Chapter 144: City of Bugs

After hearing what Lawrence said, Richard began to hesitate.

If this puppet wizard is really as Lawrence said, then this action is most likely just a cover-up to cover up the puppet wizard’s real purpose.

But then again, the cost of activating the emergency call-up order is not small, and if major losses are caused, the puppet wizard will also be severely punished.

According to the calculations of the wizards in the settlement, if something unexpected happened during this emergency call-up, this puppet wizard would definitely not escape death.

“Be more careful, you know the cost of the emergency call-up order.” Richard replied, “Even if this is just a cover for him, we will definitely not be cannon fodder.

Otherwise he won’t be able to get through the headquarters.”

Lawrence sighed when he heard this. It was true, but he still felt a little uncomfortable being recruited by such a wizard.

After announcing the mission, the puppet wizard began to distribute information to the wizards.

It was an extremely detailed three-dimensional tunnel map, with a large settlement at its center. In the tunnel map, the puppet wizard had marked four passages with magic power, and the wizards present would enter this large settlement from these four passages.

In addition, the puppet wizard also shared the insects’ patrol routes, patrol schedules, the number of insects in the settlement, defense arrangements, and detailed intelligence, such as when the insects designated these things, the puppet wizard was present.

With this information, any wizard present who is not a fool can sneak into the settlement.

Looking at the information he received, Richard began to have doubts.

The information was too detailed, some of it was untrue, but Lawrence felt relieved after receiving the information.

“Our mission this time is definitely to cover for Declan, but that doesn’t matter. With this information, we can accomplish our mission.”

Richard looked at Lawrence in surprise, wondering what he meant by that.

The hanging heart finally died?

“Don’t look at me like that,” Lawrence said with a smile, “I know this information is too detailed, but I have seen Declan’s puppet witchcraft. He can easily control those indigenous creatures with evolved physiques. The information this time is so detailed. I guess his puppets have infiltrated the decision-making level of the insects.”

Richard’s doubts were slightly relieved after hearing this, but he still felt something was wrong. He quietly told Ellie through mental messages:
“Ellie, be careful on this mission. Stay behind if you can. If something goes wrong, run away quickly.”

Among the three, Lawrence is experienced and good at shadow magic, Richard has Ulysses, and only Ellie is lacking in running away.

As a turret wizard, her stage should be on the front battlefield.

Ellie got the message and smiled at him.

“It’s not my first day on the battlefield, don’t worry.”

After the intelligence sharing is completed, some specific action plans will be made.

The puppet wizard selected the second-ring wizards among the wizards and formed a team as the main force to rescue people.

In his arrangement, the remaining ring of wizards were mainly responsible for supporting, disturbing and confusing the enemy.

……

Starting from the settlement, the wizards consciously divided themselves into four parts and went to the Mother Temple where the sacrifice was held through four tunnels.

Richard and his two companions took the same tunnel. On the way, the intelligence provided by the puppet wizard was very accurate, allowing them to almost perfectly avoid all insect patrols.

These patrols patrolled the hive at fixed times and locations. Once a battle broke out, even if the entire army was wiped out in an instant, the hive headquarters would be able to discover something was wrong after a certain period of time, and thus infer that a wizard had sneaked in. If there were no accurate intelligence from the puppet wizards, most of these wizards would have been discovered outside the Mother Temple’s defense circle.

Following the puppet wizard’s markings, Richard and his party soon arrived at the designated location – an abandoned and filled-in crypt.

The location of this crypt is very clever. One of its passages is connected to the large crypt where the Mother Temple is located. And because it has been abandoned and landfilled, there are no insects patrolling this crypt.

I don’t know how the puppet wizard found such a hidden place.

After the wizards arrived, they used their magical powers to clean out the crypt in just a few minutes, and they also camouflaged it to ensure that the insects from the outside had no idea that a group of wizard monsters were lurking in the crypt.

Through the cracks in the fungi in the tunnel, Richard quietly looked at this large city of insects.

In the past, Richard had always focused on attacking small settlements for safety reasons. Although these settlements did not have any good things, their garrisons were also relatively small, which was very friendly to Richard, a first-ring wizard.

These small settlements are like human villages, with small populations, simple buildings, and look very backward.

Medium-sized settlements are better. Richard once sneaked into a medium-sized settlement. This kind of settlement is like a county town. The insects do not simply live in rooms dug out from giant fungi. Various buildings made of sand and stone fungi are lined up in it, and sacrificial insects or warrior insects live in them.

Richard had seen some such settlements when he was hunting insects, but those settlements were dead, completely different from when they were alive.

But now, what Richard saw was a completely different scene from what he had seen before.

If we use an analogy, a medium-sized settlement is like a county town, and the large settlement in front of us is like a prosperous city like Shanghai.

A Mayan pyramid building as big as a hill stands in the center of the settlement, and the temple on the top is shining with gold.

At its foot, tall sandstone buildings of various colors were neatly arranged in four areas. Between them, four roads led directly from the tunnel entrance to the pyramid. An endless stream of transport insects brought food from various settlements and transported it into the pyramid day and night to provide nutrients for the queen insects. On the ground, the queen insect guards that Richard had seen patrolled the city in teams. In the sky, the moth army that could shoot down war airships kept circling, not letting any suspicious creatures enter the settlement.

Facing such a tightly defended city, Richard swallowed.

If something goes wrong, all of these wizards will probably be killed.

But Richard soon discovered something was wrong.

Most of these patrolling bugs are level one bugs, and level two bugs are basically not seen.

Richard told Lawrence the news, and the old wizard thought for a moment and came to a conclusion.

“I’m afraid these bugs are gathering strength to fight back.”

As an old wizard who has experienced three plane wars, Lawrence has his own sense of the situation on the battlefield.

In the past few wars, once the headquarters decided to fight a decisive battle with the natives, the dark wizards would be required to lie dormant or retreat. If the natives were ready for a decisive battle, the native city’s defense force would most likely become weak.

Lawrence’s conclusion shocked Richard. It had only been a few years and the insects were planning to fight back.

According to the convention of plane wars, it takes about sixty years to conquer a micro-plane, of which the decisive battle takes about forty years, and the remaining twenty years are generally used for mopping up, which is a welfare time for wizards.

But right now, they have only fought the war for eight years at most, and according to convention, this point in time should be garbage time.

That is, the two sides only engage in small-scale fighting, the wizards gain a foothold in this new world and develop resources, while the natives resolve internal conflicts and develop war potential.

“This situation is probably caused by the social structure of insects.” Ellie suddenly came between the two of them and interrupted.

“Oh?” Lawrence was a little surprised. Ellie didn’t seem like the kind of wizard who studied indigenous society.

“I also heard it from the teacher.” Ellie communicated with the two people through spiritual information, “She told me that the Black Crystal Zerg is completely different from the indigenous races she encountered before. There are often huge contradictions among those indigenous races. Even under the leadership of the Lord of the World, there will be a lot of internal friction.

Sometimes the natives would even use wizards to get rid of their enemies.

These conflicts often take decades, plus external pressure from wizards, to resolve, so generally speaking, the decisive battle will take about forty years.

But the Black Crystal Zerg are different.

Although the Black Crystal Zerg had thirty-six Zerg nations, and wars broke out between them over the territory of the Zerg nest, the production model of the queen laying eggs meant that there was no hatred between these Zergs.

So with a slight call from the Queen Insect Goddess, the master of the world, these insects will unite together, quickly formulate strategies, and develop their war potential.

This will also cause the final battle of the black crystal worms to be earlier than previous plane wars and more dangerous. “

After hearing the news about Ellie, Richard couldn’t help but sigh that it’s good to have someone in power.

“It seems that our mission will be over soon. Then it will depend on whether we retreat or lie low,” Richard said.

But Lawrence sighed after hearing the news.

“Don’t even think about lying dormant. We will definitely retreat. Since war is dangerous, the command center will definitely not waste any strength.”

After staying in the dungeon for a while, the leading second-ring wizard suddenly took out a crystal ball.

The puppet wizard’s order came from the crystal ball:
“All personnel are present, start infiltration.”

Seeing the sound-transmitting crystal ball, Richard seemed to remember something, and suddenly took out two black crystal balls from his magic pocket and handed them to Ellie and Lawrence.

“What is this?” Ellie asked puzzledly.

Lawrence, who had some experience, frowned and said, “The magic power fluctuations of the communication crystal ball are too large. It is not suitable for use here.”

Richard smiled, took out a similar crystal ball and said:
“How is the magic fluctuation?”

The next moment, Richard’s voice came from Lawrence and Ellie’s crystal balls, and the magic fluctuation was almost zero.

“This… where did you get such a good thing!” Lawrence exclaimed, and then asked a series of questions like beans popping, “What is its maximum distance? At each distance, the magic power fluctuation is so small? How high is the intensity of information transmission? How many millimeters of dead lead box can shield…”

Richard waved his hand, signaling him to stop.

“This is a gadget made by my senior sister. The communication distance is about two kilometers. The limit distance of magic power fluctuation is slightly larger. The transmission intensity can transmit information normally in a low-intensity battlefield. The energy fluctuation of a high-intensity battlefield will disrupt the information transmission.”

But even so, Lawrence still gave a thumbs up.

“nice one.”

The two of them took the crystal ball, and the three of them followed the main force and began to sneak into the Mother Temple.

(End of this chapter)