Thirty-two minutes passed before the enemy came within sight of the Core’s pulses. Two minutes later than the Entity had expected them to come along, though it supposed that was something of a positive reminder instead. It had expected better of the enemy yet had failed to see the result. That spoke more of them than it did the Entity, making everything just dandy. At that moment, it was fine with dandy.

Looking at the more detailed parts of the descriptions, the Core could see the enemy moving towards the Main-Domain, going through the tunnel that had already been used by the enemy multiple times in the passing months. It was at least happy that no other route had been chosen at that moment and that none had seemingly chosen to go through the secondary entrance. Because that was something it had expected to happen, at least, though that was likewise closer to a mind game of sorts. It knew that they knew that it knew something that they didn't. And that was how it hoped a lot of things turned out in the next five minutes.

‘It seems you survive a small burst of darkness, little rock. Were you able to absorb it or did you just hide from it like the coward you usually are?’ the Queen’s voice came, having been sent through a reinforced wave of normal Mana. It was luckily not the Black Variant already, that version seemingly being saved on. Was it due to the chaos associated with controlling it on a larger distance or due to the ant wanting to still play around a small bit? The Core hoped it was a mix of both.

Everything seemed fine enough, the extra walls having been reinforced nicely along with all the new [Blood-Moss]. Who knew that using twenty Physical Arcane Boxes could be tiring, by the way? The Core certainly did, still doing it until the very last moment. When the creatures came a bit closer, though, it would be stopped. The plant had already reached far enough to be effective. The Entity was just making sure it got a meter or two more breathing space.

‘I will survive anything you throw at me,’ the Core sent back, making sure that it had every emotion under control. The most important thing to have was to seem like calmness was the most pressing emotion of all. And since the Mana only showed true feelings, the Core was likewise forced to be calm. Which was easy enough to demand but very hard to get done in practice. Which was why it had spent twenty whole minutes making sure that it understood every part of the plan and how it could fail at every step and still work. Calmness was what the Core felt and would feel at every step.

Though there was perhaps a small bit of anticipation rooted somewhere. Not enough to overshadow the calm but enough to be noticeable. And the Queen most definitely did, the emotions being shown clearly. She was expecting something.

‘You certainly sound confident for one who had to retreat not so long ago. Do you truly feel that safe inside your stone walls?’ The Queen questioned. The Core hoped she was just joking with that metaphor. But, it nonetheless showed no real care, knowing that it wouldn't matter. It had made sure to teach itself that lesson.

‘I do feel quite safe, yes,’ the Core acknowledged, still spending a lot of time counting the steps the enemy took. Soon, they would reach the perfect point, the lines above their tunnel glowing just a bit more. A lot of them had been created in the last few minutes, after all, and the Core was making sure they would be put to the test soon enough.

Another few steps were had, some that the Queen sure did take her time making. It wasn't an act of her being cautious but more seeming to enjoy the small bits of anticipation growing more and more within the Entity’s mind. She was slowly becoming more confident. That was good.

The back-troop of the living ants finally came within the spot they needed to be, having kept a safe distance from the [Queen of Hollows]. They needed to be alive, after all, if the leader was going to have its way with them. The Core had anticipated as much, creating a bit of breathing space for where the plan could work comfortably.

‘Are you sure you want to use that kind of tone-’ the Queen of soon-to-be-dead ants began, but the Core just ignored her for the moment.

Anyway. With a twist of its mind, the plan started up. Sucking in the perfect amount of Mana from the outside’s tunnel’s roof, it all came hailing down on the living ants. Every bit came and went, tons upon tons of stone with no end in sight. Just a fraction of a quarter would have been enough to crush all their bones into dust, but the Entity had felt the need to make it something close to overkill.

Not that the stone ever reached the ants, however. By the time that the rocks began to fall, hundreds of Black Mana tendrils had formed out of the Queen’s back, flying over to shield the army from the trap. It worked flawlessly, of course, not a single creature was harmed. One would think the Core would have even been angry about such a thing happening.

If anything, it was delighted that it was that easy to distract the so-called Intelligent [Giant-Ant]. By the time that the Queen could focus on anything else but her precious ant-army, the Worm had been likewise distracted.

Four hundred meters away was a small point of White Mana that had in that second been created. It was perhaps not the most powerful creation, but it had certainly been filled to the brim with fifty Mana-Points worth of Energy. And every single point had been fueled with the Intent to Challenge the Darkness, to bring it forth and try to harm the Light. And the Worm, filled with extreme desire to smudge every sign of the sun, did just that, moving directly through the stone and towards the point so far away. Though, with how quickly the stone ahead was being unravelled, the Core would give it a mere twenty seconds before it was reached.

The [Queen of Hollows] did try to live up to her name, sending out a direct order for the Worm to return to her fold. The massive creature did nothing but ignore her words, instead of moving towards the shiny spot it so desperately wanted to destroy. Nothing else seemed to matter to it. Just as the Core wanted and hoped for.

For now, one creature of three was down. Two remained.

‘You think you're clever now?’ the Intelligent Ant questioned her tone more and more loathing. With the returning fold of Balck Mana Tendrils, her words were sickened with that harmful energy. It was clear what she was about to try. ‘Do you think you’re smarter than me?’

‘I may not be smarter than you, but I know more than you,’ the Core responded, quick to fuel the fires of an angry mind. It was perhaps not the greatest thing to do in the short-term, seeing as that prompted the Queen to respond by sending some close to a dozen Black Mana-Tendrils against the walls of the Entity’s Main Domain.

They passed through like it was nothing, destroying the barrier swiftly. And the tendrils would have likely continued if the Core hadn't made the walls next to the Ant Army explode as well. The lead-up to it was just long enough for the Queen to retract all her tendrils and create a wall of Black Mana around the Army Ants yet again. It was delightfully seen to bear witness to, the shards from the sides hitting the Energy with extreme fervour. And while the Energy of Motion was taking away near-instantly, the ground was beginning to have an ever-increasing pile of materials. It was almost to the point where stopping the barrier would flood the living ants with rocks and stone, killing them without any chance of survival. The Core made sure that such a fact cemented itself ever more clearly by then making more of the room fall down on top.

‘I encourage you to try and attack me with your Mana again. Nothing will be lost from losing a few of your underlings, after all,’ the Core said, knowing very well that the Queen would lose more than a few the moment that she decided to multitask on destroying the Entity as well. It would take nothing more than a few tons of rocks to fall at once before a semi-assisted barrier would fall and shatter.

The hatred from the Queen grew two-fold at that moment. While the Core knew the Black Mana as cruel, only wanting to consume, the Queen was more multi-faceted. She still desired for the Colony to survive. She still wanted a life in those beneath, not wanting to rule over an army of mindless [Undead]. And the Entity was going to abuse that as much as it possibly could.

‘My Worm will crush you without me needing to do anything,’ the Queen fired back, clearly expecting the massive creature to return in just a moment. And that might just have been true normally, if not for the fact that it… wasn't done with the Light Mana.

A full minute passed by in silence, the Intelligent Ant being of the mind that a certain massive creature would come to her aid in just a moment. However, this was as far from the truth as possible. The Core was decently sure such a thing wouldn't happen for the next couple of hours, the creature very distracted with its own instincts. It needed to purge the White Mana, after all, and it wouldn't stop before every trace was gone.

So… what would happen if three different points, all three meters away from each other, would periodically create a bright fire of White Mana to catch the interest of the Worm but always stop just before the creature reached it? Well, it wasn't smart enough to realize that it needed to kill the source of the energy instead of the source itself, so the only real thing that restricted how long it could be distracted was the amount of Mana that the Core had to spend. And those reserves were more than plentiful. It just needed to spend it at the right time.

‘Your Worm seems like it has gone off to live its own life,’ the Core said, not entirely comfortable with how it was speaking. It needed to use sarcasm in ways that had never been perfected before, creating some tension between the tones. It really should have practised its lines more, though that would have been quite hard with how little time there had been to work with. Too many possibilities, after all. ‘Perhaps you would find it more agreeable to try without it? We don’t have all day.’

The Entity did have all day. Nothing would happen until the altercation stopped. However, by making it seem like the Queen was beneath the point where she could gain the Core’s full attention, another level of hatred was created. The ant had not been taken lightly in recent times. And when one was used to being referred or feared, being ignored was quite a way to get one's reality shattered.

Through the power of that sheer hatred, every piece of the barrier that stopped the rocks were moved, the army of ants moving forward with it. Yet again, they had started to approach, this time under the shield of the Queen. While she perhaps could attack direction, she could more than easily use her powers to shield her army from attacks.

And the Core was more than happy reminding her that this was required, making more and more stone fall from the sides and from above. Everything was perhaps swept away easily yet the full focus was still required above all. The Entity was safe from direct attacks.

But the creatures still got closer and closer, mere meters away from the entrance. Or, to be more precise, where the entrance had previously been. The Core had found itself without any need for it after a while, not thinking it a good idea to provide the Queen entry that easily. And with holes in the back to provide plenty of air, there was nothing better than the current model. The Entity could already feel the Intelligent Ant seething in annoyance.

‘No trap is truly beneath you,’ the Queen sent out, having reached the [Blood-Moss]. The Core had not originally had it outside its base of operations, but a quick spurt of growth and transportation and allowed for a several-meter thick brush of the plant It covered the entire width of the tunnel, allowing for no easy escape routes to be had. Truly, there were no downsides to be seen.

Ignoring the fact that the trap was actually not beneath the Core but the Queen instead, the Entity double-checked that the walls keeping the creatures out had properly been redone. Their orders to regenerate to their usual form seemed to have held strong enough, the extra-dense Mana-Batteries attached working their charm. Not that the Entity does to last forever, of course, though it would likely work for more than a few minutes.

For now, the next step was coming through beautifully, everything working exactly as it should. Counting the seconds inside its mind, it made sure to change the White Mana’s position on time so that the Worm changed its direction for the fourth time in the last few minutes. It was working beautifully over there.

But could the same be said for what was happening right next to the main chamber? The Core liked to think so, the army of ants finally getting close enough to have physical contact to the walls. The Queen had stopped the shield from covering that, allowing the creatures to slowly but sure dig into the Basalt. The Entity was praying that the next step worked.

… It did. The Mana-Cost was extremely high and increasing with every second that the creatures spent tearing at the material, but the wall was still regenerating. Even with so many mandibles tearing into the Basalt, it held firm in its resolve, fixing any removed parts easily and without question. There was nothing more than the Core wanted to hear.

There was technically still the ability to make the walls explode out into the crowd of creatures. With how close most of them were to the wall, it would be nearly impossible for the Queen to shield more than half of them. Yet… doing so might have proved a good idea in the short term but would have most certainly been a terrible one in the long term. The Entity had plans and those wouldn't work if it made that offer. No, it would stay on the path already made.

‘You think yourself clever?’ the Queen asked, clearly seeing the lack of progress on the walls. ‘Well, what do you think about this!’

With a set of power, four of the living [Giant-Ants] were ripped together in a wave of Black Mana. They never even had time to notice their demise, though, a single [Undead] creature being born at the same moment. It stood awkwardly, clearly imbalanced to the left, yet the power coming off from it was like nothing seen before. It might not have held control over the Energy in the same way that the Core or the Queen had, but it would most certainly be good at one thing. It could rip and tear as it pleased.

Ignoring the degrading flesh that came from the ants around the new being, the Entity watched patiently as the new foe began to tear out larger and larger chunks of the wall. It was more than just brutal and it worked in the favour of the Darkness. Just as planned.

As the part of the wall began to give in, more mass having been lost than what remained, the Creature finally got a hole built into it. And through that hole came no less than seven extremely reinforced Arcane Spears. Each dug into either the head, spine or the limbs of the [Undead] creature, impaling and killing it in a single instant. There was no pause before it was thrown back, still on the floor just beside its Queen. The Core felt a slight bit of amusement from that sight.

Amusement which it did nothing to hide, letting it flow through the Mana being used to observe the battle. The [Leader of the Colony] threw out a jut of Mana showing her anger before ordering the [Giant-Ants] still alive to open up the new hole even more. For while the Core might have attempted to reseal it, the Mana required for such a thing was truly available at that part of the Domain, too much already being used to keep up repairs everywhere else. And before it was able to do anything close to a redistribution of Energy, the ants were through, falling inside at rapid speeds.

… And were met with a three-meter drop that ended in them being impaled by a multitude of ultra-sharp spears. For while the Core was perhaps previously against too many alterations, the new fight had shown its nicety.

Beyond the initial wall, two meters further in, sat another wall, that one just as thick as the first. Everything besides those two walls had been filled to the brim with spikes, ready to impale anything that it could get its hands on. And along with the Core making sure to disintegrate every single piece of dead ant on the bottom, it allowed for many to die. Putting that besides the ones on top forced the ones longer down to be impaled the whole way through and one could see how the strategy was a bit more efficient than what one might think.

‘If it means I win, I will do it,’ the Core sent the moment that the Queen showed signs of realising how many had died in only ten seconds. The Intelligent Ant took that long before the approach of funnelling them into the Domain was taken back. ‘I believe you should have realised that already.’

There was no surgence resurgence. The Queen did nothing but stand still for a moment before… starting to laugh. At least it felt like that, the mirth in her tone so overwhelming. All the anger, desire to kill, and utter resentment was still there full and true, yet it was likewise sharing the space with happiness. The ant was happy.

‘You are right, little rock. It is my fault to expect so little of all around me. You have shown again and again that even the weakest can show spite, kill, and stop me from getting what I want. For all of that resistance you have shown, I need to commend you. While I still don’t believe that I will lose this day, I can see that much work has been put into giving yourself a chance,’ the Queen spoke, never stopping for a single moment. ‘But all this resistance might have made you think you had a chance. And… this might sound a little harsh, but I hate the idea of people thinking they have a chance to survive me when I settle my eyes on them. While you might have done more damage to me than most, all can still be healed. Every single loss I have gained can be taken back. And let me show you just how little I lie.’

It was at that point that the Core started to feel a tugging sensation in its Mana-Pattern. Looking inside, it couldn't help but grow nauseous, that being the only feeling truly able to describe what it felt like.

Warning!

A forgein Entity is attempting to take control of your Mana! A [Battle of Wills] has commenced.

… Oh, no. That was just about the only thing the Core could remember thinking before its sensation of the world around it closed in and it was thrown into another.