A Trap
As for why that b*tch kept herself shelled inside that continent and didn't get out even once to stop me, I already got a theory for that.
It was either she didn't get anything from her superiors and brilliant minds yet. Or she got something, and that thing required lots of planning and preparations, and couldn't be activated and used anywhere on a whim.
And for a reason, I leant towards the second scenario. And for a different reason, I felt like the upcoming three continents would be very hard to conquer. And my intuition proved right in the end.
I moved towards the next continent, seeing nothing more than a few scattered enemies there. It wasn't even worth taking my pillar out, wasting my time and energy over spreading lots of bubbles here.
But out of habit, I took the pillar, but didn't spread the bubbles.
I didn't grow tired, or bored, or anything. In fact, the moment I took the pillar out, some weird feeling of foreboding disaster overwhelmed me.