The ants piled up one after another as a large group of Flame Devouring Ants surged up the city walls.
Wu Tie brandished his long spear with divine strength, sending the swarm of ants flying without a single one able to approach him.
However, several stone city warriors beside him had already been bitten to the point of flesh and blood. One particularly valiant Ox Clan warrior had even been sprayed in the face by a Flame Devouring Ant's flamethrower, causing his eyeball to burst into flames.
Wu Tie was now the Centurion of the Stone City, commanding a hundred warriors.
Over the past month, despite his busy cultivation schedule, Wu Tie had become familiar with these warriors. The Ox Clan warriors, in particular, were simple and straightforward, with no ulterior motives. When he was young and living in the Wu family's stone fortress, Wu Tie had loved playing and frolicking with these tough guys.
Seeing his soldiers being heavily injured, Wu Tie's anger surged. He knocked away a dozen or so Flame Devouring Ants that were pouncing on him, then punched one of the ants' heads with his fist.
Amidst a loud bang, his fist was burnt to a bloody mess. However, his fist had sunk more than a foot deep into the ant's head, ferociously driving forward.
Wu Tie opened his palm inside the ant's head, recklessly grabbing two handfuls of the scorching flesh and tissue. He seized a thick nerve bundle in the ant's head and snapped it off.
The Flame Devouring Ant's body twitched violently, its long sharp limbs suddenly extending straight out before contracting and tensing up. The limbs continuously vibrated, striking its hard body and emitting crisp "ding ding" sounds.
The protective mirror on Wu Tie's chest glowed faintly, causing the flames on the ant's body to rapidly dim, and its entire body quickly turned icy cold.
All the heat, life essence, and weak soul within the Flame Devouring Ant's body were completely absorbed by the white egg on Wu Tie's chest the moment he killed it.
Next to him, a bellowing "moo moo" wail came from a Ox Clan warrior whose head was covered in flames. Fluid from his burnt eyeball continually flowed out as he stumbled backward.
He dropped his shield and covered his exploded eye with one hand, while swinging a short-handle wolf fang club aimlessly with the other hand, helping his companion fend off a pouncing Flame Devouring Ant.
The short-handle wolf fang club struck the ant's head, causing sparks to fly, and two long teeth on the club made of fine steel snapped. However, the ant's head only showed inconspicuous dents.
The Ox Clan warrior stumbled backward, colliding with two Lizardmen archers who also served under Wu Tie. Compared to the towering stature of the Ox Clan warrior, the Lizardmen archers were comparatively slender and weak. They screamed in panic, spitting out long trails of saliva, and were knocked down by the impact.
The Ox Clan warrior tripped, falling on top of two Lizardmen warriors who belonged to Wu Tie's command.
In comparison to the large and sturdy body of the Ox Clan warrior, the Lizardmen warriors were undoubtedly much leaner. They sat on the ground with the Ox Clan warrior on top of them.
Having suffered a heavy blow, the Flame Devouring Ant suddenly emitted a sharp hiss, its long limbs flicking out. Its sharp mouthparts opened and closed, clamping down on the burning neck of the Ox Clan warrior.
Wu Tie dropped the cold corpse of the Flame Devouring Ant in his hand, let out a loud roar, and his elemental qi surged throughout his body. A violent gust of air burst forth from within him. He single-handedly gripped his long spear and thrust it with all his might to his side.
This thrust held nothing back.
Elemental qi surging through his arm, his right arm swelled to twice its normal thickness. Wu Tie, enhanced by an invisible force field, struck even faster and fiercer.
The long spear tore through the air, bringing forth a straight and undeviating cold glint. With a piercing crack in the air, it stabbed out.
The long spear hit the Flame Devouring Ant's head and connected to its abdominal joint, which was only as thick as a fist and not covered by heavy armor. With a crisp clank, the long spear pierced through the ant's body, causing a large amount of scorching hot blood plasma to spray out. Wu Tie swung his long spear fiercely and threw it towards the outside of the city wall.
The Flame Devouring Ant's body was penetrated, its nerve fibers running throughout its entire body shattered. It twitched violently, wriggling, and its vitality left its body in an instant.
The white egg on Wu Tie's chest emitted a faint glow, and the high-temperature flame on the ant's body rapidly faded away. Its entire body quickly became as cold as ice.
All the heat, life essence, and soul within it were absorbed by the white egg on Wu Tie's chest in an instant. The air around Wu Tie fluctuated violently as if there were flames faintly appearing and disappearing.
Wu Tie casually tossed the corpse of the Flame Devouring Ant away, sending it flying several hundred meters. He raised both hands and shouted loudly, causing more than three hundred Flame Devouring Ants to fly up.
Uniformly, the heads of the three hundred plus Flame Devouring Ants turned three hundred and sixty degrees in mid-air. Wu Tie forcefully twisted their heads off with his invisible force field, breaking their nerve fibers in the process.
The structure of these Flame Devouring Ants' bodies was peculiar, as a single nerve fiber controlled all their bodily functions. Even if their heads were pierced and their bodies were completely hacked to pieces, as long as this nerve fiber wasn't injured, they could stubbornly continue to fight and charge forward.
Once the nerve fiber was severed, they would immediately die, although their bodily functions wouldn't be lost temporarily, and their limbs would instinctively twitch and tremble. And this was precisely the case for the three hundred plus Flame Devouring Ants. Suspended in mid-air, their long limbs trembled violently, continuously colliding and making a crisp "ding ding" sound.
However, the twitching of their limbs stopped within a very short period of time, and the three hundred plus Flame Devouring Ants quickly became stiff and cold. All the heat, life essence, and souls within them were instantly absorbed by the white egg on Wu Tie's chest, causing the air around him to fluctuate violently with hidden fiery flames.
Wu Tie threw the bodies of the Flame Devouring Ants far away with a flick of his hand, and then he raised both hands and shouted, once again causing more than three hundred Flame Devouring Ants to fly up.
With these ants flying up one after another, their heads rotated three hundred and sixty degrees simultaneously. Their vitality rapidly waned, their bodies became icy cold and stiff, then Wu Tie threw them off the city walls.
On the side facing the approaching Flame Devouring Ants, on this side of the city wall of the Stone City, thousands of Stone City warriors had already clashed in a mass struggle against the Flame Devouring Ants.
Facing these enemies that were difficult to injure, emitted high temperatures, and occasionally sprayed flames and sharp metal spikes, the Stone City warriors fought with great difficulty.
In just a moment, hundreds of warriors were seriously injured, and dozens of warriors were dragged off the city walls by the Flame Devouring Ants and torn to pieces.
Shi Meng swung his great axe, roaring and bellowing on the city wall with a group of elite warriors under his direct command. His great axe swung strongly, using the brute strength granted by his giant bloodline to smash the Flame Devouring Ants into strange, iron-like slabs.
He also had several warriors at the Peak Tower Realm under his command.
However, these warriors, just like Shi Meng, possessed close combat-oriented divine abilities. Warriors with towering statures rushed back and forth on the city walls, yet they couldn't be bothered to focus on the entire length of the wall.
The Elemental Mages on the arrow towers and lookout towers were busy using gales to block the encroaching sea of fire and descending frost to mitigate the high temperature on the city walls. They couldn't spare any effort to assist in attacking the Flame Devouring Ants.
Seeing the heavy casualties among the soldiers in the city, Shi Meng grew furious and cursed, but he couldn't come up with a good solution at the moment.
Suddenly, Shi Meng saw that large pieces of Flame Devouring Ants were constantly being thrown out from the section of the city wall where Wu Tie was. Moreover, these ants, once thrown out, would not move again. He couldn't help but look up towards the sky and let out an extremely excited roar.
"Young Tie, you did beautifully! Wow, my ancestral family still has several unmarried big sisters. I'll introduce you to them... hey, they're just a little big in size." Shi Meng was truly excited, feeling like he wanted to sing at the top of his lungs.
Shi Meng's ancestral family?
Wu Tie thought of Shi Bao, who was twenty meters tall.
Was it the big sister of Shi Bao's family?
The giantess who stood over ten meters tall?
Wu Tie shivered, shook his head, and began to run back and forth on the city walls.
His invisible force field spread outwards, and wherever Wu Tie passed, large numbers of Flame Devouring Ants kept flying up and then having their heads twisted and thrown towards the city walls.
Wu Tie's speed was also extremely fast. With several li of city walls, he could run the whole distance in just over a dozen breaths. In other words, in the time of several dozen breaths, Wu Tie could cleanse the Flame Devouring Ants that climbed up the city walls.
A quarter of an hour quickly passed. At least tens of thousands of Flame Devouring Ants had been killed by Wu Tie. The golden light on his forehead had become dim, and his invisible force field had collapsed to less than ten meters around him.
His energy consumption was excessive, and Wu Tie's face turned pale. Cold sweat continuously seeped out from his forehead, although his physical strength hadn't been depleted much.
Finally, he felt waves of pain in his forehead. Wu Tie sat down on the ground, and with a loud shout towards Stone Meng not far away, he said, "Can't hold on... Stone Senior... You guys hold the line for a while."
His vision turned black, and although he hadn't expended much physical energy, Wu Tie's mental energy was almost exhausted. He nearly fainted.
He shivered, struggling to reach into the beast skin bag on his waist and took out a small metal box. From it, he removed a Lava Herb and, after thinking for a moment, tore off two leaves and put them in his mouth.
He lay crookedly on the city wall, assuming the posture of the resting exercise from the Foundation Building Style, and focused his energy on absorbing the massive energy contained in the Lava Herb, trying his best to recover his mental energy.
Dozens of Flame Devouring Ants suddenly rushed up the city wall. They roared and pounced towards Wu Tie.
Shi Meng roared heavily, "Protect Little Tie! Willy nilly, I will introduce several of my family's big sisters to you. Charge up there and kill them!"
Shi Meng was the first to rush to Wu Tie's side, swinging his great axe and smashing more than a dozen Flame Devouring Ants away. He took a deep breath, his originally three-meter-tall body immediately swelled, growing seven or eight meters tall. His body became exceptionally sturdy and robust, and the heavy armor encasing him burst apart with several loud crashes.
Bare-chested, with the hide chieftain war kilt around his waist cracking open with several huge fissures, Shi Meng, almost completely exposed, let go of the unwieldy great axe and grabbed the two largest Flame Devouring Ants by their bodies, smashing them forward fiercely.
With a thunderous boom, seven or eight Flame Devouring Ants were struck and smashed into iron plates.
Following that were the violent tremors of this section of the city wall, and dozens of long fissures appeared on it.
Beside Shi Meng, a group of warriors let out terrified howls, and several close aides to Shi Meng opened their mouths, spitting saliva in anger towards Shi Meng.
Who would recognize Shi Meng at this moment, filled with murderous intent and bloodlust? These guys fighting him in such a rough and violent manner had already angrily cursed his mother!
Streams of Flame Devouring Ants continued pouring in ceaselessly.
The number of Flame Devouring Ants that accumulated beneath the city walls, one after another, grew to be the same height as the walls themselves.
Raging fire spread, and the tide of Flame Devouring Ants no longer needed to climb the city walls but, instead, walked over the bodies of their comrades and surged towards the city walls.
Shi Meng's face turned ugly.
Even if activated his giant bloodline, his brain and bone marrow had been almost entirely devoured by his swollen muscles and bones, and his intellect had dropped to the level of a child with developmental disabilities. At this moment, he also realized something was wrong.
"Damn it... that old man Shi Bao, didn't he say he'd come whenever we were ready with food and drink?"
"Where is he? Where did that old man Shi Bao go?"
"Damn it, where did that bastard go?"
"If he would slap these bastards to death with one slap."
Shi Meng was furious as he roared and cursed on the city walls, while the Stone City warriors continued to retreat.
A Flame Devouring Ant, the size of an adult buffalo, suddenly climbed up to the city wall. It emitted a sharp roar and locked its sights onto Wu Tie before spewing a viscous, pale-white flame like magma.
(End of this chapter)