Mother Carapace was not happy with herself. No matter how much her anger had overtaken her in recent times, with the mood swings being due to her new form, she should have known not to take the little rock lightly. Time and time again, she had refrained from attacking on a full scale, not sure how much power the newer dungeon had held. From the moment that it had shown itself as still being alive, she should have retreated, regrouped, and most important not have barged in with everything she had. The resources, time, and children lost due to her mental ineptitude was extreme and she was finding it hard to forgive herself for it.
Yet she still had a chance. While the rock had shown itself as a formidable opponent, there had very clearly been a lacking skill when it came to the energies of the world. She would not refuse the thought of it holding larger powers, since it could very likely outmatch in raw output, but finesse and skill were where she reigned true. And matching it together with the connection she had gained to the Darkness over the years, Mother Carapace had never seen herself as one who would find total failure.
Her children had been slaughtered mercilessly in front of her, her loyal Guardian had been reduced to a mere shell of its former self, but there was not a single chance that the Core would be able to do anything close to it with her. As long as she powered through, resisting the Core’s touch, she would be able to get through it, her connection to the Black Mana allowing her total control over her own mortality. She could force herself to stay alive. The little rock couldn't do the same and was clearly woking with a lacking Mana-Container. The [Queen of Hollows]’s constant efforts seemed to be paying off, her opponent slowly but surely losing ground.
In her temper, she had cursed and thrashed around in her words, promising the Core a painful and extreme death. Through the display seen in the current time, her opinion had… changed. Instead of slaughtering the creation capable of such power, she would put it under her own dominion. With the help of the Black Mana, taking control of another's mind would not be too complex a task. And with its age so low, there was little no chance of any resistance. Age brought defences in one inner wall and a newborn like the little rock would be broken down in an instant.
Again, she couldn’t take its age as something to be looked down upon. The Queen, so mighty in her younger years, had done something similar before. And how it had brought her down in her hierarchy of the world, forcing her to regain each part of the power she had lost. Even so many years later, doing nothing but playing conservatively, she was still taking risks not needed. The Rock was powerful and even somebody like her had to knowledge that.
Even at that moment, the Queen could feel the Core’s Mana start to rise up yet again. It had been omnipresent for a while, the White Mana being forced against her body working like a perceptual shield. She could sense close to nothing true it while also forced to defend against the attempted penetration of her defences. It was an annoying task but certainly not a mentally intensive one. It helped that the little rock hadn't yet learned how to micro-manage the energies, lest it would have likely ended up much differently.
‘You are planning something,’ the Queen sent out, conscious about her tone of voice. Yet again, there was the danger of being undermined. It was not a feeling she liked, but it was similarly not a reason to lose… well, her reasoning.. ‘Your Mana is moving and your emotions are swirling around the scale. You are sure that you are unsure about your happiness about being sad. Your inside makes about as much sense as what you’re trying to do.’
Not even the ant herself understood what she had said at that point. Perhaps the new transformation into a full [Undead] had crippled her way of thought more than she had initially imagined. While she might have had mood swings more often than usual, her body has seemed otherwise unaffected. Only in the times where she needed to correspond did she seem so much more… primal. It was quite annoying, much more when the Queen had been hoping to use fear as a method of winning. Letting the Core undergo it transformation into her servant now rather than later would save them a decent amount of time. With that special ability of the Core to create matter, the Queen knew it would be more useful than any of the other creatures it had previously had under her control. While some more dangerous creatures had been seen, the little rock would outweigh all in pure utility. The ability to create anything it had previously had its hands on would be fundamental in letting the Queen return to her former glory. It could recreate the children killed, even, allowing her to see every single one of them again. Nothing would be lost. And it all would happen the moment she won.
‘I am trying to reach a resolution where we’ll both survive this encounter,’ the little rock replied after a few moments. It spoke confidently, in a manner that made the Queen pause slightly in her desires to break out of the imprisonment. It was trying something, though she wasn't sure what it was. When paired with her guardian, likely coming ever closer, there was perhaps a chance that the rock was trying to kill it? The chance of such a thing succeeding was low but not impossible. ‘Whether you like it or not.’
… The Queen felt her anger rising once again, the hint of her opinion not mattering making her so utterly furious. Again, she knew that it was only an effect of the body, that she had no real care what the other being thought of her. It was the fact that she was being talked down to as if she was a youngling, much like she had been talked down to all those years ago… she had escaped then and she would escape now. Putting more focus on making her body escape the Entity’s grasp, the Queen made a final comment.
‘Do you think yourself to be the one in control of this situation? The moment your grip loosens, the connection to your precious-’ she began but was stopped by quite the unexpected development. Just as the Core had increased its output tenfold, it had… let go of her entirely? Thinking it was a mishap, the first instinct was to start the transformation back to a [Undead] her mind too chaotic in its vapour seal form and the Mana inside was too hard to finely control.
Yet just as she began to convert herself into physical matter, a piercing lance hit the very Core of her Mana-Pattern, the most vital part of her current being. With no physical shell to sustain her, attacks to the Mana-Flow itself was more than possible to instantly lethal. Distracted with stopping any extreme leakage, the Queen was unable to stop the little rock from doing the one thing she dreaded. It was taking her energy for itself this time and it was making more than just good progress. Her mind was deluded to the point of insanity when the [System] found its way into her mind, making her just distant enough to the current situation to let it happen. The Queen was barely even able to take note of the small difference in the message.
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Warning!
A foreign entity is attempting to take control of your Being! A [Battle of Wills] has commenced.
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… One moment the Queen had been in the middle of sustaining her own connection to the mortal plane, forcing her inner energies back into place in a desperate bid to make sure nothing negative hit her. And in the nest moment, she stood on a grass-field, much like the ones she had witnessed burning down so many times through the years. Yet there was no smell of burning, the place as peaceful as it could be. The mild wind from the side hit the ant perfectly, letting it enjoy a moment of comfortableness before the reality dawned on it.
‘You chose this environment for a reason,’ the Queen sent out, not wanting to delay the fight anymore. It had lost all ability to use Mana at the current moment, still unable to find the flaws in the world around it. Everything depended on being able to do just that. Without seeing the issues, the Mana that was it's own would never be possible to reclaim. It would be lost to the other participant permanently. ‘Did you want to make me forget that we are currently fighting to the death or were just unable to make anything put this weaker place?’
How had the little rock been able to form a grass-plain so perfectly anyway? With how young the Core was meant to be, the Queen couldn't imagine it being outside at any point in its life. With how long it was to the ground above, there was no chance of it being able to spread its energy so far without some form of indication towards it. Even with that mysterious use of densities to make tubes, she had still been able to sense them to some form or another. And even if the sheer count of those tubes had made it harder to differentiate them, not a single one had reached for the skies.
No answer came along from the Core, so the Queen assumed that it was playing the game of the silent attacker, not desiring to put up any weaknesses through communication. That was fine with the ant, it simply took such a reaction as an indication of there being something to find with relative ease. With the scenery being so extravagant and wide, it Queen wouldn't even be too surprised to find there being some edge to it. After all, it had personally chosen Black Boxes for a reason. With the dimensions and position confined into a constant, there was no real possibility of being able to see the flaws from the aesthetic alone. It was only when the colouring and the movement of the so-called static walls came into question that most were able to break free. Yet, it had still proven to be the most successful strategy for the Queen and was therefore still commonly used.
With how large the terrain was, it was clear something would have been screwed over. The Queen knew that. Yet… walking along for what felt like several minutes, it found nothing but a dirt road and more grass in every direction. While its sight was perhaps not the best for longer distances, it could still see that the road it had stumbled upon was well-travelled, having walked upon many like it previously. Deciding in a random direction, it simply took one step after the other. With how time worked inside the [Battle of Wills], it was hard to judge just what was going on outside or how much time passed. As an example, the Queen had most certainly spent more than a few seconds walking yet it had still passed what felt like hundreds upon hundreds of meters. That wasn't because it had extreme physical capabilities instead of being due to the lack of physical constraints.
It was in a Physical Space but a mental one, created by the little rock. With that knowledge, the Queen was somewhat able to bend the laws normally put onto a physical space. While it didn't mean she could start flying around, moving quickly was well within her abilities. This is also how she finally came upon a detail that didn't look like an auto-generated piece of grass.
A small cabin with a fire next to it, burning brightly into the sky. Mother Carapace, true to her name, was also able to notice the small child next to it as well. From her limited experiences with the younger beings, it looked like a… girl. The race of the being was entirely up in the air, however, the ant not truly able to see many differences between the so-called [Enlightened] beings.
There were no obvious flaws to the place but the Queen knew there likely wasn't much else around to find errors in. Beginning its inspection and finding nothing instantly, it couldn't help but think of alternate strategies. Perhaps egging the little rock on to reveal itself more would help it.
‘Do you think you could fool with such a pitiful display of a living creature? Don’t take me for a beginner in this game,’ the Queen felt the need to send out, the sight of an Enlightened making a small straw hat doing nothing but being slightly annoying. ‘Come out and face me instead of continuing this charade. If you do not act, no winner will be decided.’
‘We both know that’s a lie,’ the little girl said from her place beside the fire. The Queen moved towards her once again, instantly honing in on the detail, trying to grasp for the small cracks that needed to have appeared the moment the voice began. While not able to sense it yet, the intelligent creature was sure her victory was ever closer with each word. ‘And would you please stop trying so hard? There’s nothing to find, you know.’
The one who had been in similar situations before did not care a single bit for the little girl's tone and voice, for she knew that there was something. If she pushed harder, better, and more intelligently, the Mana from the outside would break through and she would be able to attack back with a fervour that would never be survived. Yet… each passing second brought the average down more and more. No holes, in reality, were found, everything being just as idyllic as it had been before.
There was no way outside through the small girl, the words uttered bearing no effects on the structure of reality. Nothing came from it, nothing could be detected. The Queen had tried it so many times before, had been forced through years of just doing the same scenario again and again. There should have been some reaction, yet nothing showed itself to her.
‘How are you doing this?’ the ant had to ask, not entirely sure how it was working. With no connection to the outside, it would have required the little rock to trap itself in there with her. But… that would have been suicide. With no knowledge on how to create one-sided back-doors, it would have trapped them inside until their minds withered or their souls simply released due to sheer age. Nothing should have worked. ‘If you intended to kill us both most extremely, I believe you might have succeeded.’
‘He can’t hear you,’ the girl answered, her words causing the Queen to… question what she had just heard. Can’t hear her? She was speaking to the rock at this very second! “No, you are not.”
…
“Speak, little ant,” the girl said, suddenly seeming so much bigger than before. It wasn't due to the size, even the Queen was able to look above her head. Yet the sheer presence of those words and what they meant made the aged warrior falter in her thoughts, it becoming more and more obvious that her thoughts were being viewed. There was an attempt to bring everything down, to make herself more instinctual to weather the effects, yet the lack of a physical body made all the normal tricks impossible. “In here, I control everything. Even without a mouth, you can speak because I allow it. Now… do it.”
That tremor in the girl's tone made the Queen take a step back, a wave of sheer death hitting her all throughout her soul. While it clearly couldn't hit the inner-most parts, it could most definitely screw up the outer chemistries. Not enough to kill but enough to cause enough pain to make the ant wish it was so. It knew that from experience, having done just the same to many others.