The Sleeping Dragon
Within hours, the entire fortress is completely cleared of all life except for Ant life… well, except for Freyya. She put a barrier around her tower and remains holed up there still, regardless of how many Ants are scuttling around outside, thirsting for her blood.
As for Freyya herself, despite feeling sad for her Arkin friends, she had promised not to interfere. So even now, the Queen doesn't hear a peep from the goddess staying there.
As for Das's Avatar? Who knows? He's disappeared long ago and remains hidden.
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After securing the sky fortress, the Queen is pacing down the hallways looking for Haalfrin. No doubt, that man is wanting to escape again and revive his army from his own soul somewhere else…
…AS IF SHE WOULD ALLOW THAT!
The only reason the Queen isn't completely freaking out over Haalfrin apparent escape is because she's still feeling huge leaps of mana enter her soul, as her children continue to eat the Arkin they've killed up here.
Once the Queen is sure that the dragon slayer isn't anywhere in the Sky Fortress, she hops atop the highest tower (the highest tower besides Freyya's, that is), and she looks over the landscape.
Up here, the air is noticeably colder, and she's finding it harder to breathe. All this time, she didn't know that the air becomes thinner the higher up you go.
Just like that, the Queen stands there on the tower for at least an hour as she's lost in thought.
Almost subconsciously, the lone Ant woman reaches up to the sky and brushes the air. One may wonder what she's doing. Is she practicing some new magic art? Is she trying to sense something?
No. Rather than concentration or ruthless objectivity, she has a rare moment of… serene reverence on her calm face.
"Ah…," she lets out a cold, frosty breath. "I wonder how high up the sun is."
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Several hours pass by, and one would think that all is peaceful on this battlefield… but that isn't entirely true.
Even now, the Queen has her forces spreading out all across the land looking for Haalfrin, while she patrols the skies in search of her enemy.
Because the Queen has 10 million soldiers, compared to the demons' half a million, her people are far better equipped for searching vast stretches of land.
The Queen is quite confident that she'll find the man soon.
Once she DOES find him, she can just kill herself again and revive in the body of an Ant directly in front of him. That way, he'll really have nowhere to hide.
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The first time the Queen DOES spot the man, several hours had passed since she'd begun the hunt… and the alarm is coming from deep in the sky fortress.
Why would he return here? No matter.
Less than a second later, the Queen revives in another hall, just in time to see the demon summoner running through with an urgent look on his face.
"Yes," the Queen thinks, "That's the face of a man with an objective. He's not just running around aimlessly trying to avoid me; he's looking for something."
After all the Arkin her swarm had just eaten, the Queen is feeling a little more free with her mana, so she's even more aggressive with Haalfrin than she was before.
Needless to say, the man is forced to flee from her, despite being heavily injured.
Tch. Again. That man is like a cockroach; you can't get rid of him!
Still, after Haalfrin is chased away, the Queen pokes around the place he was headed to. "A dead end?" she wonders. "Why would he come here? Hmm… Logic says that there must be some hidden place here that my children couldn't find before."
Reasoning that there must be some illusion spell on a door that she doesn't know how to dispel, the Queen makes another explosion burn out of her body. With everything in this hallway blasted away, a hidden doorway is revealed.
"Hah. I was right."
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Feeling a little smug, the Queen enters the hidden room, and she finds… a humanoid dragon laying flat on his back and sleeping peacefully.
What's most horrifying about this dragon is that he has 6 horns on his head.
Indeed, Dakka had woken up his 6th Horn some time ago, but he's still in hibernation, as his newfound power is settling in and becoming more stable.
Cautiously, the Queen touches her pendent on the sleeping dragon's skin, and she sees some numbers pop up.
"550,321,495,484,483,329,998" ~ Queen's mana measurement
"550,321,495,484,483,329,998"
"550,321,495,484,483,329,998"
...
"99,999,667,124,796,395,218,445,954" ~ Dakka's mana measurement
"99,999,978,334,554,897,542,578,921"
"???"
Abruptly, the Queen is startled when she hears a loud popping sound, and she feels a great heat from around the pendant on her neck.
"Ah!" she shouts in dismay. There, she sees that the pendent itself had melted and is even now dripping on the floor. "MY NECKLACE IS RUINED!"
Did the dragon have such great power that he broke the mana-reading necklace?
She saw that the dragon's mana pool is steadily rising, yet her pendant couldn't take the stress anymore once it crossed the 100 septillion mark.
The Queen has had this pendant for so long that losing it now feels… devastating at a spiritual level.
"Well," she thinks after calming down, "this was the last mana reading I could get out of that pendant. I'll have to make the most use of it."
"So… 100 septillion, huh? That's a lot of mana," she remarks mentally. "I wonder what this dragon could do with that much power when he wakes up?"
Remember that this dragon had still effortlessly defeated her when he only had half the mana as her...
So seeing as how absurdly his power has outstripped hers understandably makes her feel terrified.
In all honesty, the Queen knows that even if she were to pour all of her mana into a single attack, her strike wouldn't even damage his skin, despite the man being in a deep sleep.
Plus, the Queen reasons that if she were to attack him, she'd forcibly wake him up from slumber…
Why in the world would she want to wake this unstoppable beast up? Shouldn't she find a way to get more powerful than him first?
The Queen wants to cry in frustration, but she's too afraid to even be loud in front of the sleeping dragon.
And so, the Ant Queen quietly tip-toes out of the room and softly sets the broken door back on its hinges – hoping against hope that she didn't disturb him too much.
"Well, that changes a few things."
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After the Queen finds a place to be alone, she figures that with her children currently on the hunt for Haalfrin, she has some time to think things through.
First off, if the dragon DOES wake up… how would she deal with it? Would she even have anywhere to hide?
Well, back when his mana numbers was around 15 quadrillion (1.5x10^16 or 1.5e16), he was able to effortlessly rip a mountain out of the earth, crumple it like a piece of paper, and completely deface the land.
Now that he's a young 6 horned dragon… her divine pendant put his mana measurement at around 100 septillion (1.0x10^26 or 1e26).
"Ugh. I hate math," the Queen thinks painfully. Still, this is really important, so she considers the numbers anyway.
Now that the dragon is around… a billion (?) times more powerful than he was before… Is there anywhere on the PLANET she can run away from him? Really?
Despite this battlefield growing larger with the added stockpile of Death Aura Haalfrin has, the battlefield here has grown by a few miles in diameter. Now, the Queen and demons are able to battle anywhere within 100 miles of the Threshold (whereas before, it was within 12 miles).
After doing some math, the entire battlefield is about 31,000 square miles. This isn't NEARLY enough room to hide from a dragon as powerful as THIS one.
The only option left to her is to hide in the indestructible Threshold and hope its walls can protect her from a force that strong.
…And this really isn't good enough for the Queen. If the dragon were to trap her in the Threshold, she'd HAVE no armies of demons to fight and devour in hopes of growing strong enough one day…
… There's only the dragon. With only one opponent and nothing there to help her grow stronger, she WOULD be hunted down and eaten alive – for good, this time.
And so, with all of these grim factors clear in the Queen's mind, she comes to see the ONLY course of action – the ONLY slim chance at survival...