"Hahahahaha! Fools, resistance is futile. Surrender while you still can!"
The twelfth queen proclaimed while her team's unrestrained hammering of the blood dome carried on. Hundreds of emerald light coated punches rained upon the crackling barrier while the shockwaves they released daggered at the twins' internal organs.
"At this rate, we're doomed to destruction. What should we do?"
A frustrated Vylsea asked with blood trickling down her lips.
"Saving one is better than saving none. If her majesty doesn't emerge soon, we can only take her grace and leave. Otherwise, we'll all be buried here!"
Calisto replied in resignation. But hearing this, Vylsea violently shook her head.
"Are you out of your mind?! Who dares appear before his majesty with news of the empress' fall? We might as well perish here."
Vylsea immediately rejected her sister's suggestion. However, Calisto sighed.
"Everything we are and have stems from his majesty. If he wants us to die, we cannot live. However, this is not about us. I believe that should the matter reach that stage, although we can't avoid punishment, the lesser of two evils would be his majesty's most acceptable outcome."
Calisto replied, and as if echoing her words…
*CRAAAAAAAAAAACK!*
The ant queens released one last blow, and in a deafening tearing sound, the barrier collapsed!
"How…could this be?"
They wondered in a stupor, according to their estimations, they should have been able to hold for at least a few more hours. How could their barrier suddenly collapse in a single strike? But seeing the fiendish grin plastered on the ant queens faces, they realized what was going on.
"They must have been slowly wearing us out while preparing the opening for one lethal strike. From the start, the strength they displayed wasn't their full depth."
The two realized, far too late.
"Indeed. Now, you can surrender your lives! Base and low worms, how dare you lay a hand on our sister?!"
The three queens snarled and vanished to reappear before their respective targets. The twelfth queen appeared before Calisto, the fourteenth before Vylsea, and the seventeenth before Verena!
All three's hands chopped at their respective targets necks!
"Master, we failed you. Apologies…"
Calisto sighed at death's door. Empowered by their combined life essences, the three queens' speed was beyond what they could grasp. They simply didn't have the time to trigger more defenses.
And just like them, Verena inwardly sighed. Although the life of a cultivator was fraught with danger, and death lurked at every turn, she'd not expected hers to arrive at this very instant.
But since she chose to follow Yvonne into the Hidden Forest, she was all ready for it.
As they dropped on their foes' necks, the ant queens' hands tore through space. But before they could hit home, the whistling sound of boiling water reverberated within the Hidden Forest, bringing alongside it the rise of the Ancestral Blood Pool!
Yes, the Ancestral Blood Pool, or more accurately, parts of its blood liquid rose to morph into three blood arms that slammed into the three queens and sent them spiraling backward!
*BOOOOM*
All together, the three queens tumbled like dropping missiles and cratered in the clearing!
Vylsea, Calisto, and Verena were startled, and their eyes shifted toward the Ancestral Blood Pool behind them.
The blood arms retracted, and from the Ancestral Blood Pool, a slender figure emerged. The massive quantity of blood painting that figure made her face hard to recognize. However, as she rose, and leisurely stepped on the pool before soaring into the sky, recognizing her was simplicity itself.
For if not Yvonne, who could it be?
In silence, she aimed her index at Verena, causing a blood stream to soar from the pool and merge with her weakened body.
Verena's eyes widened in belief, and before she could analyze, comprehend, or protest, the blood was already flowing within her veins, not only reinvigorating her but causing her cultivation to rise!
At that time, the three ant queens rose from the ground, and if the previous blow caused them any wounds, their life essence left no trace of it. Their three pairs of eyes locked on the naked Yvonne, whose silent, blood-drenched form filled them with incomprehensible apprehension.
With a step, Yvonne vanished, bypassing the Verena, Vylsea, and Calisto to appear before the ant queens.
"Peak-stage Divine Transformation. Divine Ascension is not far."
The twelfth queen appraised in awe. According to their intel, before she stepped into the pool, Yvonne still was half-step into the Divine Blood Rank. But in a short seven days, her cultivation experienced a meteoric rise, leaping through two ranks and standing on the verge of the third.
In fact, they didn't doubt that if given time to further digest her gains, Yvonne would directly breakthrough. But that cultivation was secondary. What truly worried them were the dao force and physique aura they felt from her.
However, an unknown force prevented them from fully assessing her depth.
"If you think this breakthrough is enough to threaten us, you're sore…"
The twelfth queen began while unleashing the full might of her cultivation base and life essence. The fourteenth and seventeenth did the same. But as their strength rose and their conceit returned, a startling scene struck them all speechless.
Yvonne raised her right hand, causing the air to ripple and the ground to shake with massive tremors while the aura of an overbearing overlord permeated the atmosphere.
The sky darkened, the trees wailed, lightning shone, and thunder crackled as if to herald the descent of a supreme monarch, whose wrath threatened to flatten the world!
Suppressed by the overlord's ire, the ant queens could no longer move an inch, mild tremors then spread throughout their bodies and…
*BOOOOM*
…they exploded, turning into particles of dust.
Vylsea and Calisto were scared out of their wits.
"Mastered Supreme Overlord Physique…no, it's worse than that."
Vylsea remarked while feeling the dreadful forces rippling from Yvonne's body.
"Mastered Supreme Overlord Physique.
Mastered Divine Primal Physique.
Mastered Extreme Dark Physique.
An unknown high-grade Divine Physique, also at the Mastered Stage.
Four high-grade Divine Physiques, all at the Mastered stage. Each possessing startling abilities. Better, her majesty's dao foundation seemed to have been refined to a brand-new level. I'm afraid even master at his peak wasn't this dreadful."
Calisto realized in fright.
