Lord of the Desert

Chapter 450 Isolated Island
Three days later, it was April 2nd.

Night is beginning to fall.

On the top of Erbai City, the flames from the braziers fluttered like lion's mane.

Hundreds of craftsmen raced against time to repair the corner towers and battlements; the sounds of hammers and horns were heard incessantly.

"Young Master Hong, today's scouts reported that the insect swarm has built a new nest, located in Qiuying Mountain, eighty miles to the north."

Xiao Chu, dressed in golden armor, grabbed his cloak and avoided the three porters carrying wood, and walked out of the corner tower.

"The mountain is made entirely of rock, with only a thin layer of soil covering the gentle south part. The mother nest is built deep in a natural cave in the belly of the mountain and is heavily guarded."

She stood on the wide city road on the other side, the cold light of the moon shining on the tip of her nose.

"Is it possible to assassinate the queen again?"

"Your Highness, my Sand Flow Knife can cut through rocks quickly. If you want to break through several layers of stone walls underground, that won't be a problem."

Hong Fan replied after careful consideration.

"But if it's about penetrating a rocky mountain, I'm afraid I won't be able to do it."

Upon hearing this, Xiao Chu quickly concealed his disappointment and smiled bitterly.

"The bigger the war, the harder it is to take shortcuts. I am just hoping for the best."

The city section not far away is mixed with two colors.

The rammed earth base had been half-collapsed by the insect swarm, but Hong Fan had used sand and soil to solidify it into rock to repair it in the past two days, thus relieving the defenders of a major worry.

Xiao Chu reflected on himself solemnly.

During this short period of time, the people around him gave too many surprises one after another, so that every time the situation was challenging, all the senior officials of the Shengyu Army, including himself, could not help but look forward to it.

Such a talent cannot be won over by just treating the world with courtesy.

"Today, the palace ordered Zhou Gong to go out of the city for inspection. We saw a large number of sub-insects gathering, with a total number of more than 70,000. It is expected that they will attack again tomorrow."

Xiao Chu's tone became a little more serious.

"I see no more explosives planted outside the city."

Hong Fan glanced at the cleared city and asked.

"It's no use burying it again."

Xiao Chu shook his head and looked into the distance.

The wasteland under the moon was covered with colorful and flickering silver light, which was the wriggling black tide.

"The appearance and behavior of the insect swarm are deceptive; young man, do not underestimate their wisdom. The same trick often does not work on the handsome insects a second time."

she reminded.

[Shuai Chong may not understand the relationship between gunpowder and explosion. ]

Hong Fan wanted to argue like this, but when he remembered the new location of the insect swarm's mother nest, he swallowed his words.

There is a secluded lake on the right, illuminated by the blue moon.

He suddenly remembered the tattooed warriors he had seen before, and the four new words "Exile and Death" tattooed on their faces.

"I remember that four days ago, more than a dozen warriors followed Star Lord Dai to fight."

Hong Fan asked.

"They all died in battle."

Xiao Chu replied casually.

"There are seventeen of them in total. They have committed serious crimes such as burning, killing and looting, but they are still at large. The names of two of them are even on the evil list. Now that the insect plague is coming from the west, they were caught by our army in the midst of their wolves and pigs. There is nothing wrong with them dying to atone for their sins."

She suddenly looked at Hong Fan.

"These past two days, I've noticed that you and Gu Qiang Kui seem to have something to ask."

Xiao Chu said this and waved his hand to signal the guards to step back.

"I have been away from home for a long time, so I don't have to be so cautious. Now that there is no one around, you can ask me."

She speaks freely.

"It's about the Fantian Society."

As Hong Fan spoke, he paid attention to the other person's expression, but saw no change.

"During the last battle, Emperor Xiao was nagging Brother Gu again. According to him, not only is the Thousand-Eyed Demon God still alive, but the Ancestral Dragon is in danger."

He lowered his voice to ensure that no one else could hear his words.

"absurd."

Xiao Chu responded calmly and disdainfully.

"Whether it's the Fantian Society or the Qianshe Sect, they are all a group of traitors who fabricate lies for their own selfish interests."

Her words were like hammers.

"These rats inherited our Xiao family's legacy, but they obeyed foreigners and subverted the family. Don't you know that in the past two hundred years, there have been many rebels from the Fantian Society returning from overseas to surrender. What the Thirteen Kings said is totally unfounded, and every one of them admits it."

Hong Fan believed what Xiao Chu said.

He had read the records before, which clearly stated that the Ancestral Dragon had appeared thirteen times at the Dragon Summoning Festival within the past hundred years, and the most recent time was twenty years ago.

But even so, he still thought of the purple eye he saw when he was in Jinhai City from time to time - this evil eye was still buried deep in his brow.

"Emperor Xiao emphasized that his ancestors saw the Thousand-Eyed Demon God with their own eyes in the Dragon Palace of Shenjing."

Hong Fan asked again.

"Then take it as what he said sincerely."

Xiao Chu smiled.

"It's been two hundred years, and he still believes the nonsense of the Thirteen Rebel Kings, to the point of getting involved in such a big mess. I guess he has complete faith in his ancestors."

"But you, Young Master Hong, should know that the devil was killed by the Ancestral Dragon, and it is well known to the world. The battlefield back then was in the mountains east of Hanzhou, leaving behind the Purple Impermanence, which is much larger than the Heart-Eating Impermanence Realm."

She answered very patiently.

As the eldest princess of Dahua, Xiao Chu certainly felt that these questions were absurd and meaningless, but as the commander-in-chief she deeply understood that taking care of and comforting the emotions of Hong Fan and Gu Yixin was her important job.

Hong Fan nodded silently.

The state of impermanence is created by the remaining spirit after the death of a strong person. Since there is Purple Impermanence, the Thousand-Eyed Demon must have died on the battlefield.

But thinking of the looks on Xiao Zhenxie and Xiao Kefei's faces when they died, Xiao Tanghuang's earnest words, and even the names of the three of them, Hong Fan was still confused. If it was just for the sake of family and private interests, could a lie really be told for two hundred years and passed down for ten generations?
Putting aside the past between Zulong and the Thousand-Eyed Demon God, how do we explain the anomaly of the current battle?

He had many questions, but he couldn't explain each one clearly now, so there was no need to explain them anymore.

Xiao Chu left under the protection of his personal guards.

There was no wind.

The clouds are still in the atmosphere, with the jagged sky hidden in their gaps.

Hong Fan climbed up the corner tower alone.

Through the countless vaguely visible flying insects, he seemed to hear a silent torrent rushing high above.

······
The next day was April 3rd.

noon.

Hong Fan stood on the top of the city wall, carrying a steel shield, a heavy axe, and a javelin on his back.

Just as Xiao Chu predicted, the Zerg launched a second attack.

At this time, the number of real insects outside Erbai City is 19,000, and the total number of real insects in Shengzhou should not exceed 30,000.

As for the sub-insects that can hatch anywhere without a mother nest, nearly 100,000 of them have gathered in the past three days. The overall scale is hard to imagine.

The Zerg offensive continued as usual, first with air harassment, then ground troops advancing under the pressure of heavy artillery and powerful crossbows.

At first, the real bugs routinely destroyed the city walls, but soon discovered that the strength of the walls had changed fundamentally.

The compressive strength of the rock currently manufactured by Hong Fan is between 200 and 300 MPa, similar to granite. It is not only several times stronger than ordinary cement, but also nearly a hundred times stronger than rammed earth.

In just a quarter of an hour, the swarm of insects changed their strategy and built a ladder to climb up the city.

The city walls bear less pressure, and the load on the top of the city becomes heavier.

Rotating every two hours, the defenders fought for thirty-six hours straight, from noon on the third day to the early morning of the fifth day.

At midnight on the fifth day, the top of the city had become a brutal slaughterhouse that was too painful to watch.

The bodies were strewn all over the place.

Some were flattened and drained of blood, with a hole in the middle of their armor through which light could pass. Some had their legs and feet chewed in half by their mouthparts. Some were cut in half diagonally like lard. More of them died of poison.

At the beginning of the Mao hour (5 a.m.), the fighting between the two armies slowed down a little, and the defenders took turns defending the city.

Hong Fan took this opportunity to go down the city for a short while. He sat on a bench, gulped down half a belly of cold water, and ate two dry buns. During this time, an old craftsman with a white beard, holding armor plates and red ropes, urgently repaired the eleven holes in his steel armor for him.

After having enough water and food, his rigid brain became a little more active, and he hurried back with two brand new golden spears in his hands - the three arsenals in Erbai City had been filled before the war, with 80,000 pieces of top-quality steel armor, not to mention all kinds of other weapons.

Hong Fan still didn't know the losses in this battle. He only knew that only a small part of the vitality gained from the last battle had been consumed, and now it had been fully consumed.

[From a utilitarian point of view, a war with too high intensity is a bit of a waste for the Star Lord...]

As he was thinking about it, he saw an officer leading two people carrying a bamboo stretcher on the trail leading up to the city, carrying a tall corpse down.

[All the ordinary soldiers were dragged down. 】

An idea came to Hong Fan's mind, and he looked carefully out of curiosity. After trying hard to identify the deceased, he realized that he was the Xiantian Yin Feihu from Liudi City who had traveled north with him. His face was red and swollen, and his once proud long beard was now only a short stubble. His hands hung limply outside the bamboo pole, swaying with the steps of the porters.

"Excuse me for a moment."

Hong Fan stepped forward.

The fatal wound was on the chest, the skin and internal organs were burnt, and purple electric sparks flashed occasionally.

When questioned further, he replied, "The leader of the Yin faction was accidentally hit by a palm when he was assisting the ancient spear leader in resisting the purple lightning thief."

In this way, a Xiantian died at the hands of Yuanci.

As a result, one person died in the war between humans and insects.

There are no more words.

Hong Fan just nodded silently, watched this friend he had just met go away, and then went straight up the city.

The sky before dawn was gray and gloomy, like a giant hand trying to grab the entire world.

Hong Fan looked at the new batch of real insects coming from afar. He had long forgotten what life or state of mind was. There was only a blank feeling of confusion and depression in his mind.

The fighting resumed.

Nearly two thousand real insects were suppressing the city and outside the city, and they were facing the "Zhe Camp" of the Shengyu Army - this camp had six thousand-man teams at full strength, and was newly built with one-third of the veterans of the Shengyu Army as the skeleton, but it still could not withstand the situation.

Everyone is too tired.

Xiao Chu's repeated deployments had no effect, so he had to wave the purple gold thunder flag once again.

After a few breaths of thunder, Hong Fan looked in the direction of the sound and saw that the explosion took place on the embankment of You Lake.

The dust storm dissipated, revealing a gap in the stone embankment that was more than ten meters wide.

From then on, the lake water poured into the lowlands, quickly widening the gap into a sloping mudflat of dozens of meters, so that the Tree God's guards could not do anything for a while.

The insects were ordered to retreat immediately, but the spread of pheromones has a huge time delay.

The expansion of the water area seemed slow but was actually fast, with waves leaping up at obstacles and whirlpools forming in gaps in the ground. In five minutes, it spanned the south of Erbai City, turning the land into a swamp.

The shells of true insects are heavy and cannot float on water.

During the surging tide, those with a large body may be able to withstand the impact and keep half of their bodies above the water surface, but they will suffocate to death after a few minutes due to water entering their breathing holes.

Hong Fan stuffed the crooked golden melon into his belt and jumped onto the watchtower.

According to visual estimation, the total Zerg casualties in this battle were over 5,000 true Zergs and 90,000 sub-Zergs; only about 30% died in this wave of water attack.

For many days, many warriors in Erbai City have been disdainful of the slowness of Commander Insect's command - according to them, the Zerg have been pressing forward on all fronts since the first day and should be able to break into the city within three days.

But now it seems that the command center of the Zerg tide may have long been certain that humans have a backup plan, so they are forcing the latter to play every card at an affordable cost, neither hastily nor slowly.

"Brother Hong, with this golden soup protecting my body, I can finally be quiet for a few days."

Shi Yuanwei came like lightning and landed next to Hong Fan.

In this battle, he and Yin Feihu assisted Gu Yixin in resisting Xiao Tanghuang many times. They were under great pressure and suffered heavy injuries.

But when Hong Fan saw the muddy water gradually filling up the lowlands around the city, he felt that Erbai City was becoming more and more like an isolated island.

The wind is blowing from the southwest.

He took the opportunity to look towards the direction of Shenjing again, and his heart felt heavy.

(End of this chapter)