"They're here already!"
At the outermost edge of the Locust Wall's defensive zone, in a desolate region once occupied by the swarm but now buried beneath ice and snow, Old Qin raised his binoculars and watched the distant sky.
He had already spotted swarms of flying insects moving here from the gray desert and trying to build new nests beyond the frozen region.
But it had been less than eight hours since the last polar storm whipped up by General Winter had passed. The swarm's response was astonishingly swift.
Old Qin lowered his binoculars and glanced behind him. The druids of the Avalon Church were performing some kind of natural divine art above the frozen hive. It rapidly decomposed the corpses of the insects that had frozen to death, turning their life force into a balm for the earth and the natural environment, and returning them to the world's cycle of life.
The conversion of that life force would take some time to take effect. That meant Old Qin didn't need to worry about the returning swarm making use of the enormous amount of biomass accumulated here.
At the current pace of the druids and earth priests, they could deal with roughly two-thirds of the remaining biomass before the swarm attacked again. The reason they were working so quickly was that both the Father of Oaks and the Earth Mother Goddess were personally involved, and the rituals of conversion shimmered with divine power.
The legendary gods were helping the mortal world in their own way, too.
"They may be using their vanguard to evolve basic cold resistance. That's probably why they haven't attacked right away."
Five-Wheel stamped on the snow and frozen earth beneath his feet. Wearing a military overcoat, he breathed out a cloud of vapor and said to