From Hogwarts to Strixhaven.

Chapter 642: The Swarm
With the scroll and the fox-headed Nie Nie, Count Delan quickly set off with a group of men.

The yellow-green cloud of gluttonous insects exuded an eerie and ominous atmosphere. The sound of their flapping wings and rubbing their chelicerae was like an evil whisper, causing the seeds of unease and madness to quickly sprout and break through the soil in the hearts of the Crusader warriors.

Dailan's ever-present disdainful smile vanished, replaced by a nagging mutter: "Damn it... how could I have believed his nonsense! If a gluttonous worm were to bite me, I would never believe a single word that comes out of that mouth full of sharp teeth again!"

As the decoy team approached the canyon, beyond the gravel and pitted ground corroded by acid lay an abyss teeming with countless insect demons.

Dailan glanced down out of curiosity and immediately thought about gouging out her own eyes.

Continuing along the edge of the cliff, the soldiers found the body of a victim.

It once belonged to a refugee from Kanaburi, but now it has become food and a breeding ground for gluttonous worms. Scattered gluttonous worms wriggle in the thorax riddled with holes, their green exoskeletons swaying from side to side, their spiky legs kicking wildly. Each time their mouthparts open and close, they tear off a large chunk from the corpse—even bones are treated equally by the gluttonous worms.

"vomit--"

Dailan turned his head to catch his breath, but saw the vomit of the other soldiers. To his dismay, the vomit actually calmed his convulsing stomach.

Although his stomach was quiet, something else screamed.

The gluttonous insects clinging to the corpses found new food, and a piercing high-frequency vibration immediately resounded through the sky. The yellow-green clouds were so dense that large patches of black appeared to appear on them.

The insects took the bait.

"Come closer to me!" Dalan poked the fox's head. "Quickly, take out the scroll that the giant lizard gave you!"

"Don't rush, my shining sidekick." Nie Niu rolled up his sleeves and waved one arm, trying to attract the insects' attention. "The experiment hasn't even started yet! Let's at least wait until I've finished recording the data before we discuss how to eliminate these insects, shall we?"

"Ah—!" a soldier screamed, "A bug! It's crawled into my sleeve! It's biting me!"

The fox head beside Dailan disappeared in an instant. She had already excitedly taken out her notebook and quickly went to the soldier who had dropped his weapon and was patting and groping himself.

"Did it bite you?" Nie Niu spoke quickly, but remained calm and clear.

"Of course!" shouted the Crusader soldier, swinging his arm. "Come help!"

"I'll come after you answer my question... What does it feel like?" A long tongue emerged from Nie Niu's fox mouth, stopping beside his whiskers. "What does it feel like to be bitten by a gluttonous insect?"

"What?" Due to the great disconnect between Nie Niu's performance and the soldiers' current experience, even the soldier whose clothes were crawled into by the gluttonous insect stopped swinging his arms.

However, the gluttonous insect in his sleeve did not hesitate like a human. Without external interference, it raised its mouthparts and bit down hard on the juicy bone-in sausage.

"Ah—" the soldier screamed again, "It's eating my flesh! It's hot! It's hot! Is my arm still there? Is it still there?"

"The sharp mouthparts will cause sharp pain, the acidic liquid will cause burning pain, and will quickly numb the pain nerves..." Nie Niu observed the movements of the new recruits of the Holy Army while quickly taking notes.

The swarm of insects rising from below the canyon finally reached the soldiers' heads, threatening to engulf them all like a torrent of water.

"Open that damned scroll right now!" Dalan's voice cracked. "They'll devour everything, including your damned encyclopedia!"

"Although we still lack several mutually corroborating samples, you are right."

Just as the insect cloud overhead completely engulfed the suicide squad, Fox Head Nie Niu nimbly stuffed the notebook in his hand into his backpack and casually took out a scroll, tearing it open without even looking at it.

Clouds shrouded in the afterglow of the white flames hovered overhead, completely blocking the path of the insect swarm and obscuring the figures of the soldiers below.

The black cloud formed by the insects collided with the white cloud formed by magic, and the supreme heat emanating from the latter instantly cooked the insects.

The gluttonous insects that rushed into the range of the Burning Cloud spell almost immediately lost their ability to fly. Their wings were burned off, and hot air rushed in from the spiracles all over their bodies, causing the tissue fluid under their hard shells to solidify and the proteins that make up their muscles to denature and mature. When the gluttonous insects left the range of the Burning Cloud spell and landed on the soldiers' heads, they had become a delicious dish, crispy roasted locusts.

"No way!" Dailan clapped her hands and knocked the roasted gluttonous insects out of Nie Niu's claws. "I absolutely will not let you put them in your mouth!"

No one knows if the insect demon's corpse is poisonous. If Nie Niu is poisoned, Dai Lan feels that her chances of survival will be greatly reduced.

"Why?" the fox demon asked, puzzled. "Aren't you curious about what these insect-like demons taste like? Isn't it too unfair that only demons eat humans? Humans should be able to eat demons too."

“Without seasoning, they can’t even be considered a dish!” Dahlan tried to keep up with the fox-headed man’s pace, convincing her with her own theory, while also directing the soldiers around her, “We’re safe! It seems the military advisor’s magic is far beyond our imagination. Make noise! ​​Attract more bugs! That way, the commander might be able to end this all right now.”

So the soldiers quietly swallowed the saliva that welled up from under their tongues, stepped on the crispy roasted insects, and banged their swords and shields hard, creating a noise that drove the insects mad.

"Won't that thing fall down?" Dailan looked uneasily at the white cloud overhead. One after another, the gluttonous insects rushed into the range of the Burning Cloud Spell, turning into roasted insects that fell to the ground. Now, as the soldiers moved, their feet always made a pleasantly crisp crackling sound.

“Just think of it as smoke, so of course it will fall.” Nie Niu took out a second scroll from his backpack. “However, as its caster, I can control its direction, so we won’t become crispy snacks like these bugs for the time being.”

Having gotten the answer he wanted, Dailan felt a little relieved, but just to be on the safe side, he asked again, "When will it land on our heads?" "When I tear open another scroll." The fox-headed fox unfolded the scroll in his hand, looking around to find the direction with the most insects.

Although their brain capacity is pitifully small, the Taotie insects are not entirely devoid of thinking ability. They no longer rush headlong into the white cloud formed by the Burning Cloud Technique, but instead circle around, trying to launch an attack from other directions.

These insects are true monsters, tireless, never stopping, and utterly incapable of mourning the death of their kind.

"Now!" Nie Niu tore open the scroll in Dai Lan's shocked gaze, and then tore open the second scroll of the Burning Cloud Technique towards the Taotie Insects, who were regrouping.

"Run!" Dailan, ignoring her hoarse voice, led the soldiers in a chosen direction and began to run.

The appearance of the second cloud-burning spell once again blocked the Taotie insects' advance route and reduced their numbers. By the time the cloud-burning spell slowly descended from the sky and covered the soldiers' previous positions, the Taotie insects could no longer even find the soldiers' locations.

Areas shrouded by the Burning Cloud spell are considered heavily shielded, blocking non-magical vision. Although these insect demons have strong dynamic vision, they cannot see through the smoke and clouds at all.

"Should we continue making a commotion?" a soldier asked cautiously.

The soldiers now lay as close as possible to the pile of rocks, using the pits and hollows corroded by the acid from the gluttonous insects to conceal themselves.

“No, wait a minute…” Dalan slowly poked her head out, then breathed a sigh of relief. “They’re eating their roasted companions… I think this will last at least a while. Let’s continue our mission when they start to disperse.”

"What a pity." Nie Niu smacked her lips. "Those roasted insects smelled quite good."

The decoy team's mission is temporarily complete, but whether they can completely eliminate the threat of the insect demons depends on the performance of the other team below the canyon.

Dappled sunlight danced along the canyon walls, and a large number of flying insects left the valley, allowing the few rays of sunlight to fall.

The temperature inside the valley was quite high, at least warmer than the exposed rock face of the cliffs. Small amounts of crystals mixed with viscous fluid clung to the mountain walls and scattered rocks.

Among the wriggling worm eggs, countless small and soft worms were swaying their bodies.

"Luckily, these disgusting things don't have any sensitive senses." Ilinica grimaced uncomfortably, hesitated for a long time before stepping onto a patch of ground that wasn't so sticky. "Ugh—let's hurry up and take down that queen bug!"

No one objected to the commander's orders; this place was hell for any non-arthropod. If they weren't on a mission, their legs would probably have already carried them away.

“These demons were summoned from the abyss.” The closer they got to the bottom of the valley, the more obvious the otherworldly aura became in the air. Ivy’s extensive knowledge of planes told him that there might be a portal or a dimensional rift connecting this place to the abyss.

“Great. I thought holy war was just about fancy armor and delicious rations, and that the only amusement was rescuing pretty girls from stupid demons every now and then.” The hybrid Lann, whose human half was smiling sarcastically, had to consult “The Complete Guide to Micro-expressions of Cold-Blooded Creatures” to decipher the expression on his other half, the lizard face. “I can’t wait to find out who this kind soul is who’s putting us through this! Everyone knows I’m a warm-hearted lad.”

"A traitor within the Crusader?" Iomede's paladin Sheila could hardly believe it. "How could this be! We are all heroes fighting for a common goal! There must be a demon spreading rumors among us."

Ivy glanced silently at Little Ember, the poor little elf girl who had been burned at the stake because of Hurren's hunting scheme, losing several fingers and her clean, fair skin in the process.

“At least the people here aren’t suspected of betrayal.” Ivy led the way forward. “But the troops above us, that’s a different story. If I were the traitor, I would definitely attract another wave of demons to attack right now. So we must deal with everything below as soon as possible.”

The elegant and beautiful half-elf Komilia breathed a sigh of relief and followed on tiptoe. As she passed the paladin Sila, she used Sila's gleaming shoulder armor as a mirror to check her makeup.

“Hey!” Sheila flinched. “I’m not your makeup mirror! Besides, demons won’t refuse to die just because your makeup is messy…”

Komilia had clearly practiced dance steps; her movements were light and graceful, allowing her face to appear steadily in the reflection of Sheila's shoulder armor. "You keep everything in perfect order, Sheila, I really like that about you. Use your armor for something else before it gets stained with the slime of the insects."

In a good mood, Komilia took out her lipstick and applied an alluring color to her thin lips.

"Prepare for battle!" Not wanting to fall behind, Ilyika had already overtaken Ivy, charging ahead with her greatsword. "Is that the Queen?"

Blocking the bend in the valley were two enormous gluttonous insects. Unlike those insects that rely on numbers to form swarms, these two insects were comparable in size to humans. They held their vicious chelicerae to their chests, and their sharp mouthparts dripped acid.

“They should be some kind of guard insect,” Ivy said, examining them. “I didn’t see any oviposition organs on them.”

"There are small swarms of insects behind us! What should we do?" Little Ember shouted from the back of the group.

"Charge! Charge!" Ilinica wielded her greatsword with both hands in a flourish, simultaneously launching into a breathtaking soprano solo, "Look at my disgusting bugs, this is the most beautiful sight you'll see before you die!"

Whether it was due to Ilinica's superb singing skills or the murderous aura emanating from the large cleaver in her hand, the two guard insects launched a staggered attack, as if they had forgotten how to fly.

The Beast Bite Sword erupted with multicolored flames, leaving two deadly arcs in the air in the blink of an eye, neatly splitting the two guard insects into four harmless fragments.

The blade cut through the gluttonous insects with a very smooth feel, as if these insects had never even considered defending themselves.

Ivy glanced at Ilinica in surprise, to which Ilinica responded with a smug raised eyebrow before continuing to sing as she joined the next battle.

(End of this chapter)