Harry Potter: The Planewalker

Christian ignored her childish mindset that she had gotten one up on him because he apologized. Now that they've chosen the Earth Queen as their destination, there was another issue to solve—how to get there. Their transportation was a winged ant, which should only know the direction to the Wind Queen's lair.

Christian looked at Xin'er, "You should have no problem with navigation, right?"

"Hmm? No."

"Good." He walked to the armored ant that was their guide, entered its memory, and found the creature's memory navigating this tunnel system, especially when it returned to the queen. "Now, I'll transfer the memory to you."

"You can do that?" Xin'er asked.

"It's not really transferring. I'm using the False Memory Charm to recreate the armored ant's memory," Christian explained as he pointed his wand at her temple.

"Sounds as impressive," Xin'er commented.

"It is," Lucretia added with a hint of jealousy. One thing she regrets as a Blood Crest family is that they've lost the ability to cast other spells. "By the way, why are we going through all those efforts? Why don't you control the winged ant and fly us to our destination?"

"This trip won't be smooth, and I won't be much help if I have to focus on flying and doing other things. So, it's best for Xin'er to take care of this while we continue our other duties."

"Make sense."

"...Done," Christian said. "How do you feel?"

"The memory seemed very vivid — maybe too vivid."

"I didn't want you to forget, so I made it so. It will return to normal and even disappear after a while."

"Good thinking."

"Alright, let's go," Christian declared. "I've forcefully enlarged this creature, so it might not survive too long." The team hopped onto the winged ant to fly into the distance. The plan immediately showed signs of success as they no longer had to confront the armored ants that were crawling on the ground. However, this test was far from finished.

"Flying creatures coming," Christian announced.

"What? But we're heading to the Earth queen's nest, right?"

"There is another group coming behind them, and they seem different," Christian continued.

"What does that mean?" Lucretia asked.

"I don't know, but my detection spell indicates they are somehow different than the armored ants," Christian explained while continuing to use the Revelio Charm.

"What should I do?" Xin'er asked.

"Keep going," Christian ordered. He used the Arrow Shooting Spell to conjure an arrow. The spell normally allowed one conjured object, but Christian summoned ten of them in one go. Then, he proceeded to copy them with the Doubling Charm. By the time they reached that platoon of winged ants, he had more than a hundred arrows before him and fired all of them simultaneously.

The small flying creatures tried to use their speed to evade these arrows, but there were too many of them, so countless died, leaving a small portion that succeeded in their evasion. Then, Lucretia took care of the rest with her summoned weapons while Menes assisted her.

"The blue ants are here," Christian yelled, and as expected, another platoon of blue ants arrived. These creatures immediately opened their mouths to fire jets of water. Christian reacted swiftly, using the Water Controlling Charm to control their water before transforming it into cone shapes and then using the Freezing Charms to create Ice Spikes. The spikes fell from the sky like a beautiful rain of death, and the blood of these ants resembled blooming roses in a flower field.

"Cruel," commented Lucretia.

"Hurry. I have a bad feeling," Christian said. Xin'er did not fly for long before the group heard a blood-boiling roar.

"Is it me, or did the temperature suddenly rise?" Lucretia asked.

"No, it's not just you." Christian guessed the Fire Queen might have been on the move. He tasked Lucretia with destroying the path behind them to prevent any pursuers while he focused on detecting incoming enemies with Revelio. Xin'er had no problem with the armored ants on the ground, whose main ability was their defense, but the winged ants' mobility caused her a little trouble.

"Something fast is coming, and if I had to guess, it's probably the Wind Queen," Christian said with a frown. The creature was large, hence his guess, and the fact that this thing was in his detection range meant they only had a few seconds before its arrival.

"Why is everything going wrong?" Lucretia complained. She then looked at her bracelets, wondering whether it was time to use them now. However, if she did so at this early stage of the trial, what would she do later? Meanwhile, Christian's mind already had somewhat of a solution.

He touched the winged ant, closed his eyes, and imagined a deep connection to the creature. Then, ignoring that this was a living creature, he bewitched the ant with the Acceleration Charm.

"It actually worked?" he muttered.

"What did you do? Wait, your nose — it's bleeding," Lucretia remarked.

"It is?" Christian wiped the blood from his nose. "Don't worry about it. Hold on tight." He cast the Gripping Charm on everybody, allowing them to grip the winged ant more effectively, and a Supersensory Charm on Xin'er.

"Go." As he activated the enchantment, the winged ant rushed forward more than ten meters with great speed, and, unlike when Christian used the charm, the winged ant did not need to stop. Luckily, Xin'er's increased perception allowed her to continue to steer the ant with expertise through this nest's corridors.

'This girl has the talent to play Quidditch,' Christian thought as the winged ant accelerated, forcing him to hold on for his life. Everything was moving so fast that he could barely see before him. However, he gritted his teeth to continue casting Revelio to keep track of the enemies behind.

A fireball the size of a tennis ball rushed out of nowhere toward Xin'er, and she had no time to evade. Luckily, Christian's enchantment activated, bouncing the spell to the side. Xin'er took advantage of the small chaos caused by the explosion to accelerate away from this area. She soon saw a bright light at the end of a tunnel and rushed in.

"We've arrived," Xin'er yelled as the winged ant crashed into the floor, almost sending everyone to the ground. Christian immediately cast a spell on himself to revive his stamina and remove the dizziness. Then, he pointed at the entrance behind him and fired more than five Bombardas to collapse the entrance.

'That should buy us some time,' he thought before focusing on what was in front of him, and he almost swore. An ant more than five meters tall and three meters long glanced at them. The creature had glistening black skin that resembled shining metal.

'The Earth Queen,' Christian thought, trying hard to calm down and concentrate. He noticed light coming from above this room and raised his head to see an opening on the roof. 'This is our exit.' He immediately checked on the winged ant, and unfortunately, the creature's body had shrunk to its original size, its wings fell off, and it was bleeding from its mouth and other places.

'Is this the consequence of bewitching a living creature? No, it should also be the side effect of forcefully enlarging it.' Christian immediately realized the situation was precarious since they'd lost their flying means.

"Guys, are you up?" Christian whispered while keeping eye contact with those large black eyes.

"Yes, we are…By Athena's shield, what the hell is this?" Lucretia almost screamed. "Is that the Earth Queen? Why is it so big?"

"It should have reached full maturity," Xin'er said with a pale complexion, and not because of the former thrilling ride but also due to the intimidation of the queen. "Be careful. The Earth Queen not only has high magic immunity, but she can also use earth magic."

"Of course, it does," Christian sighed.

"Why is it staring at us instead of attacking?" Lucretia asked before her eyes lit up. "Could this be part of the test? If we don't provoke it, it won't attack us. It makes sense since there is no way we could deal with such a creature."

"Or, it's buying time," Christian burst her bubble.

"For what?" she asked, slightly annoyed.

"For the ones behind us," Christian added. "If its mission is to kill or stop us, wouldn't it be better to wait until all the queens gather together?"

"No way. The test cannot—"

A booming sound stopped her words, and the crew turned around to check the collapsed entrance. The rumbles were still there, but they did not know for how long.

"Christos might be correct," Xin'er added. "The queens are usually very territorial, meaning they would never allow the other three to get this close to it. Furthermore, the queen's residence should also be full of eggs, but there is nothing here. All the signs showed that the test had artificially created the current situation."

"So, what are we supposed to do? Accept our death and return to the embrace of the Arcane?"

"Here is the plan," Christian suddenly said.