[Simon, can you use your [Earth Affinity] to protect the eggs.] Synthia asked
[Why would you care about the eggs of demonic beasts?] Simon asked
[We will need them later.] She replied and Simon sighed
[Yes, I should be able to protect them as long as you guys don't use any big attacks.] Simon answered
[Alright, Mark, I'm gonna need you to use your affinity to boost our affinities.] Synthia said
[I can, but I doubt the boost will be all that significant.] Mark replied
[Every little counts.] Synthia replied and he used his ability, causing both Castiel and Synthia to start glowing a dull green colour. Simon got to work and manipulated the earth within the queen's chamber, manipulating them to softly cover the eggs. The queen was practically livid as she saw her eggs being 'stolen' right in front of her. She released a jet of liquid gold from her mouth that turned into a torrent of sharp spikes. Synthia slashed her sword and sent out a blade of heavenly flames that exploded as soon as it got close to the spikes, knocking them out of the way. Castiel used wind to knock the rest of the spikes out of the air, giving them a safe path to run. The spikes that were falling to the ground suddenly froze and was sent flying towards Castiel and Synthia once more, as the queen manipulated them from a distance.
[Kate, [Light Bomb].] Castiel said and Kate immediately prepared her ability. An orb of pure light appeared in her hand and she quickly threw it into the air, causing it to explode and release a blinding light. The ant queen screeched in pain as the light burned her retinas. Synthia and Castiel took to the sky and they prepared to deal the finishing blow. Castiel charged up a powerful attack, a concentrated wind orb at the tip of his glaive and Synthia activated her trait, [Wrath of the Heavens]. Heavenly flames wrapped around her body tightly, making it look like she was made of those flames and she quickly chnneled that energy into her blade before releasing a powerful slash. A large blade made of heavenly flames that stretched to the ceiling headed towards the ant and the ant created a wall of gold to protect herself. Castiel finally released his attack, a strong gale surrounded the blade of heavenly flames and the attack increased in speed and intensity.
The attack crashed into the wall of gold and the wall was instantly torn apart. The attack crashed into the queen ant and it screeched in pain as the attack dug into the carapace, but Castiel and Synthia had more in store for the creature. They both held out their hands, and the attack gained speed slicing into the giant insect. The attack exploded, but unlike a usual explosion, the force and flames were distributed forwards instead of all around them, slicing the ant in half and melting the wall behind it.
"That was awesome." Kate said
"Yeah, I don't think I'll ever be able to muster that much control over my affinity. Even if I reach tier 4." Simon said
"Don't worry, we'll teach you and you'll be able to muster even more control than that." Synthia smiled
"So what now, we place the core?" Mark asked
"We haven't found any evidence of any cursed ores being formed here. So we can't place the core just yet." Castiel said
"About that, I think I can sense something. The demonic energy in here is dense, denser than the other areas we passed. And I think I can sense something in that direction." Simon said and walked over to another section of the wall. He placed his hand on it and the place wall started to tremble before crumbling to the ground. Behind the wall was another section of tunnels, an entire network of tunnels that looked a bit old. Walking inside, they could see cursed ores lining off the walls as well as the broken carapaces of ants, hundreds of them. All of their flesh was gone, but their carapaces remained.
"What happened in here?" Mark asked as he looked at the carapaces
"Don't know, don't care. Let's place the [Holy Core] now." Castiel said and they headed back into the queen's chamber. Synthia walked over to the queen's corpse and took out the queen's soul crystal while Castiel found a spot in the chamber to place the core. The core levitated slightly in the air and started absorbing the demonic energy in the air, causing the [Holy Territory] to slowly expand.
"You guys wanted to see what the soul crystals were for." Synthia said and walked over to the core with the seven soul crystals in hand. She placed all of them around the [Holy Core] and they soon started to disintegrate into particles as they were being absorbed into the [Holy Core]. After all of them were gone, the core hummed and started to glow before it started to rapidly expand, consuming the demonic energy within the chamber.
"So the soul crystals boost the effectiveness of the [Holy Core], got it. What about the ant eggs?" Simon asked
"If we are gonna become as strong as possible, we are gonna need soul crystals to craft powerful weapons. We can't use the soul crystals from demonic beasts, so we are gonna need holy beasts." Synthia said and looked over at a cluster of any eggs.
"You are saying that we can use the [Holy Core] to turn demonic beasts into holy beasts." Kate said in shock
"It only works on tier 1 to 3, but yes, we can make holy beasts with the [Holy Core], and these ants will be the first." Castiel said