Handril opened his hand.

A sword, embedded in a disfigured monster several meters away, trembled. However, it didn't move much more than that.

Handril squinted, further turned open the valve on his mana tank. The final bit of mana gas poured out, hovered in the air for a second before getting sucked into the Moving Stone on his left hand. The sword finally came loose, drew an arc through the sky, then came to rest in his right palm.

More than 5000 of their soldiers perished in this fight, however, that was much better than the expected total annihilation. The relatively optimistic result was caused by an extremely eye-catching phenomenon behind the enemy line.

"Commander, the last enemy is eliminated." He reported to the Listening Stone. "Yeah." Came a short reply. The voice of his leader was not in a happy tone despite the success.

"Commander is too soft-hearted." He thought, while walking toward the source of the signal. The Listening Stone shone brighter with every step it took.

A bit later, he found the Crusade commander sitting beside a dying Siege Beast. "As expected." He mumbled. Commander has always had a strange relationship with these vile creatures. The loss of dozens of these Beasts must have pained the Wise One.

He walked up next to the commander.

The Siege Beast seemed to have been severely injured when the enemy flanked them. A long tendril could be seen hanging out of Beast's belly, going into the ground. It seemed that the enemy attacked the Beast from right below, and left its body part behind to quickly go to the next target.

He waited while the Wise One got up, took out his sword, the tip of which was sent straight to the Beast's skull. Handril got down on his knees as the Wise One turned back.

"What do you think that was?" The Wise One asked, tilting his head in the direction where the enemy's Earth Queen used to be.

"Sir, that must have been the Domain tribulation to punish those lowly beings. The Source had aided the ones they judged to be deserving."

Brandon smirked. That was the typical answer he expected. The unprecedented flash came from the sky and vanquished the Earth Queen. The Queen seemed to have tried to evade the danger, judging by a huge magic oscillation emitted right before it was hit.

Brandon still remembered when the massive wave of magical energy and heat hit his face. The Siege Beasts were dying left and right, and without them, there was no offensive measure that can reach the enemy's Queen. The situation was disastrous. For the first time in his life, Brandon felt scared.

However, the powerful magical attack he expected did not come.

A moment later, tendrils stopped emerging from the earth. A monster that was trying to get out of the ground was stuck halfway. Brandon immediately understood. Something had happened to the Earth Queen.

Without the flanking enemies, the Siege Beasts regained their operation, destroying the enemy's retreating army en masse. Having no connection with the hive mind spelled death for the remaining monsters.

"Reorganize the troop, kill the bitten, take the stones from the dead, burn the rest, you know the drill. We are going back to the Church in one hour. My mana tank feels thin already." Commanded in an emotionlessly hoarse voice, Brandon pulled out the sword and strapped to his back, after looking at the corpse-strewn forest he was to walk through.

"Yes, my lord."

"I'm going to take a look at the place where the Earth Queen disappeared. Call Jacques, tell him to pick a couple dozens of soldiers and come with me. We'll take the Wyverns, I want them ready at the base in 10 minutes."

***

Jacques examined the ground. This was more than 500m away from the battlefield, outside the range of Siege Beasts. The vegetations 30 meters away from this spot looked like those after a storm, broken and uprooted outward. Inside this 30-meter area, nothing remained. There were traces of earth magic on the ground. The Crusade commander was standing aside, having a troubled expression.

"Looks to me like the Queen was dragged into the ground violently."

"My lord is wise." Jacques replied. What could be so powerful? A typical Earth Queen is humongous, spanning 20-30 meters. The effect of the strongest Fire Bomb a Fire Stone can conjure is insignificant compared to this scene.

He jerked. The commander noticed the same thing. Both Listening Stones on them were flashing in an irregular pattern.

"This is… unmarked communication? My lord, someone is down there!"