“Bark bark bark…” The sudden curveball left us all flustered. Being the youngest of all of us, Cinderel, the little black puppy, was scared to death by the sudden swarm and swiftly hid behind me. All she dared to do was peek out with her adorable little doggy face and let out a few barks for help.
“Mama, let Mo Na handle this!” With no time to calm Cinderel down, I immediately readied myself for battle but just as I did so, Mo Na rushed to the forefront first. Without even chanting, she immediately started a strange spell that first began with her two hands coming together and her mouth opening up slightly. She then pried her two joined hands open slightly and lowered her head, touching her lips to her fingers in the process, and blowing.
Right after that, the seam between her two hands started glowing with a strange, demonic green glow that shimmered between darkness and light. Her hands slowly swung open and pushed forward. At that point, the green light, upon coming into full contact with the air, dissipated into a green mist that slowly advanced forward.
If I had to describe the mist, the first word that came to mind was eerie. Not only did it drift forward slowly, it would also expand from time to time.
In spite of that however, the ant generals who flew at the forefront of the army had no intention of avoiding the mist at all. Complying with their queen’s orders, they mindlessly charged into the manufactured green mist at which point, cries of pain could be heard from within the eerie mist. As they writhed and twisted about in odd angles mid-air, I could almost feel the horrific pain they were going through right now.
A few seconds later, these poor ants started dropping to the ground like flies… By the time they came into contact with the ground, there was nothing left of their wings except for the roots of their wings. Not only that, their outer shell was riddled full of holes in the manner of a golf ball, the holes most likely the result of some kind of strong acid.
Not only that, just as I thought that those ants, who had just lost their wings, would try and get up to charge at me, they instead flipped over, mouth chittering in a tormented fashion and shell scrapping the rocky ground in a jarring fashion. Soon, they stopped moving entirely.
Just like that, all the Black Blood General Ants died from being in the green mist.
For the One-stars ants to end up like this, the other ants were clearly not going to be any better off either. Mere seconds after they entered the mist, they immediately dropped dead in a similar fashion.
Still, the ants frantically charged into the fog of death and still, the fog ended up killing them. Time after time, this cycle repeated itself until finally, there was a noticeable drop in the density of the green fog and the ants were slowly able to proceed further in before dying.
Seeing her fog start to lose its efficacy, Mo Na calmly joined her hands together and began the process of manufacturing more fog. Thus, this merciless slaughter continued unabatedly. Finally, after two minutes or so, the threat from the ants ended…
Unable to proceed any further because of Mo Na’s spell, the restrained queen ant finally realized that her efforts were futile. Not only that, her hive was steadily getting smaller without any return whatsoever. With no choice left to her, she wisely chose to give up. It was fortunate for her that she did so too. Had this continued any further, I would have probably made No.3 give her a good thrashing.
The queen ant gave out a hoarse cry. The ants, upon hearing her command, immediately halted their charge and swiftly retreated back to their hive. And so calm was restored once more to the scene, assuming one ignored the field of ant corpses and Nola who was still locked in a heated battle with a golem…
“Mama, look! The ants are running away! Isn’t Mo Na great?!” Mo Na yelled as she leaped into the air and excitedly hugged my neck, eyes curved into mini crescent moons.
“Mhm, my little sweetie is the best.” Truly, her spell was impressive. If I had to categorize it, it would definitely be an AOE spell, I had to say though, its effect probably wouldn’t have been so pronounced on stronger opponents. When used on this swarm of ants however, it was practically a miracle worker.
‘It just goes to show how everything in this world has a purpose, the same goes for magic as well…Still, that was a rather interesting spell she used there. It’s definitely from the Undead branch of magicks…I bet it was that mysterious big sister who taught her that.”
“Mama, look, Mo Na can protect you now too! “ As she hugged my neck, she passionately kissed me several times.
‘This kid’s passion is really a bit too much for me…don’t tell me she’s really thinking about doing THAT with me…spare me please…’
Even though being loved by my own daughter was a great thing and all, now wasn’t the time for that. I still had a ton of matters to settle so I quickly placated her in the most efficient manner possible before turning towards Nola.
The golem Nola was fighting against was already covered in wounds before the fight had even started. Adding on the fact that the golems were more defensive in nature than offensive, the punch it threw really wasn’t all that damaging to Nola. Compared to that, Nola’s Six-stars strength meant that each of her attacks dealt it significant damage. Thus, from the very beginning, Nola had an overwhelming advantage over the golem.
Had it not been for the golem’s extraordinarily high fire resistance, Nola would have already wiped the floor with it using a combination of elemental and physical attacks, instead of having to struggle for so long.
Before that however, there was a certain queen ant that had to be dealt with.
I glanced at No.3 and Big 4, signalling for them to bring the Black Blood Queen Ant over. Because we had just been attacked by ants, Sinmosa and Sasani were more than a little worried about the safety of their little puppy so they anxiously rushed over first. Seeing her parents return, she dived into Sinmosa’s embrace like a swallow who had just found a home. As for poor Papa Dog…well, he was often ignored while Sinmosa was around.
While all that was happening, No.3 and Big 4 dragged over a sullen queen ant, hands clasped firmly on both her flanks. Seeing that ugly bug approach us, Mo Na’s anger immediately got the better of her as she rushed over to give her a couple of slaps. However, just as she was about to rain fire and fury down upon the queen’s face, she noticed the frustratingly thick outer shell on her face. Hesitating, she finally chose not to strike. Thus, she decisively made the executive decision to kick her instead…to be exact, she kicked the soft belly region of the queen who immediately cried in pain while trembling.
Because that was where she had given birth to countless ants, it was a relatively weaker region than the rest of her body. Also, while this queen was technically a ‘pregnant mother; I just couldn’t bring myself to pity such an ugly and…perpetually pregnant bug… Besides, we had clearly invaded her hive, slaughtered her children and even forced her to be our test subject without any regard for her safety at all…thus, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this feud between us was no longer one that could be smoothed over.
In short, we were her nemesis.
Actually, all that was just me saying that I hated her for being too ugly…
Noticing the unfriendly look on my face, the queen ant lowered her head and dared not look at me or speak –the perfect image of a victim, the ultra pitiful kind too.
I knew what she meant by that but I paid her no heed at all and simply cut straight to the point: “Do you wish to live?”
“Yes!” She answered almost in an instant, eyes raised and pleading. Honestly speaking, having a bug look at me like that was just disconcerting. But killing her wasn’t an option either. I had just labelled her an important part of my future plans so I still needed her alive.
“After that debacle, I know that you aren’t as dumb as you make yourself out to be. If you cooperate with me from now on, I can forget about this little episode between us.”
“Mama, she’s bad, let’s just beat her to death.” Upon hearing that, Mo Na immediately chimed in, clearly not understanding what my plans were at all. Not willing to put up with the bug, she started shaking me profusely. “Mama, remember how that disgusting bug tried to bully us, she’s despicable…”
I definitely didn’t want my little baby to be annoyed by the queen ant so I immediately tried to placate her: “Sweetie, Papa still needs her to perform a little task for us, if she doesn’t perform well, Papa will hand her over to you.”
“In that case…alright then, whatever Mama says.” She thought on it for a second before reining in her anger and putting on a fierce face to threaten the queen ant. “Listen up, you nasty bug, since Mama still thinks you’re useful, Mo Na will let you live for now. If you try anything funny again, Mo Na will kill you.”
For the most part, Mo Na was an obedient little girl. Whatever I said, she listened. As the saying went, a child that knew how to prioritize an adult’s words was always a favored one.
As for that queen ant, she was so terrified by the threat that she dared not breath as she submissively nodded her head.
