241 Giants, Shaders, And Grounders
[Don't panic, you can consider it an upgrade from the earlier quest of races]
[In which way?]
[I want more races from all the nineteen worlds in my apocalypse group]
[All of them?!!] she seemed to be shocked, [Are they also their enemies?]
[You can say so] I didn't explain to her my real intentions here.
[Alright, it's your money and your bones anyway] she agreed as fast as I predicted, [I'll prepare a new contract and send it over]
[Cool]
[I also have another batch from soulers, double the number of last time. I'll send them also with this batch of races, ok?]
[Great]
By this I'd gain another twenty thousand soulers. I didn't know what my soulers would do in the upcoming two quests with my punishment. But at least I knew how deadly they were.
I wouldn't doubt their ability to do massacres against any enemy, be it illusionists, the succubi, or even dragons.
[You got twenty thousand soulers from the Bringold impact]
[You can find them in your inventory]
The first to arrive were the soulers. Then in the next five minutes, I got another message of the arrival of my long awaited races.
[You got five hundred thousand races from Bringold impact]
[These races aren't warriors, they are normal races just like you]
[They can't be stored inside your inventory]
[They can be brought only through portal teleport]
[You have to pay fifty million coins for their transfer]
Fifty million coins? That meant one hundred coins per person!
"Alright, I agree," but who cared! I have tons of coins in my inventory so far.
[All the races are forced to sign a binding contract of loyalty under your name]
[Do you accept these contracts?]
"Of course I do!" without these loyalty binding contracts, I'd be in grave danger without doubt.
*Fwoosh!*
Just as I agreed, fifty million coins were deducted from my personal account. Then a grand portal appeared in front of my eyes.
The portal wasn't grand in height, but in length. It stretched to cover up an entire mile distance. It was my luck to be outside the city this time, or else it would be impossible to bring them here using this portal.
*Flash!* *Flash!* Flash!*
Just as the portal appeared, endless flashes of light appeared in succession. I stood over my chariot overlooking them like a god looking down on his subjects.
"Who the f*ck are you?"
"Are you that damn bastard who brought me here?"
"I'll kill you!"
"Let's kill him, boys!"
"Don't say boys! We have girls here!!"
Many unneeded shouts and even death threats came from the races that came. From the first look, there were seven races here.
One race was just like what I imagined. The giants were almost ten metres in height, giving me an intimidating impression with all these bulging muscles with brown lustre in their arms, abdomen, and legs.
They reminded me of the Berserkers, wearing light short clothes while proudly exposing their body physique. The only regret I had was their numbers.
By look, there weren't that many in these rapidly increasing densely packed races. I'd say there were mostly ten thousands here, no more.
[You gained the loyalty binding contracts of all races brought by the Bringold impact]
[A special icon for contracts you had is created for you to easily access from your profile]
"Thanks system sama," I said while opening my profile and accessing the contract menu.
It was pleasant to see things organised there. The interface had many submenus there, including free scrolling in the entire contract list, contracts arranged per race, and even contracts arranged by date.
I selected the races menu and there I found the seven races in front of me in addition to humans, succubi, Selvators, illusionists, and Berserkers.
I didn't have any contract with any dragon race yet whatsoever.
"Hmm… So I have twelve thousand and three hundred giant race fighters… that's better than I initially thought," I surfed the menu, checking the races and their numbers while ignoring all the death threats coming from the races down below.
"The shaders are fifteen thousand… not that much either… the grounders are the largest so far… they are around forty thousand…"
I read through the menu before realising that most of the races I got belonged to useless races that I wouldn't need.
I didn't hurry to kill the rest. I just started surfing through their race names. Werewolves, Zulbors, Reaters, and shriners were the names of these races.
I knew werewolves. I already fought against them so many times and even ended up merging their souls with dragons to form the dragolves race I currently had.
They weren't that bad, but they weren't that good either. I hesitated for a moment but I reminded myself that I should seek building elite forces and not just big masses of cannon fodders.
As for the other three races, I got absolutely no clue at all about them. Yet looking at the large number of races down there, I knew they wouldn't be that much of a help.
The races lacked any great build. Many even looked smaller than humans. I decided to proceed as planned.
"Listen to my orders and heed by them or you'll die," I shouted after releasing a single warning attack from my chariot in the form of an energy impulse of intermediate grade.
It was enough to scare and silence them, coupled with my chariot's start to fly in the air. "Giants, Shaders, and Grounders… Move here."
I pointed towards a location that was almost one mile behind my chariot. For the first few seconds, I got nothing in response but heavy silence.
"You are all bound by loyalty contracts," I said in loud and yet firm tone, "failing to obey my orders means instant death by the system. It's your choice."
"F*ck you!"
"Go to hell!"
"Screw you, tyrant!"
Different curses and mean comments came from these three races, and yet not a single one of them refused to move.
I didn't comment or even show any response at all. After all, in the next ten minutes, the massacre that would erupt would be enough to make a clear statement towards all of these three races.
As for those rude and mean races down below, I didn't feel anything towards them. Their leaders acted against my humans, and it was simply fair to repay this kindness back in folds.
242 A Massacre!
It took half an hour for all the three races to move to the side I pointed at. The scene was really epic. Their number reached half a million after all.
"Kill them all," without batting an eye, I pointed towards the four hundred thirty-five thousands standing on one side and gave the order for a slaughter.
My warriors moved without any hesitation, executing my order in the most brutal way.
The first to attack were my dragons, followed by my soulers and then the rest attacked. I didn't stand idle either, and let my Bulltors and shield warriors work on the weapons over my chariot and kill without limit.
Screams of agony, helplessness, rage, and despair came from down below. Yet for the next ten hours, I oversaw a big massacre here.
At these hours, the three races I spared stood all silent. I felt they were so terrified to make a single sound or else I'd shift my weapons towards them.
"Listen," standing on top of my chariot spared my armour any blood stain. Yet at this moment, I was covered entirely with a thick and vicious bloody aura.
My simple word made the impact I needed, letting all of the sixty-five thousand forces of the three races all attentive.
"Arrange yourselves into one hundred man teams, each led with someone capable. Each ten teams can form a unit. Each ten units or higher can form an army. I need one army from both Giants and Shaders, three at least from Grounders. Start now!"
I didn't wait to hear their response as I turned my chariot and led it to descend over the bloody ground. The forces of the four races I killed here didn't stand idle and waited for death to come.
Or else I wouldn't take ten straight hours to kill them.
They resisted, tried to fight me and my boys. But this was all futile. After all they were facing a grand force they couldn't stand against.
From this battle I held higher hopes in the grander battles coming up in the distant future. These four races weren't that much to begin with. But I noticed the presence of many elites scattered in their ranks.
They tried to lead these forces and form strong defensive lines. Yet each time they tried so, my dragons descended from the air like death gods, claiming their lives and smashing their efforts up to nothing.
Yet that meant they got many good fighters. I started to roam this massive battlefield and started to claim my loot.
Inventories and bones were left to me. Gears were left for my boys to get and gather at one spot. After working for five hours, I ended up with a lot of loot this time.
These races didn't have any impressive inventories, yet they compensated for that with sheer numbers. More than four hundred thousand wasn't a simple number after all.
I looked up at my current forces with pride. Just the line up and the growing numbers of my special force was something that drove arrogance inside me.
But when I thought about the upcoming big battle and the other races here, I didn't feel as much. "I need more of these," I muttered to myself while climbing up the stairs of my chariot up to the top.
During the first hour, I could feel all the gazes of the three races fixed on me and my boys. I knew they came here with endless rage, but with my actions here I changed that to fear and curiosity.
They were watching what I was doing, seeing me walking through rivers of blood without any hesitation.
Then afterwards I heard many clamours coming from their direction. They were arranging themselves, even loud shouts were heard without any logical meaning to me.
After five hours, they already finished arranging themselves. This time they looked like a real army. Each army was made up of smaller one thousand man units, which was arranged into much smaller hundred man units.
I got what I asked, five armies. Three belonged to the grounders, one belonged to the Giants and Shaders.
In front of each army, a strong looking dude stood. They seemed to be the strongest, the most famed ones among this batch.
"You… You… and you… all five of you come onboard now."
I needed this meeting. After all, I didn't only want to arrange them properly into my forces, but also wanted to get a better understanding about the worlds they came from.
The biggest dude was that giant. He didn't need to climb the stairs, or more precisely couldn't. Even this grand chariot built for the big build of dragons couldn't accommodate his immense body.
So he simply climbed my chariot from the outer surface. It was lucky for me my chariot was just something common grade or else it wouldn't tolerate the insane weight of this dude.
Damn! What did that dude eat exactly to reach such a scale?
"What're your names?" I stood in the middle of my bulltors, shield warriors, soulers, and dragons flying over my mighty and frightening looking chariot.
The giant dude was the only one looking in such defiance in this picture. He stood with his giant stature, looking at me with eyes filled with fear and respect.
Even that giant had to show respect and fear in front of me. That was what I ended up doing after all this journey. A young man, a loser, with no class or any backing, no wealth or special strength of his own, with literally nothing I started from the rock bottom and reached this stage.
I deserved the pride brimming inside me at this moment. Who would challenge me at my current achievement? Those dragons? Selvators? Or those one hundred special humans Sith had under his support?
F*ck you all! No one deserved to be a rival of mine, none at all!
"Speak up, you have my word to be safe," I added when I noticed that fear of me overwhelmed them and made them all silent.
243 The Dirty Alien Races' Gods
"Mighty one, my name is Trunk."
The first to speak was that giant. His voice was so deep and strong, it made my entire body shake from the vibrations coming from his big mouth.
"Call me lord," I corrected him, "and Trunk… indeed a suited name for someone like you."
"Thanks lord."
"What about you?" I looked at the Shader. Compared to Trunk, this dude was a dwarf.
He was slightly longer than me, slim arms, slim upper half, yet starting from his waist everything changed.
He has strange bulky muscles in his legs. His body looks disproportionate in my eyes. But just a single look at his legs gave me the impression of how fast he was.
As he stood there, he was surrounded with blackness. It was still sunny and light shone all over the world in a bright way, except over this dude and a small area of one metre radius around him.
Amidst such a dimly lit environment, his dark red eyes shone in strange lustre. He wasn't weak, not at all!
"I'm called Seif," he said, "it's my honour to serve such a dark lord."
"Oh, you can sense my energy?!" I was surprised when he called me a dark lord.
"Your darkness is way better than mine, lord," he slightly bowed his head, and I could see a small elliptical black gem at the back of his head.
Was it the source of his energy? Was it his race weakness? I needed to know but later.
"What about you?" I asked the grounder, who was just like Sith described him before to me. If I placed this dude next to any of my Gollams, it would be difficult to tell the difference.
If not for its faint yellow and brown tough skin, I wouldn't tell the difference. Compared to the Gollams with outer bodies made up most likely of rocks, this dude here was more appealing to the eye and more resembling any living race.
"I'm Fort," he said and his tone was harsh, deep, and hard to understand. It was like someone speaking while eating or something.
"I'm Gort," the second Grounder said.
"I'm Lort."
It seemed this race loved the 'ort' ending at their names or something.
"Alright, from now on you are the leaders of the five armies," I knew they were appointed by their races as leaders, but I had to add my touch as their lord. "Now I want to know, did you all come from the same world or what?"
"No, lord," Trunk seemed more relaxed to speak with me, "at least from the world I came from, none of the other two are there."
"I came from a different world than these two races as well," Seif added, and I got the general idea.
"Then tell me more about your worlds," I pointed first at Trunk before adding, "I know that you have five other races in your worlds. Tell me all you know about these races and the current situation of the apocalypse in your worlds."
During the next few hours, I gained a good intel about the situation in each apocalypse of the three races.
Giants had five more races there competing with them, the deadliest was a weird race called the Fierers. According to Trunk, these dudes can control ice and water elements, enabling them to stand shoulder to shoulder with their race.
Apart from them, there was no other race that could stand against them. Trunk also went to the point to say that his race's paragons were dominating the Fierers paragons. But I never put his words to heart.
After all he was one of those Giants. He would always boast about his race against others.
Seif's race was also one of the supreme two races in his world. The other race was something called the Reavers, a race that was using his brute strength to pose a threat to Shaders.
He also boasted about his race's superiority over the other one. By logic, his words carried more weight than Trunk, but I didn't also put what he said in my heart.
As for the other three, it was a surprise that their race was one of the weakest three races in their worlds. I thought Sith told me this race was special, but it seemed they were only limited to the trap and sneakily attacking tactics against lowered guarded enemies.
In direct clashes, they wouldn't fare that well.
"Why do your faces look this pale?" After I finished interrogating them, I noticed the change of their faces to paler. It didn't look like anything special when Trunk showed this change.
But when the other four also developed the same signs, I knew something wrong was happening here.
"Lord, it's just…" Trunk spoke and strangely enough he paused midway as his face turned paler.
"What's going on here?"
"It's just a backlash from our gods," Seif explained, "they are furious at us, promising us hell if we keep answering to you."
"But you are obliged to do so," I frowned while asking in doubt.
"They are asking us to not answer and choose death instead," Trunk said, "but who will abandon his life for some beliefs? You showed us your might as a lord. I believe we all are at the same stages of the apocalypse yet you are way stronger than anyone I saw before!"
"That's true," the other three Grounders said in unison.
"So they are punishing you?" I felt more rage against those dirty gods, "do you even know why in the first place you were targeted? Why did I bring you all here? You and the other races whom I just killed?"
"No, lord," Seif shook his head while I noticed his paler deepened.
"It's because those dirty dogs acted first against my humans!" I raised my head while adding in an explosive voice, "Did you think no one will retaliate against your dirty deeds? Is this the responsibility you held towards your people? Humph! F*cking useless bunch of gods you are!"
"Lord… Please show mercy!"
244 Deleting Gods
Trunk's body suddenly twisted in front of my eyes before this behemoth fell on one side like a crashing mountain.
"Damn! Trying to kill my precious boys? Let me show you what a mere human can do against you!"
I instantly opened my sponsorship interface. As I recalled, there were many special items sold there for one single purpose; deleting the current sponsor of a god!
Of course they came with a cheap price of ten blessing points, yet I knew I would never be able to fulfil the needs of my forces.
Come on, I was talking about a force of sixty-five thousand here! Even if they were sold in batches, I would never be able to buy enough for my entire force!
"Take these," I bought five just for the five leaders here, "consume them fast."
Each item was a kind of fruit. It had an opioid fruit shape with black thorns. It looked weird, dangerous to consume, but they had no other choice but to follow my orders to the letter.
The first to consume these was Trunk. I was worried that a single fruit might not be enough for his giant body. Yet when he consumed it, his body shone instantly with black lustre, twitching fiercely on the ground while causing damage least to be described as devastation!
"Lord… My god…" just as he was the first to consume it, he was also the first to stand on his feet. The other four showed the same signs just like this dude. They were still twitching in unimaginable pain.
"It's just for the best," I simply said before raising my head up to the sky, "did you think yourselves mighty and away from my reach? One day I'll be strong enough to find and teach you all a lesson."
"But lord…" Trunk's face was still pale, "my stat boost is gone!"
"Lord, we need to solve this problem," Seif was the second to consume this fruit, and the second to be freed from its agony and torture, "I also lost one third of my stat bonus!"
"One third?" I asked in doubt, "isn't it supposed to be one half or something?"
"…"
The two looked at me with wide eyes before Seif said in disbelief:
"Our lord… you are truly mighty!"
"Lord already got the attention of such a higher calibre god… Impressive!"
The two expressed their shock and I got what caused it. I never thought the stat bonus would be different according to the grade of the supported god.
"Don't whine like this," I waved my hand at the two while the other three Grounders stood erect as well, "I'll find a way to deal with this mess."
I opened my interface again. There was a small button called 'Emergency communication centre'. If my guess was right, this might lead me directly to Sith.
"What the f*ck… one thousand blessing points per one message? Screw you, system!"
Yet when I selected this icon, a warning message popped in front of my face, telling me to pay one thousand blessing points per message.
What the hell was that? It was extortion! Bloody shameless daylight theft!
"Take it," bitterly I agreed for that extravagant price.
[Please say the message you want to deliver]
[Warning: The message can't be more than one hundred and twenty-four lettres]
"How the f*ck am I supposed to say such a thing in such low numbered letters? Damn! This is even more shameless than anything I saw before!"
[Error!]
[You said a message that had more lettres than needed]
I hardly controlled myself from loudly cursing at this system! Fudge! Did you take my words before as the message? What the hell was wrong with that system?
"I got the races you told me, but I need your shrine support. Urgently contact me," I said and this time I exerted control over my selection of words and letters.
F*ck it! How should people speak if they had such weird limitations over what they needed to say? That was total insanity!
[Message is rightly lengthed]
[One thousand blessing points are deducted from your account]
[Message is sent to your sponsoring god]
[He or she will respond to you if they say the matter needing so]
He'd better respond… or else…
I was feeling bitter about losing one thousand points just like that. But I needed his help. After all, I wanted to cleanse away this force and add them to my shrine of death.
Of course I could also use the gods in my channel, but I wouldn't know if a traitor god or enemy god was in the mix or not. There was no way for me to know so.
Just look at my jumper! That bastard's daughter of b*tch goddess was my enemy. She did such a terrible curse against me without even noticing it!
It was so risky to have such dangerous folks inside my forces. I looked at my five generals and thought about that jumper.
"I should do the same with that dude," I said before recalling what nature that jumper was.
How would someone as him fall in such dirty goddess clutches? I still couldn't get it! But I had to find a way first to make that goddess not listen to what I wanted to tell that bastard, then I'd explode in that dude's face.
[What do you want?]
Just as I was lost in thoughts, the deep voice of Sith came, telling me I called him at an unsuitable time.
But screw him. I paid one thousand blessing points just to get him here!
"I got the races, but their gods are trying to exert some backlash to kill them."
[And?]
"I erased the top five gods already. But I can't remove all the gods sponsoring my forces. Besides, after doing this they lost their bonus stats."
[And?]
"Are you talking while sleeping or what?!"
[Just make it short, I'm kinda busy right now… Huff… Huff…]
What was that sound? Was he running or what?!
245 God Nemesis Scissors
"Well… I need your support here," I paused intentionally but all I could hear was his raced breaths, "I need enough blessing points to buy items and erase their god support."
[What the heck… How many are we talking about here?]
"I have sixty-five thousand so far."
[Ahem… You know I'm not that kind. These things should be given to you in return for quests]
"I know," I nodded, "so I was thinking if you can give me easy quests to fulfil and garnish lots of blessing points in the end."
[That would be cheating, Hye] his answer was swift and made all my hopes crash.
"But if I didn't do anything, my boys would be killed by those bastards!"
[Sorry man, I can't help you here]
He closed the connection and I needed a few minutes to wake up. Did he just abandon me? Screw you Sith! What the f*cking god were you?!!!
[You gained something from your god]
Just as I was lost in my rage, this message popped up all of sudden in front of my face.
[It comes with a message: Don't misuse this. And stop cursing me in your thoughts!]
I raised my head involuntarily, feeling like a cat stealing cheese caught in action. Damn! Could he even read through my mind with such distance and realms between us?
Gods… they were really scary!
[You got the cleavage scissors]
[You can view it inside your inventory]
I opened my inventory and there I found scissors, shining in black lustre and looking extremely dangerous.
Just as I took this thing out, it landed in a heavy booming sound as it expanded many folds in front of my eyes.
The small looking scissors turned into a pair of giant sharp broadswords that were connected with something like a wheel in part of it.
This scissor was at least ten metres long, looking extremely heavy. As I was the one to summon it out, I took all the toll over my hands, feeling like I was holding a mountain or something.
I left it to fall over my chariot, and luckily my girl was so sturdy to endure it.
[Gods nemesis Scissors: God grade item. Bound to earthling Hye as a personal gift from death shrine god, Sith.
A weapon that can harm any god if used against him, regardless of his or her grade and rank. Can be used to cut the sponsorship between a god and someone inside an apocalypse. Can devour anyone's blessing points and turn these into fuel to run the scissors.
Current fuel stored inside: zero.
Each usage time will consume one hundred blessing points if there is no fuel there.
Can't be dropped. Can't be changed. Can't be sold]
I looked at this brief description and felt my scalp numb.
"So you gave me a way to cut the lineage but without any fuel?" I raised my head and looked at the sky with defying red eyes.
That bastard… he made sure to not give me proper help here.
[Told you to stop cursing me in your thoughts!]
"Then I'll curse you in the open instead! Are you satisfied now, stingy god?" I shouted in response to his ranging voice in my ears.
[You can't ask for a meal without paying for it, kiddo] yet his answer came in a calm tone like he used to use, [Fueling this item is your responsibility. This is how I can escape the punishment of the higher ups if any bastard god came asking for trouble]
I knew what he was referring to, and yet that didn't help in calming me down. I took repeated breaths before resigning to my loss here.
This batch… it was destined for me to lose them unfortunately.
"Ahhh!"
Screams of agony came from the direction of my current army of three races. Just watching them twitching on the ground made my heart ache.
"Don't worry my lord," yet amidst my feeling of helplessness and regret, the voice of Seif came, "the gods of our forces aren't that high or dangerous to begin with."
"Excuse me?!" I sharply turned at him, and he retreated a couple steps when he saw me holding the two arms of that scissor.
I was aiming to store it back, not to threaten him with it.
"I mean… Our gods were already the highest gods in our people present here," he added in a shaky tone, while his eyes never left my scissors.
"Do you fear it?" I couldn't help asking and Seif and the other four nodded in response.
"Alright," I stored this dangerous weapon away. It seemed it could also threaten normal races in the apocalypse, not only gods. "So they won't die?"
"They will enter a state of weakness," Trunk said with his deep voice, "will have their stat points deducted by half at least."
"If it's a stat point problem, then it's not a problem at all."
I was acting like a real hegemony here. If the problem was only limited to the stat points, then I could easily compensate them with my stockpiled stat points.
That also reminded me of that winged nymph girl. I needed to store more stat points as fast as possible.
As for the bones… Right now they weren't an issue at all. I gained almost one hundred thousand bones from the races I killed here. It wasn't a problem for me to pay for whatever amount she brought.
I sent her a message, notifying her of my need for more stat points. The more, the merrier for sure. She didn't reject such a standard deal, and promised to bring a large amount with the upcoming delivery of soulers and other races.
According to her, the rate of delivering these folks would be much faster than before. As I understood from her words, expanding the scope of our work to cover the entire apocalypse group of nineteen realms made it easier for her to capture other races.
246 A Frightening Surprise
Yet she also warned me that some races would be harder than others to capture. She also warned me that the next deals might be double or even triple the amount of races delivered to me the last time.
Of course I agreed over all this. After all, I wouldn't say no to more souls, bones, inventory loot, and even additional forces to help me in the next war.
The thing here was which race should I let live and which was doomed to die? I still had more worries about the way to kill them.
The last battle was big and took many hours from me, almost ten hours. If she brought more of those races, then how much time would I waste each time I wanted to kill them?
These races were also slightly dangerous. Be it their numbers, their gods, their weapons, or their ranks and levels… I had to find a way to deal with them properly and without causing more trouble to myself.
"What about the people I'll free from their gods? Will the death shrine abandon such a rare chance to expand its reign?" as Sith was already focusing on me right now, and he didn't bring this topic to the discussion table so far, I had to force him to agree.
[Do you think we can accept trash in our shrine?]
"These are the three races you specifically recommended," I wasn't fazed with his answer, "either take them or I'll look for another shrine or even another rival to you to take them in!"
[You are going to have another god support. Let him have these races. He is desperate need for followers for his cause]
"What caused it?"
[You'll get it at its time. Now stop nagging me and let me enjoy my moment of peace after this… you know]
"Know what?"
[You are pathetic!]
He didn't speak again no matter how many times I tried to annoy him. After calming down, I was surprised to discover this weird feature in my personality.
"Since when have I acted in such an annoying way? Damn you jumper! Is your attitude and personality contagious or what?"
I shook my head in helplessness before turning to see the agonising and twitching out of immense pain forces of mine.
This time I ended up with sixty-thousand races that could defy the punishment exerted over me by those bastards.
I still have a quest to punish them. I really wanted to do so. But first I didn't know who they were, and secondly I didn't know their names!
"I'll ask Fang about that later on," I knew that informative dude would know the answer. If not, then I might use my magic and let Wryly ask his paragon instead.
[The gods of your Ultras are asking if you are ready to meet their representative right now]
As I looked at the paled faces and arched weak bodies of my sixty-five thousand forces, I got this message from my channel.
"Give me a minute," I said before controlling my chariot, letting it move near the place of this force.
"Are you sure it's only a problem in stat points?" Before doing anything, I turned to ask the five generals of mine.
And they all nodded in unison.
"Great."
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*
I first thought of using the illusionist god essence but I refrained from doing so. This material was a source of a very high level of energy. I wasn't sure if they could use it instead of stat points or the extra amount would be wasted.
So instead I sacrificed almost ten million of my stored stat points, forming five big hills of stat points. They were high enough to even exceed the altitude of my intermittently working chariot.
Just looking at the speechless expression over my five generals' faces made me chuckle in satisfaction. "Go, lead your boys to feast over these stat points and regain their strength back."
"L… Lord… I… Is all of this… Ours?!!!" The shocking expression plus the stuttering way of speech from Seif made me laugh at him.
He and the other four just missed drooling to add the final funny touch over this scene.
"Just get used to it," I shrugged, "you are lucky to serve a mighty and generous lord as myself."
I puffed my chest, enjoyed this moment of pride and showed off while the other five bowed in response, expressing their honest feelings of admiration and respect.
"Just go," I urged them, "I'll also keep giving you stat points whenever a new guest arrives. As for your god sponsorship, I'll go and seek a solution right now."
"Thanks lord," I sensed their desire to ask about my next journey, yet they didn't ask and only bowed again. Even if they asked, I wouldn't tell.
Or to be precise, I didn't have any information about the nature of the god I was going to meet to begin with.
From the last words of Sith, I got the feeling that this god would be troublesome. It seemed he had his own troubles, and that meant his troubles would end up being mine.
"I'm ready," as the five generals disembarked my chariot, I made sure to spread my entire special forces of various warriors all around the place.
After all, I wasn't inside the city. Hopefully no stupid foe would use this moment to come at me or something.
If someone tried to act funny, he would end up facing herds of my forces.
[A meeting place is prepared for the two of you]
[You can now pass through the portal and meet the representative god of your Ultras]
*Fwoosh!*
In front of my eyes, a portal appeared like before and I simply passed through it. I hoped this meeting wouldn't last more than an hour, or else I'd lose one more thousand of my precious blessing points.
"Y… You…" yet the moment I passed to the other side, I couldn't help but petrify in my place, feeling all my muscles contracted without exception. "What the hell are you doing here?!! How come you are here in the first place?!!!"
247 It's Really Him!!!
"Hmm… Have we met before or something?"
I was really shocked to even speak! In front of my eyes, in front of me, there was a younger version, a typical younger version of my old man!
His face was void of his deep running grooves in his skin. His hair wasn't that dishevelled or white yet, only moderately long black and well combed strands.
His eyes held such a strong vibe of life, something that I never imagined to see in the eyes of my old man. Even when he was telling me his stories, or at our last meeting, his eyes always held that touch of despair, a look that told me how broken that man was.
"Ahem, you don't know me?" I regained my composure and decided to act cautiously here. This man wasn't the old man I knew before, even if the two were really one.
The one I knew lived for almost a hundred years! A more desperate version of the man in front of my eyes.
Even if the two were the same, this young man here didn't live to see what my old man did.
"You are Hye, of course I know you," he said as he misunderstood my question, "I have followed your channel since day one of its establishment, watched all your struggles against the angels and the apocalypse. You really gained my admiration and respect a long time ago, human."
"And you are an angel, a real angel, right?" I slowly asked while closely watching every single reaction on his face.
Right now I realised what Sith meant by his last words. He was speaking about this dude. Wait a second… Did that also mean my old man was a god?!!
"Oh, how did you know?!" he seemed to be shocked to jump in fright from my words. I didn't mean to startle him, but I just wanted to be sure of my guesses.
And only from his reaction I was now sure of his identity.
"Don't panic, we are all friends and allies here," I simply said while walking towards the central zone of this wide hall.
The hall was void of anything else but two seats for the two of us. When I came closer, I noticed that this man was slightly taller than my old man.
Or was my old man so old to have his back arched and his body dwarfed by the act of time? I couldn't tell, to be honest.
"It's just…"
"Weird, right?" I stopped one metre away from him, extended my arm and added, "I'm Hye, nice to meet you."
"Call me Lok, or the old foreteller as my friends used to call me."
I shook his hand while feeling a strange melancholic feeling at this moment. The old man's name was always the old foreteller, told to me by the system and himself.
As I shook my hand, he took this gesture as a friendly move from me. Yet I was really doing this for the old favour of my old man. I was honest in my appreciation and respect for this dude, even if he didn't realise any of that.
"Let's sit and talk," I led the way, unlike what was supposed to happen. "So you are a god of the angels, right?"
"I'm considered one of the last group of living gods of my race," he bitterly said while I saw a flash of darkness passing through his eyes.
He was really defeated, hopeless, and feeling all powerless at this moment. Of course after knowing secrets about this race from Sith, I grew more understanding towards all these feelings.
And at this moment, I also felt more appreciation towards Sith. He wasn't just telling me stories about the old man of mine, but trying to pave the path for this meeting, helping me to better understand this broken man's cause.
"I'm here to speak with you about being your sponsor," he started his talk with that but I shook my head in response.
"What? Do you plan to renege over your promise?" he asked in doubt and little fright.
"I'll accept you as my sponsor, that's something we don't need to even discuss," I first reassured him before adding in a more serious way, "but this meeting shouldn't be about any of this. Tell me, will that help in restoring your race's power?"
"My race's power? Sigh, I hope I can live to see this day or help in making it happen."
You already did your part, old man. I silently watched his dark expression while recalling the last request the old man asked from me.
That man lived in the shadows of his mission, to restore the glory of his race or even help in freeing his people. He was a poor man, a man who lived and withered under the burden of his cause.
I felt like I could see through his body and look at his soul. It was fragile, fatigued and ached with all the burdens and threats he was experiencing.
Of course if Sith knew about his presence, then other high grade gods would also know about that, including his enemies, our enemies.
"I can promise to help you in achieving this dream," I didn't say it lightly, yet the reaction over his face told me he took my words as such.
"You just a kind hearted person, Hye," he mistook my meaning again, "but you know nothing about my race's predicament."
"You belong to a race who was crushed by the traitors from this universe," I didn't change my expression or my tone, "your race was such a fine one, blessed with many superpowers and special abilities. That's why the enemies targetted you among the first races here. After all, your race can be considered a sharp blade directed at their throats."
"You…" This time his shock was deeper and he seemed to start taking my words far more seriously than before, "how did you know all of this?"
"I had someone to help me fill in the gaps," I simply shrugged, throwing everything on the shoulders of my Sith, "someone who truly wants to help you and your cause."
248 Serious Talk With God Lok
"This…" his lips trembled, "is he the first god you accepted your blessing from?"
And I nodded. "He told me a tale about your race, but he didn't specify how I can help. So I'm asking you again, Lok, how can I help?"
"Well… I'm very appreciative of your kind gesture, but it's impossible for someone like you to help."
After a moment of pause and disbelief, he said such a useless response. Of course I wouldn't speak about my plans with Sith here. Sith was a higher god, someone who wouldn't let anyone prey over his meeting this easily.
But this dude here wasn't like Sith. My plans should remain as secretive as long as possible.
"You know I heard that your race still has few gods surviving around the universe," as I decided not to explain myself here, I tried to change the approach, "do you have a shrine or something?"
"Shrine is a thing we can't have," he shook his head, "after all we belong to different shrines of our race. Myself, for example, belongs to the rage shrine."
"Rage shrine? Is it like a war shrine?" It was my first time hearing of such a thing.
"It's similar, but not that much," he nodded first before shaking off his head, "you can consider a war shrine like your jumper, and a rage shrine like those berserkers."
"So you are always seeking fights?" I asked.
"We are always angry," he gave me a smile that didn't suit his words at all, "so we seek different ways to vent our anger… Just like berserkers, they can't simply live without a day of fight, or going into meaningless clashs."
"And you?"
"I tried to fight, but failed," he sighed in a tired way, "right now I was seriously considering giving up my godhood and returning to live as a mortal. That might give me a hundred years or so of life span before dying at the end."
Yes, he was my old man. Now I realise how my old man, a god, ended up in such a miserable state at the end. The old man of my time gave up his godhood as this younger self of his planned.
"Don't do that," I urged, "the fight isn't over yet."
"I know," he paused, while his eyes landed over me, "I dunno why, but there is something in you that made me want to go, pick my war axe, and return to the battlefield again… Something like a spark that ignited my will to fight and struggle once more."
Despair was the mightiest enemy for anyone. Of course I knew what he was speaking about. After all I got part of his soul and power, part of his future self's soul and power.
Yet I didn't open my mouth and explain anything like that to him. Instead, I asked another question:
"As you can see I ended up having small numbers of a force that needed a god to sponsor. Why don't you accept them?"
"I saw them, they look nice," he said in praise before adding, "but what will I do with them? They aren't that good to fight a single god of my enemies."
"Your enemies aren't just gods," I corrected him, "your true enemies are those bastards in the hostile universe."
As his eyes flashed in realisation and nodded to agree with my words, it was time to propose my back up plan for helping him.
Of course my main plan would be through merging my powers and gaining that space crashing power. Using it I could crash his race's prison and set them free.
But I wouldn't tell him that. Instead I said:
"I learnt that by doing great achievements in the grand fight between the two universes, gods can upgrade their ranks. If any god can upgrade his rank, then that means his energy and power will show an evolution and a significant leap, right?"
"That's true indeed," he nodded before his eyes flashed again with another realisation, "you want me to use them and start building my own force?"
"They are just the first batch delivered to me," I said, confirming his guess, "I can keep providing you with elites and good races to fight in that big war up there."
"That…" he started to get a grasp of what I wanted to do here. And from the shaking body of his, I knew this back up plan might work at the end.
"I just lack the blessing points needed to use that scissor," I took out the heavy and threatening scissor of Sith. Just as it fell on the black and white marble ground, giving off a series of loud clanging sounds, the face of Lok paled and showed a true fright.
"This is a god killer weapon!" he said in shock and genuine fear.
"I believe it can harm gods, provided that I have enough blessing points," I nodded before adding, "it also can help in severing the connection between these races and their gods. Then you can step in and accept all of them."
"Hmm… can you take it away first?" he was standing on his feet, even retreating a couple of steps away from my scissors.
I shrugged and with a simple move of my hand, I stored it away.
"I have the authority to grant you quests of my own in return for blessing points," after he sat, wiped the thin layer of sweat over his forehead, he added, "but you need tons of these points for this force, not to mention the other forces coming later on."
"You are running short of these points?" I asked and he responded with a firm shake of his head.
"You don't get it yet," he said, "these points aren't granted by us, but the system."
"What?!!" I was shocked to hear that. If that was true, then why that damn bastard refused to give me easy quests and acquire blessing points?
"It's just that each god has a limited slot for quests issued for his supported people. This is determined by the god's grade, god's current strength evaluated by the system, and also the number of people under his wing."
249 Favour Points
"So?" I started to get a better understanding of Sith's actions.
"I can give you quests, but mostly five per day."
"Only five… That's not enough at all!" I frowned before asking, "how can we increase this quota then?"
"I have an intermediate grade as a god," he helplessly sighed, "back in my good days, I could issue up to a hundred quests per day for my people. Yet I lack anyone to support at this moment. In fact you are going to be my first sponsor in such a long time."
"The only one… How come?!!" I bellowed in surprise and he gave me a helpless smile.
"I planned to give up my godhood as I told you before. I can't take this step if I have a single person under my support. So…"
I got his point. "I have five without any gods at the moment," I hurriedly said, "adding these to you will help, right?"
"Not that much," he sighed, "I can only hope to raise the system's evaluation of me by your deeds. This will bring me, eventually, one favour point, enough to raise my current evaluation and make me issue many more quests to you."
"Favour points? You mean system favour points?!" I couldn't help myself and stood up while asking in disbelief.
I had seven favour points, things I never cared for before. I thought they were just useless tools, only used to grant me heroic calling or allow me to speak to system higher ups.
"Not the system, it's favour points for the system higher ups… Are you familiar with them?" he asked and I only blinked twice before saying:
"Didn't you know? I already have favour points!" I said in doubt, "Didn't you watch me getting these things before?"
"Hmm… I know that but I didn't want to take them away from you." He seemed a bit restless and I didn't know why he thought this way. After all these points weren't this precious to me. I shrugged as I said:
"You can get my points if you want… After all, I got the heroic calling reward that I wanted."
"Are you sure of that?" he asked before adding in a more serious tone, "You know they can be used to obtain a heroic calling."
"I have enough callings for now," I wasn't showing off or faking it. I had three unused heroic callings.
I planned to use one to inspire humans using the two videos I once recorded about my battles. I also intended to use another when I established the communication system for humankind.
The third would be a spare one, used only in times of great emergencies.
So what if I had to wait for more time and store up more favour points again? I once managed to get them, and also I could get more if I wanted.
"How much favour points do you need to raise the system estimation of you?" I asked while hoping my favourite points would be enough.
"Well… I can't say a certain number as the more the better," he suddenly acted shameless and greedy. I frowned, furrowed my brows as he hurriedly added: "Joking… Was just joking, hahaha!"
I knew for sure he let his greed out for a brief moment there. "Can you live with one?" I said while examining his expression.
"I can, a single favour point is enough to make me give you double the quests daily."
"Double?" I frowned before asking, "how much do you need to give me a hundred fold more quests?"
"This…" he showed his struggle before adding, "I can't give that much with favour points alone. The most I can do is twenty folds with ten favour points."
"So one point gives double the quests?" I asked and he nodded.
I had seven favourite points. That meant I could give him five and have ten folds the current amount. He said he could give me ten quests daily as max, so I could get one hundred quests on a daily basis.
Wait… did that mean I'd end up having two favour points? One point away from a heroic calling? Damn! This would also help me and save one favour point.
"One question though," At first I was thinking of doing all these quests on my own, so excited that I forgot that I didn't have time for that.
But as things went to this point, I had to think rationally about this. "Can I assign other people to do my tasks for me?"
"Assign?" he gave me a weird look, "do you mean letting other people do your quests?"
"I just don't have much time to waste on doing these quests," I honestly said and he just stared at me for a few moments before breaking out in laughter.
"If you want to assign tasks like walking, talking, and even sleeping and eating to someone else then it's fine."
I looked at him and at this moment, I didn't know why his old image overlapped with his younger one. It seemed like even after abandoning his godhood, this old angel didn't lose his personality.
"I'd prefer to give the hundred quests all at the same time so I can assign people to finish them fast," I knew he wouldn't be that easy to handle in regards to quests. Just the quest of coming each day and listening to his tales took long hours per visit.
I feared he would just give me one quest at a time, or just give me weird quests like running around for a couple hours or even walking from one city to another or something crazy like that.
"A hundred? Does that mean…"
"Yes, I'll give you five favour points to use," I said before adding, "this will give ten folds the quests you can give to me per day, right?"
"Indeed," he nodded, "but that… It's five favour points… Do you know how many decades can a god wait to get just a single point of these?"
250 My Awaited Legendary Quest
"Decades? Hahaha, just give me a couple of months and I'll give you more," I laughed before adding, "for me favourite points kept raining down on me without even trying to get them."
"Sigh, I really envy you, people at the apocalypse," he gave me such a pale smile before adding, "compared to gods like myself, you are having a great time in the apocalypse."
"As if fighting to survive is nicer than immortality," I couldn't accept his comment and retorted back.
"I started my path just at the same spot as you," he snorted, "but I was unlucky enough to find my shrine getting destroyed when I gained my godhood. Anyway… Let's not talk about such an old tale…"
He was still feeling pain, immense and deep pain about the fate of his race. In respect for him, I decided to put down the matter for now.
"Anyway, I have five ready to gain your support. Once I go back, extend your blessings to them. As for the favourite points, how can I give them to you?"
I knew my time of one hour was on the verge of ending. So I had to sum things up before going back.
"After getting my blessing, I'll send you a request to transfer the points to me."
"O… Just one second… Can't you just give me a quest for that?" I suddenly had this flash of an amazing idea in my mind.
"A quest for what? I don't understand…"
"Didn't you say blessing is given by the system in return for quests? Why not give me a quest for favour points?"
"You mean…" he paused while his eyes shook with realisation.
"You send me a chained quest to bring favour points to you. As for the reward of each point, the system would assess the value of this deal and give me blessing points in return…"
My eyes were already shining with greed. If the system determined the blessing points per quest value, then I might gain tens of thousands of blessing points without the need to even break a sweat.
"That… Won't that be considered cheating?"
Damn! Don't tell me that old man was an honest god in his days! I looked at him closely before I recalled how he tricked me before. No he couldn't be this just like Selvators.
"Don't say useless things," I said, "leave it for the system to decide."
"Good call," he even gave me a thumb's up. Yes, this was the shameless old man I knew for years.
[Your one hour is almost up]
[You can extend for another hour by paying one thousand blessings…]
"Take me out," I didn't even wait to read the rest of the message before I asked to leave, "make sure to send me the requests once I…"
I didn't have time to completely say what I wanted before the system took me away. That portal moved so fast and didn't give me any time to complete my last words to Lok.
But I was sure he already got the general idea.
As I returned, I looked around and found the piles of stat points I left were gone. These new boys of mine were just as good as their lord.
But what I liked was that even after I left, they still maintained their sense of order. The five generals of mine really were doing a great job here.
"Trunk, Seif, and the other three…" I already forgot what the names of the Grounders' generals were. Sigh, why did they have such weird and similar names to one another?
"It's Fort, Lort, and Gort my lord," Seif was the first to arrive as he said with a short laugh that he had to cut when I gave him a cold gaze.
Even if I missed their names, he shouldn't be this funny.
"Sorry, lord," he said and I simply waved my hand at him.
"We did what you ordered, lord," Trunk was the last to come, weirdly enough. Despite his big body, he seemed to be the slowest compared with the three grounders. Their speed in traversing the ground was a surprise for me.
"Good, and I have more good news to all of you…" I paused while receiving the message of the system.
[You got a blessing support from God Lok]
[Do you want to accept it?]
"I do."
[You have two free blessing slots available]
[You accepted the blessing of god Lok]
[A separate interface for each god of yours is now created for easier control and access]
"What is it, lord?" Seif asked while trying to not add any more useless or funny comments of his.
"It's about your gods," I said before adding, "you will receive requests to sponsor you. Just accept the requests without making any fuss about it."
They looked at me without saying anything, yet after a few seconds I heard a shout of shock coming from one of the grounders.
"Wow! It's just like what the lord said!"
"Really?" another one asked but soon everyone went into silence before shouting in delight. Even that giant Trunk jumped high in the air and caused a small earthquake in this region.
Anyway they deserved to celebrate this. And now it was the time for me to get the quest I waited for.
"Lok, what's wrong? Why didn't you send me the quest already?" but after waiting for ten minutes until all of my generals controlled themselves, I didn't get any quest or notification from him.
What? Did the system refuse to let him issue such a quest or what?
[Just check your quest menu]
I hit my forehead when I heard his voice. Damn! I just overlooked this and thought he would issue me a direct quest.
I opened my profile, opened my sponsorship menu, before finding two icons to select from. One was Sith and the other was Lok.
Of course they didn't have their names written over the two icons, but one had the symbol of a stick like the one Sith held and the other had a rough sketch of an angel.
251 The System Intervention
I selected Lok's icon and an interface appeared in front of me. And there I found the quest menu. Just one quest was there, one flashing with a bright myriad of colours; gold, silver, red, and black.
It just looked special. Please be special, please grant me tons of blessing points, please.
[Favour point quest: Extraordinary quest. Issued by your sponsor god, Lok.
Quest details: you are asked to seek favour points and bring them to Lok. for each favour point, you'll get one million blessing points in return]
It was there! One million blessing points… Damn! That meant I'd end up having five million blessing points. I just hoped it would be enough to cut the link of my entire force.
[Warning: This quest's reward is way above the limits of the current apocalypse stage]
[Warning: A change in the reward is being processed]
F*ck! How could that happen to me?!!!
"This is unfair!" I shouted at the sky, as if I was speaking with a true god or something up there, "I worked my as* to get those favour points! They can't be treated like dog sh*t or something!"
[Warning: A change in the reward is being processed]
As if my complaint was thrown out of the window, the system kept showing me these messages until one last message came.
[Change is done!]
"And?" I powerlessly and dejectedly asked.
[Your reward will remain the same, but a limitation over the number of favour points you can give to him has changed]
[You can now give one favour point every quest]
[You can give only one favour point to him now]
"Screw you!" I wanted to smash anything at this point out of rage, "I've already finished two quests and am waiting for the third!"
[This quest starts with quest three. The already finished quests aren't calculated or considered]
Damn! They didn't even consider this quest starting from quest two but three!
I was anxious, so I started regulating my breathing in an attempt to calm down myself. After a few minutes, I regained my composure.
"Alright, give him one favour point," I said while clicking again at the quest, "one million blessing points isn't a bad thing either."
I started looking at the bright side, ignoring the gains I lost with these modifications.
[One favour point is deducted successfully from your account]
[You gained one million blessing points]
[You are now considered the wealthiest of the entire apocalypse participants in blessing points]
[You can't gain anymore blessing points until you spend at least half of this amount]
"F*ck you!!" Even when giving me what was rightfully mine, that damn system placed such unrealistic limitations on me. "Just wait and watch, I'll consume most of them now!"
With an immense rage roaring inside me I controlled my chariot and went directly towards the big masses of the three races of mine.
"Stay put and don't move a muscle," I shouted even before getting there. I was so pissed off right now, and the only thing to vent my anger and cool down myself was via using that pair of scissors.
Of course with simple math I could tell there was no value in using the scissors to cut directly their god links. Each usage would take away one hundred blessing points, a price I was sure would be much lower if I filled the scissors with fuel.
But currently it had zero fuel point inside. The only way was through letting it deplete someone's blessing points.
"Come forth," I took it out once my feet touched the ground. Once I let go of the rope, I went to hold that heavy looking scissors.
But I didn't hold it from the right angle. I pointed its tip towards me and simply stabbed it into my thigh.
I felt no pain at all. It was weird though what I felt, like I was inside a world of illusions. There a majestic voice rang as it said:
"The god nemesis scissors, I, can absorb the target's blessing points. Do you want me to proceed?"
"Consume it all!" without a single moment of hesitation I gave the permission for my scissors to work his magic.
It was shocking to realise later on that the voice speaking here belonged to no one else but this godly item. However at this point, I wasn't in any condition to let me think rationally about that.
I felt a strange weakness, an urge to sleep that I strongly resisted. It was so overwhelming, yet luckily for me the process didn't take much longer than five minutes.
"Cough… Cough…" I coughed and sneezed once I broke free from my scissors' clutches. It wasn't a good feeling, something I hoped to never experience again.
Yet as I was weakly lying on the ground next to my scissors, I extended my shaking arm and touched it.
[Gods nemesis Scissors: God grade item. Bound to earthling Hye as a personal gift from death shrine god, Sith.
A weapon that can harm any god if used against him, regardless of his or her grade and rank. Can be used to cut the sponsorship between a god and someone inside an apocalypse. Can devour anyone's blessing points and turn these into fuel to run the scissors.
Current fuel stored inside: Two million fuel points.
Each fuel point will be used to cleanse one god link with anyone.
Each usage time will consume one hundred blessing points if there is no fuel there.
Can't be dropped. Can't be changed. Can't be sold]
Damn! That bastard's equation between blessing points and its fuel was something else!
It seemed for each blessing point it absorbed, a single fuel point was added. But was it one fuel point or two?
For a second I stood in my place puzzled and frowning from this. Yet when I recalled the bonus of my blessing points gained, being doubled thanks to my sponsorship with Sith, I realised what happened here.
"So you tried to steal one million blessing points away from me? Humph, nice try," I snorted while standing over my light glaive, using it literally as a walking stick.
252 Severing The Gods' Support
As for the scissors, it was so damn heavy to even drag it around in such a weakened state of mine. So I preferred to store it away and summon it later.
"Now it's your turn…" I looked at the pale faces out of fear of my boys. Of course seeing their boss harshly treating himself like that was frightening.
I knew if not for my rage earlier, I would never even consider doing this to myself. And right now even if I had all the rage in the world, I would never dare to repeat such an experience out of my pure will ever again!
I wasn't that masochistic kind of a guy anyway, perhaps that jumper might be someone like that.
"You… come one by one and stand in a long line," I pointed my glaive towards the Grounders army. After all, I had a weird thought that I wanted to test here.
If my scissors could absorb blessing points even from me, then those boys coming from another apocalypse could donate their points to my beloved scissors as well, right?
It was a theory, so fantastic that I hoped it would turn true. Per my orders, and under the guidance of their three generals, the first Grounders' army stood in a very, very long line, made up entirely of one giant dude of them.
"Lord…" just as the first stood in front of me, I summoned the scissors and didn't hesitate to stab its blade into their chest.
That giant dude was shocked, seemingly knowing what was going to happen to him.
"Endure like a man," I said in a deep tone, "your lord endured, so can't you do the same?"
Just as I said that, I heard the deep and majestic voice of my scissors again. This time the voice came clearer or my mind was void of any interruption.
As for the poor dude in front of me, he stood motionless, with a pale face out of fright.
"Do it," without hesitation or showing any sign of mercy, I gave the order. The next thing I saw was the blades of my scissors shining all in bright blue white colour like lightning.
Damn! That was a nice scene to witness. It didn't take longer than a few breaths before that dude fell on the ground, with a very weakened state of body.
"Don't worry, it won't last long," I reassured him then checked the status of my scissors. "It got ten thousand blessing points… cool! Damn cool!"
"L… Lord…" that dude on the ground spoke in a weak and stuttered way, "I only had five thousand," he added before he collapsed on the ground, seemingly losing his consciousness.
Yet I never cared to spare him a glance. All my attention was focused over my beloved scissors. "So you can also double the amount of blessing points going through you? Fantastic! Now, let's put this fuel into good usage."
If stabbing made it absorb, then cutting by its two big blades would do the other function. I faced great difficulty raising it, even having to summon two of my Bulltors to help.
[The god nemesis scissors felt the presence of a link with a god inside that person's soul]
[Do you want to cut it?]
"Do it," I said in urgency and the next moment my scissors lost all the weight it carried, flew by itself in the air before performing a fast series of cutting motions that left afterimages behind.
"Ahhh!!!" even that dude who lost his consciousness screamed out of immense pain. It seemed he couldn't tolerate the work of my scissors, but he had to endure.
At this moment I felt that losing consciousness wasn't a bad thing after all. Just in a few moments, my scissors stopped, regained its heavy weight and slammed heavily over the ground.
*Thud!*
And that dude fell on the ground like a heavy rock. "Next," I decided to wait until he'd regain his consciousness then let Lok bind again with him.
"Lord…" yet when I said this word, everyone behind that dude stepped a few steps backwards. The one to speak was Seif, who had a pale face like white paper as well.
"Come or die," I threatened, "I won't let you all suffer from your gods. I have one god ready to take you all in. either comply or I'd go by myself and kill anyone defying my orders."
It wasn't a moment for such defiance or hesitation. I knew they were terrified, but that didn't mean they'd refuse to do this process.
It was a mandatory operation, a painful path they had to venture to get their freedom from their pathetic gods.
As I didn't show any reliance towards them, they started to come at me one by one with shaking legs. Of course their experiences didn't differ much from the first dude, all ended up screaming, losing consciousness twice, hitting the ground with their bodies at the end.
Yet I found that I was a little rash in using my blessing points before. After all, I gained almost one million fuel points from all of them.
Of course some had blessing points in thousands, others had in hundreds, and a substantial amount of them had zero points. Yet with numbers, I managed to get more than I even imagined.
"Take them all in!" by the half of the process, those who lost their consciousness first stood up in better shape.
I said my words to Lok, who didn't delay and sent over his invitation to them.
The situation then turned upside down. Those who were previously screaming and were in such pain, agony, and weakness, were now screaming out of pure excitement.
Gaining a new god supporting them held a better, much better feeling especially after losing their past gods support.
And with that, the remaining half held more courage and showed more resolve and readiness than the first half.
After all they all saw with their own eyes how this pathetic experience would end. And that was a decisive factor in turning their attitude towards me one hundred and eighty degrees around.
Just seeing this change made me regret not waiting until the first dude regained his consciousness.
Anyway, I took almost twelve hours to finish all of them. Just as I finished, I started to scroll through the messages coming from everyone.
253 The Keys
I got messages from my team. Of course they never ceased to try and persuade me from doing anything during the upcoming two events.
"Guys… You just don't know what I'm preparing for all of you… Sigh!" I could only mutter this to myself while checking the other important info I got.
The ones chasing down the dragons already got lots of kills and gains. They followed the dragons all the way to the borders of Ohio.
[Come back] I didn't hesitate to give them the order, [Abandon anything you gained in Ohio. just take cities and towns to form a strong line between Pennsylvania and Ohio]
Of course I wouldn't commit this mistake of overstretching my troops in that way. First I lacked enough, second the next two quests we would be devoid of any stat addition.
So it would be better to just take half of Pennsylvania, better to be closest to New York state. As for the rest of Pennsylvania, it would be better to let it rest in the hands of another power.
[Tell me you are working at North] I sent it to Fang who didn't delay to respond.
[I'm already few tens of miles away from New York to the West] he sent before adding, [I already met many of your forces running after defeated dragon forces]
[Good… Tell me, do you want a free meal?]
[According to the price I'll pay]
I knew that dude was smart enough to guess my thoughts. [Like usual] I sent.
[Not enough dude, I can only pay this for big cities and towns at the middle zone]
[But this is also a doorway to the central zone] I didn't lose hope and he waited for a few minutes and I didn't say anything to him.
[Listen, we can do it this way… I'll give you one training camp per three cities or five towns]
I knew that dude was starting to gather lots of humans from every possible means. Yet he wouldn't let such a meal go in vain.
[Deal. send me a contract over and I'll tell my boys to be ready to welcome your troops]
I wouldn't do much with expanding my territory to the West. but by exchanging them with training camps, I'd gain something valuable in return.
[Wait for the Selvators to come and take control of the cities and towns you conquered. Then come back, we still have business to do]
Of course they argued and even Isabella asked to hold a few of these forts as she described. Yet she didn't know that these forts were actually hot cakes in disguise.
Whoever would gain them would face a heavy pressure during mid fight against the dragon forces of the two archlords.
I would rather prefer to put Fang and his forces in front of me as a shield, using them to take the fierce initial attacks before acting to retaliate.
Then taking over this region would be a real piece of cake.
[Just come back now, we will work over this part later on, but not now]
That was all I could say to them. As for summoning them back, it was to hasten the efforts of Karoline and Hilary to crush the Eastern regions.
Besides these regions seemed to have weird resistance made entirely out of different races combined.
As the two girls sent to me hours ago, they noticed the presence of great numbers of races in big cities and towns. These races didn't have any leading big name of the five races in the apocalypse.
It was weird. Why would a race summon all these numbers of weird races without staying behind to rule them? Did they think they could stop my forces?
Something looks fishy here. So I needed to call back all my forces, just in case something big was hidden in that region.
In addition to that, I also had another purpose for calling them back.
I had an idea to solve the issue of lacking stat points. Stat points were now one of the hottest currencies I had. I couldn't possibly satisfy the needs of my forces. Besides in the upcoming two quests, they couldn't add stat points.
But there was a way to overrule this punishment, something I acquired a long time ago and didn't yet put to a good use.
And it was time to shine.
I took out a diamond looking big key from my inventory. I had two keys that got upgraded before. They took their time to evolve, ending up being totally covered with such a fragile layer of diamond skin.
I rubbed the key and smashed open that layer to be met with a bright light that ended up being gold.
"A dark gold dungeon key? Interesting…" my eyes flashed the moment I saw this key. It was a good thing indeed, allowing me to use this key almost once per twelve hours.
I was banned from gaining any stat points in the apocalypse, but who said dungeons were really part of the ongoing apocalypses?
Many theories already were put forth about these dungeons. Yet after knowing all these secrets about my universe, I could say these dungeons might be the remaining parts of lost worlds.
Anyway the rules there were different. One could get anything from there, even stat points. Also according to one's achievements, one could add stat points to boost his strength.
Of course this feature wasn't the main reason behind the fever of looking and obtaining dungeons at my time. Gaining items and gears, even ranked ones, was the main reason.
Not to mention gaining skills, the most desired thing for me in the apocalypse.
But for me and at this moment, I would ditch anything just to secure a way to add more stat points to me and my forces. Of course I was speaking about adding mostly ten points per each dungeon visit in each stat.
Considering the short time of my dungeon refresh time, and adding the fact that I had two keys not one, I knew by the time of the great war in less than four days from now, I'd be more prepared for it.
254 Heading To MIT
After ending up from that fight, I'd let my extra forces go inside and gain more stat points. This would help in shortening the gap between my forces and everyone else during these two quests.
Of course they took over one day to reach Ohio, but they'd take less than ten hours to retreat. Of course that included the time needed for Fang's men to come and take over the frontline.
As for the jumper, that bastard seemed to have his fun time in repairing the walls. He didn't even send me a single message ever since our last chat.
More than one day passed and he didn't even finish repairing that wall? I couldn't believe that! That dude was slacking, and I intended to go back to the city and teach him a proper lesson.
Do your work dude then slack as much as you wanted, that was what I had in mind while imagining myself punching that ugly mask of his, revealing his face.
"Come with me," I said to the five generals before returning up to my chariot. I led them towards Albany city, controlling the speed of my chariot to not fly so fast ahead.
It took roughly an hour to arrive at the city. As I approached, I found all the holes under the walls being covered up and the city was already guarded tightly by my forces.
But I didn't see the jumper anywhere on the walls. [Where are you?] as he didn't come to meet me up, I sent over, thinking he was sleeping or something.
[I'm doing something of my own] yet he sent me such a weird message, [I'll be absent for three days. I'll come just one day before moving out]
He acted weird. [Do you want any help or something?] I asked while opening his channel, trying to see what he was doing.
The screen showed a vast stretch of ruins, and that jumper was standing there all by himself. He raised his sword as if he was facing a real enemy there,jumped around and moved his weapon before I realised what he was doing.
He was training. That dude was trying to hone something he learnt before. Was he preparing this hard for the upcoming fight?
[I'm ok by myself. Just don't screw things up with Karoline]
[Keep your nose away from this matter] I sent over before adding, [I'll wait for you in three days. Don't take much longer than that]
I saw him practising for a few minutes before closing up his channel. That dude was finally taking things seriously, hopefully for the best.
The upcoming battle seemed to leave its shadow over everyone, him included. It was sad for him to not be here and witness my grand army of forces.
Of course I wasn't regretting that too much. After all that dude was now trying to become stronger, something I wouldn't say no to.
The city was restored and well protected by his forces. But it wasn't feasible to let them rot here. My current three races forces were able to gain stat points at the upcoming two quests, but my human forces couldn't.
So I decided to switch the defences here, leaving behind my new forces to guard this city of mine. As for the jumper's forces, I started to lead them towards the direction of Massachusetts state.
There the two girls were having a lot of trouble dealing with their unexpected enemies. Despite the fact that these combined forces of weird races weren't strong, they held the advantage in numbers.
The two girls led normal human forces. Without any strong powerhouses like my personal army of warriors, they couldn't achieve victory except after losing much time.
Just during the two hours I wasted in going to Albany city and switching the defences there, they couldn't take a single city or town yet. That gave me insights about what the true goal of my hidden enemies here was.
They wanted to delay my advance. Humph, if they tried this in the West, I'd not be bothered with it. But they tried to prevent me from going East. That was something I'd never allow to happen.
Karoline took the northern route, fighting at Fitchburg city. As for Hilary, she was in the south, fighting at Springfield city.
According to the map of that region, Karoline's advance was a little better than Hilary. Of course that returned to the fact that Karoline was leading her seasoned fighters, not like Hilary.
Hilary's army was recently formed. These humans still lacked the waring experience of Karoline's boys.
My final goal was to reach all the way to the East, claiming the two jewels at that part; Cambridge and Boston cities.
MIT was located at Cambridge, while Boston was considered the biggest city here. It was also close to Cambridge. I wanted to control the two cities, unify them and form a brand new city.
If Albany city was considered to be my strongest fort, then this new city would be the heart of my kingdom. There I'd start my entire ambitious dream of turning the human arsenal into something apocalyptic-wise.
I already gave the order for the army forces in this region to gather up and take control over the two cities. Also I asked the army private companies to move everything they got towards MIT campus.
I'd use the brilliant minds of students and professors there, coupled with all the technology and equipment inside that university to turn the human arsenal brought by these defence contractors into something useful.
Of course the plan in my mind would take a long time to proceed and bring the first fruitful results to me and my forces. But I had to start, or else I'd be much delayed in seeing the results.
I had three options now, either to go north and help Karoline, go south and help Hilary, or act as a separate force, heading midway and going directly towards Cambridge and Boston.
I didn't dwell at this for too much. I decided to go directly to Boston and Cambridge. Karoline's and Hilary's forces need hard foes to conquer to mature.
255 The Battle At Northampton
Besides I already called forth all my scattered forces in the West. in less than twelve hours they'd show up here, giving all the help needed to these two.
Expanding the fight would come next. Yet I'd be all stationed at MIT campus, trying to sort out the grand upgrade plan of the human firearms.
I'd also start sending troops one day from now to the first dungeon. First I'd have to take full control over these two cities, then start arranging the work at MIT, then do this dungeon thing at the end.
Phew! My schedule was really tight and intense.
The human army was moving as slow as the races I got. Even if my races were weakened, they still moved as fast as the common human fighter in the apocalypse.
That was enough evidence on how important the cultivation difference was. And that made me rethink again about how to open cultivation for all humans.
I had to search deeper about that topic. I'd ask the green nymph lady when time was appropriate.
I'd need all the info about cultivation in the universe. Also I'd need any useful tool or equipment to help and open the dantian and meridians for any race.
The main problem here would be this step. Opening the dantian and meridians for the human race would be a hard process. I even doubted I'd find any suitable tool to do so.
That was why I considered gathering up any record, scroll, book, or even a recording about cultivation. I had to spread this culture first among humans then think about how to let them cultivate.
Knowledge was everything, and we, humans, lacked anything related to cultivation.
Other races were trained over cultivation since they were young. This showed how big the gap was between us and them.
It took me and my forces roughly a couple of hours to reach the central zone of Massachusetts. The first one third of its west part was already under my control.
But now I was faced with a big city called Northampton. It wasn't that big like Albany or New York, but it was filled with lots of hostile races.
The hostile army defending this city was so large to extend even beyond the ruins of the city for half a mile. Inside the city, I could spot five small gates, shining all the time, seemingly bringing forces here.
"So they are bringing forces to delay my advance… I'll know the bottom of this once I'm there," I muttered while raising my glaive, pointing it towards the front and shouted one single word: Kill!
My personal army of warriors was already running at the forefront of my human forces. I didn't intend on using the human forces to take this city or any other city on this track.
After all, their speed would be much slower than my warriors. With my shout, my warriors sprinted to the front, clashing first with the enemy.
These hostile races weren't that much at all. They reminded me of the races the Succubi brought at any battle I fought with them before.
What? Were the Succubi behind this or what? I'd soon know once I purged the city of the invaders.
The fight was simply one sided from the start. My warriors were aided by my fallen gods, soulers, and even dragons. Just lacking any way to defend against aerial attacks was enough to crush any defences no matter how strong they were.
Seeing how effective my dragons were, I seriously thought about expanding their forces. Right now I could do miracles with the small numbers I got here. But later on such an advantage would soon crumble if I didn't act and add more dragons.
The current stage of the apocalypse had aquatic monsters, no aerial ones. But soon at quest five, the first waves of aerial monsters would appear.
They were weak, I knew that. But with each upcoming quest, these aerial monsters would evolve, show more power, and much fiercer flying monsters would appear as well.
It was time for me to pay more attention to my dragon forces. I looked at my soul points to be met with a pleasant surprise.
"Four million points… That's really something…"
Despite knowing the large debt I owed, I didn't hesitate in using one million and summoning dragons.
Two hundred dragons appeared and joined my current forces. I didn't add much stat points to them, only enough to open three skills for each of them.
With these, my dragon force was a little closer to one thousand marks. I let loose all of my warriors and in less than one hour, they dominated their enemies.
The main problem I faced was the constant reinforcements coming from the five gates. At some point I got fed up with these, and decided to go and take them all.
When I flew towards the first gate, I became more confident in my earlier guess. These gates all had the same colour, pale red coloured energy was surrounding the gates. I knew this was one of the most common colours of the succubi, yet I didn't get their aim here.
To be specific, this race would be my second best pick for the most cowardly race in the apocalypse. They would only be beaten by the illusionists.
So what was such a cowardly race doing at the forefront battlefield like this? Things didn't add up! Even if they were my enemies, their nature would make them take the side of a strong race like Dragons and fight alongside them.
The bad thing was the void of any succubus girl inside the city. I took in the five gates, shut down the annoying reinforcement thing, and that led to the swift ending of the battle.
"So gaining control over the gates is the fastest way to win this fight," I was sure that my enemies would be more familiar with the way of my fights. So it was weird how they were fighting this battle.
256 Going To Worcester City
That meant they didn't aim to slow me down, but my forces. A flash of realisation hit me… "They aren't after me, but trying to prevent my forces from securing more cities and towns, killing monsters and stacking materials."
It seemed that the news of my punishment had already spread to my enemies' ears. But why Succubi? Why not Illusionists for example?
The only thing I could think about would be the fact Succubi had a greater number of weaker races under their control.
Illusionists were still a strong race in their own accords. But a succubus girl with flirting and seducing skills? She couldn't do anything with herself. So this race had a herd of races serving under their command.
That might be the reason. Anyway, one city was down and I had more to conquer.
[Send a detachment to the centre, there is a city called Northampton free to take]
I sent this to Hilary, shut down the message when she responded with flirting and seducing words. Chick, I like your body, not your personality to be honest.
I didn't stand and wait. Even if my enemies tried to come and take this city, I could come back and take it again. Also my forces in the West were coming. I'd leave them to handle anything like this if ever happened.
I led my army out of the city, continuing to head East. Massachusetts wasn't that huge of a state, not like New York at least. I didn't fly for another hour before seeing the ruins of a big city on the horizon.
During my march towards here, I met many towns and counties. I decided to leave them all for my forces to train. I was only concerned with big cities and towns, nothing more.
I looked at the map. The city in front of me was slightly bigger than Northampton. It was called Worcester city.
The one thing to notice in this part of the continent was the presence of many small lakes scattered all over the place. Inside this city alone, I could see at least seven small lakes in size with one long one lining most of the eastern border of the city.
I stopped half a mile away, not to appreciate this nice looking scene of the lakes, but because this city didn't show much of ruins like any other city I passed at after New York.
In fact the ruins only were stretching in a big circle surrounding the centre of the city. Aside from that, the city itself wasn't in bad shape.
Its buildings that gave me the feeling of old English style were still standing.
"Monsters and races won't let such a city stand without destroying it," I muttered while activating my hawk eyes, "the only race that would be this civilised would be none other than humans."
As I saw far with my skill, I saw large groups of humans patrolling around the central part of the city. The five gates were scattered around that part, seemingly surrounding it.
The gates kept flashing, yet the herds of races coming out weren't alone this time. There were tons of monsters. In addition to that, these forces weren't moving an inch towards the humans at the centre.
It was a weird situation to be honest. Either the hostile army was waiting for my arrival, or they had some sort of a deal with humans inside the city.
But from the first look I could tell humans here didn't have enough power to state out their conditions. And since when monsters and races acted in such a way towards strong humans?
Take me for example, they tried more than once to kill and get rid of me.
"I have to go there and ask them myself," I looked at the general view of the city while trying to find a safe way to run this battle.
If I let my boys loose, then those humans in the centre would be in grave danger. After all, my strong forces like fallen gods and dragons were used to fight without any consideration to anything else.
Their attacks would be so devastating, enough to kill and harm many humans in the centre.
"Then I'll do it in a more direct way," as I couldn't handle an open way of a fight, then it would be better to go directly and cut the head of the snake.
"Come," I looked at the dragons in the sky before adding, "just attack those around me."
My last words were directed at the fallen gods, especially the lightning gods. Those guys were literally living killing machines walking on earth.
As they all nodded, I decided to leave the rest of my forces here. "Just wait for my shout to attack," I gave them the last order before controlling my chariot and headed towards the first gate.
It was situated just near one of the small lakes here. The building that was now in ruins had a medium sized castle with that gate on top of it.
"Attack," things proceeded normally like always. The dragons hit the forces on the ground with their breaths while the fallen gods tried to control their mighty attacks, limiting them to a relatively smaller area than usual.
I was using the medium form of my chariot, so my speed of flying wasn't that superb. I didn't want to consume lots of my stat points in the chariot for something trivial like taking down this city.
My chariot roaring heart was never void of at least fifty million stat points. I once tried to replace the stat points with the godly essence that I got from the illusionist's powerhouse. And the result was really satisfying.
A single piece of that essence was enough to replace one million stat points. Yet I had another usage for it, which was to give energy to my fallen gods.
So I didn't use much, and mainly focused on using my stat points.