsequently, this group of Destroyers launched several attacks, but without the White-bellied Destroyers, they could only attach themselves to the bunker and try to get in through several larger ballista openings, but were easily blocked by the defenders.
These waves of attacks still ended in vain. That night, the defenders also took the initiative to attack the Destroyer's campsite hidden in the ground with incendiary bombs. As a result, hundreds of Destroyers were trapped by fire in the already overcrowded underground camp. Unable to escape, he died from lack of oxygen.
