She supposed that that was the moment that her luck began to run dry.

As anyone would expect from the oldest and most powerful Ant King who had the ability to sire special Colonies with special women, she was propositioned to give birth to an Ant Queen.

The Ant King had started off nice enough, introducing himself as Iyo’Karag in a polite manner, explaining his reason for coming and offering her a reward for her service if she desired. He had complimented her on her appearance, praised her strength, and highlighted her talent with wonder, all which had appealed to her ego. And she must be honest, she had been very tempted.

Although she had never been attracted to bugs, she was sure that the entire process would be conducted in their Enlightened Forms, and no matter the race of Beast or Monster, they were all attracted to the Enlightened. And as such, there would no longer be a biological barrier after they both transformed. Furthermore, considering Iyo’Karag’s talent, cultivation and special race, he was bound to be enthralling when he revealed his other form.

There was also the fact that it appealed to her nature to give birth to a talented child. It irked that the result would be an Ant and not a Unicorn but the child would still be hers, born from her womb. The fact that she would have to give up her child to be raised in the Colony was sad, but she understood that an Ant needed to be with the Colony to thrive and it wasn’t like she would be denied access to her. She had been told that she would be able to visit anytime she wanted, given rights to the Colony that only the ‘Queen Mothers’ had.

And most importantly, if she was to go through with it, there was a good chance that she would be able to forge an alliance with the Ants using her child, and bring them into the fight against Envy.

For that reason, although she would be putting an end to her virginity to become a mother for who knows how many months, she had been onboard with the idea, with the sole requirement being that she achieve an alliance with them in a fight against Envy.

That was why she began to speak about Envy, explaining everything about him and their plan to put an end to him. Saladin had listened calmly, only showing visible reactions when she had told him about some of Envy’s feats, but he had never interrupted her.

Eventually she came to a stop… and then the questions began.

With each question, Saladin seemed to find flaw after flaw in their plan, with the most grating flaw being her lack of knowledge on how they were actually going to destroy Envy. She had of course expected that, after all, other people the Fortissimum had sought an alliance with had asked about the same thing. But with all the other flaws being pointed out, she had been left flustered.

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Really and truly, the intelligence of the Ant Kings was not a joke.

Of course she still tried, even using her charm technique to enhance her charm and pleading that the great evil that was Envy needed to be destroyed, but then the nail in the coffin had been when the Ant King had stated that 1, the Ants were terrible over water and they would not be crossing it even if they were given rides on flying Beasts, and 2, they didn’t care much about Envy in the first place.

It turned out that from the beginning, the Ants had never been affected by Sin of Envy.

In the entirety of the Blazing Ant Colony, not a single individual was envious. Not even the male drones. When she expressed her disbelief on the matter, Iyo’Karag had scoffed, revealing a crack in his demeanour even if just for a moment, but he soon calmed down again and simply explained that the entire Colony was created to serve. They were born to work. The different castes had different jobs and they all did their jobs dutifully. How could they be envious if they all had jobs? What other desire was there than servitude to the cause?

All for the Empress and the Sacred Volcano, Iyo’Karag had said.

It had left Bellatrix mind blown, never had she ever seen such profound loyalty and devotion in a race. Well, perhaps the Moonlit Wasps were similar but she had never communed with one of them and her knowledge about them was insufficient, so seeing something like this had definitely been a first.

But when she came down from the surprise, she had to face the fact that it appeared there was no hope for an alliance with the Blazing Ant Supercolony, which had been incredibly disappointing.

The disappointment made her decision to deny the mating request if there was no possibility of alliance all the more easier. She didn’t care to ask about what the mentioned ‘Sacred Volcano’ was, she assumed that it was the giant volcano in the middle that was the primary nest of the colony, and even if it wasn’t, there was no more need to care about the Blazing Ants anymore. She needed to leave and complete her mission.

So that’s why she thanked Iyo’Karag for his offer but denied him, mentioning her need to move on and seek more allies.

Alas, it was at that moment that things took a turn.

She had turned around to seek out her next destination, when all of a sudden she detected a wild change in the aura behind her, but more pointedly the drastic increase in heat. Iyo’Karag had launched an attack at her.

She was barely able to react but still dodged, but even then, the fire was so hot that even without contact it hand singed her fur. Appalling. It went without saying that she had been quite furious and she had swiftly demanded an explanation.

She would never forget the response. ‘It is always a pity to harm beautiful creatures such as yourself but it is for the Colony, and for the Colony there is nothing I am unwilling to do. Please return with me before I’m forced to subdue you’.

The words were spoken cynically and without emotion, and it had left an impact.