172 Just Useless Balls
After I checked with my forces, I knew that the enemy already attacked and controlled Bloomfield and Irvington cities during this fight here.
Each one of them had an army of million attacking it. Damn! Even with all I did here, things didn't look that good to me.
*Whoosh!*
I passed through the portal and appeared at Elizabeth city. The sight here was totally different from the city I just left.
The city was filled with destruction and ruins like any other city, but it was filled to the brim with human forces. During the past hours of my fight, my entire team came here, bringing all the entire human camps armies with them.
That made me feel more confident and proud of them.
The first thing I did was to summon my chariot. Its sudden presence in the middle of this city caused a big uproar all over the forces stretching outside the city.
[Come to me] I sent it to all my team members. Since our departure at Jersey city, this was the first time to gather again.
And this time we were having such a big fight waiting for us.
[I'll lead my forces and come to join the fight] just while I was waiting for my team members to come, while watching many old forces who were familiar with me and my chariot doing their best to control the panicked forces here, Fang suddenly sent this message.
What the hell happened to make him move his fat ass from his precious mega gate?
[What's the reason for you to come here?] as I didn't know what was going on, I had to ask.
[Nothing, I just heard the news from what happened at Newark city. What? Don't you want my help?]
Despite the fact that I needed him and his troops, I didn't answer him directly.
[Hello… Just tell me which city you are at right now so I can come and join your forces and fight together]
Yes, something seems fishy without doubt. I totally ignored his messages while watching the familiar faces of my team.
The first to arrive was Karoline. The moment I saw her safe and sound I felt a little reassured. I was so worried about her and had to elongate the fight at Newark city to give her a chance to retreat.
"Are you ok?" I asked but the one to answer me wasn't her but Angelica.
"Oh! You totally forgot about all of us while only caring about her! Humph! That's not right!"
I had to give that sexy girl a diplomatic smile. Come on, you already had your own girl and was totally absorbed in flirting with her.
"Just leave him alone," the spearhead climbed off the stairs, "a man shall pay more attention to his girl."
Thanks dude for the support, I truly appreciate it here. Just as he arrived, I noticed Isabella climbing behind him with her hand clasped with that dude.
"You didn't waste your chance this time… I see," I said while winking to the spearhead whose face slightly changed and seemed a bit tense.
Dude, you had to feel the same struggle I experienced. After all, you didn't show any mercy to me back then, remember?
"The two of you are just lucky," Leo said while standing close to Angelica who was standing closer to Alex. as my team members got assembled by the ascension of Sara, I noticed one person was missing.
"Where is that talkative?" I asked while looking down the stairs, trying to see if he was coming up or something.
"The jumper you mean?" Isabella asked while taking a step away from the spearhead as she adjusted her glasses.
"Who else would be?" I snorted, "what? Is he asleep or something?"
"He isn't here," Angelica shrugged, while trying to place her arm around Alex's shoulders but the latter shrugged her off.
"He didn't come yet?" I raised one eyebrow in surprise.
"No, he came a long time ago," Karoline said as she stayed half a metre away from me, as if she was feeling more secured this way, "but he decided to take the recon mission and went out with selected members of his forces."
"Boss, I have something to complain about!" At this moment, and before I could grasp what that crazy dude just did, Leo suddenly raised his hand in the air.
"Dude, we aren't at a school or something," I rolled my eyes when I saw what he just did, "just say what you want. What?"
"That crazy one had a greater army than all of us here!" Leo said and the others nodded.
"This isn't right! He took all the camps for himself!" Isabella said in complaint.
"I can't believe he took all the forces in the training camps and added them into his forces," Angelica said in a loud tone while her eyes shone brighter in rage, "I asked him and he said you agreed on that!"
"Is that true Boss?" the spearhead took a step forward and asked directly as if I was in an interrogation or something.
"Guys and girls… It's not my fault you are short sighted and not ambitious like that dude," I shrugged as if this wasn't my fault. And it wasn't.
"So if we asked to be treated equally?" Sara asked in aggressiveness while her tone was strangely calm. This girl was acting like a tigress waiting to be unleashed over anyone at any given moment.
Just a perfect match for Angelica! If I had a chance, I'd ship the two together.
"Why would I decline such a request?" I simply nodded, "It's your fault to not think about the big picture and only limiting your actions to what you have and not what you can get. That dude once heard about the training camps at the same moment as you did, he constantly asked for his share of the prize. What about you? What did you all do? Nothing!"
I didn't let this point drop easily. After all this was a good chance to educate them about how to not survive but thrive in the apocalypse.
Their previous attitude wasn't bad, yet it wasn't enough. I needed elites like jumpers, not just in strength but in their way of thinking.
They needed to learn how to become more aggressive towards any slight opportunity they met. Just like now, they were thinking all the wrong way about this issue.
Instead of blaming themselves for falling into such a mistake and learning from it, they took the easiest path and decided to throw all the blame on my shoulders.
Sorry folk… I wasn't your sugar daddy and wouldn't accept such wrong thinking. You needed to develop further to match the jumper and many others I was planning to add to my elite team.
Or in the near future, and in the span of a few months, my entire team roster would be changed and you wouldn't have a place or right to speak a single word with me.
"Then I want an army like him!"
"Me too!"
"And me!"
Everyone spoke up and asked for their right to have the same treatment like the jumper. I looked at all of them speechless. Guys! Why did you think I gathered all of you around me and trained you up till now?
Wasn't it to make you lead armies in such dire situations? Tsk, this situation was so disappointing that I didn't say anything else to extend it.
I simply nodded in response before asking, trying to change the topic to something useful:
"How many humans do we have here?"
"This…" the look on their faces turned upside down as they all looked at each other and seemed puzzled.
"Don't tell me you didn't even count them! How the hell am I supposed to arrange troops now among all of you?"
This wasn't the problem actually. I could just point in a direction and each one would take the people standing there.
But the main problem was that I didn't know the real difference between my forces and the illusionist's.
How was I supposed to consider my next move then without such vital information? Damn! I wasn't surrounded with elites but a group of morons or what!
"Go," I waved my hand in an angry way, "see how many we have here. You got one hour to do that."
"But…"
"Just go!" I glared at Isabella who tried to give a lame excuse here. They failed, not only once but twice in a row. It was better to wipe such a depressing record with such an easy task.
"You stay," as Karoline was about to follow them, I grabbed her arm gently and stopped her.
"Won't you give me an army as well?" she gave me a weird glance before turning to look at others who were racing down my chariot. "They aren't going to just count the forces. They will examine them and select the best of these humans for themselves."
"Aha," at this point I realised they weren't just total fools as I expected. "Ok, go and be safe," I said to her and before I let her go, I paid her sweet lips a short visit before letting her loose.
[Where the hell are you?] as I had an hour free of anything, I went downstairs planning to have a short nap before the upcoming battle.
[I'm just one mile away from Irvington] the jumper sent back. After all, before I'd sleep in a peaceful mind I had to check on that crazy dude.
I knew how impulsive and hot bloodied he was. [Just tell me you aren't planning to attack the city by yourself!]
[Do you take me as a crazy person or what?] in fact dude you actually were such a person. I kept my thoughts to myself and simply sent back:
[How is the situation there?]
[They brought a grand army before taking over the city] I knew that already. Yet before I could let my body rest calmly over the mattress of the bed, the next message he sent jolted me awake and alerted all my senses.
[They scattered their forces in the wide area between this city and the other two nearby. Then they started doing something strange… They dug the ground and planted green shining balls there before covering the holes up]
[What did you say?] My eyes went wide open before I hurriedly asked, [Can you get one of those balls? Tell me you can!]
[I already got a lot of them] he sent back, [But lazy Hye, the system told me they are trash grade materials meant for nothing much… They only work as a medium to transfer energy, nothing more.]
[Fool!] I blatantly sent this insult to him and I meant it. Just reading what he just sent made all the hair over my body stand to no end.
[Watch your mouth, loser!]
[Where did 'Do you want to die?' signature phrase of you went?]
[Don't try to be funny] he sent back before adding, [This will be my new phrase from now on; loser!]
[Ok, listen carefully loser] as he dared to say this to me, I also returned the mockery back to him, [these balls might seem useless and harmless at first. But if a certain number of them was used in certain way, the same way you just described to me, then they will turn into a deadly weapon]
[Don't test my patience here! I hate jokes, especially the silly ones!]
[I'm not joking! It's a real threat and will bring forth something we can't handle]
[An enemy army? They already merged the five gates in the city and formed a grandiose gate in its centre. My guess is they did the same at the other two cities as well]
Damn! So that was the reason why Fang asked all of sudden to come and help me. That bastard! Did he turn into a greedy dragon in one day and night or what?
[Just tell me they didn't start building a tower in the centre of this zone] I sent it to him while returning back to the roof of my chariot.
173 The Devil's Touch Magic Circle
[Tower? What tower?] he asked and from his question I knew they didn't start building it for my luck.
[It's a grand tower rising up for over a hundred metres. You'll be able to see it even from far away and it should look like a tall and slim staff in the middle of the triangle zone they control]
[Oh, they didn't start building anything like that as far as I can tell]
I paused for a minute thinking about this.
[What's that tower anyway?] he asked, [And why are these harmless looking balls related to that tower?]
[Wrong!] I instantly sent back in mockery.
[What?]
[What you asked just now is wrong. The right question should be what's the threat these balls pose to us]
[Tell me genius!] I knew he wasn't taking me seriously here, but let's see how you'd react once you know what I know.
[These balls are energy channels. Alone they won't be able to do anything. Just consider these like a grand magic circle. Instead of drawing the circle using special ink on the ground, you use them as a lining material for this circle]
[A summoning magic circle? On such a big scale? How come?!!] that dude wasn't as dumb as I took him for.
[They'll summon a deadly natural disaster here] I finally said it, [So big that's enough to change the entire landscape of this region. And to do so they needed the tower to initiate the magic circle, connecting it with the endless energy in the world here and control the disaster coming]
[You seem to know a lot about that] he sent this useless remark that I chose to totally ignore. [Don't tell me you also know the nature of this disaster]
[Of course I do] I firmly responded back. After all, among all the places around here, there was only one big natural presence that could turn into such a disaster; the nearby ocean!
They were planning to flood this entire area under ocean waters. Not only that, they must be planning to create massive and destructive tsunamis that were enough to kill even those running far away.
Running and hiding wasn't an option. Even standing in the air using my chariot and my drags wasn't either. Such a manmade disaster would usually be accompanied by weak forms of other natural elements.
Lightning, fire, wind, and even light and darkness would also be present here. Even if they were weak, humans were much weaker against such natural elements.
We would be doomed! Nothing could help us except crushing that scheme and not allowing it to finish.
Yet there was just a single point that didn't add up to all this. Learning such a method to fight against me was simply like using a nuke to kill the enemy and myself at the same time.
What was that archlord illusionist thinking about when he decided to use up such a deadly method? This dude didn't seem like a suicidal person, so what was I missing here exactly?
I lacked information, lots of it actually. In addition to that, what was the use of wasting enormous resources and blessing points to summon not only one mega gate but three at such a stage?
Was he trying to do something else? Damn! I lacked lots of information here to make me feel blind and lost.
[Try to infiltrate deeper into their triangular zone] I sent over to him, [Gather up as many balls as you can. The tower should be located at the central area of that zone. Try to camp there and if you found the building blocks of it, try to sneakily take as much as you can]
[Are these things useful?] that dude wasn't ready to do something without getting benefits back from it. Excellent!
[Sure, but not for now] I sent it over without explaining anything to him.
Of course the materials used in such a big scheme were valuable. Just like the balls, the building material of that tower would look harmless and low grade at first look.
But when grouped together in certain ways, they could bring miracles. Yet that was for me to know and use. Let that greedy jumper try to use them himself… He would only fail!
[Alright, leave this task to me then] he sent before asking, [What are you going to do? Are you coming over or what?]
[First I'll try to know more about what that bastard is trying to do] I sent while thinking about three people in my mind, [Just be prepared. Once I know what I wanted, I'll lead everyone and come to crush those weaklings and destroy everything]
[Just don't take much time in that or else I might grow white hair here]
[Says the one who wears a mask and not let anyone see his face or know his age]
[I'm a young person!]
[Your words only, and they aren't counted] I teased him before closing the chat as he started to aggressively reply back. That dude was easily provoked and had such an explosive type of blood running through his veins.
Alright… As I sent him loose over those enemies to buy me some time, it was time to gather information.
And for that I had three people in my mind to give me all the information I lacked; Fang, Wryly, and lastly and most important of them was the old man.
I had to check the memory beads again. But first I'd start contacting Wryly. Hopefully that dude would know enough to spare me any useless chat with Fang.
[I have something to ask about… Have you ever heard of the devil's touch?]
This magic circle was as the devil's touch, yet that infamous name was given to it by humans.
I didn't know if other races knew it by the same name or not.
[Devil what?] as expected, he seemed not to know about it. I became patient and explained in detail what was going on here.
[Damn! I should get moving first and hit that city of his now] he sent over before adding, [What you are calling the devil's touch we call it the death breath. It's a nasty kind of sorcery, dark magic indeed. If that lunatic bro decided to use it, that means he gave up over everything. Only cities with mega gates can shelter us from such destruction]
[Mega gates can help?!] For the first time Wryly gave me such valuable information that I desperately needed.
[Of course! The gates aren't like the normal gates you see anywhere. They have strong shield abilities and defences against natural disaster that would make any city having it immune to damage]
[So these mega gates can block the natural disaster brought over by death breath?]
[It's not going to stop it, but will protect the city from it. See, it's like having an island in a mighty ocean waves. But to do so one must have a complete mega gate. Unluckily for that Selvator, he had only incomplete mega gate at his city]
Aha! So that was the real reason why Fang sat his gazes upon the three mega gates here!
[So mega gates will act as a shield, but is there any relation to their numbers and the uses of the death breath?]
[What do you mean?]
[It's just that illusionist formed three mega gates inside three cities]
[What?!!] Wryly paused for a minute and I felt he got something scary from what I just said. [So I can have three more full mega gates this time? Awesome!]
That dude… he was thinking just in his own gains and nothing else. I shook my head in disappointment before sending my answer to him.
[Don't get hyped over nothing. I might need one of these to make sure my people are safe. Also Fang asked for one and after knowing what you just said, I can't let him down]
[Screw me! Why did I even tell you about that!!]
I shook my head again while preventing myself from laughing. Wryly was a really kind hearted person. [So I can get at least one of these mega gates, right?]
[That's guaranteed]
[May I ask what you plan to do against it then?]
[I'll simply try my odds and crush the magic circle before summoning the beast] I told him frankly about my plans, and didn't know that my sincerity would be richly rewarded.
He remained silent for ten minutes. During which I started to scan the content of my memory beads, looking for anything with the name devil's touch or the death breath.
[Ok! Cool! Let me tell you this… I just got the approval from my paragon… We will aid you massively in this fight with the promise of getting all the three mega gates if we managed to destroy the magic circle]
I looked at his message and didn't know what I should say back. That dude was truly straightforward, more than Fang himself.
[To how extent can you help here?] I asked while feeling the most I could get would be a couple tens of thousands from their armies.
After all, Wryly never showed any big numbers under his command.
[We will bring a million or more] but the answer he gave me made me raise both eyebrows in response. Damn! It was really a massive gap between dealing with archlords and paragons!
In just a wimp, the berserker paragon decided to move one million forces in such ease? Wait… did that also mean that the illusionist archlord was also supported by a paragon as well?
Damn! What did I get myself into exactly? A clash of titans while I was just an ant or what?
[How will you send these forces over?] Of course I couldn't say no to such a big hand.
[Our paragon will start sending them from all the cities around that zone. But he needs first to sign a contract with you]
[If so then he should guarantee to crush the magic circle or else the deal won't be valid] I didn't reject such a big help, but I also insisted over that point.
After all those races had many ways to survive, all but humans. My forces were expanding and getting stronger with each passing day in the apocalypse.
If I let the enemy scheme pass through, then forget about all of this.
Let me tell you in detail what was going to happen if this region would be flooded with water.
First we would lose all the cities that I controlled so far, starting with NEw York and Jersey.
The water would cover up all of New York and Jersey state. It even might extend beyond the two and cover parts of other nearby states.
In addition to that, we will be all isolated! At this stage of the apocalypse, aquatic monsters already appeared. So trying to cross the ocean to go north or get away from here would be so dangerous.
In addition to that, I'd end up losing everything I built here so far. Of course I knew at some point I'd lost this region, but not this early on!
Before that would happen, I had planned to move on everything I gained here and migrate towards the north. But right now things weren't going the way I wanted.
I had to make sure this scheme would be smashed to pieces and wouldn't succeed. My losses would be greater, far greater than other races here.
[He agrees] in less than a couple minutes, Wryly returned with such an answer. [I'll send you a contract now. We will need twelve hours to summon up enough army to kill the enemies]
[I'll make sure the magic circle won't be built during that time. Send the contract over] I sent back and next thing happened was for a contract to appear in front of me with a system notification.
After reading its content, I signed it without any comment.
[We'll be ready in twelve hours] Wryly sent to confirm over our deal, [Make sure that bastard won't activate the death breath]
[Count on me for this]
174 [Bonus chapter] A Counter Plan
I closed the chat and this time I felt that contacting Fang wasn't a necessity anymore.
"Come forth," as I had to check over the titles I saw in the memory beads that might contain the info I wanted, I called forth fifty soulers to my aid.
"Let's go," I first lightened up the chariot to clear all the shadows and limit them in certain places before leading my soulers to sweep it cleanly.
We killed lots of that bastard's shadows for one hour. This time I got more experience in doing this and so it didn't take as much time as before.
Then I bought a higher grade sealing bubble from the market, one that could also seal the eyes of gods themselves off me.
It came with a hefty price, but everything was worth it. After all, I was going to set a counter plan and execute it. Secrecy was a priority here, more than anything else.
Then I started to check the title that got my attention before.
The titles I got interested in didn't have anything related directly to the devil's touch or the death breath.
Basic manuals regarding devastating other race grand weapons and middle and advanced manuals were among the names I selected.
The old man used a good habit while recording the content of the memory beads. He started first by giving a simple narration about what I should expect in the recording before delving deeper in details about it.
"Not that one," after a few minutes I discarded the first manual and selected the second without hesitation.
"Not that one either!"
"It's not here!"
"Nah, not here."
"Wrong choice again!"
"Agh! Where the hell is that damn thing here?!!"
I wasted four hours working in the memory beads until I finally found what I wanted. Unlike my expectations, the devil's touch wasn't mentioned in any recording talking about other races' weapons, tricks, or even magic!
Where I found it was at a recording I found by pure coincidence after I lost all hopes of finding what I wanted. After two hours of listening without a single fruit, I started to randomly select things with weird names.
And luckily for me I found what I wanted inside a weird recording title named: The dark side of the universe.
Frankly and logically speaking, how could I possibly guess it would be there? But when I listened to the content of this recording, I understood why the old man did that to me.
The recording time extended far beyond twenty hours straight and it got another part that also reached the same length. It was expected, as the old man started to cover up weird things inside the universe without explanation.
And one of them was the notorious magic circle known to humans as the devil's touch.
As a start, this infamous magic circle was found in some point across the long age of the universe in some mysterious ruins. It was my first time knowing that the universe was vast and boundless, while the only known parts in it were simply miniscule compared to its massive size.
Then the old man threw another weird knowledge stating obviously that the universe was constantly expanding. He said that the universe was like a beast encroaching over other dead beasts' bodies around it.
So from time to time, weird stuff might come to light after accidentally discovering them inside one of the ruins. These ruins came from the places which got added into the colossal body of our universe.
He also went far enough to claim that the entire apocalypse setting with the system and all that stuff was the attempt from mysterious beings to put things under order.
He also hypothesised that they were trying to train a big and strong army, enough to defend our universe from outside invaders.
Well… He was the old man and he got all the right to go wild about his assumptions. Anyway, I cared solely about the thing I came here to uncover and learn about.
Regarding this, I learnt many secrets that shone bright light over areas I never saw before.
For example, that magic circle was a double edged weapon. It functioned through getting a mysterious connection with the world's nature in any world and stir things up like throwing a bomb in a calm lake water.
But in order for that to happen, the one using it had to establish a link between this world and his.
So in other words, it wasn't a unidirectional attack, but it required two worlds to get connected as if it was starting up a grand fight between the two world's nature!
Of course this was insane! And to do so that crazy illusionist archlord had to consume an astronomical amount of his blessing points and his wealth to open three mega gates here.
The old man also said frankly that the one able to do so in the other races would be at rank vice senator or higher. So my true enemy here asked for help from a person higher than him to make this disaster happen.
The old man also spoke about other mysterious uses that such a magic circle could be used at but required times of peace. For example, setting such a circle in a zone and letting your forces train inside for a fixed set of time would allow them to gain much experience.
It had the ability to summon graded monsters from weak to freakishly strong according to the forces' total power assessment inside the zone. It was just like a dungeon in my eyes, yet it didn't give other dungeon benefits like materials, gears, skills, and other useful and rare stuff.
It didn't even give coins!
In return for that, one had to pay a huge amount of blessing points each passing day or else this magic circle would collapse.
Well… that might be a far fetched goal for me to accomplish, not for now!
Mentioning collapsing, the old man told me about different ways to collapse this magic circle. The simplest method was by taking out the buried magic balls, at least over thirty percent of the needed number.
But this had a counter as the enemy would simply place much more magic balls than what was initially needed. Magic balls were found in many places in the vast universe and held little value and were very easy to buy.
So depending on such a method wasn't guaranteed as the enemy already prepared a counter for it.
The second method was by using brutal force to crush these magic balls. Yet considering their huge number and their unique ability to channel energy, the force used must be physical and not skill based.
That meant one had to use weapons to crush them, and he had to use a large number of forces to do so in a short time.
After all, the enemy wouldn't just stand idle and watch me do this to their precious thing. Besides, the enemy could add more magic balls and replace what I destroyed if they managed to retake a certain area inside the zone.
The third method was by taking down the tower. However the old man left a clear warning that the tower should be cleared before completion.
Trying to attack a completed tower was simply like asking for death!
The tower once complete would act like a world tree. It would grow roots of energy that would pass through the entire zone and get connected with all the magic balls.
So trying to attack the tower meant you were trying to attack a colossal magical behemoth that got itself connected with the boundless world's energy.
It was a lost case if that happened. And that also put a time limit for my actions to crush that devil's touch.
I had only till they completed the building of that tower. Putting that in light, and revising what I sent to that jumper before, it seemed like the task of hindering the building of the tower would come top priority now over claiming the magic balls.
The tower was built from a rare kind of material that was sold at a high price in various markets. Considering the immense size of the tower, it needed a huge amount of blocks to be built.
"That's where we should strike first," knowing how painful this strike would be, I instantly sent a message to the jumper.
[They already started building it] he sent back such bad news, before adding the good ones later on, [But from the look of it, they are working super slow at building it]
[How?] I never saw a real tower getting built or even read a detailed description about the process. The old man had a section dedicated to this in the second part of his recording, but I had no time or mind to venture through all that stuff for now.
[They are using strange material that needed to be melted down and smethied before usage]
[I see… So can you make them slower then? And how much time they'll take in your opinion to fully build it?]
[These blocks used in building are tightly secured] he sent a bad news before adding the good ones afterwards, [But I have a brilliant idea]
[Why won't you just say the good news first for a change?] I rolled up my eyes. That dude was like a bad news lover or something!
[Wait until you hear my idea]
[Say it then and stop boasting!]
[They are building lots of ovens to melt down that glueing material… Why not abandon the first plan and aim to cause big explosions at these ovens?]
[Preventing them from processing this material… Nice! But aren't these ovens well secured as well?]
I liked such an idea. However if I was in the place of the enemy, why wouldn't I tightly secure these ovens as well?
[They are building lots of ovens, they can't protect them all… Besides…] he paused and I couldn't help but clench my fists at his shamelessness.
That bastard never let a moment without trying to boast and show his superiority over me! Did he forget he was bound by a contract to me? Did he forget I was his boss or what?
[What? Did you choke while speaking or something?]
[In your dreams!]
[Then speak and tell me what you have in mind in one go!]
If he was in front of me… Well… you just wait! I'd step into the world of cultivation once I got the chance and wouldn't let you off easier afterwards with such an attitude of yours!
What an annoying guy he was!
[I have my own grenades of death, remember?]
My eyes shone brightly when I read his answer. Damn! That dude really had his own reserve of those grenades!
[Just imagine this… a large group of ovens packed together and a few grenades of deaths fall all over the place… even the ones who wouldn't get targeted would be crushed and damaged by the massive explosions that will follow… brilliant, ain't I?]
[Silly!] I sent back while feeling much annoyed by this dude's unique ability. He could turn anything good into something ugly with a few words of his.
[It's a brilliant idea… I know that and don't need you to tell me that]
[Humph! Alright go and start doing that]
[Not right away. I need to let them complete their building and let their guards down first. Then I'll smash everything they built and flatten these ovens with ground]
[Don't forget to use the chaos and go for the tower] I recalled the best way to destroy the incomplete tower, [The tower is weak towards explosions. So spare few grenades for it]
[Are you sure? That thing looks really durable to me]
[I know what I'm talking about. Just spare grenades enough to give it a good blast]
[Got it!]
I closed the chat and sucked in a deep breath of refreshing air.
175 A Bunch Of Good And Bad News
With that plan I just discussed with the jumper, I knew that things would turn out for the best for me.
From one side, I got Wryly preparing a massive force for the attack. And from another side, the jumper would do his job and delay the building process of that tower.
So the long time of twelve hours that Wryly asked for wasn't that hard to secure anymore.
"Should I take a nap or what?" I haven't slept for a long time already. But before resting, I sent a brief message with instructions to all my team members here.
They had to be ready for the big upcoming war. In return for my messages, they asked for distributing the big army of humans that exceeded thirty hundred thousand fighters.
[You'll have to group yourselves first. I'll have Karoline with me in one group, and others shall decide for themselves]
[What about that crazy dude?] Leo sent back.
[That dude already has his own forces here. So avoid selecting them and just divide up the rest]
[But he has almost one third of the entire force!! That can't be just!] Angelica fired her words at me and I could only helplessly smile when I read them.
[He was the first to ask for this. You can't punish him for being too smart! Blame yourselves before anyone else. Also be grateful I also didn't ask for one third of the entire forces as well]
[Boss you are a generous man all the time. Of course you won't ask for something like that] The spearhead was trying to make me not ask for this.
Of course I didn't plan on taking such a large number. After all they all worked under me and I needed strong elites with many war leading abilities and experience and not just mere large numbers of fighters.
Besides I found my sole strength only in my own private army. I never cared about bringing forces with me. Just look at the illusionists I got before! They were strangled far back in the north while I wouldn't be able to bring them all the way here.
As for my own share of forces, I planned to give them to my Karoline. I just needed to make sure she would stay safe and stop worrying about her.
Sorting out this matter left me with nothing else but to eat, drink, and then sleep. For a moment there I started to feel the meat taste getting worse each time I ate it.
I needed more food resources, fresh vegetables and even fruits. Back in my days vegetables were commonly found in any market, but fruits were considered expensive goods.
But this was the early stages of the apocalypse where there was nothing green left at all. I sighed while resigning to my fate, deciding to build big green fields back at the lands I'd conquer and claim as my own kingdom.
Despite cleansing my chariot off that bastard's shadows, I didn't sleep without leaving my soulers to protect me. I wasn't going to risk dying while sleeping, a very humiliating way to die.
I took a nap for almost five hours before waking up after hearing a loud bang around me.
I jolted awake, jumped over my bed and summoned my two swords almost instantly to only see Isabella standing on the door with Karoline and others while having a strange look over their faces.
"What's wrong?" I tried to see over their shoulders but I couldn't see any kind of threat here.
*Bang!* *Bang!* "A wake up call!" Isabella hit the opened door with her closed fist two times while shouting with a teasing smile over her face.
"Damn girl! What did I do to ever have that?" I finally got what was going on here as they were only waking me up. Waking me up in such a way? Damn! That was brutal!
"That crazy dude is spamming us with his annoying messages so yes… You deserve this!" Angelica's angry voice came from outside but she seemed to stay leaning on the wall or something.
"Who? The jumper?" I asked before noticing a strange large number of messages coming from three people.
"Just check your messages and you'll know," Isabella's tired voice came as she seemed to send a message to that jumper. "At last he can stop nagging me!"
I blinked twice before throwing all this behind me. That jumper seemed to do a great job in stirring the nest of hornets over my head.
That bastard! Even while trying to get a nap in such a rare moment of peace, he made sure to wipe that away with a simple move of his.
I was so enraged until I opened the messages and saw what he sent.
[Alert! Alert!]
[Please respond fast!]
[There is a development here! The three gates are merging! I repeat… The three gates are merging!]
[What the f*ck is wrong with you? Why aren't you answering back?]
[Are you dead? Please tell me so I can dance around fire for celebration]
[Dude… Playing dead won't help you! I can simply jump to another apocalypse and kick your ass!]
[Just respond! There is a major thing happening here!]
[Dammit! I'll send for someone to find you then! Screw you lousy leader!]
[Sleeping?!!! You dare to sleep when things are crumbling on my head? F*ck you!]
[Next time you'll do the reckon mission, not me!]
[I won't put my life under your mercy again! f*ck!]
I scrolled over a long list of insults coming from that angry jumper. Ignoring that usual flaming attitude of his that might end up exploding or something, I started to think about the valuable info he sent over.
"Three mega gates are merging into one? Strange…" I was feeling that something dangerous was coming this time.
"What's happening up there for him to whine like a girl like this?" Angelica's mean comment came with a shout of anger. That dude seemed to bother him a lot just like what he did with me.
Before I could say anything to them, I ran through the messages sent by the other two. Unlike the jumper, each one sent fewer messages that held pieces of good news, bad news, and an explanation as well.
[I got news about that dragon archlord] Fang sent this message first in the middle of the ton of angry messages from the jumper. Just seeing the name of that lethal enemy I waited for, I couldn't help but have my heart clench for a second before finally relaxing.
[He got hit fiercely by the middle continent enemy]
[That human enemy came all the way to Kentucky state, kicking that dragon ass hard enough to make him flee to the west for now]
[He is now regrouping at Wisconsin, with fewer troops remaining at our side]
Once I read all these messages I couldn't help but heave a sigh of relief. That girl was really hitting on the iron when it was still hot!
She seemed to have a grudge against that dragon dude, or perhaps she just wanted to wipe him out or weaken his strength so he wouldn't pose any threat to her in the future.
Yet thinking about that from a different angle… Didn't that also mean she led a huge and strong human army force? Also didn't this also mean she was closer to me?
I had to find a way and meet up with her. I knew before even meeting such a person that she wouldn't agree to become my minion.
But in the worst case scenario she would end up being my ally. We both were humans after all, right?
If she maintained her grasp over Kentucky, then I could meet her up at Ohio. I just didn't get any contact with her or an eye to see where she was going next.
If I was her, then I'd either hunt down that dragon archlord until I kill him or kick him entirely out of the US map. But another viable option here would be by abandoning such useless and slightly dangerous chase and go for that archlord army.
After all, a general would do nothing if he had no army to command! From the messages I got from Fang, I could tell that this hit came pretty much unexpected by that dragon dude.
So he must have left in a hurry without having time to reorganise his troops. Putting in mind that he was primarily planning to take over the east side here, he must have scattered a good deal of his forces in nearby states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, plus the two Virginia states.
If I was her, I'd go first to cut all the arms and legs of that dragon, chopping his two wings first to ground him.
A grounded dragon was as good as a dead dragon after all.
But this depended entirely on her estimates. Anyway I got her close by and hopefully I'd use the help of Wryly to get in contact with her sooner than later.
As for Wryly, he sent me messages that also spoke about the same thing. He told me his paragon was delighted about the bravery of that girl, making him desire her even more.
I didn't comment on that. After all that girl had all the right to accept or deny such a thing. As for the rest of his messages, they contained an explanation and bits of bad news as well.
[I got a tip from my paragon… The illusionist archlord made a deal with the defeated dragon archlord]
[The two poured a lot of blessing points into that death breath, turning it into a more terrifying weapon called apocalypse gate]
[It's a grand gate that needed the merge of an odd number of gates, least three, better seven. This gate will be hovering just over the place of that central tower, and it will add a protection layer around it like it's a shield or something]
[That gate won't only call forth one single disaster, and the area covered with it will be multiplied as well]
I looked at these detailed messages while thinking about this problem.
[Does that mean the tower will be protected and can't be destroyed?] This is the glaring issue right now. I built my entire counter plan over this and even lowered my guard and went to sleep because of it.
If the jumper's grenades of death couldn't deal enough damage to destroy the tower, then the entire plan would be jeopardised!
[The Supreme gate will shield it from any damage] he sent me the worst news ever, confirming my worst thoughts. [Without taking it down, we won't be able to touch that tower or even get near it!]
I looked at the jumper's messages again. That dude had all the right to panic! Did he try to hit that tower and failed or what?
I just prayed he didn't! If he did, he would instantly alarm the entire enemy and let us lose our only chance of doing something!
[Please tell me you didn't hit that tower yet!] I instantly sent this over while sending another message to Wryly.
[How can we destroy that gate then?]
[Only natural disasters can do the trick] he sent back while the jumper also sent at the same time.
[Of course not! I'm not that crazy to go blindfolded towards that thing without knowing what's going on!]
[Also don't ever sleep while I'm on a mission like this! Or else I swear I'd come and kill you myself!]
[Dude, you are bound by a contract preventing you from doing so] I rolled up my eyes while ignoring the long list of insults he sent in return.
[Do you want to create another death breath weapon here to antagonise theirs?] I asked Wryly while feeling much doubt about such a plan.
It wasn't a plan! It was simply setting one's house on fire just to burn the thieves inside!
[We can't do that even if we wanted to… Such a thing requires a lot of preparation beforehand. We can't do it]
[Then what?]
[We can only lead our armies straight there and stop them from completing that tower… That's the only move we currently have]
I paused for a second. [Did you get all of your forces here yet?]
[Not even close to half of it! But what else can we do? Any hour passing means more of that tower getting built. We can't allow that to happen!]
I looked at his answer and without hesitation sent to the jumper:
[Can you still get to these ovens?]
[Sure, but that tower has a strange coat now shielding it from me]
[No problem… I want you to work fast and set plans to target most of the ovens there. Also if possible, try to destroy as much resources they have as possible]
[Will that be enough?!]
[It should be enough] I sent over to him, [Let's pray it will]
176 Fine Gold Gears
After I closed the chat with the jumper, I suddenly realised something.
"F*ck! Wasn't that the initial plan from the start?" I ended up returning to the plan I sat on before going to sleep. What the hell happened just now?
That damn jumper… He had a strange ability to make me get on my nerves without any reason at all!
"By the way… How did you get in here?" Before I opened the chat with Wryly, I looked at the team who were peeking curious gazes at me.
"We came thanks to Alex," Isabella said while turning to the all shy looking Alex. and she nodded.
"She used her ability to jump to your chariot," Angelica explained, "my girl is awesome, right?"
I understand now how that girl came to be here, but what about others?
"And you?"
"I threw a long rope to them to climb here," Alex explained in her low tone.
"Did you kill your shadows before doing that?" I stood up before throwing my swords at their shadows.
And in the next moments, their shadows roared with annoying screams, telling me that my plans had already leaked.
[Act fast] I didn't wait to listen to their excuses and apologies as I instantly sent a message to the jumper, [That bastard knows about you and our plan now. Destroy those ovens and retreat to a secure place and watch from far]
[Who was so careless to let that bastard know all that? You?!]
[Of course not! Anyway just act and let's speak about this for later]
[I'll act now]
"Sorry… We just came in a hurry without checking our shadows," Karoline spoke for the rest of the team as she was the closest one to me.
For a second there I felt total rage upon such carelessness. But to be honest, I also shared part of this sin. I should have first scanned their shadows before doing anything else.
But come on… I was awakened in such an inhuman way and got to hear such bad news.
"You will give up half of your forces in the upcoming fight," I said in a decisive tone. Guilty with intention or out of carelessness wasn't the problem here.
I had to teach them that any mistake they'd make would be met with a proper punishment. In fact if I wasn't in dire need for their help in the upcoming battle, I would have rather stripped them away from all of their forces.
"But boss…" the spearhead tried to speak up but a single gaze of mine silenced him and killed any intention to argue with me inside everyone.
"Get ready to move out," I said, "we'll head to that bastard and start the fight."
"O… Ok," everyone said in down spirit before looking at me.
"What?"
"Won't you lower down the chariot for us to descend?" Karoline spoke again as the others feared to open their mouths.
"I'd prefer you would climb down yourselves the way you came here through…" I paused momentarily before waving my hand, "go, I'll lower it now for you to descend."
"Ahem…" Angelica cleared her throat before adding, "what about the extra forces? Where will we leave them?"
"Leave?" I blinked twice before snorting back, "they'll be added to my own army. We won't leave anyone behind. Go, you have less than half an hour to get ready."
I watched them retreating back while I controlled the chariot to descend on the ground. After taking a deep breath to calm down my thoughts, I opened the chat with Wryly and sent a message to him.
[We'll hit that army in three hours. Make sure you get there with whatever you got]
[Won't that be a little late?]
[Don't worry, I got things under control here]
[I believe in you bro, don't disappoint me then] he sent this and I closed the chat with him. That dude was a real good Berserker.
[Where are you now?] As I closed the chat with Wryly, I sent it to Fang.
[I'm gathering up my forces to come to you]
[If you set your eyes over the grand prize then I have to give you bad news]
[What? Don't tell me that Berserker got it! He has no power or authority to rival mine!]
[His paragon did, and compared to that dude you are the one without power nor authority] I laughed shortly before sending again to him, [This fight will have a great impact and lots of loot and benefits. If you want to come in you are welcomed, if not then there's no hard feelings here]
He seemed to be slightly overwhelmed by the mention of that paragon. For five minutes he kept silent before sending:
[I got the agreement of my paragon, he will support me to claim this epic grade gate]
[Sorry bro, I already signed a contract with that paragon] I had a feeling he would do this move. But as he was faster to claim the first mega gate, he was slower here and lost this epic grade gate.
[This is unfair!]
[If you want to blame someone then blame yourself for not acting fast. Besides who said other gates won't appear?]
[This region is turning to be more peaceful that you might think]
I knew what he was referring to. By the sudden interference of that human girl hero, the dragon archlord was forced to retreat away.
This region was leaning towards total control under our allied forces. [Who said I'd stop here and won't expand beyond?]
[Do you plan to invade other regions?] He seemed a bit surprised by this. What? Wasn't that the right course of action or what?
Pressing when I held the advantage, that was a simple logic dude!
[I won't stop at this area, so it's better to stick around for longer] I sent over before adding a hidden threat to him, [Anyway I got that paragon who seems to be excited about cooperating with me. I don't hold any preferences here, so first come first served]
[Alright…] he paused for a few minutes before sending again, [I'll place my bids over you. Let's try and conquer more regions together]
I smiled in content when I read his response. In fact I held low hope in his agreement over this. After all, expanding over other regions would put him not only against other races' archlords but also against his own race's archlords in these regions.
Not to mention expanding the area would also put us against much higher ranked people like Senators or even Paragons.
But when I thought about it for a minute, I got what just happened.
It seemed Fang's paragon had already selected him to be the flag bearer of the Selvator race in this continent.
After all he told me before that his paragons already ditched this part of the world.
So the paragon he was following was such an ambitious dude. He didn't refuse a free meal like this.
Alright… as things got sorted out in such a way, all I had to do now was to make sure that the illusionist archlord wouldn't escape.
If he did, I'd be screwed! Such a hard to counter fellow was simply a headache.
"I should check the market then," knowing that the highest advantage of that bastard was his stealthiness, I had to look for something to counter that.
Even his unique ability to form shadows wasn't that threatening at this point. It wouldn't get him away from my sword, yet his stealthiness would.
So as I had enough time here, I started to scan the market for anything that could help. This time I saw many things sold in the market rather than the earlier phase of the apocalypse.
"There are many fine gold grade gears here…" I noticed the presence of such strong gears in the market in abundance.
Before the common grade there was only silver at the past quest. Looking at the astronomical amount of coins that I got, I started to consider something else.
"I should equip my entire forces in such strong gears," as I decided, I started a shopping spree that I never planned before.
I knew the number of my forces was slightly over three hundred thousand fighters. But I lacked any details about their preferences.
How many melee? Thanks? Mages and archers? Were there any assassins here?
As I wanted to know, I sent a message to Karoline. As expected she knew more information about the troops here.
[We have almost half of them as melee…] She started to tell me the details about the troops and I nodded in satisfaction.
Among all the team I gathered, Karoline came with such an organised mind. Even compared to the jumper in that regard, she would exceed him by leaps and bounds.
As she narrated in detail what I needed to know, I started to buy almost all the gears that suited my fighters.
Doing this boring thing made me consider something else. "I need to start an organisation that will handle the information of everyone following me…"
It wasn't only limited to knowing their fighting preferences. I needed to record their stats, attributes, classes, skills, and gods blessing them. Such info might seem easy while considering a few thousand, but right now I have a few hundred thousand.
And that number had a great chance to multiply soon, especially after going north.
Knowing such info would help me later on to determine the best course of action for them. It was common to find humans using their stats wrongly while picking up their fighting roles.
Not to mention I planned to select those with special attributes and start pushing them down the road of cultivation with me.
After all without cultivation, humans wouldn't survive this sh*t in the later stages.
Of course the first name that popped in my mind to lead such an organisation was Karoline. But alone she wouldn't be able to do miracles.
Also I needed to find something that would help her in her job. I might need the help of the Bringold impact in this matter.
Purchasing things directly from the market looked a dull thing to do, but it went smoother than I expected. In less than half an hour I already bought enough to equip almost all of my forces.
Of course I paid roughly four fifths of my entire wealth, but coins started to lose their importance to me at this point.
How ironic that was! In the past I was ready to do anything to just acquire one million coins and live like a rich man.
And now I was simply throwing away billions without batting an eye!
Was that what a tycoon would be? Or was that how invincible prodigies live their lives?
I shrugged while not feeling like I worked that hard to acquire these coins. For a moment there I also questioned myself… If getting coins was this easy for me, why couldn't others do this before in my past life?
I didn't know the answer, but something told me that if I looked inside the wealth of my team, I wouldn't see anyone like me except for that jumper.
"We are ready."
After I finished buying all these and before I could look for anything that would counter that stealth ability of the illusionist race, my team climbed up as Angelica said in a loud tone.
"Good… You have a task to do for now," I said before taking the rope on the edge of the chariot and simply jumped down below. "Come down here," I shouted while noticing the strange looks over their faces.
"Aren't we going to head out right now?" Sara asked in doubt as everyone got down below.
"Are they coming for us?" the spearhead asked and I totally ignored their questions.
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*
After all, showing them in action was the perfect explanation for their puzzlement.
177 The Heart Crusher Daggers
I took out hills of gears. I made sure to gather up those belonging to the same class together. Shields were together. Weapons were stacked together… and so on.
"Let them change their gears," I said before adding while noticing the expression of shock over their faces, "as for the old gears, they can simply sell them in the market. Warn them that with each passing quest, the value of their gears will diminish accordingly."
"This…" Leo seemed the most shocked one here. He simply dived in, grabbed one big broadsword that seemed rather deadly. It emitted strange and ominous purple air, making anyone seeing it feel dreadful.
That was the difference between gold grade gears and those lower to them. These gears were strong and sturdy enough to suit anyone for a long time inside the apocalypse.
Fine grade was a milestone in the world of equipment.
"Just give these to them," I waved my hand, "I know you got great things from the chariot armoury before. But if you want to add or replace anything, feel free to do that."
"Thanks boss," they all said in unison and strangely they started to select a few things from these massive piles.
What I noticed was that most if not all of them went first towards the boots and gloves section. It seemed my armoury lacked such things there.
"I also need to change my gears," seeing this I started to look at my old gears. They weren't bad before. But compared to higher grade gears like fine or even dark gold in the market, they greatly paled in comparison.
"That glaive…" I recalled that glaive I got when I first summoned my chariot. I had now two hundred stat points in each of my stats. Yet when I took it out again, I couldn't even hold it with both arms, letting it fall heavily on the ground before recalling it fast.
"Sigh… It seems I have to wait until delving into the cultivation world," I bitterly shook my head before opening the market interface again and started to look for suitable gears for myself.
The market was filled with many fine gold grade gears, but there were also few dark gold grade gears. Above that there was nothing even when I scanned the auctions going on.
"Alright… I have to train myself over glaives before using that berserk one," I said to myself while limiting my search for dark gold grade glaives.
"Only two?!! Weird!" Were glaives uncommon or what?
The first glaive didn't seem that nice. It had the advantage of heavy weight, giving it a bonus destruction over shields. It added almost double the damage of the second glaive but I didn't like that idea.
"Being super heavy means I'll struggle to move it. Compared to that, I can use that light one to cause triple attacks at least…"
Of course I had to pause there as there was nothing to confirm except by trying both and seeing the difference.
The second glaive was lighter but it had two advantages; crit rate higher than the other one plus a bonus sharpness and armour penetration.
One had the bonus of extra weight to crush down shields and armours, giving more damage using crushing force over the enemy. The other one had the advantage of sharpness, higher crit rate, depending entirely over penetrating enemies, shields, and armours.
Well the two had their own advantages. I wasn't stingy or bitter to not buy them both. After all, in some situations I might need the crushing force and in other situations I might need the other one's advantages.
Glaives were such weapons that couldn't be dealt single handed. Of course as I grew stronger and after unlocking my cultivation, my personal strength would summit and be enough to carry any of these two single handed.
But would I hold the two glaives together? Damn! That looked awesome in my mind but I had to be realistic here…
Just the long range of each one would hinder each other so it would end up making me lose more than I'd gain.
The price of the first one was slightly over five million coins and the second was strangely higher by one million coins.
These prices seemed overinflated, but I didn't bat an eye to buy them. One had to know that the standard price for a fine gold gear was worth thousands. The good weapons there would only cost roughly a few tens of thousands, rarely exceeding a hundred thousand mark.
But that might concern anyone but me. After I got the two glaives, I didn't hurry to test them as I went towards a spree of purchases.
A dark gold helmet that would give me an additional bonus to my hawkeye skill… A dark gold helmet that would turn me invisible for ten minutes straight before being on cooldown for five minutes… A dark gold full body armour that had a faint red yellow layer that would absorb the first five weak attacks or stop one deadly attack directly before crashing down.
It would take roughly one to two minutes for that layer to be reignited into life again depending on the strength of the attacks it shielded.
Next item was a dark gold glove with a useful ability to help in reducing the weight of the weapon I held. Then came the dark gold boots that added astonishingly triple my current speed for two minutes and one minute cooldown.
Yet even with the cooldown, the speed would increase by fifty percent. It was a good item that I greatly loved.
After buying all these, I started to replace and equip myself with the new gears. A gust of strength, health, speed, and confidence surged inside of me after wielding them all.
"Time to test the glaives," I took out the first heavyweight glaive to test it. From my first experience with that colossally heavy glaive, I lacked much confidence in holding that new one easily.
"It's… not that bad," but unlike my worries, I managed to hold it straight and fine with two hands. When I tried holding it with one hand, I felt like my entire body tilted to one side under its heavy weight.
"Ok, two hands then," I stabilised myself as this shift of weight came all of sudden. Despite being able to stand and even walk and run without much affection thanks to my boots and gloves.
But to use it in a fight using one hand was literally impossible. I recalled it back and took out the second one.
Just by holding it for a brief second there I knew how big the difference in weight between the two was. This one felt like a feather compared to that behemoth I held first.
Waving it felt like a natural move. It was fast but when I held it with both hands… Things looked quite different!
*Swish!* *Swish!* *Swish!*
I waved it twice and surprisingly it flashed fast, creating a series of afterimages. Wow! I now knew how this little baby of me would penetrate through shields and armours.
"Alright," as I got what I needed for myself, I planted the light glaive into the ground using its dull end and leant over its shaft while examining the market.
This time I had to find an item or a way to stop my enemy from fleeing.
I found many things to set a trap to imprison my enemy. Yet the problem still remained in my lack of ability to see through his stealth.
Without knowing where he was, how could I trap or even attack him?
So bypassing these items with no use, I kept looking for anything to blow the cover of any hidden enemy.
After a few minutes, I found almost twenty items and gears that could be used to uncover any stealthiness. The only problem they had was their very limited area of effect.
The widest area of effect of any of them didn't even exceed one hundred metres! That was never helping at all!
As I failed to find what I needed here, I turned to the auctions and tried to find my thing there. But even after half an hour of meticulously going through all the items that could expose any hidden person, I failed to find a suitable one.
"All have short limits…" I closed my market interface while landing a punch over my glaive's shaft out of frustration. The punch strangely pushed the glaive away from me for a few metres before it vanished as if it got teleported away.
"Damn! Did I buy something with a big ego or what?!!" I blinked twice before running towards the place it vanished at. Yet I failed to find it.
*Zing!* *Zing!* Zing!*
Just as I felt lost, I heard a strange buzzing sound coming from a certain direction. For a moment there I didn't know what was happening but in a flash I realised what was going on.
It seemed like in the middle of the world, a red beacon was flashing intermittently, releasing that buzzing sound that seemed to not be heard by anyone but me.
"Come!" I pointed my hand towards it and feigned a holding grasp move. For a second nothing happened but before I could pull my hand back, I saw a bright flash coming towards my direction before that glaive landed in my hand.
"So I can throw and call you back? Good boy!" I even patted on it, in some sort of apology.
But just as I did that, a thing flashed in my mind. I moved my gaze between the glaive in my hand and the place it was thrown at.
"So… I can do it this way…" I muttered before hurriedly opening the market interface again and looked for a totally different thing.
I scanned for anything that could locate someone. Of course that might seem absurd, as how would I locate someone I couldn't see?
But I was looking for something that could locate a person using his aura. I found an interesting pair of daggers that had such amazing ability.
[Devil daggers: Dark gold grade pair of daggers. It gives a bonus penetration and sharpness when facing a shield or an armour. Has the slashing and tracking ability]
[Slashing and tracking ability: if you hit someone enough to make him wounded or severely injured, then the daggers will lock on his aura. Even if he teleported miles away, one dagger will stay embedded hidden inside his body while the other will remain in your hand. Between the two, a link that can only be seen by you will appear and you can follow it for as long as it takes to reach him.
Warning: Storing away the dagger in your hand will force the other to travel back, cut that link, and you'll end up only causing slight damage by the second dagger but not enough to kill the target]
This was it! My eyes shone while I paid the five million coin price of that pair of daggers. I held the two in my hands and examined them.
They weren't identical, with one short and one longer than the other. The short one was slimmer than the longer one, but their blades were curved identically to each other.
Putting them against each other would create a shape of a heart as their tips were much curved acutely to the inside.
"The heart… I like that!" I muttered before throwing the two in the air one by one as if I was playing with them, "you can take the shape of a loving heart and have the ability to take away the heart of a loving person… I'll call you The Heart Crusher daggers from now on."
I found it a little funny and ironic. Yet this wasn't over, it was just the first piece.
"I need another piece… Let's see…" I started to search again about the items that could locate someone. As I could find that bastard's location even without seeing through his stealth, it was enough to lock him up until I reached him.
As for how I'd do that? Easy peasy… I'd simply use the dagger to kill one shadow on me and then one dagger would travel towards that bastard's location and expose him for me.
But I needed something that could trap him from far away, without needing me to be close to him. As I hardly believed he would be near the place of that tower at all.
178 An Early War
When I first started my search I was having an idea in my mind about what I wanted. This item would be a far ranged trap that could travel long distances until it reached the target.
But when I looked, I couldn't find anything like that at all. Every single trap in the market was something that could only be used a limited distance away.
The one with the farthest distance was a trap that looked like a ball. It held inside a big net made out of special material that could trap anyone and pin him to his place.
I could throw off this ball but the reach it could get was limited to my power of throwing. Which was, obviously, low range compared to my target location.
Yet I didn't lose hope and started to look for things that could trap others while having a long range. At some point I was this close to giving up until I found something interesting.
[Grenades of illusion: Dark gold grade item. Can be used by any throwing weapon. Once launched, it can trap anyone inside an illusion for an hour. Can be linked to any weapon as long as it's categorised as a throwing weapon]
I looked at this description and two things appeared in my mind; my newly acquired daggers and the special cannon-like weapons I got from the dragon I killed before.
Up till now, I never found a way to use such a weapon. But now after seeing this I couldn't help but recall it in my mind, especially when the image of these grenades came just like the ammunition that dragon dude used before.
"Buy… Buy it in batches," as I found it, I started to look for similar items. As expected, I found lots of grenades just like this one. I bought them all in large quantities while thinking about the weapons I left to dust for a long time inside my inventory.
The first thought I got was to install these into my chariot. What my chariot lacked the most was offensive weapons that could cause great damage in AOE fashion.
These weapons could do that! So why shouldn't I use them like that?
But looking inside my inventory I only found thirty of these weapons, plus that gigantic one I got from that dragon dude.
In my opinion that big weapon was the only one suited to be used in my chariot. Others weren't that bad, but only thirty could only weaponise one floor only.
I then turned my attention to the market. Yet as expected, I found nothing there.
[Do you have any weapon that looked like machine guns and looked big?] As I found nothing in the entire market interfaces I had, I turned my attention towards the Bringold impact.
[Do you have something in mind? Or a weapon I can take as a sample?] That nymph was sent back and I didn't know what to do.
[I have a weapon here, but I don't know how to share its details with you]
[Just wait…]
[Warning: Lady green nymph wants to initiate a synchronisation with you]
[This synchronisation will allow you to share many things with Lady green nymph]
[Both of you can now share details about goods without the need to purchase them beforehand]
[Do you agree?]
I didn't find anything wrong with accepting such an offer. Once agreed, I felt like a connection was established between me and something far, far away from this world.
[Now you can simply select the item you need to share with me and select share to my name] she sent it to me and I did as she said. She didn't answer for few minutes so I had to ask:
[Did it work?]
[I'm just looking for similar weapons] she sent, [After all this one is specially made from another forging impact]
This wasn't the first time to hear about such an impact. This chariot was also made by another forging impact.
[So you don't have it now?]
[Inside the impact? I doubt that… But give me more time and I can bring as many as you wanted]
[How much time are we speaking about here?] I frowned. In the upcoming war I needed such a weapon.
[Couple of days at least] she gave me the bad news. But what could I do?
[Alright] I sent to her, [But once you found similar or even stronger weapons, just tell me about it at once]
[Sure] she sent before adding, [Will you use the same way to pay?]
[Bones are still precious, aren't they?] I smiled as I knew how greedy she was to get my bones.
[Sure, but such weapons are also precious]
[Nothing can be compared to my bones my dear] I laughed while waiting for her answer.
[Let me see how much it will cost before returning to you] I closed the chat and then turned my attention to the grenades I just bought.
Each grenade was like a big diamond, in the size of a closed fist. They were branded together in a leather-like belt.
"So this is how I can use it," I found a small button under each grenade's socket. Clicking it released that grenade into my hand. Just holding it made me feel a little cold while it kept shining and dimming like it got a life within.
I took out my daggers first and tried to stick it to one of them. I chose the short dagger and just placed the grenade over it.
*Sizzle!* in a flash of light the grenade just vanished and hid itself within the dagger. I examined it closely yet found no change at all.
If not for me to place the grenade on the dagger, I'd doubt it even existed there.
*Phew!* just to make sure it worked, I threw the dagger far away. It flew for hundreds of metres before it got inserted in the ground firmly with a big explosion.
"That's cool!" The grenade worked the moment the dagger hit the ground. That meant it would be instantly activated once the dagger travelled to that illusionist.
Then I found a small issue when I thought deeply about this while putting the different weapons on the surface of my chariot. I placed the big cannon-like weapon just in the centre, next to my big ballista.
With it I now had two big weapons of destruction alongside thirty smaller ones.
The issue I found was that the grenade would be activated once it hit the shadow of that bastard.
But after experimenting with it a few times, I got an easy solution there. I simply stacked lots of grenades into the dagger, and they simply got activated one at a time.
So even if that illusionist had some sort of self defence mechanism against such an attack, he would still end up being trapped no matter what.
"All settled," I looked in satisfaction towards my armoury who was now filled to the brim with lots of different types of grenades.
Aside from the illusion grenades, I bought lots of explosive, fiery, icy, and even elemental grenades with darkness and light. Each grenade's description gave me a favourable impression about them.
The next battle would be a big stage for my grenades and deadly weapons to shine.
[Are you ready?] I sent it to all my teammates as more than one hour passed already.
[We are waiting for you] Isabella sent back.
[Where do you want your army boss?] The spearhead asked.
[Just place it in the middle between your forces] I sent before adding, [The one to lead it will be Karoline]
[Can we help her as well?] Angelica asked but I firmly refused such a proposal. If they were allowed to do so, then there was no point in punishing them in the first place.
"Let's go," I shouted in a thunderous voice while leading the grand army out of the city.
The army looked majestic from my high up position. Yet the sad thing about it was the fact we still were overwhelmed in numbers.
The enemy got ten folds this army of mine. But this was where my allies would step in.
[I'm heading towards the enemy now] I sent to Wryly and Fang, [Will take roughly two to three hours to arrive there]
[I'm gathering up my forces and will be there in three hours at max] Fang sent this brief message but Wryly asked about the updates about the tower building process.
[I've already destroyed the ovens] the jumper replied once I sent him a message. That dude kept all silent after our last talk.
[Everything is alright?]
[I believe they are using a way to locate me using messages… Sh*t! They seem to have found my location!]
[Don't message me again until you arrive]
I looked at his message in a mischievous way. For a moment there I was tempted to keep bugging him with messages, giving him a hell of a time until my arrival.
But I didn't do that. Despite him being too annoying, he was still considered my strongest and most reliable member.
[Ok, I'll come in three hours]
[Stop messaging me!]
Just reading this message overtook my earlier decision. [Or what?]
[I swear if you didn't stop doing that, I'd kill you!]
[Coward!]
[Loser!]
[Chicken!]
[Screw you!]
I sent him a laughing emoji before closing up the chat with him. That was enough teasing for now. "Keep moving and try to save up your stamina," I shouted towards my large army while giving them this vital instruction.
If we went there with our stamina depleted, it was like handing our necks to them on a golden plate! [Everything is fine up there, how long will it take for you to arrive?] I sent to Wryly who took few minutes before replying:
[Three hours]
[At least!]
I looked at his message and could only sigh. From the look of it, my army would be the first to arrive there.
I knew that delaying wouldn't do me any good. The angels were already over my shoulders spying for that damn illusionist.
So they would give him updates about the size and location of my army all the time.
Even if I delayed my army marching speed, they would warn him from the other two coming as well from two different directions.
If I was him, I'd simply lead a large part of the army to meet me ahead. Having a battle with such disadvantages at numbers away from the tower would put my army under danger without gains.
We had to pick up the pace and arrive there as early as possible. After all, mobilising the enemy army would take at least an hour to happen.
By then we would meet them just at the outskirts of the city.
Yet after marching for almost an hour, a change occurred at the frontline.
[We saw an enemy approaching!] I first saw a large cloud of dust appearing at the horizon. It was so big and stretched out that it took over the entire horizon even from my high up place.
[Keep yourselves ready for a fight while I'll see who is coming at us] I sent back to Isabella who seemed to take the role of scouting the front for the army.
As I flew over with my chariot, I was surprised to see endless numbers of monsters roaring and galloping earth towards my army. They came in such great momentum and with ferocity enough to tell me they weren't just normal monsters at all!
Yet their numbers were so great to be special monsters… So what was happening right here? Were such advanced monsters common right now?
The first explanation I got was one person; the illusionist paragon!
For sure that death breath weapon wasn't something a simple archlord could afford. Putting that paragon into the picture would solve this mystery.
[Be ready, a colossal number of advanced monsters are coming this way] I sent back to all of my team members.
[Like the ones we fought before?] Sara asked and I had to give them the bad news in pure honesty.
[Not even close! They are much fiercer and far more dangerous than those!]
179 A Brilliant Plan
[Like that monster we fought when we first met?] Angelica asked as she referred to the hybrid monster I killed before.
[Yeah, think of them as this brutal one] I found this comparison to be the closest one to the situation here.
"Come forth!" I instantly called all my scattered warriors back and then resummoned them here. Even if they brought such a deadly army of monsters to kill or delay us, they didn't bring any aerial monsters at all.
"Kill them," I pointed towards the ground that was now covered with a carpet of running monsters, "use all of your AOE attacks and try to create wide gaps in their ranks."
I was speaking to my fallen gods, drags, archers, and magicians. Among all my forces, they were the ones able to do that.
"Take control of these weapons… Just pull the trigger and they will launch the grenades all over the place," I turned to my Bulltors, dragolves, and Selvagiters and added while pointing to the armoury down below:
"As for you, you'll carry ammunition to make sure these weapons won't stop firing."
I said this to my shield warriors. That left only my soulers behind.
"Use the rope to descend… And you know what you shall do."
"Roar!"
Everyone roared while the drags flew away as they started attacking. As for my fallen gods, they started using their ultimate attacks while I took out enough shards of essence to replenish their used stacked attempts.
"You want to kill my army using monsters? Humph! What a joke!" I turned to watch the brutal fights that started all over the place, even before the two armies would arrive and clash with each other.
I alone was enough to be called an army of my own!
*Rumble!* *Boom!* *Rumble!*
The sounds of explosions started massively from the start. My chariot led the counterattack over those monsters while the rest of my army behind was approaching without fear.
My show of might right now played a great role in removing any speck of self doubt inside my forces' souls. They were trained by the hands of Selvators, but lacked any actual fighting experience in battles.
Not to mention these forces came together from the rescued humans from cages. Their spirits were shaking deep down even if they didn't admit it.
That was why I went all the way alone to the front and showed such a big opening. I had to raise not only their morale but to inspire courage inside their souls.
And it worked!
Just the first clashes that erupted between the two frontlines were enough to make me heave a sigh of relief.
The clashes revealed how strong my forces were. Just in the first few minutes of this battle, the enemy frontline crumbled and the death toll was simply astronomical.
The gears I gave them also played a great role in this. At this point I didn't need to lean towards cheat tricks like pointing out each monster's weaknesses.
They didn't need that! They simply crushed them using brute force. In the face of such force, nothing mattered.
As for me, I started to roam the entire battlefield, trying to help in every possible way. The best way to help my forces here would be by killing the backlines of the frontline.
This way I'd relieve a big pressure over my frontline boys, delaying reinforcements to replace any dead monster.
Just attacking like this in a zone or two wouldn't really make a difference. But I activated the full power and used my chariot's insane speed to flash right and left, crossing the entire battlefield in a matter of minutes.
During this my newly added grenades helped so much in clearing many zones from monsters. Big empty circular areas began to spread, looking like an old piece of clothes that had many holes in it.
Even if the enemy came with such grand numbers, this wouldn't really matter if they couldn't utilise their number advantage at the frontlines.
Like this I turned this gigantic army of monsters into a weak and unorganised army that could be easily kitted down by my ground forces.
So it wasn't a surprise that after two hours of constant fighting, the enemy started to show signs of breaking. I saw many monsters turn around and started to flee this place.
Monsters weren't smart like races but they still kept their sense of danger within their souls. The higher the monster's rank was, the stronger this became.
So in the face of such an organised and strong army that was aided by my actions from midair, they started to feel true fear.
It started with a few groups running and in the span of the next hour, almost half of the monster army dispersed.
The only monsters that remained here were either the ones with strong bloodlust and those dumb ones who didn't have any sense of danger at all.
Such monsters were like hyenas, who would simply charge forward no matter what. In the face of such monsters my forces were enough without my help.
"Time to scout the front," as things turned out in such a way, and as I got confirmation from Fang and Wryly that both were less than one hour away from the main battlefield, I had to scan the unknown lands beyond here.
The big mistake that illusionist made was to save his own forces and races and only sent his monster army after me. Monsters could crumble like this. And without intellectual races to overrule them, things would turn ugly in this way.
But the uglier it became for him, the better it was for me. I still didn't let such victory overwhelm my sense of cautiousness. After all, we wasted almost three hours fighting here, enough for that bastard to take other precautions or even send reinforcements.
Yet after going forward for almost half an hour, I finally spotted the grand towers appearing from far like a painful thorn.
That dude was really acting like a true illusionist! He was a coward and appreciated his life over anything else.
In his eyes, keeping his strongest forces by his side was a must. Even if this led to losing the numerical advantage he had, he still didn't hesitate to do it.
"So you decided to keep your trusted forces around the tower… Let's see how well that will end for you!" I snorted while sending a message to Karoline, asking about the updates from the battlefield.
[We already killed everything and our boys are clearing out the place]
[No time for that!] These humans were still caring about monster materials at such a crucial moment. Getting greedy and overconfident was expected. Yet I was here to correct this deadly rookie mistake for them.
[Bring them over… After we destroy that tower, they can go back and claim their rewards]
[This…]
[Just let them come… Monsters won't miraculously disappear like that! Plus they have fine grade weapons! They won't need to change these even after ten upcoming quests]
[Alright… I'll bring them over]
[The road is clear. Let them march and recuperate during this period. There is a more violent battle waiting for him here]
I closed the chat with her and checked over Fang and Wryly's situation. It was a surprise to receive info about them facing armies of monsters.
Unlike my case, the monster armies they faced were smaller and not as fierce. They guaranteed their ability to catch up in a span of an hour or two.
"My army would take roughly an hour to be here… So you threw away more fodder in their ways to delay their approach… Interesting!"
I read through the plan of that illusionist here. As he failed to crush my army or even delay us until he finished with his tower, he had to delay the other two armies heading towards here.
Even if my army was strong and held such high morale and confidence, their numbers still showed a great gap between us and that bastard's forces here.
In my estimate, the number of monster armies sent to stop the three of us reached a million and half up to two millions. That meant there was only one to one and a half million forces in that tower zone.
Such an army might pale in comparison with our three forces combined. But with such a tactic, that dude tried to separate us and would eventually face the three of us one army at a time.
With a simple move he neutralised the loss he gained by throwing away his monster fodders. Interesting idea indeed, but who said I had to fall for such a trap?
[Do you know how much they built that tower so far?]
[F*ck you! Didn't I warn you not to contact me at all!!]
[Just answer the question… Things are a little hectic over here!]
[As if I was having a nice time, taking a nap inside my glorious chariot all this time!]
[Dude! You could have answered already from the first message instead of wasting all this messages over whining like chicks!]
[Screw you!]
[I'll keep nagging you if you don't give me an answer right away!]
Despite knowing how dangerous it was, I had to contact him. He was the closest one to the tower and the one who was following the building process all this time.
If anyone could give me an estimate about the remaining time then it would be him.
[Well… They faced a stepback after destroying their ovens but they started to bring the melted ore in a final form almost an hour ago. The building process just paced up and they might be able to finish it within the next four to six hours]
Five to six hours?! That was just a narrow window to be honest.
I clenched my fists and made a reckless decision. That bastard was pushing with all his might towards this tower completion. I had to up the game and match his rash with recklessness.
Even if it was risky, even if it was a trap, I was forced to accept it. But…
[Are they bringing those melted ores from the nearby gates in the three cities?]
[They are sending the ores in big caravans from three directions so it must be from these three cities] he sent before returning to his old self, [Stop nagging me then. I have to go now and stop messaging me for now or they'll catch me!]
I closed his chat and instead of thinking about the risks of walking directly into this trap, I started to consider something else.
I first flew around the area, taking a wide detour away from the place of the tower. In ten minutes I saw the scenes of destruction and ruins in one city with a big hovering single gate there.
"So you are trying your best to force me into this trap? Let's see how well you are prepared to fight and defend these cities then!
His scheme was really smart and creative, but it had one major flaw here; the gates in these cities!
Everything depended entirely upon luring my forces to hit the tower. But in fact the tower in itself wasn't important at all. What was important instead was the melted ore brought over from these mega gates.
So instead of walking blindly into his well designed trap and facing his prepared forces head on, why wouldn't I react with something different?
Attacking the cities and claiming the mega gates would deal a deadly blow for him. In return he wouldn't sit idle and watch me take over the gates and shutting down his crucial supply of the melted ore.
He would be cornered to one option; sending his forces outside the well prepared trap zone and risk a head on fight with me.
In fact this didn't seem bad to anyone. He still held the upper hand in numerical advantage over my forces.
But putting his cowardly nature and his fear to die, he might hesitate to send out his entire forces and would lean towards sending a smaller army instead.
If he did so, then I'd be granted a big chance to kite his forces bit by bit while delaying his building process speed by one third at least.
After all, it was guaranteed for me to take over one single mega gate.
Even if he tried to increase the supply from the other two cities, I still had other options here.
Those caravans the jumper spoke about were a perfect target to hit. But I wasn't planning to burn all my cards from the start. I'd first head to that city by my forces and claim it. Then I'd fight a war of attrition with him over the caravans of his precious ore.
The only path he would have would be by spreading his forces all over the place, creating more chances for me to ambush and annihilate them with few losses.
Alright… Let's do it!