Haalfrin Awakens

If one were to compare Haalfrin's present soul realm to how it was when he first touched a necro crystal, it looks shockingly different.

For one, the black lake is almost entirely gone, and most of the necro crystals have disappeared. Where did they all go? What's Haalfrin been doing all this time, anyway?

For now, Freyya has her hands against Haalfrin's back, and she's channeling her power into him to help keep his health stable.

While she was doing this, Haalfrin's arms and legs had all turned black long ago due to being exposed to too much Death Energy. If Freyya weren't there to keep him alive, he'd have died long ago.

While Freyya is supporting him from behind, Haalfrin is physically ripping off pieces of the necro crystal and… eating it.

In the beginning, Haalfrin had to spend hundreds of years just getting his body used to touching the necro crystal. Once that wasn't enough, he had to start eating small grains of it.

Every so gradually, Haalfrin's body became more and more accustomed to Death Aura – up until he could start ripping off chunks of the stuff and eating as much as he can fit in his mouth.

It seems like the man's body can hold an infinite amount of Death Energy inside it now.

Indeed, the condition to advancing his Dra Name was that he had to become one with the Death Aura. In other words, his entire body needed to be made of the stuff.

Finally, after countless years, Haalfrin's Dra Name glows in its final brilliance.

Once the signal goes off that his Name has finished advancing, all of the remaining necrowater is suddenly pulled towards Haalfrin and sucked into his skin, while all of the remaining necro crystals suddenly explode into necro water and join the tsunami.

After several minutes of being the center of the swirling black energy, everything is quiet. For the first time in a long time, Haalfrin's soul Realm looks clean again.

Once the black energy is done integrating with Haalfrin's body, his skin goes back to its original color, and the deep blackness is no longer to be seen.

"Finally. It's over with…" Haalfrin mutters tiredly as he staggers to the side. He'd say that his wife isn't looking much better than himself, but she's actually looking far worse.

When he turns to her, she's on the ground and on the verge of passing out.

Haalfrin wants to go to sleep too, but he really has no idea how long he's been glued to that necro crystal; it could've been countless years, or it could've been an afternoon.

Either way, Haalfrin fears that the Queen is going to kill him if he doesn't wake up soon enough, so he runs to gather his things really quickly.

Right before heading out, he takes the time to pick Freyya up, places her on a bed prepared on the floating platform, tucks her in, and kisses her goodbye.

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Immediately, after exiting his soul realm, Haalfrin finds himself staring at the ceiling… of a well-furnished room?

'Why aren't I in a cell?'

The next surprise comes when Haalfrin tries to stand up. You see, he'd gotten so used to being in his Soul Realm that he'd forgotten that his true body had long lost his limbs to the Queen.

After that first split-second, Haalfrin suddenly feels embarrassed for almost forgetting his handicap.

The second surprise comes when Haalfrin realizes that his limbs are actually there, and that he really CAN stand up.

'What…? Where did these come from?'

Upon further inspection, Haalfrin sees that those 4 limbs that were supposed to be missing… They all are pitch black – so black, in fact, that it appears as if those arms and legs are made of shadows rather than flesh.

Haalfrin bends over on his bed and feels his strange legs first, and he casts a few scry spells to see if he can find out what's going on.

It only takes Haalfrin a few seconds (since his first guess was correct) for him to find out the truth.

'So these new arms and legs are made from Death Energy? No doubt, a by-product of having a body partially made of Death Energy.'

Haalfrin gets up from his bed, and the first thing he does is check his body for any wounds, as well as make sure he's not been drugged up.

Then, he looks around and studies his room. 'This architecture looks like the imperial palace – I mean – the Hall of Valor. Why am I here?'

He pokes around, and he finds that despite the building itself being the same, his room is full of unfamiliar furnishings. His window also has a balcony right in front of it.

Curious, Haalfrin rushes to the window and places his hands on the railing. "…What…?" This is the only word that escapes his agape mouth.

Down below, the man sees countless red towers which appear to be made of crystal. Between the towers is what looks like a huge forest, as well as large wooden houses scattered randomly.

If it weren't for the grey Mantle still over the sky, Haalfrin would've thought that the war was over and that his Syl Name's Barrier was no longer in effect.

When Haalfrin looks a lot closer with his Scry spell, he can see long lines of Ants off in the distance – all bobbing and weaving through the trees and occasionally climbing up the trunks for some reason.

'So the Queen's still alive, huh?' Haalfrin wonders.

In all honesty, he'd been thinking that since he's not slapped in chains, then he must have been rescued by somebody. Perhaps Dakka woke up and got him out of danger?

With that thought in mind, Haalfrin relaxes a little, and he sits down on the bed again and starts checking out his new limbs some more – playing around with them to see what they can do.

The more Haalfrin looks at these limbs made from Death Aura, the more they look like holes in the universe from which all light can't escape.

'Kind of eerie looking,' he thinks. 'It's best to wear gloves and long boots to hide them, in case I ever have to enter civilized society again.'

Upon using his Advanced Yiir Name, Haalfrin learns that he can remold and reshape the Death Aura in his limbs – morphing them into strange shapes and even making them larger.

Haalfrin ends up imagining a spear in his hand, and a thick black substance seeps out of his skin and forms a long, black spear. The black Aura then condenses into black necro-crystal.

The second he does this, all of the curtains on the furnishings in the room – the curtains, bed, and dresser all rot away in the blink of an eye.

'Oops. I'll put that away.' Once the necro crystal spear is sucked back into his skin, Haalfrin clenches his fist and looks out the window. 'This'll be useful when fighting against the Queen.'

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Haalfrin is about to walk out his door and look for Dakka when he hears the door behind him creak open.

Swiveling his head around, he sees a young Ant in her humanoid form stepping into his room.

A huge burst of black energy engulfs the room, and the Ant doesn't even get the chance to scream before her entire body rots to dust and blows away in the draft from the window.

'How!?' Haalfrin screams in his mind. 'How did the Queen get up here!? Did she feel when I was going to awaken, then send her forces to infiltrate the place before Dakka knew what they were planning!?'

In Haalfrin's mind, the Queen is certainly cunning enough to do something like this.

'Yes, the Queen wouldn't attack unless she was at least confident that she could fight Dakka. I need to find him and help him in his battle!'

Feeling a strong sense of urgency, Haalfrin kicks his door down and starts running down the hall.

'Something doesn't feel right!'

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"AAAAAH!" many Ants scream as they flee down the hallway. "MOM! DAD! THERE'S A MONSTER RUNNING THROUGH THE HALLS!"

Some of the Ants manage to hide in rooms and lock the doors. They think the locks are keeping them safe, but in reality, Haalfrin doesn't want to confront any Ants, seeing as how any one of them could turn into the Queen at any moment; he has no idea how powerful the Queen is right now, and he doesn't want to take any chances until he meets up with Dakka.

Fina knows very well how attached her husband is to those little Ants, so she decides to order her Ants to stay far away from the man. She even directs them in the halls to move out of the way, in case she realizes that Haalfrin is about to run into them.

Under other circumstances, the Queen would've loved to test her mettle against Haalfrin – perhaps use his rampage as an excuse to kill him?

Alas, the Queen is still far too afraid of Dakka to make a move against his friend. Yes. In order to prevent this mad man from continuing to mess up her house, she needs tell Dakka to take care of it.

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In the end, the Queen doesn't have to even tell Dakka about Haalfrin's awakening; the moment Haalfrin first summoned his necro crystal spear, Dakka could feel it deep in his bones.

Dakka is certainly feeling excited now that his friend has finally awoken, so he was in the middle of packing his bags and heading back up to the castle.

Since he was taking his sweet time getting ready, one of the Ants nearby passes on a message from their 'mother'. "Mom said that the crazy human is destroying the castle and killing my sisters."

"SH##!!!"

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Haalfrin is busy running through the halls and attempting to find his way out. Perhaps because it's been so long since he's actually been in the Hall of Valor, but he actually doesn't remember the way out.

Because he's roving about aimlessly, the Queen is actually having a harder time predicting where he's going, and she's thus unable to help her Ants get out of his path in time.

As Haalfrin runs through the halls and kills any Ants in his path, he tries to make sure to not use his Advanced Dra Name in front of any of the Ants; he'd like for it to be a surprise.

This is why he's also wrapped some cloth around his blackened limbs; he'll just let her think that the only thing special about them is that they grew back.

Because Haalfrin isn't using his Death Aura to fight, the Ant bodies aren't rotting away. This is leaving grotesque blood streaks and misshapen corpses with limbs bent at the wrong angles.

Still, after the first few kills, Haalfrin starts to notice a few things that are rather odd about these Ants.

For starters, they've all taken on a more pure humanoid form. No longer do they have chitin armor covering parts of their bodies. Instead, they're wearing normal skin, and they're all even wearing odd-looking clothes – clothes from some culture he's never seen or heard of before.

Where did these clothes come from?

Of course, the Ants had learned how to stitch leaves together, and they'd all designed their own clothes; this is why Haalfrin doesn't recognize the style.

As Haalfrin is running through the castle, his surroundings start to feel familiar. Knowing where he is now, Haalfrin starts heading toward the control room; he doesn't want the Queen to use the castle's cannons against him anymore.

Maybe it's because the Queen is well aware of where Haalfrin is going, but she soon appears between him and the control room.

Just as Haalfrin is about to charge at the Queen with a necro-crystal sword in hand, he suddenly feels a familiar presence.

Then, Haalfrin sees a 6-horned, humanoid dragon step out of the door behind the Queen.

"Brother!" Haalfrin calls out with a smile, "We got her surrounded! Make sure she doesn't run away!"

Without waiting for a response, Haalfrin charges forward, and Dakka leaps forward as well.

From Haalfrin's point of view, it really does look like both the human and the dragon are leaping at the Ant Queen, who is helpless in the middle.

Haalfrin can almost see it in slow motion. He's in the air, and his deadly black sword is swinging toward the Queen's neck. There, just opposite him, is Dakka with one arm outstretched, and his claws open and ready to crush anything in his grip. The Queen is just standing there – seemingly in a daze… since she was apparently caught by surprise and couldn't dodge.

However, right before Haalfrin's sword connects with her neck, Dakka's clawed hand goes past the Queen's head and lands right on Haalfrin's face.

With a deafening explosion and a spurt of blood coming from Haalfrin's broken nose, the human is blown off his feet without resistance, and he crashes into the wall – shattering his spine in the process and knocking him unconscious.

If the Queen had been a kinder person, she'd have said something like, "You didn't have to hit him so hard, dear." However, she's actually thinking, "Tch! Should've hit him harder – spilled his brains out a little, at least."

With Haalfrin knocked out cold, Dakka slinks over to his friend and picks him up haphazardly by the wrist. "I didn't kill him, did I?"

"Whatever," the Queen waves her hand away. "Just take him away. This time, put him in a holding cell like I've been telling you."

Dakka had been the one who was against locking Haalfrin up, despite the Queen telling him that Haalfrin would kill a lot of people the second he woke up. Now, seeing the damage his friend had caused, Dakka rightfully feels embarrassed and guilty.