Retreat (1/2)

If it weren't for Fisco sometimes giving him updates through their soul link, Haalfrin would've completely lost track of the time down here, in the ever dark, bloody halls of the Threshold.

"Uuuuh…," Haalfrin groans as he stirs his aching bones. "I can't believe it's been 3 years already. I want to sleep already."

As the Queen had started fighting more and more energetically (as she's getting used to getting less sleep), Haalfrin has had to start waking up earlier and earlier to in order to keep ahead of the Queen and keep his territory at a stable size.

Well, it doesn't help that the Queen is starting to get familiar with the maze's layout. With her able to navigate the maze easier and easier, Haalfrin has to work harder and harder to keep away from her.

Being run ragged like this, it's no wonder that he's dead in the eyes and unwilling to get up every morning.

As he pulls out some of the food Fisco had given him, he quickly stuffs it into his mouth as he starts running down the hall after Kaalhyme's guide.

While the man continues his first slaughter of the day, he looks up and wonders, "Where's Freyya? With all this killing, I thought she'd be here already."

"Hmph! I was wondering the same thing…," comes a young man's voice from behind him.

Haalfrin twirls around with his sword already swinging. *CLANG* His sword smacks into the wall, and he sees a young man who barely crouched in time to avoid being beheaded.

"Woah, there! Be careful…," the young man growls. "Wait, you can see me?"

Looking him over, Haalfrin notes that this stranger is wearing very light, silver armor over a black tunic. The only weapon on him is a dagger at the hip.

"If you're freaking out about me being able to see you," Haalfrin calmly guesses, "Then you must be a god from another Realm. Since I can see you with my Affinity, then you must be a Death god." He looks up and wonders casually. "I've seen all the Death Reapers before, but I don't recognize you. Who are you?"

"I'm asking the questions here, necromancer," the young-looking death god asserts while glaring at Haalfrin. He then points up and asks interrogatively, "Is this your doing? The barrier?"

"Yeah. So?"

The strange Death god crosses his arms and starts tapping his foot. Then, he abruptly orders. "You! You're coming with me! You're suspected of the crime of creating a Death Key. Such a thing can't go unpunished."

Haalfrin grins. "Yeah… How about no?"

In all honesty, Haalfrin expected the god to just wave his hand and take Haalfrin away without permission. However, on the off chance the Death god is provoked by his snide tone, then he might try to take him forcefully.

Fighting the Ant Queen is taking far too long. Wouldn't things be simpler if he just got slain by a higher being right now?

To his surprise, the Death god actually gets angry. The god snorts, "Hmph! Just a mortal thinks he can say no to a god? How about-"

Before he even gets to finish, Haalfrin punches his face with his spiked gauntlet.

A god's blood splatters all over the wall, and the god of Vengeance stumbles back with cracked skull and an obliterated nose. He doesn't even get to scream, as the shock of the blow had smacked his brain onto the back of his skull – giving him a concussion.

So, instead of fighting back, the god smashes into the wall and flops onto the ground.

Of course, Haalfrin waits a few seconds for the man to get up.

Furious now, the strange god leaps to his feet with his dagger drawn, and he lunges at Haalfrin…

… Or he would have, but he suddenly gets a bad feeling. As he takes his first step forward, he abruptly stops when he looks into Haalfrin's eyes and sees the amount of Death Aura reflected in them.

That amount of Death Aura… That's the kind of Aura he'd expect to see from a higher ranked god.

In the split second it took to realize this, the young-looking god also realizes something else. "He's just a mortal. Even if he has so much Death Aura, he won't be able to use it!"

*SMACK* To the minor Death god's shock, the human moves far faster than he can comprehend. The savage looking man leaps forward and grabs his wrist – twisting the dagger out of his hand. With the other hand, the savage Haalfrin punches the god, once again, in the face.

This time, the god doesn't get up. "Is that it?" Haalfrin remarks with disappointment. "Freyya said that Death gods can only come to the mortal realm by sending a shadow. I knew shadows were weaker, but I didn't know the difference in performance was this big.

What Haalfrin doesn't know is that this is Raru's real body – not some pathetic shadow. Sure, Raru is a genuine god, but Haalfrin has made the mistake of comparing all gods to high ranking entities like Freyya, Das, and the Death King.

If Haalfrin were to realize the truth, he'd realize that he's already more powerful than most gods in the Divine Realm. In his mind, he's just a little bug the gods can play with.

So, Haalfrin truly believes that as he continues to beat this "god's shadow" up, that he's creating some enemy for himself, and that some all powerful god will come to him for vengeance later on.

Instead of that, he's giving this minor god another bad memory, and perhaps some trauma.

And so, Raru is beaten up some more for no reason.

Once Haalfrin is satisfied with venting his frustrations, he grabs the puny god by the scruff of his neck and hoists him up. "Now, what's this about a Death Key?"

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"So, you're saying that I'm unintentionally creating a forbidden artifact, and that this artifact grants free access to the Death Realm?" Haalfrin asks.

"Yes…," Raru glumly tells Haalfrin as he's struggling to get comfortable in his tight bindings.

"Meh," Haalfrin shrugs helplessly. "That sounds pretty useless to me. I have Death Affinity, and I'm almost at my 7th Name. Once I ascend as a Death god, I won't need something like a Death Key."

Suddenly growing impatient with the conversation, Haalfrin grunts, "Anyway. Move along. I'm busy."

With that, he's running down the halls again – continuing with his tireless war.

Once Haalfrin is gone, Raru turns to the side with a frustrated look. "Time to head home, I guess? I mean, I've already interrogated the Wills along the way, so I should be good on info."

He looks up to the direction he last felt Reri at, and he smiles, "I wonder how she's doing? She's probably out of the maze already and waiting for me."

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"AAAAHHHH!!!" the strange, human looking thing screams as its blood is dripping from its wounds.

"Make sure to not spill too much blood," the Queen tells her children. "This creature has a lot of power in its blood; I can feel it. Best not to risk losing it."

In all honesty, the Queen is confused about where this strange person came from. The woman seemed to have some concealment spell on, but because of the Queen's constant contact with Death Aura over the years, she was able to spot where the intruder was.

When the invisible lady came through, the Queen could tell that the prey thought she was completely undetected. So, to avoid scaring her off, the Queen pretended to not know she was there before suddenly turning around and biting through her armor.

After that, incapacitating the weird intruder was… easy?

"Oooh!" the Queen mumbles happily, "this one had a LOT of mana in them. I wish more of these intruders would come along!"

Unfortunately, becoming stronger than the elusive dragon slayer isn't very helpful, so long as she can't catch him!

"Whatever, she mumbles, "This'll have to make do."

"…Wait," the Queen mutters in between mouthfuls, "I sense some powerful things on this woman's body.

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A few minutes later, the Queen pulls out all of the artifacts on the woman's body – including pieces of her clothing – and she lays it on the ground.

"I COULD just eat the mana in these tools," the Queen muses, "but just growing my mana pool is useless, since I already have these endless enchanted weapons to feed from. No… I need some other advantage. Maybe I can use these tools somehow?"

The first thing she does is she tires injecting her mana into each individual tool, and she gets varying reactions.

The easiest tool to figure out was the silver robe inlaid with some metal plates. Immediately, the Queen feels that the robe suddenly became resistant to her mana. "I can use this," she smiles as she drapes the robe over her own body.

The next few things are strange tools that she has no idea how to use. There's a strange stick with black ink on one end (a pen), a few rings, shoes, a notebook, and a white crystal with a hole in the middle, and strung on a necklace.

Well, when the Queen puts her mana into the necklace, she feels a strange image flash in her mind, as well as a bunch of numbers.

"2,307,334,001"

"2,307,334,221"

"2,307,334,379"

Etc.

By now, the Queen knows what writing is, as well as numbers, but she doesn't know what any of them means. However, the necklace seemed to magically input everything one needs to know about it's use into the mind of its wielder… including the proper translation of the numbers the Queen is seeing.

After getting over her initial shock, the Queen starts laughing aloud. "Haha! It's an energy measuring device! Wait… Why is that helpful?"

She spends a nearly another hour fiddling with the pendant.

Eventually, she has the strange idea to drop some of her blood on the pendent, since she's learned very well by now that her mana can be stored in her blood. "If a piece of my body is touching the pendent," she reasons, "Anyone might be able to ready my mana."

The moment she drips her blood on the crystal necklace, her blood is soaked inside. Once she hands the pendent off to one of her children and has her use it, her theory is proven correct.

"Heh…," the Queen hisses in delight, "If I can just find a way to get a drop of the dragon slayer's blood, I'll be able to read HIS power as well."

Truth be told, the Queen had long figured out that her enemy is using the strange black Aura to make himself stronger. With her children constantly giving it off whenever they die, she's rightfully worried that her enemy is growing stronger than her.

If she can make this pendent read both her's and the dragon slayer's power… then she'll know if she has to change anything or not.