Last Totem Novel - Chapter 175

Chapter 175 Artillery Shelling
Moments later, the thorn worm’s flesh was completely devoured, leaving behind only a pile of dark carapace and white vertebrae. Under normal circumstances, scouting ants only had a lifespan of about 20 minutes. Unless they could maintain their food intake, they would be able to extend their lifespan to about 60 minutes.

After eating, the army of soldiers scattered again, searching for traces of living things in the dense forest. In the next half an hour, Tie Zha fired eight shots, taking the lives of seven sting insects. Apart from a single shot that missed, the rest of them were all killed by a single shot. As for the weeping flies hiding in the dense forest, Tie Zha had only recorded their general location and was not prepared to use the Psionic Warrior Rifle to deal with them.

After nine shots, Tie Zha felt exceptionally weak. He probably wouldn’t be able to stand firm after a few shots. At this moment, the scouting ant discovered that there were three thorns hidden in a bush 800 meters away. Tie Zha hesitated for a moment before deciding to give up.

When he jumped out of the woodland car, his feet suddenly softened and he almost fell. At this time, Mu Qianhe, who had not participated in the construction of the camp, happened to pass by. Noticing his weakness, he hurriedly stepped forward to support him. The moment he saw Mu Qianhe, Tie Zha had an idea. He remembered that he still had two Lightning Flame mechs that could use long-range cannons to deal with stingers.

Thinking of this, he excitedly patted Mu Qianhe and asked her to bring over the two Lightning Flame Styles. Not long after, the two pilots drove over in the Lightning Fire stance. Then, under Tie Zha’s command, they climbed up a high ground, manipulating the Thunderflame Style to spread out six thick and short mechanical legs, firmly securing the fuselage.

Afterwards, Tie Zha asked Wang Hu for a pair of military binoculars with scales to look at the red light silhouette in the dense forest.

“Explosive ordnance, 10:35, about 800 meters away.” As soon as Tie Zha finished speaking, the two pilots simultaneously pulled on the rocker, and the thunder-fire cannon seat slowly rotated. When the barrel was in place, a yellow orange shell slid into the barrel.

“Artillery ready.” “Artillery ready.” The two pilots reported at the same time.

“Let go!” With a loud shout from Tie Zha, the two drivers pushed down the red button on the rocker. In an instant, the firing pin slammed into the bottom of the cannonball!

“Knock!” The barrel shook backwards, and the cannonball flew parabolically towards the hiding place of the three sting insects.

At this time, the three thorns were crawling in the bushes and resting. Suddenly, the air-piercing howls came from above. They stood up vigilantly and looked around.

“Chirp … rumble!”

In an instant, the ground shook violently. The sound of explosions was deafening, and the earth fell like a downpour, causing the three thorns to be splashed with ashes. After a loud rumble, they let out ear-piercing screams as they twisted their snake-shaped bodies and fled into the depths of the forest.

Seeing the cannonball fail, Tie Zha frowned disappointedly. Mu Qianhe sensed Tie Zha’s dissatisfaction and asked if he missed. Tie Zha waved his hand, saying that he could only provide an approximate position and distance. Without coordinates, it should be very difficult to accurately fire. The corners of Mu Qianhe’s mouth curled up slightly, and he curved into an arc, saying that he wanted her to give it a try. With that, she called out one of the mecha pilots and climbed into the cockpit.

Tie Zha picked up the binoculars and looked over, only to see the three thorns running in different directions. With a thought, he sent scouting ants to catch up. After escaping for a distance, one of the thorns stopped moving and found a new bush to hide.

“Explosive ordnance, 10:39, about 950 meters away.”

“Artillery ready.” “Artillery ready.” Mu Qianhe’s low and hoarse voice came from the loudspeaker. Tie Zha gave the order, “Put it down!”

The muzzle of the cannon spat out a large amount of flames, and at the same time, the barrel of the cannon twisted backwards, “Knock!”

A cannonball landed five meters away from the thorn bug. The moment the bullet hit the ground, it exploded violently.

“Boom!” With a loud explosion, the thorn insects were blasted apart and their flesh and blood flew everywhere!

At the same time as the explosion rang out, a trace of pain came to Tie Zha’s mind. It was the brain waves of the scouting soldier ants before they died. Mu Qianhe’s shelling not only shattered the target, but also shattered the nearby ants.

Afterwards, Tie Zha mobilized the remaining soldiers to search for stingers and weeping flies. After discovering the target, he ordered Mu Qianhe’s artillery to destroy it. During this period, Mu Qianhe demonstrated her extraordinary skill as an ace driver. Her bombardment was so accurate that she even hit the target on one occasion. The cannonball struck the thorn bug’s back, blasting it into minced meat.

However, the shortcomings of the shelling were also obvious. First, the shelling would shatter the target into pieces, unable to hatch new scouting ants; Secondly, each artillery bombardment would bring along a few soldiers who monitored the target. More than 30 scouting ants quickly died. Without the support of the soldiers, Tie Zha could only repatriate the Thunder and Fire stance and bring Mu Qianhe back to the canopy in the center of the camp.

At this time, wang Hu was directing the marines and transport workers to set up a temporary defense line. In full swing, the Marines cleared the shrubs and ferns around the camp and drew barbed wire between tree trunks; The workers dug up soil along the perimeter of the barbed wire fence, then packed it in linen bags and piled it up into a low wall.

After several hours of hard work, everyone finally finished their work before dark. This temporary line of defense was divided into three circles. The outermost circle was a trench, the middle was a barbed wire fence, and the inner circle was a bunker wall. The shelter wall was made up of eight woodland vehicles and linen bags filled with mud. It was about a meter tall and could withstand the impact of the swarm of weeping flies and thorns to a certain extent. After the defensive line was established, everyone heaved a sigh of relief. At least for now, they didn’t have to worry that in the middle of the night, a weeping lacewing would suddenly appear in the tent and quietly bite their throats.

After dinner, Tie Zha called Wang Hu, Mu Qianhe, and Ju Ah Mu to tell them about their plans. He intends to enter the missing area of the satellite signal by himself and search for the exact location of the satellite communication node. Wang Hu immediately objected. He believed that Tie Zha, as the Guild Leader, should not risk his life.

Mu Qianhe didn’t say anything and just looked at Tie Zha quietly. The young man in front of her became more and more mysterious. Today, when she was shelling, she only knew the angle and distance of the attack, but she did not know what the specific target was. She guessed that Tie Zha might have some special scouting technique that could detect creatures outside her field of vision. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have wasted so many artillery shells.

As for Giant Ah Mu, he seemed to be very confident in the iron slag. He only said, “Brother Tie, if you have any plans, just give me your instructions.” Then, he lowered his head and didn’t say anything else. Tie Zha explained to Wang Hu that he was familiar with the habits of the bee ant swarm and was used to acting alone, so Wang Hu didn’t need to worry.

Since the Guild Leader insisted, the Deputy Guild Leader The next morning, after a night’s rest, Tie Zha recovered most of his strength. He carried his weapon on his back and entered the depths of the jungle alone. Ten minutes later, according to his memories from yesterday, he found two weeping flies that were lurking hundreds of meters away.

The moment they met, Tie Zha lifted his shotgun and sent one flying. He then used a single-edged straight sword to kill the other. After that, he hatched more than ten scouting soldiers through the corpses of the two weeping flies. With the help of these spies, Tie Zha quickly found other weeping flies and hatched more scouting ants.

Three hours later, within a radius of 1,200 meters with Tie Zha as the center, there were hundreds of scouting soldiers. They wandered around, reflecting the situation in the jungle into Tie Zha’s mind. As for Tie Zha, he slowly walked forward, looking at all the plants and trees in the jungle. When he encountered a thorn insect, he bypassed it, and when he encountered a weeping fly, he stepped forward to kill Since the lifespan of the scouting ant was only 60 minutes at most, in order to maintain the operation of the army of soldiers, he had to constantly search for and kill the weeping flies.

But as he went deeper into the jungle, the problem was solved, as the number of songflies and stingers increased. Before nightfall, he gathered the corpses of some weeping flies, piled them up, and climbed up to the canopy to rest. When dawn arrived, he hatched an army of troop ants amidst the corpses of the weeping flies and continued onward.

At noon, he entered a special area. In this area, there were swarms of weeping lacewings and thorns, and none of them were left alone. After some observation, Tie Zha found that they would follow a certain route, as if they were patrolling. Unlike the ones he had encountered before, the weeping flies and thorns here seemed to possess the same intelligence as humans.

According to the textbook, only the Abyss Ant Queen, the Abyss Queen, and the Abyss Hegemon possess intelligence. They can command homologous insect colonies using ultra-fast brain waves. At present, bee ant swarm is the number one enemy of mankind. This group of creatures from the Abyss possessed extremely strong vitality and adaptability. Their figures could be found in all planes, especially in Desert Five, which occupied a large area. Fortunately, the dark jungle did not have the “spirit ores” and “black oil” they needed to hatch high-grade life forms. Here, the Queen Bee and Queen Ant could only hatch basic combat units, namely, the Song Chrysopa, the Stinger Bee, the Crypt Worker Ant, the Crypt Worker Bee, and the Abyss Hegemon.

After entering the area, Tie Zha proceeded cautiously. Not far away, he “saw” a huge black-armored silkworm lying on the ground more than a thousand meters away. With a thought, Tie Zha split up 20 scouting ants and surrounded the black-armored silkworm from all directions. Ants’ vision was different from humans’, so they had to look at the surroundings from multiple angles to see clearly.

A moment later, Tie Zha’s vision became clear. The giant black-armored silkworm is the “Hegemon of the Abyss”, the “brain” of the weeping flies and thorns in this region. After seeing the situation clearly, Tie Zha hesitated for a moment and decided to leave first. After all, he was too weak to deal with so many weeping flies and sting insects.

However, just as he was about to leave, a cylindrical object that was more than ten meters tall suddenly appeared in his mind. From the outline, the top of the object is a pot-shaped satellite signal receiver.

At the same time, Tie Zha stopped and climbed up a tree. He took out his Psionic Warrior Rifle, stuffed it into a blank bullet, pushed the safety bolt, and started charging. He was prepared to gamble that as long as he could kill this Abyss Hegemon, the nearby weeping flies and thorns would lose their intelligence and become low-level animals that relied on their instincts. At that time, he would be able to break through them one by one.

A few seconds later, the stardust gathered and gradually filled up the empty bomb.