Chapter 368: Dragon defenders
Vardish soldiers couldn’t resist if they wanted to—admittedly, they wanted to. They swatted at us with their swords; those who were smarter or more prepared tried to catch bees with their cloaks, random rags, or hurriedly lit torches.
But they weren’t our targets, and there weren’t targets for *them* to attack. We could’ve flown right over their heads and even their bullets would’ve only hard soone if the shooters were lucky.
Although my girls wanted to kill a human or a few, I ordered them to not get distracted and only attack those soldiers who got too close to us as we flew toward the gate control chanism.
However, we couldn’t fly over the heads of all the insects and dragons we saw crawling and flying here!
It was just like in the reports: the place and the people were stinking, and pests with parasites were all over the place. Even here, on the wall, were hundreds of cockroaches, spiders, fleas (an entire garrison of them on every other human I could see!) and various dragons that ate both human trash and all these insects.
And worst of all, my system showed that they were all evolved!
Everybody had faster breeding or youth developnt genes, tiers of venom immunity, genes for digesting things they weren’t supposed to, lots and lots of immunity genes, extra predatory instincts…
These creatures evolved to thrive on the decline of human civilization in the rapidly evolving world. And to eat anything, including each other—especially each other.
At first all these creatures were too spooked by our sudden appearance and the humans’ reaction to it to attack, but soon after we advanced over the wall, sothing must’ve clicked in their brains.
Although we were a threat, we were also countless targets small enough for them to attack us!
A lone gray dragon—not a very smart, but a constantly hungry creature—attacked our swarm first, diving toward us with its jaws open, clearly intent on snatching a bee right out of the air.
Its wings were thirty ters wide and threw a shadow on a quarter of the army as the dragon flew over us.
‘Open fire at that thing!’ I ordered, pointing at it and being the first to spit a globe of fire out of my mouth at it.
My shot went wide and fire landed on so unlucky human’s helt below, but a second later my girls spat an entire volley of burning napalm.
For an instant, they created a burning wall in the air between us and the attacking dragon!
It flapped its wings to change directions, but the fire singed its scales, anyway. With an unhappy cry, the dragon flew away to perch on a distant castle roof—only for five more dragons to circle close to us. All of them had a venom immunity gene and clearly weren’t afraid of bees anymore. I was sure they ate plenty of unevolved bees until today, and only fire made them think a little before attacking.
But they were going to attack—I could hear that in their hungry thoughts.
And just a few hundred ters away, dozens more of these beasts were perched on the roofs of the castle’s building!
I saw several of them take off and fly to the parts of the wall where two other of our army detachnts were fighting…
‘Father, General Gresch asks if it’s the ti yet,’ a telepathic ssage reached . ‘Is it, Father?’
Gresch and Naregan soldiers were supposed to reach the wall by the ti we opened the gate. If they ca too early, they would be shot at, and if they ca too late, Vardish soldiers could block or close the gate before Naregan soldiers entered it.
‘Yes, tell him to move,’ I replied.
I actually had no idea how long we were going to take to reach the gate chanism because of the dragon attacks. We just had to manage in ti sohow!
My mind whirred, creating sothing of a plan, and I began ssaging it all over my detachnt, waving all four arms as I pointed to this and that.
‘Keep spitting fire at any dragon who approaches! Make two rows to cover our heads so they could switch! And stay clear of splashes yourselves, girls! Lower row—strike at any insects you see! Humans can wait, you can ignore them for now!’
Echoes of confirmation ca back to ; an instant later the army was moving again, past the panicking soldiers and the buzzing flies and toward the gate control chanism.
Two more dragons tried to dive at us, but my strategy worked—both were spooked by fire and thrown aside. anwhile, other insects, mindlessly or purposefully, got closer and even tried to pick at bees at the flanks at the back—but they fought them off.
There were a few losses, but all of them ca from humans shooting at our swarm and hitting soone by accident.
Until the dragons got even bolder.
“Aaah!” several bees scread in shock when an especially bold gray dragon flew right through the fire with its claws reaching toward the bees below.
The flapping of its wings threw aside part of the fire, and the rest splattered over its scales. The dragon snatched a pair of bees in its claws, tearing their bodies and killing them instantly, and flew up.
Before fire could do it any real harm, most of it was shaken off the dragon by headwind!
But we were almost near our target—and it was going to be our salvation, too. The gate control chanism was inside of a small tower built on top of the gate and covered by a roof.
‘Push on! The dragons won’t reach us inside!’ I urged, just as several more dragons followed the example of the previous one and dived for our army.
“Father, we must press on!” Destroyer urged . “There are too many dragons here.”
I raised my golden-tipped spear. Most of these dragons were venom-immune, so shooting at them with stinger was useless. But I could still electrocute them if they got too close.
“No. My girls need my leadership. We advance together!”
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