‘I spent a lot of time and resources on that beast,’ the Queen commented, as she began to… absorb the energy that had come from behind? That wasn't seeming like a good thing, the Core starting to feel a bit uneasy. Never in its plan had it thought about the recycling of death, yet it made all the more sense to do it. This wasn't good. And the Intelligent Ant was smart enough to feel that emotion coming from the Core, it speeds the process. Just like it had done with the Worm previously, it tried to distract the Black Mana using the Light, yet it was too close to the Queen and too focused on to have any impact. Instead of a flat line ahead, the Energy simple swerved over to the creature, assimilated into her Mana-Container. ‘Is it not my turn to take something away from you now? That would only be fair.’

It was then that the absorbed Energy was put right back out into the world, forming into something close to independent spheres of Black Mana. It was thrown right into the Core’s domain, clearly ready to explode at any moment. The Entity thought that it signified something close to the earlier attack where the Queen had absorbed the Mana in the air. To prevent such a thing from happening, it distanced every part of itself that was close to the orbs, creating a sort of vacuum around them that would stop any accidental spread of the Darkness.

Yet spreading it all around was never the plan, it seemed. Five orbs were sent and all five landed on different ants, each of those creatures being one of the Core’s defenders. Only the one recently taken from the Manalock room was spared, though that was likely because it had barely gotten out of the tunnel between the two rooms, to begin with.

[Undead] were formed in that very moment, striking at the last remaining creature alive. The Core did of course separate the newly turned ants, taking away any of their support. Yet that little they had been granted gave them more than what was needed to utterly slaughter the last defender. The Entity could do nothing but look on, even the greatest boosts doing nothing but prolong its suffering. Arcane Spears were near-instantly created to try and maim the [Undead] yet only one succeeded, the rest blocked by the Queen.

‘Oh, try and enjoy this! I am simply helping your little copies realize who their true leader is,’ the sadistic ant said, clearly enjoying the Core’s so-called futile attempts. As a last measure of defence to stop the [Undead] from getting into the tunnel and capturing the room lower down, the Core blocked with the help of filling it up with stone. It stopped Mana from passing through to an extreme degree but it was the only solution at the time, anything else doing more damage than what could be gained. With six creatures of its own dead, it was down to only seven. It wasn't looking good. ‘I could spare them, you know. Just tell me where you are hiding.’

Where the Core was… hiding? Oh, how it had known that repositioning itself was the right choice. The Entity had thought that its presence was constantly known, yet it seemed that being within the Domain was enough to obscure it. Normally the Queen could have just gone to the densest place in the surroundings but the new methods of Mana-Distribution had stopped that from happening since the Core had separated itself from that task. Instead of relying on Natural Mana-Regeneration and mindlessly pumping that out, it instead used the Mana directly from its surroundings. While it did slowly funnel some amounts through to make them the perfect Blue colour, it only did that when it had the time needed to focus on it. Which meant that it was nearly impossible to truly know where the Entity was inside. Its Core looked like a plain old rock, after all. There was nothing really special about it, perhaps being an unusually big part of a pile of gravel. One would never be able to tell the difference without coming in direct contact with it.

The Core’s domain was an extension of the Entity itself, after all. No messages or pulses of Mana needed to come from the rock that was its body. Instead, it could make the burst come from… anywhere. Yet the Queen didn't seem to notice that fact, perhaps not too used to the mechanics of a [Core]. How the table turned so quickly.

‘You… want me to sacrifice myself with the trade-off being that you will spare my creatures?’ the Core sent, making sure it sounded a little confusing. But that wasn't the main part of it. Instead of merely making the question resound from all over its domain, it tried to make it focus on a single spot in the ceiling.

Just as expected, a Black Mana-Tendril instantly shot out from the Queen, hitting the spot that the Core had focused on. She wanted an instant death and she clearly wasn't that hesitant on making sure it happened. Yet… she also hadn't ravaged the entire domain with those tendrils so there was a good chance they had some weakness that could be exploited. Perhaps a stronger weakness to Light the further away they were? They seemed able to break stone but perhaps that was just another skill related to it that made it seem like the entire thing was strong while it was in actuality only hardened on a single part. That was certainly something to think about, though the Core spent more time on making sure that a few of its creatures in the Manalock room were properly spaced out, knowing what would likely happen in just a moment.

‘So you weren't hiding in the ceiling? What a shame. I would have posthumously commended you for that strategy. No creature would have been able to reach there, after all, allowing me to do the job myself,’ the Queen said, some form of pity apparent in her voice. ‘However, my offer does stand as strong as ever. If you give me the place you’re hiding, I will allow the creatures under your command to join me instead of simply slaughtering them. There is no need to waste dirty beasts, no matter how much work is needed to make them shine.’

The Core certainly had some form of a comment about that last statement. At some point, the broken were too far gone, needing nothing but swift recycling for the Dungeon. Even the Entity could understand the sunk cost fallacy and did its best to avoid it. But… there was another piece at play in that offer. While it might have seemed close to sarcastic when coming for a person with the title of [Queen of Hollows], even a supposed monarch had some kind of favour for its people. Even the most ruthless would still want followers rather.

And the Queen was on a deeper level than that, quite literally using an army of her own children. There was a connection different from the one the Core had with its creatures. Even when ordering the creatures to attack, the Queen still made sure that as many as possible survived. It wanted the Colony to survive. There was something to it when one had the title called [Leader of the Colony]. One didn't gain such a thing from simply pestering with beasts it saw as beneath oneself. The Queen cared for her people and wanted to make those lost return to her grasp.

While there were other motives than just wanting them happy, it was for the same reason that she avoided making them [Undead]. Nobody wanted to lead a people who already met their demise. And the Core knew that she felt the same. Which was why it was going to act ignorantly on the subject and make a fool out of itself.

‘You truly a despicable being,’ the Core said, making sure to sound angry. Which was easy since it was already a bit desperate and the emotions kinda blended. ‘Are you truly so desperate to lead more that you take from that which you called poor imitations? You accuse me of having no standards in the way I lead yet you are not the prominent example of excellence you might think yourself to be. You sacrifice your people. You led them to die so you can fiddle around with their corpses. You do not have a single part of you that actually cares about-’

The Core was forced to stop when the Queen started to blow more and more Black Mana away out of herself and upwards, making sure that none of her followers got hit. The Intelligent Ant was getting angrier and angrier with every passing second and the control of her power was becoming unwieldy. It seemed that too much of it with too little control had negative effects. Who could have guessed?

‘I care!’ the Queen roared, putting up a massive cloud of Black Mana. Nearly every piece of it was forced right into the Main Domain, it all invading everything there was to see. Every spike, every cubic meter of air, every wall, every piece of the ceiling, and even the short space between the [Blood-Moss] and the ground was combed through finely, the Queen searching for the one who had angered her. All the power was spent making sure she would be able to squash the Core under her own feet.

And in doing so she had left herself wide open from the back. While the Core did feel like there was some truth to it perhaps doing dirty tactics, it also saw the potential in doing them, to begin with. And, honestly, there was no chance of a dead person complaining when they had nobody to use. Through the power of a massive slab of stone that wasn't made to fall through the power of Magic but through a series of connected stones that ended up in the Manalock room, the Queen never even realised what hit her.

For the second time, the Core had squashed her to bit, her soul forced out into the air instead of residing inside a physical body. Or… so one would think. Simply destroying what should have been her mortal coil to the world was not the only thing required. Her connection to the Black Mana kept her on the plane of the living, no matter how many times the Core destroyed her body with physical materials.

But White Mana was a whole other question. Forcing a hail of it to surround and encircle the darkness rising from the Queen’s destroyed body, the Core was able to hear the hisses and waves of power trying to break out. While the Entity didn't have the power to completely remove her from the plane by breaking the connection, it could more than surely stop a new body from appearing.

‘Stop!’ the Queen could be heard shouting, not able to put the power behind her words like before. It was nothing like the power witnessed previously, and that made the Entity more than happy with itself. Increasing the power used to keep the Intelligent Ant’s soul in the place, the Core began on what it would personally call one of its greatest feats.

Taking away the stone facade, the tunnel between the two rooms were opened up again. Each up the remaining seven ants had been tethered to the Core, filled with the needed energy to survive anything thrown their way. When mixing that with the swarm of Arcane Spears being created, the time for the [Wild] ants’ deaths had come. Not that those beasts ever notice, though, having taken the absence of their monarch as the hint that they needed to charge forth, all seventy-five ants remaining.

‘Don’t you dare, you filthy rock. Do not touch a single one of them.’

Seventy-five which were quickly being reduced to a massive… zero. For the Entity was not leaving a single enemy behind, not wanting any chance of them returning. None were allowed to live, each having a spear or two impaled in their bodies or perhaps having their limbs torn off and used as a Healing apparatus for the damaged ants on the Core’s own side. Whatever was done to them, not one survived the next couple of minutes. It was truly and utterly a defeat.

The [Worm] was dead and the army that the [Queen of Hollows] had held so dear to her non-existent heart had been slaughtered. Only she remained. And… she was making that more than obvious, sending out blast after blast of Black Mana, clearly trying to break the will of the Light. Yet, it never worked, the remaining ant unable to do anything but curse and swear.

‘Kill the Core, crush its body, turn it into dust-’ and on the Queen continued, never stopping with the commands that nobody heard. It was utterly useless, the Monarch never able to do anything.

But… it became apparent after a few seconds that she… wasn't trying to break out. Instead, she was calling for a mighty beast that was meant to be dead. Only then, as the rumbling of the walls began, did the Core remember that the head of the [Worm] had remained.