Mana Farm (4/4)

And so, the Queen drags Haalfrin to the plains beneath the Hall of Valor. She tells him to summon his people there. "I want them summoned in increments of 10,000," she tells him.

If too many demons show up at once, her people will have a harder time dealing with them in case they revolt.

With a reluctant feeling in his very soul, Haalfrin summons the first 10,000 volunteers. The Arkin show up completely unarmed, and they stand there without resistance as a horde of Ants swarm over them and devour them whole.

Seeing the stoic and uncaring expressions on the Arkin is unnerving even for the Queen… but it's a sight she's quite familiar with by now, so she pretends to ignore it.

Once the Arkin are nothing but bloodstains on the ground, the Queen has Haalfrin summon another group of 10,000.

This process is repeated until all 500,000 soldiers have been completely devoured.

(The new Rehkin volunteers aren't summoned, since all of Haalfrin's generals have agreed to keep their existence a secret from the Queen. They at least need SOMETHING to surprise her with when they escape!)

The Queen may not have her mana reading pendent anymore, but she can still feel the huge influx of mana streaming in.

In most battles throughout this long war, every battle usually yield a dozen or so Arkin "deaths" each. Arkin are so full of mana that these few casualties has always been enough to keep the 2 opposing powers balanced.

Now? Now with the Queen killing and eating half a million Arkin in one sitting… How could she not be happy? To think that she can do this every day? Why wouldn't she be excited?

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Several days pass by where the Arkin are periodically sacrificed to the Ants' bellies.

As each day passes, Haalfrin is sure to retract more and more of the ambient Death Aura out of the atmosphere and into his Soul Realm. This takes a conscious effort, since he's breaking the equilibrium between himself and the environment, creating an uncomfortable pressure on his soul.

However, this extra suffering he's putting himself through is completely necessary in order to fool the Queen. She needs to think that he's making himself weaker by summoning his forces.

Finally, after a full month passes like this, Haalfrin feels that it's time to move on to the next stage of the plan.

So, before he and the Queen begin their daily ritual once again, he looks up at her with a tired expression and lies through his teeth, "I'm running out of Death Aura. I don't think I can summon them all today."

The Queen knew this day would come, but she didn't know it would come this fast. Well, maybe he ran out of Death Aura so fast because summoning these powerful Arkin is expensive? Yeah. That makes sense.

So to this, the Queen nods her head understandingly, though she still kicks his old wounds to remind him who's in charge.

She then orders all 10 million of her children to line up around the pit Haalfrin and the sacrificial Arkin are being kept at.

Then, without warning, all of the Ants pull thin needles out and plunge them into their own brains – all on the Queen's orders, of course.

When all 10 million Ants drop dead at the same time, Haalfrin feels a huge influx of Death Aura bombard his soul.

Never, in his entire life, had he felt so shocked at the volume of Death Aura. Sure, he's seen many, many Ants get killed over the years, but he'd never seen 10 million die in a single second.

He's so shocked by what the Queen did that he doesn't quite process that once the Queen resummons her children, she has them all spread out and pick up the same needles they'd used to kill themselves just a few minutes earlier… all before having them kill each other AGAIN.

Once the Queen has her children commit suicide more than a dozen times in a row, she stops only to let the ocean of blood wash away.

As the Queen and the dragon slayer stare at each other, Haalfrin gets to thinking.

'Why would the Queen be so particular about having her children use needles to kill themselves?'

He'd certainly arrive at the correct answer eventually… but for now, we'll just explain it simply.

The Queen knows very well (ever since she had that mana-reading pendent to help her out) that the less damaged her children's bodies are when they die, then the less mana she'll have to use to revive them.

This is why the Queen HATES it when her armies are burnt or incinerated. Having them smashed to pieces or limbs cut off is fine… but simple piercing wounds to vital spots like the brain or heart is much more preferable to her.

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And so, once the blood washes away or soaks into the ground, the Queen looks down at Haalfrin and studies his face as she has her children enter another round of suicides. It's as if she's fascinated by her enemy's expressions.

Is her enemy scared? No. He doesn't look scared. The cold expression on his face feels more like anger to the Queen.

'Why would my enemy be angry seeing me kill my children? No, he's probably just angry at being held captive.'

Once the Queen is satisfied with the killing, she looks away from Haalfrin and asks, "Is this enough Death Aura now? Get to it, then."

"Oh! Another thing." She leans in closer to him. "I don't want any funny business. Summon them 1,000 at a time, and I don't want you to summon any more until the current ones are all dead."

She then points to a pit that her ants had dug. "I had my soldiers dig dozens of pits like this one. Summon your dead demons there."

The Queen had dug tunnels below all the pits and filled them up with ants. That way, her Captain Ant executioners would have as many ants near them, and they would be at their most powerful.

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Over the course of half an hour, he summons about 100,000 Arkin before he starts acting tired and wheezing again (though he was merely acting).

The Queen immediately punches one of his arm stubs again, which elicits another painful grunt. "Are you kidding me?" she hisses. "I know you can summon more from that with the Aura my children have given you. Don't get greedy!"

Haalfrin rolled his eyes then summons the rest over the next 3 hours.

The Queen punched another stub, and Haalfrin barely makes a sound this time.

Still, Haalfrin knows that if he's too stingy with summoning the Arkin, then the Queen would know too easily that he's tricking her.

However, he also needs to act like he's trying to withhold his Arkin from her; she'd get suspicious if he were too compliant.

For this reason, it's best to let the Queen beat a few more summonings out of him.

And so, Haalfrin pretends like he's struggling with every ounce of strength as he summons another 1,000 soldiers.

He gives a dramatic *gasp*. "Ugh… that's all I can do."

The Queen just gives him a side glance with unknown thoughts behind her eyes. She then orders her ants to clean up all the blood before having them all kill themselves again a few more times.

She smiles at Haalfrin. "Ready to start again?"

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Truth be told, the Queen is feeling exhausted right now, but the feeling of having an unlimited number of demons to feed on makes her far too excited to even consider stopping to sleep properly.

In the end, no matter how excited she's feeling right now, she has to sleep eventually, and so does Haalfrin.

Of course, the Queen had thought long and hard about how she was going to imprison Haalfrin while she sleeps.

She can't just pile a mountain of stones on top of him; with his titanic dragon strength, he'd be able to break out without much trouble. She can't bury him in the ground either for the same reason.

The only real assurance she has is that without any arms or legs, he won't be able to use Force based magic very easily, since spells that effect the physical world require you to move your own body to cast them.

Still, Haalfrin can move his head and torso to cast spells, though he won't be nearly as powerful this way.

Despite this handicap, the Queen is confident that her enemy will find a way to escape regardless.

What, then, can the Queen use to keep Haalfrin still? The only reason he hadn't tried to escape earlier is because she was standing over him – ready to take him out should he make the wrong move.

It really is unnerving for her to realize that she is literally the ONLY thing capable of keeping him confined. How can she possibly sleep peacefully realizing that the demon summoner can escape at any second?

'Oh wait… if he breaks loose, I can just have an ant near me kill me so that I can revive near the man and capture him again. Yes. That's the best I can do.'