Free Web NovelTwo months before the Doomsday Mother Nest appeared, Pal Calvin’s pioneering territory finally saw a turning point.
Of course, that was the result of his elder brother Selton Calvin's secret arrangements.
To salvage his half-brother's reputation in the Northern Territory and prevent him from becoming a complete laughingstock, Selton secretly dispatched an elite troop, bringing cold-resistant food, leather goods, and simple stone fort components.
He also assigned several strict old knights and grassroots officials with multiple battle achievements in the frontier to serve as a "consultant group" to assist Pal in reorganizing the camp. ƒreewebɳovel.com
To outsiders, Pal seemed to have suddenly "gotten lucky" and finally gotten on track.
Within two months, watchtowers were erected by the river, and crude but practical observation posts were built between the mountain passes;
The camp, reclaimed from the wetlands, also began to take on the form of a castle.
The fire pits and grain storage areas were clearly demarcated, patrols began to be stationed at fixed points, and a small "beast hunting competition" was even held, slightly boosting morale.
Pal sat on the temporary wooden balcony of the main building, watching the smoke rise and fall over his territory, and finally showed a long-lost smile.
"I am not a failure," he murmured softly, holding a quill pen and unrolling a parchment.
He planned to draft a "battle report" to send back to his father in the Southeast:
"Though the extreme cold of the Northern Territory is fierce, I, Pal, have not retreated. The territory is now expected to be self-sufficient, the watchtowers are stable, and expansion is in sight. Please rest assured, Father, the Calvin Family's blood will not cool in the snowfield."
As he wrote, he fantasized about returning to the family one day, clad in golden armor, snow dust still clinging to him, stepping into the Calvin Family's banquet hall.
On both sides of the long table, his brothers would all rise, their gazes intertwined.
His usually taciturn father would also put down his wine glass, staring at him with a rare display of emotion in his eyes.
"You, you're actually alive—and you succeeded?" his father murmured, his voice hoarse.
He didn't answer, but simply spread out one ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ battle report after another on the table, like scattering a handful of glorious chips.
He saw Louis, his lucky half-brother, kneeling at his feet and whispering:
"I'm sorry, I am not worthy of being the Governor of the Northern Territory's son-in-law. Please take over my wife and this Northern Territory, Brother Pal."
Emily also stood by, shedding her arrogance, dressed in plain clothes, bending down to embrace his legs, tears in her eyes:
"Please let me stay by your side, even if only as a maid—it would be enough. I once underestimated you, but now I understand that you are the true strong one."
He imagined himself gently helping her up, a kingly smile on his lips: "You don't have to be a maid, I will give you a better position."
And outside the city, countless refugees would shout his name, songs would spread throughout the Northern Territory, and knights would tattoo his name on their shoulder plates.
He even imagined his father raising a toast at the family banquet in winter, announcing: "From today onwards, Pal Calvin shall become the heir of the Calvin Family."
Thus, all past failures, humiliations, and mockery would be overturned, shattered, and become stepping stones to his ascent.
The recent smoothness made Pal believe that this "Northern Territory comeback" was only a matter of time, and that he was already on the verge of a reversal of fate.
However, he didn't know that just as he was about to take his first step, a second-generation Mother Nest had quietly appeared in the northern part of his territory.
Black mist had already spread from the forest, and the tentacles of the Worm-Eaten Household had pierced through the night, crawling towards the edge of his territory.
The more brilliant the fantasy, the more cruel the destruction of reality.
October 10th, Pal's territory.
The sky had hung low like iron since early morning, with heavy dark clouds, not a trace of sunlight.
No one noticed that a new "second-generation Mother Nest" was slowly descending at the end of the mountain range.
Its body was covered with insect shells and black metal-like tissue, dragging segmented organs, as if a giant shadow had emerged from the apocalypse.
The advance units of the Worm-Eaten Household spread like a black tide, leaving only ruins and scorched earth in the villages they passed.
Dead fish and rotten waterfowl floated on the river, and the wild dogs along the banks began to bite their own kind and flee in madness.
The mountain pass outpost had long lost contact, and birds in the sky fled south in a panic.
In the dense forest, an insect fog quietly spread, as if the world was being covered by some indescribable "miasma."
Pal was still immersed in his sense of victory, believing his "hardship had turned to sweetness."
Until his mount suddenly neighed, its front hooves raised high.
A sentry in front stumbled towards him, covered in blood, his chest caved in, his eyes rolled back, like a torn, broken body.
He collapsed in front of Pal's horse, and the next moment, he convulsed and crawled on the ground, spitting out a tongue-like insect leg, and lunged at Pal!
"Protect the Lord—!"
The guards quickly chopped off the man's head and minced it into flesh.
Though unharmed, Pal's face was ashen, and he nearly fell from his horse.
"That was—that was—what's going on? What is this?!
He stammered, his eyes wide with fright, and the personal guards present exchanged glances, all feeling something ominous approaching them.
And just a few minutes later, the crisis fully descended.
Pal hastily ordered everyone to assemble. Three hundred heavy-armored soldiers left by Selton and dozens of Aura Knights lined up on the outskirts of the camp, intending to block the enemy.
But they couldn't even hold for a few minutes.
Giant Worm-Eaten Household came like a mountain, leaping out of the fog, directly tearing open the chest armor of the front-line soldiers.
Several giant Worm-Eaten Household bodies were entrenched on the defense line, sweeping through like pushing down scarecrows.
Streaks of viscous fluid were thrown from the air, igniting the soldiers' bodies, and Aura barriers disintegrated like paper.
Pal stood behind in terror, watching the camp turn into a living hell.
Those "castles" he had personally designed collapsed in flames and thick smoke.
The newly erected watchtowers became supports for the Worm-Eaten Household to cling to.
Familiar knights wailed as they fell into the dense fog, dragged away by insect legs.
He even saw the giant Worm-Eaten Household, pieced together from dozens of corpses, writhing like a single entity, crushing down from the mountain pass.
It was covered with the faces of the knights from his territory.
Pal's face was pale, and he turned and ran, even kicking away a knight who blocked him, screaming:
"Quick! Prepare the horses! I'm leaving! Go to Red Tide Territory for help, immediately! I must personally—no, I am of the Calvin Family's blood, I cannot die here—you stop them!!"
In the chaos, he discarded his helmet and armor, and with a dozen personal guards, galloped out through the side valley behind the camp, abandoning the soldiers and officials who were still resisting.
At that moment, he had no time to care about "honor," "responsibility," or "command."
Only one thought remained in his mind: "Live—I must live—this disaster is not something I can handle."
Pal was forcibly escorted through the encirclement by his subordinates, fleeing all the way.
His face was covered in dust, his cloak scorched, looking utterly wretched.
Behind him was the completely collapsed camp in a sea of fire, and in front was the snowfield shrouded in dense fog, with constant insect roars.
He dared not look back until a familiar figure lunged from the flames.
It was his guardian knight, the knight who had protected him since he was a child, now transformed into an Worm-Eaten Household, with empty eyes, his face covered in writhing insect threads, opening his mouth to bite a knight.
"Kill him! Kill him—!" Pal shrieked, fumbling for his sword, but threw it away a few seconds later, climbing onto his horse to flee.
After fleeing for several hours, they briefly rested in a temporary mountain cave in the rear, preparing to break through to the west, but were met with even more complete despair.
Scouts brought back news: most of the breakout points had fallen.
Worse still, a "familiar-looking" Worm-Eaten Household unit was approaching the cave.
Pal looked into the distance and recognized their faces.
His guard captain, the loyal subject who had shielded him from arrows in the cold night, now wore tattered armor, with insects writhing in his eye sockets.
The butler sent by Selton, who had taught him etiquette in his youth, now moved forward with a torn mouth and grotesque contortions.
And his often-boasted knight order, their insignias now covered in bloodstains.
Their faces were distorted, and their mouths seemed to still be calling out "Lord Pal," but filled with false repetition and echoes.
Pal slumped to the ground, muttering: "No, impossible—they—they shouldn't be like this—"
No matter what he thought, the reality was that he was quickly surrounded.
He tried to escape, but insect spikes pierced his limbs, nailing him firmly to the stone wall of the fortress ruins.
He struggled desperately, blood gushing, his face pale, but he did not die immediately.
And in his final moments, he instead grinned, his eyes filled with madness and curses:
"Louis. I'm waiting for you! Let's see how long you can last?
I shouldn't have come to the Northern Territory. I shouldn't have believed them... Damn old man, brother, and you, Louis, why? Why did everything go right for you—"
His eyes before death were full of unwillingness.
Unfortunately, no one heard, no one saw.
Pal died in anger and despair, swallowing his last mouthful of blood in agony.
His corpse was brought before the Mother Nest and re-"woven": his body deconstructed, his spine hollowed out, his will erased, leaving only combat instinct.
Finally, he became an Worm-Eaten Household in the insect army.
A knight in armor, yet with his mouth torn to his ears and his internal organs covered in fungal webs, a vanguard on the battlefield.
Pal's territory fell within half a day, its surface completely devoured by the Worm-Eaten Household, leaving only broken flags and putrid steam.
Soon, this Mother Nest seemed to hear some "summoning" and then wriggled south.
Its volume surged again, its skeleton became denser, its spore mist thicker, and the swarm beneath it surged like a tide, moving even faster than before.
Its direction pointed directly to the next crucial stronghold: Frost Halberd City.
Under the guidance of the Witch of Despair, the Doomsday Mother Nest finally tore open the Northern Territory's blockade, and with its twisted and massive body, led a massive Worm-Eaten Household army, thundering south from the depths of the ice plains, heading straight for the empire's northern stronghold—Frost Halberd City.
And it wasn't just this one Mother Nest; accompanying the Doomsday Mother Nest were twenty-three "first-generation" and "second-generation Mother Nests" that had been dormant beneath the Northern Territory.
Some resembled collapsed trees, others inverted cocoons, carrying their specialized sub-nests, parasitic systems, and swarm will, awakening successively along the way, forming a destructive impact across the entire Northern Territory.
This was an undeclared war, a natural disaster-like massacre.
Wherever they passed, the Worm-Eaten Household surged into human strongholds like a tide, and insect eggs, parasites, and contaminated tentacles spread rapidly like a plague.
Fire oil, poisoning, earthen walls, and arrow towers—tactics that had achieved military success in battles with the Snowsworn—were almost ineffective against this completely unfamiliar and overwhelming "collective intelligence."
Only the fiefdoms of great nobles above the rank of count, relying on their ancestral accumulations, were able to resist for a short time.
Most of the fiefdoms of small and medium nobles were extinguished in the insect wave like paper lighthouses.
Many lords didn't even have time to send out a single plea for help before their entire territory, all its population, manors, and watchtowers, were directly erased within a few days.
In just a few days.
The map of the Northern Territory was left with dark spots, one after another, signifying lost contact, lost light, and fallen strongholds.
The noble post station system was cut off, the original communication network collapsed section by section, and the concept of a "border defense line" no longer existed in practical tactics.
All of this was just the prologue. freeωebnovēl.c૦m
October 11th, before morning passed.
In the highest war room of the main castle, Duke Edmund wore a thick cloak with black and gold trim, holding a parchment of intelligence.
What he unfolded was the fifth emergency intelligence report, and so far, the heaviest and clearest one.
The corners of the parchment were stained with deep brown bloodstains, and the ink of the writing was slightly blurred by the wind.
It was the handwriting of Count Grant, a Northern Territory strongman known for her steadiness, decisiveness, and distinguished military achievements.
In the entire Northern Territory, if only military power were considered, Count Grant could definitely rank among the top five; one could say she was his right-hand person.
The letter's content roughly stated that the insect swarm was moving south, Mother Nests were awakening, and noble fiefdoms along the way were falling one after another, their armies completely annihilated, with only a few escapees remaining.
"What was meant to come, has come," he murmured.
He had long anticipated this disaster, but he hadn't expected it to be so soon, thinking he had at least two or three more years.
And it came so fiercely, so comprehensively.
Not one Mother Nest, but twenty-three first and second-generation Mother Nests appearing simultaneously across the Northern Territory.
The Worm-Eaten Household simultaneously broke through multiple fiefdoms, and the Northern Territory lords' defenses shattered layer by layer like fragile ice.
One noble territory after another fell silent.
He frowned, but there was no panic, no fear on his face, which was carved with determination by years and warfare.
It was the calmness forged by years of military life.
He was not facing a natural disaster for the first time, nor was it the first time he had seen friends and subordinates perish in the snowfield.
In contrast, the panicked noble messengers and the lord's envoys begging for reinforcements seemed particularly jarring.
He did not send out reinforcements.
Not because he wouldn't save them, but because it was already meaningless.
"All fiefdoms that can still resist will stand their ground; those that cannot—have already been submerged."
After saying this, he simply extinguished the markers on the tactical map one by one.
Then, he ordered: Frost Halberd City to be completely sealed, with the Cold Iron Legion taking control of the city gates.
War fortress mode activated, the entire city shifted to combat readiness, granaries locked, armaments unsealed.
This war fortress would seal itself off, becoming the last shield of the Northern Territory.
At the same time, he ordered his trusted knight commander to carry his seal and sealed documents directly to the imperial capital—to send the empire's highest level distress signal to the Emperor.
He knew this was no longer just a "Northern Territory disaster."
This was a conspiracy targeting the entire empire, and even all of human civilization—
Frost Halberd City would become the last chain, firmly locking the Mother Nest in the Northern Territory.
