Alien world

Chapter 1869, Section 502: The Rat Swarm
"Let me do it."

Kirlian volunteered to lead a small team to lure the rat swarm over.

Political Commissar Frank spoke up to stop him: "You are the deputy corps commander. It's not your job to be the bait and charge into battle."

Since Kirian couldn't refute it, the "good thing" fell to his lieutenant Lordaeron.

He led a lightly armored squad of 100 men, who landed in gondolas on the outside of the city wall and quickly advanced towards the outermost edge of the defensive fortifications, taking the initiative to engage the vanguard of the rat swarm.

Sporadic gunshots rang out, and the scattered swarm of rats solidified. Through the binoculars, the Lordaeron Hundreds ran ahead, with the arrow-shaped swarm of rats chasing after them and following them into the trap.

The rat-men are timid and afraid of death; when there are only a few of them, they would never dare to venture into an obvious trap. However, once they gather in large numbers, their already limited intelligence vanishes, and they become like a swarm of locusts, driven only by instinct.

Having achieved their objective, Lordaeron and his companions sped away from the swarm of rats, arriving back at the city walls before them without incident, and boarding the creaking, rising gondola.

boom--

Just as it rose halfway up, a roar came from overhead.

The people in the basket looked up and saw the black shells trace a high arc and land among the rats five hundred meters away.

The nearest ratmen were about 60 or 70 meters away, completely off-center, but that was enough to guide the other gunners.

When Lordaeron returned to the city walls, he could hear the constant clatter of cannons turning.

……

Today is a warm and cool morning, if you ignore the swarm of rats spreading like a carpet of fungus in the distance.

They traversed the various ineffective traps along the way until they were blocked by the towering Great Wall of the North, and then surged densely like crashing waves, rising higher and higher.

To them, the magic muskets were useless; the rolling stones were like pebbles thrown into the sea, and the cannonballs only created cavities that were quickly filled in, as the sea of ​​filth, with its squeaking sound and writhing filth, drew ever closer to the wall.

Only kerosene is effective against these furry animals. Pour buckets of kerosene down their heads, and before they eat it—or even after they do—throw down torches to enjoy the intense heat that rises dozens of meters high, scorching your hair, and the densely packed, crackling sound of burning kerosene as the rats surge about.

Nobles who did not engage in production would find this scene cruel, but frontline soldiers only felt incredibly relieved.

They used oil to suppress the rat horde, and the magic cannons opened fire as the ratmen charged into the attack range.

The deafening roar of a hundred magical cannons firing simultaneously sent shells arcing through the air with a piercing shriek, blasting into fleeting cavities among the rats.

It took the rat swarm twenty minutes and more than a million rats to advance from 700 meters to 300 meters.

Only a few ratmen managed to get within 300 meters before being shot dead by musketeers.

Once within musket range, the remaining 300 meters took nearly an hour and two million ratmen.

There are still 36 million ratmen left, a despairing number.

In the distance, magical cannons carpet-bombed the city, while nearby, second-generation magical muskets reaped the spoils. The few ratmen that managed to reach the city walls were completely ignored. They grabbed charred or golden-brown rats, stuffing them into their mouths and pushing forward until they were doused in oil and became food for the other ratmen.

The Great Wall in the north is about 30 meters high and wide enough for four horse-drawn carriages to run side by side on it, so there is no need to worry about them climbing it.

Nearly two hours into the battle, the rat swarm managed to disperse the defenders by splitting up and attacking other areas of the city walls, finally reaching the foot of the walls and beginning another nightmare.

Rolling stones and oil were used in turn, and the Hellfire soldiers didn't even need to aim. They just needed to pull the trigger towards the swarm of rats. If the fire jammed, they would quickly use a repair kit to clear it; otherwise, they would reload and continue firing.

It looks simple, and anyone could do it, but not everyone has the strength and courage to pull the trigger when faced with a swarm of rats.

The resistance leader, a berserker, watching this scene, had to admit that there was a reason for the mage's high status—if a warrior jumped in, he would be overwhelmed; he would either deal with the rat swarm or be worn down to death, there was no third option.

Hellfire is essentially a cheap mage squad—no, mages don't wear heavy armor, nor can they continuously cast Arcane Missiles or Fireballs.

This thing is much better than a staff!
The berserker was itching to try firing a few shots himself, but Commissar Frank, seeing this, tossed him a magic musket.

The surprise only lasted two seconds on the berserker's face, because he discovered that his calloused fingers couldn't even get the trigger in—Frank, as a second choice, had him throw the shell down with it.

The berserker did as instructed, and watching the horde of rats below being blown to bits, he couldn't help but pound his chest and howl in horror.

Mages and rangers could also splash water outside the city walls, while warriors who couldn't help would throw cannonballs, rolling stones, and oil to slow down the rat horde's ascent.

Smoke and dark clouds filled the air and rose high into the sky.

From the observation of the Behemoth hovering above the battlefield, it looked like a mass of brown slime attacking the sandcastle. Its body, piled up outside the sandcastle, formed tendrils that climbed up the outer wall of the sandcastle.

The scout knights ran around with binoculars in hand, constantly signaling with flags to inform the defenders on the city walls of the movement of the rat swarm.

Through this meticulous observation, they discovered an unexpected surprise: the reconnaissance airship had located the position of the rat swarm's command center.

The gray-haired rat priest led a group of disguised champion rats, cunningly changing positions within the rat swarm. If it weren't for air superiority allowing them to observe the battlefield from another dimension, and the champion rats' unchanging formation making them stand out conspicuously in the chaotic rat nest, they would never have noticed the slippery gray-haired rats.

When the news reached the city walls, the resistance fighters suggested a surprise attack to wipe out the elite rats—it just goes to show that their thinking was aligned. The imperial high command wanted to capture the leader to resolve the war, and the ordinary people of the empire also wanted to capture the leader to end the battle.

Fermi did not act rashly. Even if he eliminated the gray rats now, the rat swarm was already close to the northern Great Wall, and they would not disperse on their own.

He was waiting for the right opportunity, such as after defeating the rat swarm, whether he could follow the defeated gray rats to find their hidden nests...?
The terrifying thing about rat swarms is that, without the protection of city walls, they will devour everything they see along the way except the earth.

The spread-out swarm of rats was already becoming unstoppable. Looking around, the area north of the city wall had turned into a brown sea, with densely packed swarms of rats piled up together, trampling on each other and climbing on the bodies of their own kind to climb up the city wall.

The shells were dropped, blasting off the tentacle-like rat towers, and then new tentacles sprouted out again.

When the oil was poured on, the rat-man screamed as he burst into flames and fell, drowning among his kind without causing a ripple.

(End of this chapter)