Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 204 Heavy Magic Bomb

A few minutes earlier, Priest Aaron suddenly opened his eyes, his breath coming in scalding hot air.

"...What?" He sat up in bed, a burning pain shooting through his nose.

Outside the window, the firelight flickered, as if some giant beast had opened its eyes and was slowly approaching in the darkness.

He didn't even have time to put on his shoes before rushing barefoot to the window.

The next second, he saw fire.

That wasn't a fire.

They were a group of... knights.

The heavy armor reflected a cold, hard metallic luster in the firelight, like demons from the abyss.

Carrying strange metal devices on their backs, they moved steadily yet swiftly, penetrating the outer defenses set up by the insect corpses.

Flames roared and surged forth from their hands, seemingly capable of devouring everything!
"How, how is it possible..."

His voice choked in his throat as he stared incredulously at the churning, burning flames before him.

Those weren't ordinary zombie soldiers; they were elite insect zombies selected and created from the Snow Oath warriors.

They have defeated heavily armored knights one-on-one, can tear through shield walls with their corrosive claws, and can continue fighting for several seconds in the flames even when ignited by rockets, dragging more enemies down to hell with their corpses.

But now, it can't even mount a counterattack.

Flames shattered its chest from the inside out, scattering its carapace plates like brittle pottery.

The enhanced insect corpse rolled wildly on the ground, emitting a scream that was a mixture of wild beast and human wail, the shriek echoing before it was engulfed by the blazing flames.

In just a few breaths, it was reduced to a charred, curled-up shell, and even its venom sac was instantly detonated by the high temperature, preventing it from releasing a single drop of venom.

He heard it; the roar of the flamethrower as the knight approached was like a furious breath blowing from the depths of purgatory.

The pillar of fire was like a long whip held by a god, scorching and precise, burning the insect corpses to ashes from the inside out.

“This is no ordinary fire…” he murmured, his eyes filled with fear.

The knight approached step by step, his flamethrower like the fangs of some giant beast, continuously spewing scorching flames, and wherever it went, the insect corpses could not avoid it.

Even the most difficult "enhanced beings" are nothing more than firewood that burns faster in front of him.

"This...this isn't right! How did they know this place?! And this group of people...came prepared!"

Aaron's heart suddenly raced, his back felt as if it were being sliced ​​open by an ice blade, cold sweat seeped from deep within his skin, and a chill ran straight to his heart.

He almost instinctively raised his right hand, and a glint of light flashed from the black iron ring inlaid with dark purple demonic patterns.

Inside the ring, the blood of the Queen Insect mingled with the sorcery runes, writhing like maggots.

Aron chanted softly, blood seeping from the tip of his tongue and mixing into the incantation.

In his mind, over a hundred blurry, decaying, yet highly aggressive nodes of consciousness instantly appeared. He commanded them with his will to gather, entangle, merge, and counterattack!
The insect corpses in the streets and alleys suddenly became agitated like a swarm of bees startled and scattered. Those insect corpses that had been hiding behind walls, inside houses, at the bottom of wells, and on rooftops surged like a tide and all rushed towards the knights!

They run, climb walls, leap, fall, and crawl!
Wriggling with tattered limbs, sharp fangs, and bleeding tentacles, they surrounded the Crimson Tide Knight from all directions!

A putrid stench and eerie murmurs filled the air, as if hundreds or thousands of dead souls were howling.

A ruthless glint flashed in Aaron's eyes.

This is his trump card, an elite insectoid army that he personally "modified." Even a super knight would find it extremely difficult to escape if he were caught in it!

But it's completely useless!
"W-what's going on?!" Aaron's eyes widened, filled with astonishment and fear.

Those knights did not retreat!

They carried heavy metal nozzles on their shoulders, like the scepter of a fire god held by a priest, and stepped straight into the torrent of insect corpses!

Flames erupted!

It was not ordinary fire, but a thick, scorching flame, like hellfire magma, carrying strange oils, which spread scorching air waves as soon as it was spewed out.

boom!
The scorching flames suddenly spread out, instantly forming several fiery locks at the alley entrance, cutting the horde of insect corpses in half!
It ignites upon contact and cannot be extinguished by burning!
The insect corpses struggled, howled, and hissed in the fire. They tried to leap, climb walls, and disperse to surround the fire, but no matter which angle they approached from, they were met with a baptism of scorching flames.

The surging insect corpses were instantly ignited, turning into screaming, burning fire figures that stumbled and ignited their own kind behind them, like a self-spreading hellish plague.

Aaron tried desperately to control it, but could only watch helplessly as the insect corpses went out of control, disintegrated, and burned to ashes one after another!
His mental links were severed one by one by raging flames, and the will of the insect corpses in his mind "exploded" and died out. The pain made the veins on his forehead bulge, and he almost fainted!
He felt an inexplicable chill spreading from his heart, not from fear, but from unease.

An unprecedented, deep-seated unease.

"Who...is this...?" he murmured, his throat dry.

The knights outside, with their fiery steps, continued to approach him inch by inch, like judges sent from hell.

Aaron's eyes widened, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare, only to find that reality was the real nightmare.

"sorry Sorry……"

His voice was barely audible amidst the wailing of the insect corpses, and his hands trembled as he touched the divine chain on his forehead, as if caressing a shackle about to break.

He recalled the goddess's whisper, a compassion that seemed to flow from the very marrow of his bones: "When all else fails, you may open that door. But once opened, there is no turning back."

At that time, he thought he would never need to use it, and even if there were corpses strewn everywhere and rivers of blood, he was unwilling to take that step.

But now... he watched the insect corpses howl in the fire, watched everything he had carefully constructed collapse in the flames.

This is probably what she meant by "having no other choice".

"I have no choice but to... use it."

He slowly lowered his head, his forehead touching the divine chain, as if in prayer, but in reality, he was falling into depravity.

That was no longer a plea to the gods, but opening the door to the abyss.

The forbidden incantation was then whispered: "The heartbeat fades, the blood returns to its nest. Goddess, forgive me for defiling your womb."

In an instant, it felt as if the air had been hollowed out.

The surrounding sounds, heat waves, and even the roar of flames all froze in that instant, leaving only the depths of the earth.

The thumping heartbeats grew closer and louder, as if some enormous thing was writhing, struggling, and awakening.

"Retreat!!" a knight roared upon seeing Louis's command.

The flamethrower team retreated swiftly without hesitation, the flames went out, and their iron boots kicked up scorched earth.

Even though they had been through countless battles, they still felt the oppression and fear emanating from the depths of the earth.

That's something they can't handle.

At that moment, the ground suddenly cracked open with a "crack!"

What followed was a disgusting birth ceremony.

A whole patch of grayish-white resinous material crawled out of the earth's veins, its damp, peeling texture sending chills down one's spine.

The surface of the nest is covered with living structures, and the translucent cavities are slowly contracting, like lungs that are breathing, or like a giant... honeycomb.

The four nest pillars on the ground crawled slowly like twisted limbs, and wherever they passed, the earth cracked and the stone slabs turned into mud.

The mother hive, like a living deity, descended in person!

At the opening of the nest, the insect eggs rapidly swelled and deformed, then burst open like lumps of rotting flesh, splashing out turbid fluid with a gurgling sound.

What crawled out of them were no longer ordinary insect corpses, but evolved, peak-stage individuals!

Wearing bone armor, with limbs like blades, mouthparts splitting to behind the ears, and fragments of human armor and clothing still remaining on its body!
They emitted distorted, piercing shrieks as they plunged into the fire, relentlessly pursuing the knight.

Fortunately, the knights had already retreated some distance, otherwise even flamethrowers might not have been a match for these elite insect corpses.

The priest laughed wildly, his laughter tearing through the air like nails amidst the firelight and shrieks, disturbing everyone's peace of mind.

"Hahahaha! You foolish mortals!!"

He stood on the still-wriggling resin nest, his robes fluttering wildly in the scorching wind like banners, as if his whole body was edged with flames, standing atop hell singing a hymn.

"Do you know? This is the true power of the Snow Oath Bearers! This is the 'Goddess's Grace.' Do you think mere flames can shake her?"

He roared and raised his hands, his eyes bloodshot and his throat almost hoarse, but the more he shouted, the more frantic and mad he became.

"You will all die here!! In this sacred and exhilarating blood sacrifice, you will die a worthy death!!"

This is a grand feast for him! It is a gift from the goddess!
And just as he was laughing wildly—

On the distant high ground, Louis simply raised his hand slightly, his palm pointing diagonally forward.

"Fire." As soon as the words left his mouth, the knight pulled the trigger of the launcher.

A sudden roar erupted.

A roar like that of Thor ripped through the sky and shattered eardrums.

The heavy tripod suddenly tilted backward, and the magic burst launcher released not a bullet, but a burst of falling flames.

It trailed a long, fiery tail, so hot it seemed to tear the night sky apart!

In Aaron's pupils, the orange-red fireball, a thousand times brighter than any flame, seemed to have crossed space and fallen from the sky!

The last vestiges of elation in my heart suddenly froze.

He only had time to hear a sharp "whoosh" – a piercing shriek, like a blade stabbing into his eardrums.

The next moment——

The sky exploded with a deafening roar.

A heavy, orange-red magic bomb, trailing a fiery tail several meters long, roared as it fell from the night sky.

That wasn't an ordinary fireball, but a meteorite carrying the weight of doom, which crashed straight into the core of the swarm, landing at the boundary between the altar and the brood mound.

"boom--!!!!"

The moment the epicenter exploded, the ground seemed to be overturned.

The entire foot of the mountain collapsed violently, and the area within a radius of fifty meters was directly engulfed by the scorching fire core. The surface rocks melted instantly under the high temperature, turning into a red lava flow that rolled like blood.

The area where the mother nest was located was hit first, and several tentacles as thick as fortresses were directly broken in the shock wave, with their joints shattered and their skin peeled off.

Hundreds of insect corpses carbonized and then vaporized before they could even utter a sound, leaving no residue behind.

The explosive pressure within eighty meters then surged out, and the shock wave, carrying a distorted, high-temperature air wave, rushed over like a giant burning wall, throwing the second ring of insects on the hillside, along with soil, broken rocks, and corpses, into the air.

Those enhanced insect corpses, which could have fought one-on-one, were now tumbling and burning like fallen leaves, without even having a chance to scream.

The central area of ​​the mother nest is like a return to purgatory.

Its enormous sac swelled to its limit in the heat wave, the insect fluid boiled, the outer shell cracked, and it exploded with a bang a few seconds later.

The incubation sac and parasitic tissue inside were completely pulverized, and the churning insect fluid, accompanied by black smoke, poured out.

The flames had not yet died down, and the area around the altar had become a scorched, dead zone.

The ground collapsed, forming a crater more than three meters deep and tens of meters in diameter. Molten rock tumbled up from the bottom of the crater, mixed with the remains of carbonized insect carcasses.

The air was distorted, and the smell of burnt flesh mixed with gunpowder smoke burned people's throats, causing unbearable burning pain even a hundred meters away.

A charred insect corpse struggled to crawl out from the edge. Its body was charred black, its bones were exposed, its left arm had melted into a deformed lump of charcoal, and its right leg was broken in several places but it still dragged itself along.

Just as it propped itself up, a wisp of fire scale ointment swirled up from the ground, instantly engulfing it in a scorching wind. With a "bang," its limbs exploded, turning into a pile of charred debris.

At this point, the core of the swarm was torn apart, and the regeneration ability of the hive was completely ended in the flames.

As the magic bomb fell, Priest Aron stood on the edge of the blast center, feeling as if he were being crushed by a massive hammer.

The heat wave hit him in the face, tearing his skin and burning his eyes; he could even clearly hear the sound of his blood vessels bursting.

He opened his mouth wide, wanting to scream, but only spat out a mouthful of hot, black blood.

Its body quickly shrivels, chars, and cracks in the flames.

Like a wet cloth thrown into a furnace, it exploded into countless coke fragments under high temperature.

His last thought was that everything before him was burning, collapsing, and disintegrating.

His faith, pride, and life were all reduced to ashes in the fire.

Ashes fell, and the flames gradually died down.

But the warmth still lingered, leaving only a charred black landscape on the battlefield, silent as if it were nothingness.

Eduardo's mouth was wide open, and for a moment he forgot to close it.

He gazed at the charred, infernal landscape in the distance, where the ground had been blasted apart. The embers rose like mushroom clouds after a volcanic eruption, and the blazing waves seemed to distort even the air itself.

"This...what is this..."

He turned to look at Louis, his voice low and incredulous.

The young lord beside him seemed to have anticipated all of this, his face as calm as a still lake, and simply replied, "Magic Bomb."

“…A magic explosion bomb?” Eduardo repeated it subconsciously, his mind seemingly blank. “Are you sure you’re talking about a magic explosion bomb? And not some…forbidden relic? Lost artifact? Holy See’s divine grace?”

He had already prepared to retreat.

As the mother nest awakens, the bizarre nest body and those high-combat-power insect corpses are no longer something that ordinary weapons can deal with.

After all, the strongest magic explosion bomb he had ever seen was only one-fifth the power of the one in front of him!

Before he could recover from the deafening roar, another thought suddenly popped into his mind:
Wait... how did that thing hit so far and so accurately?
He glanced back sharply at the launcher, which was still trembling with residual heat. The tripod was firmly in place, the exhaust flame had just died down, and white smoke was billowing from the muzzle.

It can even control the range and launch at a fixed point...?
It struck precisely and accurately, hitting the core of the mother nest.

Eduardo swallowed hard, his composure vanishing, replaced by an unprecedented look of astonishment.

"We usually throw magic bombs by hand."

That kind of throwing relies solely on luck and close-quarters combat; it can explode, but missing is common. But this thing?
This is not warfare, it is surgery.

One shot, and the entire nest core was blown apart.

The Empire has such a weapon? He dares to say no!
Even the capital city has not yet developed such a miniaturized, remotely controlled explosive weapon.

It wasn't that they were incompetent, but rather that they simply hadn't conceived of such a weapon.

Eduardo looked at the figure still standing on the high ground.

Bathed in the light of the flames, Louis Calvin's profile gleamed with a chilling light, like the sharp edge of a blade forged in fire.

"That guy...he's here again."

Edward turned to look at Louis. Despite having already exceeded his expectations time and time again, he was still always taken aback by his younger brother.

"Louis, how many cards are you still hiding?" he murmured to himself, yet he couldn't help but admire him.

He remembered that the last time they fought against the mother nest, they were still using the most primitive methods: luring, fire attacks, and hard attacks.

Even if they succeeded, they would have lost a lot of knights.

But how long has it been? Just over a month!
Now this guy has come up with... Heavy Magic Bomb, Tactical Fireball, Heat Stream Blockade?

Moreover, it's clear that this wasn't a hastily put-together setup, but rather that the angles and landing points were calculated in advance, and even the retreat routes of the insect corpses were predetermined.

He had already given him a very high rating, but now he had to add a few more lines to the evaluation form.

Ruthless to the enemy, meticulous to his own people, and knows the timing of strategic weapon deployment—this is no young lord, he's a war machine!

"This monstrous talent... no, this monstrous younger brother, his future is not just in the North."

Eduardo turned his head and looked at the scene of the insect corpses burning in the sea of ​​fire. A thought came to mind: "In a few years, the entire empire will remember this name: Louis Calvin."

Not only Eduardo, but even the Red Tide Knights were speechless with shock.

Many of them had witnessed the testing of the magic bomb and knew the power of its flames.

However, when this heavy, meteor-like magic explosive bomb ripped through the night sky and crashed down in actual combat, the shock far exceeded their expectations.

This is no longer a simple weapon.

It was a miraculous power, the will of fire of their great lord, Louis!

At that moment, as the knights watched the mother hive collapse in the inferno and the insect corpses vanish in droves, only one thought remained in their minds:
He is unstoppable!
The light of the great lord has shone into this dark and cold land, and his will is gradually dispelling all the despair and decay in the North.

And they are the ones standing behind this light.

They followed the right person.

At this moment, Louis spoke up, his tone calm, without a trace of excitement or boasting: "Prioritize dealing with any insect corpses that may revive. If you find any areas where the insects haven't completely burned out, sweep them with flamethrowers."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the wounded on the hillside, a touch warmer in his eyes: "Calculate the casualties, provide immediate treatment to the injured. Ensure everyone returns home alive."

(End of this chapter)