A few minutes earlier, Alon the priest snapped his eyes open, every breath filled with scorching air.
"...What?" He sat up in bed, a searing pain running through his nostrils.
Firelight flickered outside the window, as though some enormous beast had opened its eyes and was slowly approaching through the darkness.
Without even stopping to put on his shoes, he rushed barefoot to the window.
The next second, he saw fire.
This was no accidental blaze.
It was a group of... knights.
Their heavy armor reflected a cold, hard metallic gleam in the firelight, making them look like fiends from the abyss.
With strange metal devices strapped to their backs, they moved with steady, swift precision, breaking through the outer defenses established by the insect corpses.
Flames roared from their hands, as though they could devour everything!
"H-how is this possible..."
His voice caught in his throat as he stared in disbelief at the churning mass of flames ahead.
That was no ordinary corpse soldier. It was an elite insect corpse created from carefully selected members of the Snow Oath's elite.
These creatures had defeated heavily armored knights in single combat and torn through shield walls with corrosive claws. Even when set ablaze by flaming arrows, they could keep fighting for several seconds, using their dying bodies to drag more enemies down to hell.
Yet now, it could not even strike back once.
The flames burst its chest apart from the inside, sending chitinous bone plates flying like brittle pottery.
The enhanced insect corpse rolled frantically across the ground, shrieking with a sound that mingled animal howls and human cries. Its scream echoed before the blazing flames swallowed it.
Within a few breaths, all that remained was a charred, curled-up husk. Even its venom sac had burst instantly in the