Come to think of it, she should have known it when the Ants stopped chasing her that whatever territory she had stumbled in was bound to be equally or even more dangerous. However, anxiety and relief at escaping what had been her worst nightmare had left content at just being safe.

So she delved deeper into the territory with her mission at the back of her mind and thoughts of exiting the continent at the forefront. As such, in her dishevelled state of mind, she continued to travel through the sceneries without taking any consideration for things she should have been searching for like powerful auras or just about anything that would signify a gathering of powerful individuals.

As a matter of fact, she had been subconsciously avoiding those various auras as if she was a thief trying to evade attention. It was mainly inferior races like the rats that scurried around like that, fearful of pretty much every other lifeform because of their inherent weakness, but with thoughts of the Blazing Ant Supercolony occupying her brain she had found herself acting the same way.

How funny it was that it was the threat of creatures that were supposed to be even weaker than rats that put her in the same position of terror.

Regardless, it was because of this absent-minded behaviour that she had found herself dumbfounded and without a plan when she was abruptly surrounded by a group of Humans.

Naturally she hadn’t feared them… initially. She had been more preoccupied with the notion that whoever owned those Humans was probably sending them to request her presence.

She hadn’t found any Humans in the other half of the continent (the one belonging to the ants) so she couldn’t say for sure that this Continent practised the same act of Human slavery as her own, but it was a reasonable assumption. Humans were very versatile and most intelligent races would make use of them if they could.

However, it didn’t take long for her to detect the oppressive vibe of a powerful aura, and it belonged to… those 12 Humans. 4 of them were in the middles stages of the 3rd Realm; insignificant strength but unprecedented nonetheless for a human, 6 of them were in the UPPER stages of the 3rd Realm (respectable), but the remaining 2…

The female had been in the 1st Stage of the 4th Realm, the same as her, however, the male had been in the 2nd Stage.

As anyone would guess, she had been shocked silly. So much so that she had practically frozen, unable to make a single remark. And she had still been reeling with said shock when the male who was the strongest of them all abruptly asked:

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘Who is your master?’

Master. In her addled mental state, she remembered thinking that the Human had somehow been referring to her relationship with Gaia. She wouldn’t exactly call Gaia her master considering that she had free will to do anything she wished with her only obligation being to take up missions every now and then, but although she wasn’t a slave, Gaia was not somebody she could disobey either. So a few people, especially those who had a problem with her, would call Gaia her master to slight her.

So it felt a little surreal to hear the human ask ‘who is your master’. It certainly hadn’t helped her come back to her senses.

As a result, she had carelessly responded that she did not have a master, and then tried to lift off into the air to fly away. Needless to say, she did not want to confront a set of bizarre humans that had somehow reached the 4th Realm, especially when they seemed so confident. Even a fool would be able to tell that something was off, let alone her who had just been fleeing from Ants who also shouldn’t have been this strong.

She did not know how they were that strong, or how she had been unable to detect them until they had surrounded her, but she hadn’t been interested in finding out. She wanted to leave.

Alas, trying to flee had been the wrong move and things took a turn for the worse.

One of them shouted “I knew it! This is a never-seen-before Beast and she’s trying to escape! She doesn’t have a master! Catch her!” It was the female 4th Realmer.

They all began to do something with their mana and in the next moment, they were all holding onto various weapons made of the elements. She was quite familiar with the Elves so she knew what weapons were, and she was even privy to the somewhat secret knowledge that the Elves could imbue their various wooden or rock constructs with their own mana to make it more powerful. This mostly resulted in the construct shining with a coloured glow that corresponded with the Elf’s element and it was mightily impressive.

But this… this was much different.

They were not objects that were boosted by mana. No, they were literally the elements themselves but shaped like weapons. The 4th Realm man held a large sword made of flames and the woman had something that looked like a pitch black vapious spear but instead of a blade at the tip, it instead had 2 thick and slightly curved blades on the sides (at the end of the pole).

Bellatrix would later learn that the design of the weapon was called a double sided long axe, and that the odd darkness of the weapon was literally the darkness element, something that was even rarer than the opposing light element.

But at the time of this grand display, she hadn’t been in the right state of mind to admire the grand phenomenon that was the creation of these weapons, and instead the sight had only caused her to be more worried as she flapped her wings harder.

Unfortunately, she would very soon find out that even if her mind WAS as sharp as it usually was, when it came to facing these humans in this kind of setting…

There was nothing she could do.