Let go of that monster girl!

Without looking back, Bai Fan ran even faster.

"I won't look, I won't listen! It's all Ant Girl's trap! Waaaaah..."

-----------------

On the deck of the airship, Lyme was holding another practice shell from a cannon, his bangs swaying slightly in the wind.

Molen patted her head with satisfaction.

"Hehe." Encouraged by his master, Lyme laughed.

It seems that training her with sulfur did have some effect; although this attack was a bit of a gamble, it hit the soldier ant's weak spot.

Moren walked to the ship's side and looked down at the Dessert Mouse Girls who had survived the ordeal.

Two dwarf mountain mouse girls, carrying herb pouches, descended along ropes to care for the wounded.

"Everyone, take a rest. The Baron will be back to pick us up later."

Dessert Hill is located on the edge of the Low Mountain Territory. Moren remembered that when he took over the Baron's Territory, he did come to this place to remove the Rat Girls.

It now appears that some of the stray rat girls may have hidden in the mine and missed the evacuation.

They probably even thought that the dwarf mountain army had been completely wiped out, until they were attacked by the ant girl and forced to retreat back to the town.

More than two years! These little guys are really good at holding on.

However, this is not Morren's fault at all. The Dessert Hill mine was dug privately and was not on the Baron's books at all.

If it were still a peaceful era with sunshine, they would probably have to spend several more months in the dungeon.

Well, of course, nobody will bother with these old scores now.

The bladder, having released its green mist, hung loosely below the airship.

Around it, dozens of sacs, each over ten meters in diameter, hung low, filled with deadly yellowish-green gas, drifting majestically toward the Sweet Hill mine.

"Who knows how many days are left until the Calamity Moon?"

A mouse asked a question, and the navigation mouse looked down at its notebook and replied:

"The month of disaster is always right on time; there are still ten days left."

The airship continued forward, gradually approaching the location of the Sweet Hill Mine.

From above, it looks like an ordinary mine entrance on a dark, barren, low hillside.

The remains of the old facilities left from the excavation are still there, but the ground around the mine entrance has completely changed.

Countless ant-women covered the entire slope, converging into several black rivers, carrying severed limbs and fragments toward the mine entrance, with pieces of clothing and bones scattered everywhere.

Moren glanced at it, then looked away and ordered the rats to increase their altitude.

The winches creaked and groaned as the three ships rose simultaneously until they became tiny specks that the ant girls had to crane their necks to see.

The flying mice pulled the ropes at the same time, tearing open the bottom openings of more than a dozen balloons suspended below the hull.

Yellowish-green fog poured down from a height of 300 meters. The dense, poisonous fog spread rapidly as it fell, forming a deadly, all-encompassing curtain that slowly descended to the ground.

The moment the poisonous curtain fell upon the ant colony, the ant girl in the very center was the first to stop moving.

Their small hands clutched their chests, their bodies convulsed violently, and their mouths opened wide, vomiting large amounts of green blood onto the ground.

The poisonous fog continued to spread, and every ant girl it touched twitched and died.

The sudden attack triggered the ant nest's flawed counterattack strategy.

A black torrent surged from the mine entrance, and more fearless ant women rushed out of the ground like a tide, trampling over the corpses of their companions and spreading outwards, hurling dark red spears into the sky with all their might.

The spears flew more than ten meters into the air before losing momentum and spinning as they fell back to the ground.

Several larger mutant soldier ants burst out of the ant colony, unfurling four thin membrane wings on their backs, vibrating as they took off from the ground and flew straight toward the airship high in the sky.

"They won't fly up here, will they?"

The flying mouse shrank its neck.

Molen rested his hands on the gunwale, his tone relaxed:

"Impossible. The ant girls' evolution is all practical. Their wings are for crossing city walls. They couldn't possibly evolve to fly more than 300 meters high."

Sure enough, the soldier ants flapped their wings desperately, climbing to a height of about fifty or sixty meters before they could climb any higher.

His body swayed in the air a few times before plunging back into the sea of ​​poisonous fog below.

Perhaps after they've seen airships, they'll evolve lightweight, specialized flying ants next time.

But Morren wasn't going to give them that chance.

There won't be a next time.

This time, definitely.

On the ground, ant girls were dying in droves, their corpses piling up in the poisonous fog. Some ant girls tried to climb to higher places by stepping on the piles of their companions' corpses, but the chlorine gas was also slowly rising, leaving them nowhere to escape.

One after another, the soldier ants flapped their wings and soared into the sky, only to fall back into the poisonous sea one after another.

Unlike the dragon maiden's terrifying breath, the poisonous fog will never be extinguished.

They will only rampage, devour, and invade every inch of space.

No matter how strong the will or how fierce the nature, it is impossible to defeat this all-pervasive enemy.

Even the most dull-witted beast should realize this.

The surviving ant girls began to retreat towards the mine entrance, abandoning their outer positions and flowing back to the mine tunnel entrance like a tide.

The mine entrance is located slightly higher than the surrounding ground.

But more green fog sacs were released, and a new wave of chlorine gas rained down from the sky, engulfing the mine shaft in a yellowish-green death.

The navigation mouse held up the monocular telescope and observed for a while before putting it down to report.

"The gas isn't going into the mine; they might have blocked the mine tunnel."

Moren turned around, took the solid practice bullet from Lem's hand, and set it aside.

Then he picked up a lead-coated artillery shell and handed it to Lyme.

It was heavy, with a fuse trailing behind it, and the body of the projectile was filled with gunpowder and iron balls.

The principle of grenades in this era was very simple: igniting the fuse would cause an explosion. There was no sophisticated structure; it was simple and brutal.

Moren walked to the ship's railing, holding onto the mooring rope with one hand, and spoke to Lyme:

"Do you remember, underground facilities must have some kind of structure?"

"Ventilation shaft".

Molen nodded in satisfaction.

"That's right, lower the altitude, grab the grenades, I want to see how they try to block them."

Chapter 55 Eliminating Pests

The airship slowly descended, approaching the ground.

Moren stood on the ship's railing, looking down. The yellowish-green poisonous fog was still swirling, and the Ant Girl's corpse covered the entire slope, layer upon layer.

He commanded:

"Fire one shot at every place where soldier ants can hide, and only go down when it's safe."

Lyme lit the fuse of a grenade, and the other flying mice opened their ammunition boxes as well.

The lead-cased projectiles plummeted straight down through the air, landing around the larger piles of corpses.

Flames exploded, sending bits of flesh and chitinous carapace fragments flying in all directions, splattering green blood everywhere.

Then more artillery shells were ignited and thrown down.

Firing directly on a hydrogen-buoyed airship is too suicidal; even igniting a spark from the fuse carries considerable risk.

However, it doesn't need to be a carpet bombing, nor does it need to be very precise.

All you need to do is lift up the largest clumps of corpses to make sure the poisonous mist is evenly mixed.

The airship gradually approached the ground.

The most elite militia rats climbed down the ropes first, raised their acid guns, and guarded their surroundings for a while.

"It's safe around here!"

After confirming that it was safe, the militia mouse waved its little hands upwards.

More ropes were thrown down, and they tied them to large rocks protruding from the ground, pulling hard a few times to make sure they were secure.

The flying mouse above turned the winch, stabilizing the airship at a position a dozen meters above the ground.

The poison gas sacs hanging below the airship were pushed to the ground, and more militia rats climbed down along the gap between the ropes and the sacs, and soon they all landed on the ground.

A militia rat stretched out its spear and cautiously poked the corpse of an ant girl at its feet.

The corpse's foot suddenly twitched.

"Squeak!"

She was so startled that she jumped back a big step.

Molen climbed down the rope to the ground, the metal can on the bird-beak mask making a gurgling sound.

His voice came from behind the mask, sounding somewhat muffled.

"It's normal for insects to twitch for a while after they die. If you see anything unusual, shout out and don't approach them rashly."

Morren continued to instruct:

"Split into small teams and search for gas wells. The underground space in these small mines doesn't extend too far. Everyone should observe whether there is any fog sinking underground."

The ant girl's corpse covered the ground, her green blood congealed into a sticky swamp, and yellowish-green mist flowed slowly among the dead bodies.

The militia rats scattered in twos and threes, huddled together, and moved cautiously among the piles of corpses.

Some of the timid mouse girls would take a few steps and then turn around to check if their companions were behind them, their round ears pressed tightly against their heads.

"Here! It's here!"

A militia rat crouched beside a high mound of corpses and waved at Morren.

The other rat girls gathered around, grabbing the ant girl's limbs with their little hands and moving the pile of corpses away.

"So disgusting, so disgusting, so disgusting..."

Sure enough, directly beneath the pile of corpses, a raised mound of earth could be seen, with a vertical well opening about two rats wide in the center.

The yellowish-green mist was slowly being drawn into it, forming a thin vortex.

Meanwhile, more gas wells were quickly discovered in the surrounding area.

Not long after, the flow of gas gradually stopped, and the yellowish-green gas accumulated above the wellhead and was no longer being drawn in.

It looks like the poison gas has flowed underground along the gas well, and the ant girls have blocked the other side of the passage.

Molen sneered inwardly.

The ant girl doesn't know magic; she just forcibly stuffed it in with whatever she could find.

Since they're trying to find a way to block it.

Then let's help them smooth things over.

"Bring out the grenades and detonate them!"

Following Morren's instructions, the militia rats pushed the lit artillery shells one by one into the gas well opening.

The sparks from the fuse fell rapidly into the darkness.

Thump, a loud crash.

boom!

The explosion created a dull tremor underground, making the Rat Girl lose her balance.

Above, Sulfur, accompanied by more than a dozen rat girls, brought down a cannon from the airship.

The bronze cannon barrels and wooden gun carriages were tied with ropes and transported separately.