Another boom echoed through the fort, giving warning that the enemy was far closer than they feared. It had been more than a month since Van had gotten his soul realm back, and he learned to create portals directly into it. Allowing Lyn and everybody else to access to it.

“Again!?” Van exclaimed exasperated, “This makes it the third time this week!”

“That just goes to show you how far their army has come…” Amie said, worried about what this could mean in the future.

“Eyes forward!” Alecto snapped. “I don’t want you ruining my baby’s special day!” She then quickly looked between Van, Agnès, and Luna.

“Agnès, do you take Luna as your lawfully wedded spouse, and by extension Van as your husband and master and to be soul bonded to them?” Alecto said in rapid fashion, probably feeling the pressure of the attack.

Despite the hectic situation, Agnès couldn’t help but blush. “I-I Do!” she quickly said as another explosion was heard, this time closer than before.

“And Luna, do you accept Agnès to be not only a part of the harem but also your spouse, to love and cherish forever?” Alecto asked Luna.

“I DO!” Luna exclaimed with confidence.

Alecto then finally turned to Van. “And Van, do you accept to take Agnès as your true wife, but not only that but allow the marriage between her and your spouse Luna? And to soul bond her and tie yourselves together?”

Van nodded. “I do!”

“Then Agnès! Say the vows!” Alecto said, looking at her baby girl with pride in her eyes.

Agnès took a deep breath and exhaled, calming her nerves, and began the oath she practiced. “I, Agnès, do swear to love and protect my master and husband Van, and my wife Luna. To have no other than them, to give mind, body, and soul, to Van’s needs. To offer my life in exchange for his own. My heart in exchange for their happiness. So do I swear on my blood, so do I swear on my soul. Now and forever, and in every life.”

It was similar to the oaths Van heard before, though with a few changes. But the meaning was the same. After she said her oath, the three of them exchanged blood and did a blood binding. Then Pepper got involved and helped Alecto with the soul binding, the familiar pinch indicating its success.

Now that Van was more aware of his soul realm and had stronger senses than last time, he could feel the transition between him and Agnès, her soul literally flowing into him. Though it appeared she wasn’t aware of it like he was.

It felt warm and kind, but also perhaps a bit too hot with a bit of fierceness to it like it would cause indignation if he wasn’t careful. He resolved himself to check his soul realm at the next opportunity, after of course, they dealt with the little issue of their attackers.

After everything was completed, Agnès and Luna shared a passionate kiss. It was clear to everyone that while Agnès did love Van in her own way, she loved Luna just as much if not a little more. Not that Van minded, he was just happy that they were happy, though he did feel a little left out...

Either way, it was a long time coming in his eyes. Though they both would probably agree that it was a little rushed. Agnès was the type to take things a little slower. Unfortunately, things didn’t play out like they should have, and one too many close calls made it clear that deliberation wasn’t an option at this time.

He was reminded that again Kella begged him to go back home, but again he refused, saying that he would only leave when there wasn’t any chance to continue anymore. The wasp horde had grown more and more in numbers and power over the course of almost two months and saw no signs of slowing. They flung their troops at their enemies in mass, uncaring for the costs, replacing them as soon as they lost them.

And considering wasps are more dangerous than bees, and you have a recipe for disaster if things don't turn for the better soon. It didn’t help that giant insects were now overrunning the forest, sometimes led to targeted locations by their wasp overseers, but most others just rampaged around without any wasps to oversee or stop them. Not that the wasps seemed to care about the destruction being caused. If anything, they used the havoc caused by the wild insects to their advantage...

Another boom echoed, and one could hear the creak of wood and stone from one of the walls that were almost hit by a giant bombardier beetle. Kobolds, troglodytes, goblins, wolves, and so many more that Van has gathered over the months, running around to prepare for the incoming attack.

He was somewhat proud of his accomplishment in gathering so many different followers and giving them a place to gather and work together. Though he was jealous of Luna just a bit, during another one of her strolls, she shot down the queen of the west forest, a large wyvern, and added it to her own follower count.

Right now that wyvern was flying over the fort to provide air support, ready to fire at or down any insects that might decide to jump or fly over the wall.

With the wedding done the group prepared for the fight ahead and rushed to the wall, bringing out their weapons and armor.

Once Van was on the wall he greeted Lyn who was watching over things while they were away. “Hey Lyn, how bad is it?” asking about the situation at hand.

“Terrible!” Lyn exclaimed, “I missed your wedding!”

“I meant the army at our doorstep,” Van said.

“That’s terrible too! Why couldn’t they have waited another hour or two! I wanted to join in on the honeymoon!” she exclaimed again, glaring down at the horde of insects with evil intent for ruining this special day.

Van turned to the side with a sigh. “Anna, do you have anything to add that might be a bit more helpful?” he asked of the Anna who was also standing watch over the wall.

The Anna smiled, “why yes I do! I think that wedding was so cute! And that you all would make a wonderful couple! I would know, I was there after all!” she said in a teasing manner, looking towards Lyn who now looked incensed.

“Gods damn hive-minded clone army, separatists did nothing wrong!” Lyn muttered under her breath and a bunch of other nonsensical things dealing with clones and hive minds.

Van now glared at the both of them, “I meant about what’s happening right now in front of us!” demanding an answer as another explosion shook the walls.

“Oh, yea… that…” Lyn said, rubbing her head and looking around at the army right at their doorsteps like it was the first time she was seeing them. “Well… it’s not looking good…” she said after some time assessing the situation.

“No shit sherlock…” Van muttered angrily, now glaring down at Lyn who was supposed to be in charge of things while he was away.

“Don’t worry Van! Lyn is on the job!” Lyn said, strangely upbeat despite everything. “We are a lot stronger than we were at first! At this point, it’s like they are just feeding themselves to us! Begging us to become stronger!”

“And now with my new army!” snapping her fingers revealing a few hundred insect kin that flew out of nowhere. “Cleaning this up will be a piece of cake!”

Van glared at her, “you took some of those right out of my soul realm… You can’t do that anymore remember! If you want to take your followers out, you have to do it when I open the portal, understand.” he said, now genuinely a little cross with her. Though it didn’t hurt as much as before, having things forcibly taken from his soul realm still hurt a little and would still be some time before it could handle large transactions without using portals.

“Right, sorry…” Lyn said feeling properly chastised.

After that, the group started to talk about what they could do to deal with the over one thousand giant insects waiting right outside their walls. Lyn wanted to go out and charge at them and deal with them right away. While Anna and her two dozen others of her wanted to fight them while they were trying to climb the wall since she didn’t want to have to go to fight them. Being a bit fearful of getting messy and cleaning up bug guts and everything...

Oddly enough though, it was Agnès who had an idea she wanted to share, having followed him a few minutes later alongside Luna.

“Umm… sorry to interrupt but…” she looked nervously at the closing ranks of enemy insects drawing nearer. “Can I try something? Ever since the soul-bonding, I’ve been feeling a little… antsy… like I have too much energy, would it be okay if… instead of talking we actually do something about the enemy at our gates and maybe… I can fire off some of my magic at them?” her question going a bit all over the place.

“Huh? Uh, ya, sure! Go ahead!” Van said, motioning her to go and do what she wanted, then waiting nearby to see what she was going to do.

Agnès then walked over to the edge of the wall and peered over it, examining the small army of insects moving in and ready to rush over at a moment's notice. Taking a deep breath and exhaling it, she did her best to calm her nerves and make sense of this new power flowing into her.

It hurt, a lot, the raging torrent of fiery energy blooming inside of her. It also felt like something deep within her was waking up, something long dormant finally brushing off the last dregs of sleepiness and ready to make the world know of its presence.

Agnès let the power take her, then closed her eyes to concentrate on channeling it. Once she opened them again, she let out a raging torrent of fire from her staff. An inferno that scorched hundreds of feet in a cone. Burning to cinders hundreds of the incoming enemy in a torrential wave of fiery death.

Her eyes glowed a deep red, almost like they were on fire. Her hair was literally on fire, and so were some parts of her body. Some of the flames turned black and took a horn-like image on top of her head.

Soon she raised her staff overhead, its embedded gem flaring up like crazy, almost too bright to see with the naked eye. A miniature sun formed above it and was shot into the air, being flung well over the enemy combatants that remained. It then exploded into many pieces that rain death from above, killing what few insects were left and leaving a scorched barren wasteland in its wake.

When done, Agnès looked for all the world, not like someone who just annihilated an entire army by herself, but someone who looked relieved, like finally finding a bathroom after hours of searching or pointing down a large burden after hours of carrying it. A relaxed look that didn’t fit the destruction she just caused.

“What was that!” Van exclaimed in thought. He knew that Agnès was powerful, but not that powerful! “That wasn’t demonic energy…” watching as the horns on Agnès’s head faded. “It was too primal… too pure… could it be... draconic!?”

Van promised himself to check in with his soul realm to see what the hell just happened later. For now, he just couldn’t help but stare at Agnès and what she has just done. And he wasn’t the only one…

Everyone was staring at Agnès wide-eyed, even her mother who rushed over with everyone else couldn’t help but feel out of her depth with this new aspect of her daughter.

“Huh…” Agnès suddenly said, looking confused as if still unaware of what she has just done. More talking to herself than anyone else. “I feel… hungry? And… horny?” her brows furrowed like she couldn’t make sense of these new feelings inside her.

It was Luna who broke the spell of this weird situation, rushing to give her wife a big hug, like nothing else mattered.

“You did it! Good job!” Luna exclaimed happily, giving Agnès a kiss on the cheek. “I can’t believe how powerful you’ve become! And just because we soul bonded! This is wonderful! Maybe… that means…” getting overly excited about what she was going to say next. “That we could finally hunt down that last queen! And I can have the complete set of four! Hells! I wonder if that would technically make ME the ruler of the forest!” she said with good humor, though she sounded a little serious.

With that, everyone relaxed a little and started to congratulate Agnès on her victory.

Unfortunately, it might have been a bit premature, as another wave of insects came rushing through the forest.

“Damn it… can’t they give us a break?” Van said to no one in particular, he then looked over to Agnès, “can you do that again? Just blow them away?” but just by looking at her, he knew that wouldn’t be possible.

“S-sorry,” she said, panting all of a sudden. “I-I’m not feeling so good for some reason… I think that took more out of me than expected.”

“Alright, why don’t you fall back and take a rest, you’ve already done more than enough.” he then looked over to Lyn. “Lyn, prepare your troops and wait for my orders.” he got a salute in reply.

“Alright then…” he turned to address his small army of over a dozen Annas and other soldiers. “Archers! At the ready!” he shouted, watching as they moved with practiced grace into position.

His soldiers were better equipped than before, with actual armor and weapons. This was thanks in no small part to Lyn and Amie, who worked around the clock alongside Anya, using her trade connections to get the necessary iron they needed. It was still expensive of course, probably more so than what it would have cost back home, but this was in the middle of the forest and the war did make a mess of the supply chains, so he supposed he couldn’t complain with what he was able to get.

Once all the soldiers were lined up, he ordered them to fire, sending a large volley of hard-tipped arrows meant to specifically puncture through chitin. Though that didn’t seem to stop the oncoming army, insect durability at its finest…

Again, he ordered another Volly, then a final third one before turning to Lyn. “Lyn! You're up!” he shouted, motioning for her that it was her turn.

Lyn closed her eyes and concentrated hard, her entire body began to buzz with electricity and power. After she witnessed what Agnès had just done, she didn’t want to be outdone by the newbie to the harem. When she opened her eyes, they were blazing with power. She then motioned with her spear and pointed it to the sky, where storm clouds began to form. With a simple downward swing, bolts of thunderous lightning came crashing down on the opposing army. Creating craters in the now scorched wasteland, sending insect chunks flying everywhere.

“Chaaaarge!!” Lyn shouted after she was finished, giving a battle cry to her army of now fully-sized insect-kin. Most averaging around five feet, and battle-ready.

The insect-kin counter rushed the insect horde that was now scattered and electrocuted. Laying into their enemies and hacking them apart so as to make sure they couldn’t move anymore.

Even Luna got into it, riding her wyvern and having it belch fire on the now fleeing insects, laughing with excitement all the way.

“Gods damn it Luna…” Van muttered as he watched his wife do something she shouldn’t be doing.

In a few more minutes, the battle was over and the group started the clean-up duty. Picking up the pieces and retrieving arrows, cleaning up the mess, and taking out any mana cores the giant insects might have. What few of them that were not burnt to a crisp by fire or exploded by lightning that was…

“Alright people, you know the drill. One group cleans this up, the other follows and makes sure there's not another army hiding just beyond the forest.” Van said, giving out the orders.

After a few more orders and talking things over with Kella on what else they could do to strengthen their position, he then left towards his tent, planning to meditate and enter his soul realm to find answers as to why Agnès became so powerful. Leaving the rest of the decision-making in the hands of others, since he knew they could take care of things while he was away.

Entering his tent, which now was more like a proper cabin, he got ready to talk with Ren about a few things they should go over. Wondering what new surprise he would have to deal with this time…