The Fortress in Hell (1/2)
"Hmph!" the Queen snorts when she sees the human flee into the maze. "You must be feeling despair, realizing that all your friends built that unbreakable wall over the other side of the Gate and left you for me!"
After the Queen had reached the other end of the spatial tunnel and found that her way was shut, she nearly had a mental breakdown. On the several hour long trip back to the Threshold, she was silent with depression.
Even worse, she sent her Ants to explore, and she found that there is now a mysterious black barrier several miles in diameter circling around the Threshold; she's trapped here!
The only thing the Queen can do to make herself feel better is tell herself that the annoying dragon slayer must be feeling betrayed by his friends and fearing for his life.
So, the Queen gives a forced smile and points to the entrance to the basement maze. "After him. Let's see how long he gets to live in despair."
Still, the Queen remembers the mysterious monster that was absorbing the Death Aura earlier. Seeing the center of the congregating Aura move into the maze with the human, she had come to realize that it's the dragon slayer who grows stronger by being near death.
So, not wanting her foe to gain any sort of advantage, the Queen heads inside personally, while she sends small, compact groups of Ants to scout; that way, if the dragon slayer comes across them, then he'll get the minimum about of Aura from them, while the Queen will get to know exactly where he is.
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Once Haalfrin reaches the maze, he immediately tells Kaalhyme, "I have to focus on understanding the Master Key, so I'm going to need your help again."
The wooden spear in front of him wiggles in the air happily. Seeing Kaalhyme's Will act like a dog being praised, Haalfrin nearly bursts out laughing. Instead, he holds the wooden shaft fondly. "You always were bringing me victory after victory. I'm really grateful, and I'm proud of you. However, I don't think we're going to win this one. Are you still OK leading the army?"
The spear wiggles even more frantically.
"Good. Let's do this."
Seeing that his faithful general is listening, Haalfrin gives the order. "We need to keep our forces away from the Queen, but until I have the Master Key completely figured out, I won't be able to use the surveillance systems."
"Until then," Haalfrin continues, "we'll need to control as much territory in the maze as possible. That way, when the Queen finds our border, we can have the outer line fall back, and the vanguards can report back. We'll always know where the Queen is without risking her harvesting too much mana from you."
In other circumstances, Haalfrin would've unsummoned all of his Wills and ventured alone in the maze. Being alone, the Queen would theoretically be less likely to bump into him or his Wills in these winding, twisting halls and impossibly bent stairways if there are fewer targets.
In other words, if he has many groups of things for her to eat, the Queen will find little meals more often. Why not travel alone then?
The answer is simple.
Because the Queen's forces vastly outnumber Haalfrin's, she's easily able to pour so many Ants into the maze that she completely fills it up. If she does this, then he'll really have nowhere to hide.
This problem is even more exaggerated because the Queen is also able to see through her children's eyes; the second a single Ant spots Haalfrin, the Queen will know where he is.
The only way to mitigate this glaring problem is by having his Wills make the "Wall formation" he'd heard about from Kaalhyme (back when Frey was still with them), and use it to block off key points in the maze.
Since Haalfrin has the maze's map, he'll be able to spot which areas are dead ends and which halls are connected to wide loops. By splitting his forces and occupying a few key points, he'll be able to cut off huge swaths of territory from the Queen's forces – effectively emptying the maze out large sections of the Ants
The more empty space there is in the maze, the less sure the Queen will be of his exact location.
As Haalfrin and a long line of Wills charge through the maze, he tosses the Master Key to Kalastros's Staff and says, "You! Constantly read the map imbued on the Key and help coordinate with Kaalhyme about where the best choke points are."
He doesn't even get to finish giving his order before they come across a troupe of Ants – troupes that had wandered aimlessly through almost the entire battle earlier today, having never found their way out of the maze after initially being spawned there.
Before Haalfrin even gets to attack the Ants, hundreds of blades rise from the soldier corpses littering the Halls and attack the Ants. Even Haalfrin can tell without using his Spirit Sight that the Wills inside these blades are thirsty for blood.
Indeed, after the 10s of thousands of fallen Threshold Soldiers had finished condensing their Wills, they – more than any of Haalfrin's troops – want to kill the Ants.
Seeing the swords, daggers, and spears mindlessly and brutally chop the Ants to pieces, and the shields aggressively bash their skulls to open… Haalfrin goes silent and mumbles as he puts his sword away, "Guess I don't need to get distracted."
He starts running back down the hall. "Anyway," he turns to Kaalhyme, "Since Frey isn't here, I won't be able to hear you very well. I'll need YOU to coordinate the mission to capture territory and keep tabs on the Queen. Since I'm only able to communicate one way with you, you're free to treat me as another soldier."
He lifts up his wrist and shows a gauntlet. "Have one of your most trusted Wills possess my gauntlet, and use it to guide me to where you want me to go. If one of the lines is about to collapse, and the Queen isn't there, then I want to get there and help retake the outer lines."
Kalastros bobs up and down in agreement.
"Good," Haalfrin grins. "Let's at least have some fun before we lose!"
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Many torturous hours stretch on into days, and this entire time, the Queen relentlessly pursues Haalfrin.
Even if she never manages to catch her elusive foe, the Queen feels a giddy sense of accomplishment the longer she spends inside. Despite so many of her Ants dying, her overall mana pool is growing fatter and fatter as she constantly overtakes the enemy weapons and devours their mana.
Even more, watching the enemy's circle of safety gradually shrink as he has fewer and fewer weapons to work with is just… satisfying to watch.
So, despite the fact that this battle is taking longer than her entire war with the dragons has is none of her concern; she's gaining HUGE resources AND having fun at the same time. What else could you want from life?
All this time, the Queen had grown frustrated and hateful the more her enemy's have thwarted her goals. She just wanted to feast on the land dwellers, but the dragons just HAD to run her off. She just wanted to get across the world gate, but the humans just HAD to seal it off with strange magic.
Here, though? She's having fun. Since she's having fun, she grows more and more emotionally invested in this battle.
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The Queen sees the wall formations the floating weapons are using, and she quickly understands the concept behind it.
"Hmm…," she thinks, "The enemy is so effective in these halls because of their formation. They're basically having one layer in front to protect them – leaving nothing for my children to bite or pull on. Then, they have a layer behind them with longer weapons that can attack from a safe distance."
As for how she can circumvent this…
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"General Kaalhyme!" one of the squad captains in the vanguard exclaims through their link, "the enemy has started doing something really weird, and they're starting to break through our wall formations more regularly – even when the Queen isn't there."
"Show me!" the general orders grimly.
A second later, images flash through General Kaalhyme's mind. He sees… scores of Ants pile themselves into huge walls– so big that they completely block an entire hall. They then interlock their limbs so tightly that they essentially make themselves into makeshift walls.
Kaalhyme then sees the Ants in the block who are touching the floor, walls, and ceiling start to crawl along the hallway – carrying with them their entire block of ants as they try to directly contend with the Wills' own wall formations.
The first couple of times Kaalhyme sees this, his own forces obliterate the enemy walls, since the Ants are uncoordinated and unpracticed at first. Plus, since his individual Wills are stronger than the individual Ants, his forces tear through with much more ferocity.
Once the Will and Ant walls collide, the "blocks" of Ants are quickly torn apart.
However, the Ants rapidly learn how to reinforce their own walls, even as they're being torn apart.
They learn to make their Walls thicker; then as Haalfrin's forces rip apart the front layer, more Ants from behind join the wall.
Like this, the Ants are often able to push through with sheer numbers. Once they get right on top of Kaalhyme's walls, the Ants in front – all having their heads positioned forward – gnash with their mandibles and attempt to pry the shields off of the outer layer.
You'd think the shields, which are floating with a magical force – wouldn't be able to be ripped out of formation so easily.
However, Ants are insanely strong for their size. Plus, they're able to start sucking the mana out of whatever they pinch with their mandibles.
Hence, the moment the Ants get close enough to bite the shields, the shield Wills start to lose their power. Even if the Ant biting is killed immediately, there are countless Ants behind it crawl up from behind and take its place.
Once the shields are gone, the Ant wall surges much more quickly and attempts to devour the spears and swords as well.
Luckily, Kaalhyme notices that his troops at least have enough sense to run away and not donate free mana to the enemy.
Even with Commander Haalfrin's Fel Name constantly giving them mana, their upgraded mana regeneration can't outpace what the Ants are taking once the foul creatures get their mouths on them.
With all of this in mind, Kaalhyme quickly readjusts his strategy. "You all! Have at least 10 replacement Wills for each soldier lingering behind them. That way, when one of the shield Wills is nearly out of mana, just replace him! With the Commander's gift helping us rapidly regenerate our mana with Death Aura, 10 replacement Wills constantly rotating is more than enough to make sure our lines hardly ever falter."
He thinks about it a bit more. "Just in case the Ants DO break through, reinforce sections B3344, C59…."
He gives a long list of intersections to his men. With each intersection listed, he feels more Wills split off and fly there.
The purpose of doing this is so that he'll have many backup lines his people can fall back to. That way, if a Wall Formation is broken, they won't lose too much territory; they'll have many backup choke points to possess.