Author's note:-

Yeah, here comes the big sho...

Please expect the last chapter of this arc to come tomorrow, which will be followed by my explanations to some stuff like characters, their behaviors and everything that i could think of. Especially about Minie.

Oh yes, also a poll about various things that i want to know about. well, for now,

.

Enjoy.

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Third Persons P.O.V:-

The queen moved it walked and ran on her legs till she left an after image behind her.

Then without stopping and slowing, she used her momentum to create a heavy amount of force, and pounded on the assassin and Martha who were just behind D’sue and Dust who were easily blown away by the queen.

James backed up some what and stood there and kept on looking at the raging queen.

The queen used her legs to stab all over Enco’s body, but it didn’t work.

The assassin fared well against the coming attacks. He was easily able to evade all of them because of his high speed, but Martha was having a lot of difficulties.

The queen attacked with her front legs and its speed and size really made it difficult for her to take control of the situation.

Because she was not a fighter type and was a mage, therefore no matter how much she tried, she wasn’t able to invade the attacks like the assassin.

She was using fire to reflect the attacks. She condensed the fire to create a fire shield all around herself. Enco looked at her and the first thought that came to his mind was, ‘Is that a barrier?’

Yes, the skill that she used was a barrier skill that all mages after reaching rank 1 could use, but her barrier was a bit different.

He carefully looked at it and thought, ‘No it does look like a barrier, but something’s different about it.’

Yes, it was the difference between an assassin and a mage.

One side had the leisure to think about others, while the other one didn’t even had the time to breathe.

No matter where the attacks came from, Martha’s shied block all of them successfully, but she had to pay a great price for it. The explosion like impacts were still making her fly from left to right.

The queen used her spear like legs to penetrate her fire shield, but because couldn’t get through it so she started to attack it like a bat and ball. With her leg being the bat and Martha’s shield being the ball.

Like this instead of attacking her with her legs pointed ends, she started slapping the fire shield from the left and right.

When queens attack from left made Martha and her shield airborne, she would suddenly attack from the right and like this the damage kept on increasing the shield started cracking. It not only did damage but also kept Martha inside her range.

This left-right combo made her look like a caged bird who wanted to fly out, but couldn’t.

Moreover her injuries increased every time that pole attacked her and the cracks on her barrier were getting more and more.

The series of being slapped and being flung was a torturous method that the queen was using to play with her. Martha couldn’t even use any attacking spells because of the pressure and the consumption of using the over the top barrier.

 The attack was going to be endless until she had died, but it was stopped in the mid when a slab of earth rose from the ground and viciously struck the pole like leg that had some heavy burn marks on it.

Being attacked by the slab that came out of nowhere the leg was flung upwards. The attacks momentum was interrupted, and Martha fell down.

It not only destroyed the queen’s momentum toward Martha, but also toward Enco; who has been evading everything that was thrown at him.

Seeing the chance the assassin moved and vanished into the darkness. when he reappeared he was already upon Martha.

The fire spell that she was covering herself like a shield had already cooled down, Enco looked at her once her condition was already very bad but this series of torments had degraded her health even more.

He acted quickly and before the queen could get a hold of her and continue her onslaught of attacks, he got hold of Martha’s arm and moved.

He didn’t just move, but created afterimages behind him. He moved faster than lightning and backed far away from the queen and stopped only when he got near the mage and knight who had saved them this time.

When they saw each other looking so beat down just after the initial barrage of attacks, they couldn’t help but smile to each other.

“It is more difficult than we thought it would be.”

To D’sue words Martha and dust nodded their head once and the assassin stood their silently.

They thought that the queen would follow them to attack and that really happened, but instead of attacking them it suddenly attacked their leader.

To her attack he shook and vanished.

Everyone knew it was his high speed movement, but they still got shocked from seeing it, because shocking things remain shocking no matter how many times you watch them.

He moved and with his dagger attacked the moving pole, yeah the sword that he had before was nowhere to be seen and instead its place he held a dagger in his hand.

But it was not what entirely shocked them but the thing that had been attacking them from the start.

He attacked her from all the different angles, from up and down, from side to side but no matter how many times he attacked and tried to cut her legs, he wasn’t able to.

Every time the dagger touched one of queens attacking legs it always ended with sparks being created and then with them parting after a few bouts.

After sometime the leg attacks increased in ferocity and James was left with no other choice then to parry them with his dagger, but how could he have parried such heavy attacks with only a small dagger.

Their exchange continued for five bouts, when James became sure that his dagger was of no use here, so he put it back and disappeared into the darkness.

The others who were watching their fight from far had their hearts in their throats. Martha who had recovered from queen’s onslaught was shaking looking at the spectacle that their leader had shown them.

“What kind of a queen is this? How the fuck, are we going to defeat her, when James attack didn’t even scratch her? And were the fuck is he now?”

No one had the liberty to take part in D’sue debate about the ant, and about their not so capable leader because, she was coming. Instead of fighting with their running leader, she moved fast and faster till she was just 20 meters away from them.

Martha got tensed and started firing numerous fireballs at her without even taking a aiming. D’sue reacted and started charging his sword with mana and get ready to fire his skill at her.

But ‘Dust’ left them behind in dust and before anyone’s attack landed on the queen a very heavy and thick pointed spear of sand zoomed past everyone, leaving a gust of wind in its wake, and landed heavily on the queen’s body.

*Roar*

The queen roared and the room shook the spear of dust carried the queen backwards with its momentum.

When they both finally stopped the queen was still standing, but she was dragged 30 meters back by the spear, and it was embedded deep in the front of its chest.

D’sue starting laughing when he saw the queen roaring in pain because of the spear that was still embedded deep in her chest. He looked back to see how Dust was fairing, but her condition was not good.

“What happened? Did you use too much of your mana?”

“Yeah, it took too much time to create and depleted a lot of my mana, but it worked right?” she replied by tilting her neck to look behind D’sue at the queen, but as she did he eyes bulged out.

D’sue found it weird seeing the kind of face that she was making so he followed her eye sight and also looked toward the queen.

He saw that the queen had stopped her roaring and was getting ready to attack again, but when he looked closely he then exactly knew why she was making that face.

One could say that it was strategy and was put in action after taking everything in consideration, or one could leave it as luck, and just enjoy the spectacle.

Because at this moment the fireballs that Martha had fired without taking aim were about to fall on the queen’s body and one second later they exploded on her body.

*BBooooMMnn*

The explosion it created shook everything. The explosion created from more than twenty consecutive fireballs was not something to look down at.

Those fireballs exploded and the room became a sea of fire. The floor crumbled and the place where the queen was standing at a deep pit was formed.

Though the fire from the explosion never reached the others a little distance away from the queen,

The explosion had not only created a mushroom of fire, but it also lead to a shock wave of sound, debris and air pressure; that came after the initial explosion.

The travelling wave created destruction at the scale that even the explosion didn’t. The walls fumbled and the roof tumbled, huge rocks dropped from the roof and the wave dug out the floor and the room started vibrating.

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The wave travelled and was just going to hit Dust and party, when D’sue moved and shouted ‘shield cage’ while keeping his shield in front of his body.

 His shield shined in blinding light and in a second created a cage of blue light all around them.

The shockwave collided with the cage and it vibrated ferociously. However no matter how long the waves made impact on it, and no matter how man rocks and stone collided with the cage, it didn’t break and they somehow endured through it.

The girls wanted to thank him for saving their life and were also curious about the skill, but their curiosity and happiness from being alive was broken when they saw a silhouette emerging from the firestorm, which the huge amount of fireballs had created.

The earthen spear that Dust had fired at the queen had crumbled from the onslaught of Martha’s fireballs. The hole that the spear had left behind was still there, but it was closing, though slowly.

When they saw that they couldn’t believe their eyes, and it made them again look at her. D’sue even thought that it was an illusion, but the reality was really far from anything that they  had imagined.

The queen was unharmed. Other than the hole created from Dusts Earthen spear, it had suffered no other injuries.

The fireballs, they didn’t even leave any mark on her body, forget about killing her. D’sue thought that it really was an impregnable monster.

“Does it have Magical nullification or some kind of high mana resistance?” Now, it had almost become Martha’s habit to talk out loud, but her words this time also made other curious.

This was the first time after they had started fighting the queen that they understood, why there was no other ant waiting to ambush them.

Because the queen was simply enough to handle them all, and still remain in the condition to fight even more.

They were still shocked from the emergence of the unharmed queen, but then their brows creased because it looked like she was not going to give them any time to rest. Yeah, it was again ready to attack them.

It had started to gather mana inside its mouth so they quickly understood that it was going to use some kind of mana attack.

Now if she had suddenly attacked them then it would have been impossible to move against it, but fortunately she was charging her skill, so they had enough time to act.

Dust looked back at the ant once and then she hurriedly spoke, “The only option we have is to interrupt her before she finishes charging mana, but it is already too late for that.”

 Looking at everyone’s serious face she continued, “One she is too far away and also we don’t know what kind of an attack she would use and second the fire that was Martha’s fireballs had created is all there. So, there is no way for us to get near her without burning in the fire and then fighting with her to stop her charge.”

So seeing how dangerous it would be to take up that attack without any knowledge she gave her opinion to defend against it, as defense was her strong part.

“Let’s scatter. I don’t know what kind of an attack it would use, but if we scatter, then she won’t have a target to focus on.” It was Martha who spoke while shrinking down due to the fear of dying inside a dark, and humid tunnel.

“No what if it’s an Area of Effect attack then everyone will suffer and it will only end with all of us dying. So let’s not do it.”

After saying that, Dust quickly used her leftover mana and created an earthen wall in front of them hoping that whatever that monster was going to through at them, it would be able to stop it.

But to her surprise she found that, she had already expended too much of her mana and the wall that she created using her left over mana was of even a lesser quality than the one that was broken away from one leg attack by the queen.

She bit her lips and was going to cry to tell everyone to run away when D’sue moved.

He slammed his shield on the wall and embedded it deep inside it.

When Dust saw him doing such a thing she could not help but scream at him. “Hey! What are you doing? Why are you slamming on the wall?”

And even though she was yelling at him he only smiled and nodded his head.

Dust wanted to retort but before she could say do anything her spell started changing.

D’sue started pouring his mana inside his shield and slowly the whole wall started shining with a blue colored light.

The girls were being mesmerized by the scene when he slammed his feet and burrowed them deep into the ground.

Then he used his right hand to burrow his sword into the ground too.

The girls were still had no idea of what he was trying to do when then he spoke in a low and deep voice, “Fusion series, Shield Magic – Earthen shield.”

The wall glowing with the blue light started pulsating and in front of everyone the spell that dust had used to manifest a wall started changing.

The wall changed and turned into a gigantic earth colored kite shield with blue hue to it. D’sue both hands were deeply burrowed inside his own shield which acted as a medium and it looked like the shield had become a part of his body.

The girls who had never seen such a thing before were left with their mouth open.

It really was a thing to be excited about after all. Fusion magic, everyone knew about it, but they also knew that it was very difficult to use and not many people knew how to use it either.

They wanted to ask him about it, but the chance never came, the queen had finished charging and the attack came.

Unlike what they had expected, it wasn’t an area of effect magic, but single target attack.

A beam of fire travelled and struck the fusion shied that was standing in front of D’sue and the others.

The impact made blood rush to his mouth and his knees bent forward they heavily struck the ground and two pits formed where they fell.

He swallowed the blood that was rushing to his mouth, and furiously poured his mana inside the shield, to at least hold off the queen’s attack and not just get blown off cause of it.

The beam of fire continued to fall on the fusion shield and the shield also continued to defend against it.

*Uwack* *gwaa*

“Ahhhhh”

D’sue cried out because the impact was putting a huge amount of strain on his body and his arms that were embedded in the shield were being put through a terrifying amount of pain that was like being burned continuously.

Martha couldn’t take it anymore and rushed out from behind the shield. She started attacking the queen with more fireballs, but it didn’t work and only expend her already dwindling mana pool.

Martha was standing behind the knight and pushing him from the back while mumbling, ‘Hold on, please, Hold on.’

The beam of fire continued for half a minute before it finally ended.

D’sue who was holding the shield, snorted once before his own shield fell out with him on the ground.

With this the earthen shield that was a different level magic also crumbled into dots of lights, before scattering onto the ground.

This was the first time during fighting that they felt the feeling of despair.

D’sue was almost unconscious, Dust had expended all of her mana and Martha was crying from fear.

The only one who had not done anything in the fight the assassin was still sitting behind them without moving.

When D’sue lifted his head to see why the queen not continuing with her attack they saw her guzzling fireballs on an empty space.

He squinted his eyes and looked carefully and saw that their leader who they couldn’t find was running toward the other end of the room and the queen had become senile.

Looking at this spectacle Dust who was recovering her mana couldn’t help but say, “Did she use so much of her mana that it weakened her mentally. They knew that overusing mana could lead to such symptoms.

But her voice didn’t reach him; he was too busy trying to figure out what was really going on.

Because he couldn’t clearly see anything, he decide to use the ant vision lenses that he had acquired some time before.

So, he quickly put on the lenses and attached the antennas on his head but when he lifted his head to look in front of him, what he saw left him dumbfounded.

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 Chapter Summary:-

1.       Captain is a runaway.

2.       Martha is inexperienced in fighting.

3.       Queen can only use basic fire attacks.

4.       Queen’s fire resistance worked because the fireballs that exploded on her body were not the mana burn version ones.

5.       The knight is a lot cooler than you thought him to be.

6.       The rest are for you all to find.

7.    This chapter has clue to who killed the archer.