The Second Fortress (2/2)

Almost as if she was right on schedule, the Queen makes it outside 20 minutes after she realized that the maze was a distraction. She looks up at the sky and sees the giant, white Soul Gate that her enemy, Haalfrin is in the middle of opening.

Most importantly, the Queen sees the Soul Gate slowly rising up, leaving the bottom of a giant castle behind it in the same in the same way a platter lid is lifted up to reveal the food beneath.

"Another castle!?" the Queen hisses and clicks in awe… and some other complex emotions.

Really, it's just… It's just that the Queen can't even bring herself to be mad seeing the enemy summoning another floating fortress out of nowhere. Instead of angry, she just feels tired – the kind of tired that makes you want to drink yourself into oblivion and crawl into a soft bed to sleep it off.

Still, despite her spiritual exhaustion, the Queen knows that she can't let the enemy finish summoning their castle.

"Uuuhhh…," the Queen groans as she stands upright again and fills her body with mana. "Let's just get this over with."

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While Haalfrin floats in the air with his eyes closed, his mind is busy working in his Soul Realm to pull the imperial palace completely through. He's completely unaware of the millions of Ants gathering below him, who are trying to pile themselves into huge mounds in order to reach him.

Because of how freakishly high Haalfrin is, the Ants aren't able to make many mounds to reach him. Instead, they have to dedicate all of their forces into one single mound.

Despite the Arkin persistently attacking the mound and attempting to scatter the Ants making it up, the Queen's children's makeshift ramp is holding together just fine.

You see, because the Captain Ants are more powerful the more of their sisters are close to them… the Captains are many, many times more powerful while piled up in a mound than when they're in cramped hallways; more of their sisters can fit beside them.

And so, with the Captain Ants at their most powerful, they start firing mana bolts back at the Arkin, and the pointy eared demons start to drop from the sky. At the same time, some of the Captain Ants are instead casting mana shields over the growing mound of Ants to prevent the Arkins' attacks from blowing them away.

What's strange about this mound is that the Queen didn't actually order her children to start assembling themselves into a mound. Instead, a few of the Ants had started to pile themselves on top of each other in a desperate bid to reach higher into the sky. A few of their sisters saw what they were doing, and they jumped on top as well. This went on and on until all the Ants in her army started joining in.

The Queen looks up at the huge ramp made of her children's bodies, and with how huge the mound is, she briefly thinks, "I wonder of my children at the bottom of the mound were crushed to death? Eh. Whatever. I'll take care of this in my own way."

Just like how two eyes are needed for depth perception and greater accuracy, the Queen has long learned to use her children's millions of eyes to give so many different perspectives of what she's looking at that she's able to use them to greatly increase her long-distance accuracy.

Thus, despite being so far away from Haalfrin, the Queen only needs to make a few test shots before her first shot connects.

To her surprise, instead of the dragon slayer defending himself, several Arkin fly in the fire bolt's path and block the attack.

Of course, this was a test shot to make sure she was aiming properly, so it was weak enough for the pointy ears to actually block it.

Keeping her hand raised upright and perfectly still, the Queen knows exactly where she needs to aim next time. Not wanting anything to go wrong, the Queen pulls so much mana from the Ants around her that the air around her starts to simmer with heat.

If she misses, the Queen knows this would be a HUGE waste of mana. However, she has the feeling that Haalfrin is both unable to defend himself, nor can he move right now. This is probably her only chance to easily kill him! She can't waste it!

Just before the Queen's attack is launched through the air, more than half of the Arkin in the sky peel away from attacking the mound, and they get between her and Haalfrin. They all then pull out their shields and arrange themselves into a slanted wall formation – all in order to hopefully deflect some of the energy to the side.

Surprisingly, the Queen's attack doesn't reach Haalfrin, though more than half of the Arkin who blocked it have been knocked out of the sky and are even now being eaten by her children.

Briefly glancing at the numbers on her pendent, the Queen sighs in relief. She had spent nearly a million "numbers" on that one attack, and she got more than that much back with that many Arkin falling and being eaten at once.

With a quarter of the Arkin here being taken out, the pressure on the growing Ant hill has lessoned significantly, allowing it to grow even faster.

Seeing the situation, the Queen gathers the mana around her for another attack. Since the Arkin can sense the mana flowing towards her, they manage to fly in the way again to block.

… But the Queen doesn't really mind this. Having so many of the enemy meats gather themselves up to be eliminated isn't as good as killing Haalfrin himself, but it's good enough for her.

With this next attack, the Arkins' numbers are brought down to half. "Two more strikes…"

On her third strike, a dragon bone ax suddenly flies through the sky and helps deflect the energy from her attack. This manages to save many of the Arkin. "Tch," the Queen clicks her mandibles together with irritation.

After only a few more strikes, the Arkin are all completely knocked out of the sky and quickly devoured. This leaves only Dakka for the Queen to deal with.

Plus, Dakka is only able to answer one threat at a time; the growing Ant mound, or the Queen? With Dakka preoccupied with trying to deflect the Queen's attacks, the Ant mound is able to grow unhindered.

Even then, Dakka is only able to block a few more strikes before his mana is starting to run out.

Sensing victory is at hand, the Queen grows eager and unleashes an even bigger attack.

Dakka, unwilling to let his master be killed after all they've gone through together, stubbornly charges at the Queen in one last bid to keep his "bro" safe.

Since Dakka is still between Haalfrin and the Queen, he gets directly hit by the Queen's attack.

Rather than divert some of his mana to defending himself, Dakka focuses all of his Dravar (Force) to keeping himself thrusting forward.

Despite his bones being indestructible, his soul still receives damage after taking the Queen's attack, and his consciousness immediately winks out.

Although Dakka was knocked out, his bone body is still flying towards the Queen at high speeds. Seeing the incoming strike, the Queen misunderstands and thinks that Dakka is still conscious, and that he's coming to kill her.

So, to save herself, the Queen puts all of her mana into a shield instead of attacking Haalfrin one last time despite the fortress nearly emerging completely from his Soul gate.

The Queen waits in anticipation for the dragon spirit to hit her shield with explosive force, yet when the blow arrives, she barely feels a tickle on her shield, as if Dakka weren't even trying to deal any damage.

Indeed, since Dakka is out of mana and unconscious, his blow on her shield had as much force as any normal object falling from the sky – nowhere near as horrifying as a typical 4 horned dragon.

Seeing the dragonbone ax clatter harmlessly to the ground, the Queen gapes in shock. Then, seeing that she had wasted her chance to make one last attack at Haalfrin, as the fortress had just finished emerging.

The Queen wants to curse, but the most her primitive language can manage is angry clacking and childish foot-stomping.

After she lets out her anger, the Queen looks up at the fortress in fear. This new fortress is SO much higher off the ground than the Threshold is. Plus, it's situated in the sky – not a cavern, so overcoming its walls would be exponentially more difficult for her forces. Even reaching that high would be hard!

Then, when the Queen sees the fortress suddenly start to glow with mana, she becomes deeply afraid.

In her mind, this fortress definitely has cannons placed at the bottom of the fortress, facing the vast plains below. Bombarding her forces from up there would be pretty easy for them!

What the Queen doesn't know is that the imperial palace was placed directly on the ground back in Brancotte, meaning there are no mana cannons facing down – only cannons erect on the walls and towers surrounding the outside of the fortress.

Certainly, Haalfrin immediately activates the palace enchantments on the walls, but this isn't nearly as devastating as what the Queen was thinking.

Still, ever so cautious, the Queen orders her forces to retreat back into the tunnels.

Just before the Queen herself follows her army underground, she glances at the lifeless dragonbone ax left on the ground, and she shifts into her human form; picking things up is easier when you have fingers.

The Queen then hops on the back of one of her children, and she rides the giant Ant to their safe places underground.

Seeing the enemy pull such a crazy stunt sure broke something inside the Queen, but feeling the defeated dragon spirit in her palm, the Queen suddenly feels confident again.

Just before she enters the gloom of the tunnels, she takes one last glance at the new fortress, and she thinks, "One day, that fortress will be mine as well."