305 Showing My Demeaner
"I'm not interested in these useless scraps of metal," I corrected my words, using harsher words to describe what I really felt, "I only am interested in the engineers and scientists in your companies."
"Who said you can order us around?" After a few moments of angry whispering, one of the people belonging to the Reston company said in a rude way.
*Snap!*
I didn't need to speak anymore. If they were blind to see the facts, then it was helpful to just shake some sense into them using my boys here.
With a simple snap of my finger, the entire army of my dragons flying high in the air descended all of sudden. They all landed over my chariot, with much more flying around with no place for them to stand there.
With their presence, an immense pressure pushed itself over everyone here. The first to retreat with pale faces were the youths from MIT.
Despite anyone here could tell I never harboured any ill intentions towards them, yet the threatening atmosphere here was really suffocating for all.
"What's… The meaning…"
"Of this?" I completed the stuttering words of that rude dude, "consider this as a kind reminder, the last reminder I'd ever give to all of you."
I paused, put a serious look over my face before adding, "I don't allow such impudence in my forces. If you are this unsatisfied, then you have a chance to gather up what you brought and leave with your people."
"This…"
"You got one hour to do so," I waved my hand and the next moment the world was filled with the deafening roars of my dragons. In the face of such deadly creatures, no one could hold his own, no matter what.
Everyone retreated with the same pale faces in the face of my mighty dragons. I lightly smiled as I looked at Moore:
"Tell your people to gather here in one hour. Let them bring all their ideas and projects with them. Also.."
I ignored Wolf and the other two companies representatives and looked at the scared MIT guys, "bring your top students in every field here. I have to discuss something big with everyone."
"What about us?" one of the Northrop guys asked, while giving a weird look at the guys from Reston.
"You can stay if you want," I shrugged, "but in my world, only those with brilliant minds can have a place. Or else, you will be distributed over my forces, working as normal soldiers there."
"This is bullsh*t!" The one from the Reston company was still acting impulsively with me. I gave him a warning glance. Dude, if you spoke another mean word to me, then you won't even have a chance to leave here in one piece.
"We'll discuss this with our superiors," the ones from the Northrop company said, seemingly acting a little smarter than those from Reston.
"We won't forget this humi…"
*Snap!*
*Roar!*
"Ahhhh!"
That dude really overstepped his boundaries with me. Even before he could continue his threatening words, I snapped my fingers, letting my dragons kill him with a single roar and a mighty breath from one of them.
That dude didn't take more than one breath to burn and die. His body turned into a blackened dead piece of meat that fell over my chariot in a muffled thud sound.
"I hate anyone speaking to me with no capital," in front of all the eyes here, I kicked that dead body and sent it flying towards the distance. "Either you know your place or scram off my sight."
"I'm staying," without even waiting for my words to end, Wolf suddenly jumped as he added, "I'll work at any position you choose. But I also brought a few engineers that can be of help to you, sir."
His tone and the way he addressed me changed greatly after what I just did. I looked at him and couldn't see anything but sincerity in his face.
"Then you can stay here and work with my forces," I nodded, "as for your company… Its status will be determined with the contribution your people will make later on."
"My boys are far more intelligent than anyone else in other smaller fishes," Wolf's face didn't show any sign of joking. He believed in what he said.
"What do you mean, buddy?" Moore was the one who stood up to these words.
"You know that your people aren't that good compared to ours," Wolf ignored me, seemingly finding a way to release all his tension over Moore's head.
"Humph, even if your people were this exceptional and luckily successful before, that doesn't mean they can compete with my thousand geniuses," Moore didn't hesitate to stand up to him, matching Wolf's challenging words with another.
"We'll see," Wolf only harrumphed, turned to me as his face returned to show respect, "I have a question sir."
"Ask."
"Will you assess our company's contribution based on the number of geniuses we brought? Or their help to you in your projects?"
"It's the latter," I said, not only to him but also to Moore, "after all what numbers matter? I only care about the big results and who helped me in achieving them."
"Great," Wolf happily said before giving Moore a mocking gaze. The latter seemed stirred up slightly before he controlled himself.
"We'll see how good your people will do," Moore said these last words to Wolf before excusing himself.
The others also excused themselves. The people from Reston and Northrop companies seemed to be very eager to leave here as fast as they could.
From the look of things, their bosses seemed to mistake my intentions. They thought they were in front of a green grass that they could chew easily.
But who said I was this weak? In fact If I declared I was the second strongest person in the entire human race at this moment, then there was none to claim the first position.
306 MIT Youths
"You… stay," just as everyone was retreating, I had to stop the three from MIT. After all, the presence of representatives from the other three big defence companies was beyond my expectations.
I wanted to speak with those MIT guys the most. After all, I wanted to know everything about the current status of the campus.
"Yes sir," the three were still frightened by my boys. In fact no one could hold himself easily in front of my dragons. So I had to wave for my dragons and let them go and do something for me.
I killed lots of aquatic monsters in this battle. So it was time for them to go and bring all their dead bodies to me. The cores and materials of these monsters were something important for my future plans.
"So, you are the top three of the MIT campus," I moved my eyes through the three youths. There were two males and one female standing in front of me, shaking like they were three week kittens or something.
"Don't worry," I said while looking around, "I can even say you are going to live inside the highest secured city in the entire world."
"Secure?" the girl with blonde short hair said with a bitter laugh, "we just managed to barely survive this fight."
"I can't say it will be the last fight here," I paused before pointing at the shield up there, "but that thing will keep you all secured. However… that doesn't mean you shall neglect training and getting stronger."
"If we did, we'll die," One of the two males said, and I nodded.
"Don't underestimate the times of peace," I warned, "peace is just more toxic than anything else in the world."
"Pretty much deep sh*t in my opinion," the third youth said before adding, "I want to know what do you plan to do with us?"
"To do the same sh*t you were doing before the apocalypse," I said, moving my eyes among the three before adding, "you learn and experiment on new things."
"But…"
"Electricity is down! We can't do anything without it."
"Most of our tech hasn't been functioning since the apocalypse. We tried everything, but even the repair pieces didn't work either."
The three started to state their difficulties, and I simply listened to all of their complaints patiently until they finished.
"Do you know why our tech didn't work after the apocalypse?"
"I think it was a worldwide EMP weapon or something," the girl said, "but it should only affect the working pieces. But even the spare parts were damaged."
"That's… You can consider it as an advanced version of the known EMP," I didn't know exactly the specifics about the way that brought the current human tech down.
All I knew was that the system disabled the circuits and rendered them all broken. "Then how can we work? And what about electricity?"
"This is the first thing you'll need to work upon," I said before adding, "use the theories behind developing electricity and use the current materials in this apocalyptic world to invent a new form of energy."
"New form?" the three said in the same voice, exchanging gases with each other.
"Are we going to play Edison now?" one of the two boys asked, the one who seemed to use a funny way to speak seriously all the time.
"Edison didn't invent electricity," the girl corrected him, "it was Benjamin Franklin!"
"Whatever," I stepped in to stop this needless argument. What was the benefit in knowing the name of the one who invented electricity or invented anything in the world?
"This is your time to be the ones mentioned in history records as inventors," I said, successfully attracting their full attention, "I'll supply you with different materials. Use these to invest in new forms of energy before anything else."
"But…" the third and much calmer guy said, looking at the other two before adding, "isn't it easier to just create a big generator?"
"That way we can save a lot of time," the girl nodded in agreement.
"We don't need to reinvent the wheel."
"That wheel is now a flat tired one," I looked at that funny dude before adding, "electricity is a lower form of energy that can't help in any of the future big projects. We need a much stronger form of energy, one that can help us build strong things."
"Oh…" the three realised finally what I was aiming for. "So…"
"We need a higher form of energy not because we can't produce electricity anymore. Electricity is just like the current human firearm weapons; both are useless."
"We… See…" the girl looked at the other two, seemingly taking their consent and agreement before adding, "but that means we'll need to study materials with higher forms of energy."
"Let me introduce this to you," I took one of the monster cores out. The one I took was connected to the back structure in honeycomb fashion. "This is something that can generate a higher form of energy and help in transforming it."
"This…" just like three babies seeing a delicious bar of chocolate, the three had their eyes shine in excitement and much interest.
"How does it work?" The calmer guy looked up at me with anticipation.
"Did you see how these monsters attacked?" I pointed towards the direction of one of the dead monsters before adding, "come, let me show you something."
I led my chariot and landed just beside the growing hill of dead bodies that my dragons and my other warriors kept moving here.
I took out my sharp and light weighted glaive, cut through the body of that monster in an experienced way. This wasn't my first time handling such dead meat.
In a few seconds, I cleaved open that monster into pieces. I neglected everything and simply pointed at its centre.
"See this?" I pointed at the core residing perfectly in the honeycomb structure.
"This is the core of that monster?" The girl seemed to not be afraid of that monster. She stepped closer, inspected that monster's interior with the interest of a scientist.
307 [Bonus chapter] Bring Boys Home
"There is no place to form those projectiles… then…" she paused as she looked up at me and I nodded.
"The monster core worked to generate energy," I explained my theory, pointing at the core and the structure it lay within with my glaive as if it was a stick, "and through that structure, it transformed this energy to form the projectiles."
"Then the projectiles will pass through the thick arms here," the girl added, as she understood my point clearly and quickly, "interesting…"
"Do you want us to mimic this?" The funny guy came closer and this time he looked more attentive than before. "But do you want us to form projectiles as well?"
"No," I didn't want that, "I just want you to use these cores to develop energy we can use. Forming things from energy directly is a feat that will take much longer than you might think."
"We never thought it would take such a short time, you did," that dude returned to his funny nature before adding, "also the task of making this alien thing produce electricity-like energy is something nearly impossible."
"It's hard to transform this energy into something electricity-like," the girl stood up as she nodded her head in agreement, "we still don't know the nature of this energy, what are the similarities and differences from our electricity."
"Why are you so fixated over electricity this much?" I noticed they started to mention electricity nearly in every sentence they spoke.
"Everything we have runs on electricity," the calmer dude explained, "if we generated another form of energy, like directly harvesting the energy of this core, it won't let our things work."
"Then throw away the electricity concept," I firmly said.
"What?!!!" The three literally jumped off their feet when they heard what I said.
"It's simple, you change the building of anything we have, let it run over the new form of energy."
"But…"
"I know it will take a ton of work and lots of time," I interrupted the girl, "but it's something we have to do. Forget about electricity, forget about everything we used to work with before. We need to start fresh, start our own civilization over our own creations."
"…"
The three looked in silence to each other. I knew this might be a hard step, a very hard starting quest, but it had to be done.
After all, if we used electricity to modify our weapons, we might succeed. But to create new weapons from scratch… We would surely fail.
Not to mention the success rate of modifying the existing weapons was so low using normal electricity. We had to solve the problem of energy before anything else.
"So we are going to do it? Only the three of us?" the girl asked such a silly question.
"All of you," I said before adding, "all of the MIT genius minds will collaborate on this."
"But…"
"We can't work and leave the city unprotected."
"What if those scary dudes came again? You don't expect to scare them away using words!"
I looked at these three and realised they still didn't get their current situation yet. "This area is going to be protected by my forces," I said and before anyone else would interrupt, I added, "and I'll leave a strong force behind, enough to secure this place for a long time."
"Ok," the three didn't have any more issues as they agreed on such an arrangement. "But about these cores…" the calmer guy asked and I looked at the large number of monsters being brought over by my forces.
"You can use these for now," I simply gave them all this loot, "the cores can help in producing energy, and the other parts are excellent materials in making good weapons."
"So we are going to cut octopuses and cook their bodies into weapons?" The funny guy seemed to return to being funny again.
"You can eat their flesh if you wanted," I followed his humour with my words, "but make sure to cook them right or else you might die out of poison."
"They can be eaten?" the girl asked and I couldn't help but bitterly smile.
"Every monster here can be eaten, but beware of their undercooked meat. Or else you might end up dying of indigestion."
"This…"
"Just use them for your studies," I waved at the three, "as for food, you can look for good chefs from around to help you cook the flesh."
"Ok," the funny guy rubbed his hands while his mouth drooled over these monsters. It seemed he didn't only have a silly sense of humour, but also was a food addict as well.
"I'll leave my boys here to gather up everything," I said while returning to my chariot, "make sure to start working fast. I don't have much time to waste here."
"Are you going to leave soon?" the calmer guy shouted and I simply raised my fist in the air.
"Just make sure to do your work properly. Gather everyone here in one hour, ok?"
I returned to my chariot and looked for a few minutes over their actions. The funny dude left and the other two remained behind, seemingly starting to study the monsters thoroughly.
"They will be fine," I muttered, "I just hope they will exceed my expectations… and now…" I looked again at the direction of the city.
The forces here were scattered to claim the fortresses and emblems. I met all the force representatives, only that cult people hadn't appeared yet.
[Have everyone gathered?]
But instead of going around and talking to them, I simply decided to bring their leaders here alongside everyone else.
Now the three cities were under my control. It was just time before the entire emblems and forts fell under my control.
So it was time to bring the boys home.
[We are all here] Hilary sent, [Are you ready to open a hole in the shield for us?]
[Girl… I'm not that weak to wait all this time for you] I laughed before adding, [Things are all settled here. Just bring forth everyone and come to Cambridge city]
308 Thinking About The Future
[You…]
[Hahaha, what should I do? I'm just this domineering]
[Stop joking! Have you really crushed them?]
[Why would I lie to you? Everything here is under my control. Bring everyone and come here. We have lots of things to do]
[Ok]
We have to help those genius minds to modify the weapons into something we can use. I was the most successful one of my forces and had lots of good things.
But when thinking about Hilary's jumper, I couldn't help but feel I might need their help. These two weren't that simple, each had their own ways and experiences in this apocalypse.
So I believed these two might have something to offer here. In addition to that, I needed to arrange the house internally. This was going to be the future capital of my kingdom. So I needed someone to stay behind and defend it all the time.
In addition to that, I needed to send forces out again to claim any city, town, or village in this region. I controlled the heart successfully, and it was time to move against the limbs.
Also I needed to gather up a group of elites and start hitting the dungeon. Skill books were something so precious to me, even more important than the stat points problem.
As for stat points, I had an idea about how to solve this. I got something recently, something that could help me in changing the upcoming situation for the better.
That didn't mean I lost all the interest in going into the dungeons. There I could get not only skill books or stat points, but also lots of rare materials and gear.
These aren't easy to find in the apocalypse. I had to first enter the dungeon and explore it before deciding what I should do next about it.
If it was so damn hard, then it would restrict my activities. If I found something interesting inside, I wouldn't allow any team to enter the dungeon without my presence.
So I had to first enter and experience things there. Then the time would be up for my meeting with Fang and Wryly.
After winning the upcoming great battle, I'd come back here and lead my forces again into the dungeon. I might be pressured by the upcoming battle, but after that I had no reason to act aggressively again.
I'd have my kingdom established, only missing the most important kingdom heart thing. That thing was so precious and rare to be found easily in the apocalypse.
But this didn't make me feel stressed. I did a great thing so far. Either gathering up forces, training them, having the brilliant minds of MIT and the two other military companies, besides expanding my territory over a few states.
This was something impressive considering the little time I spent here. It was more impressive putting in mind I started all this from scratch.
Yet I didn't let that enter my mind. I knew everything had a sharp ascending slope, ending up in a plateau. I was nearing the highest point in my sharp ascension.
Then things would start to grow harder from there on. Just ascending one step would be like climbing mountains bare handed.
I was expecting such a moment for a long time already. That was why I acted so aggressively all the time, seizing every chance I could get.
I believed my plateau would start from the end of that battle. I'd enter into a stagnant stage where I'd work so damn hard to prepare my forces for the next step.
After that battle, the next opportunity I'd get would be the fifth quest. It wasn't just a simple quest. After all, I was waiting for that quest for a long time already.
The fifth quest was also the stage where the golden quests would be issued. Despite I lacked any intel about these quests, I knew about them from Angelica and Alex.
Perhaps Hilary would know more about these quests. I had to wait until she'd arrive and ask her about that.
I also wanted to ask her about the Hectors. They were now in such a tough situation after what I did with their paragon.
Paragon was the highest ranked dude in any race in the apocalypse. I cursed him for eternity, and he and his forces would suffer from such a curse for a long time.
I had to know if they could do anything to face such a situation. I also needed to gather more information about their fighting habits.
Having such a terrifying race cursed was an opportunity indeed. If so then I might work a little harder in the upcoming battle, seek their places and expand my territory over theirs.
Succubi and Illusionists already gave up their belongings to that race. The Dragons were still fighting, even if they stood in their own camp.
I got the Selvators and Berserkers by my side. Together with humans we could fight for a more advantageous situation in that war.
Seven races in one apocalypse, seven forces with different agendas and arrangements, yet all aspired to have the same result.
We were all fighting over the same piece of land. The difference here lay within the simple fact that this was my home land. This was Earth. Every single inch of it belonged initially to humans.
It might be considered our victory to secure a good piece of land from that war. But in the end, it was our loss. We were fighting to regain our land, our home… Seeing it shared with aliens was something I considered a failure.
But I waited for the moment when these aliens' worlds would be integrated with my Earth. At this stage, I'd show no mercy or tolerance towards anyone.
As they worked their best to claim my lands, I'd also show no respect to them and claim as much lands as possible from their worlds.
In other words… My current arrangements with the Berserkers and Selvators would face a challenging time when the fight would move to their lands.
309 Using Heroic Calling
At that time, they'd show their real intentions towards me. I wouldn't settle with anything but taking large pieces of their worlds. Even if it led to an open war with everyone, I wouldn't retreat or resign.
Patience… In a way or another, the merge would start on a big scale. My chance would arise, and I had to let my boys be ready to face these times in the best shape possible.
I estimated such a merge would happen either at the fourth or the fifth quest. It wouldn't even happen beyond quest six. After all the upcoming quests would need more lands to occur.
The system's main goal was clear to me. It was going to train us for the big war between the universes. So it would act more aggressive towards this goal starting from quest five.
And I had to be ready for that when it happened. I'd let Fang and Wryly provide me with every possible help before the merge started.
Then I'd see how they'd react. Would they still keep our deal? Or would they select the benefits of their races, even if it was over their future possibility of getting upgraded?
But there was something else that puzzled me. A new race joined the fight here. Did that also mean the Hectors' world would also merge with us?
If that was true, then the size of the new world would grow exponentially. That also meant more lands to fight over, more possibilities to expand my kingdom.
Anyway, I had to wait for the start of the merge before anything else. The merge process was one of the most violent events in the entire apocalypse per records' words.
Natural disasters would hit all of us everywhere. Tsunamis would be common like storm clouds. Earthquakes, volcanos, and even landslides would be common as well.
I knew that the eastern part of this continent would be hit mercilessly with tsunamis, especially around New York city. Massachusetts was considered safe.
But that was in light of five worlds merging with Earth. With the newly added world of Hectors, it might end up in a totally different situation.
I just hoped things wouldn't go south for me here. I looked up at my grand shield, seeing in it a chance to protect my newly born kingdom against all these disasters.
Of course the shield had its limit against any damage or attacks. But it would greatly reduce the fierce impact of the natural disasters. I had to consider expanding my shield over other cities and regions, hopefully I'd uniformly defend most of my kingdom by the start of the merge.
In other words, it was best for the merge to start by quest five and beyond. If it happened earlier, I might face the risk of losing many places thanks to these disasters.
Sigh… Things in the apocalypse were so tightly connected. The fairness of the system was something annoying and getting over my nerves recently.
On the surface things might look fair. A new race came here in response to my actions. I brought this upon myself. And in the end, the final merge events would change accordingly.
But in fact the system never was this fair with humans. Other races had their own time to train and prepare for the apocalypse. It was enough to say humans started the apocalypse, not knowing what was going to happen to them.
Unlike other races, humans entered this apocalypse blindfolded. Other races knew exactly what was going to happen. They knew even the stages of the apocalypse, what they should do and shouldn't.
Not to mention the lack of a general communication system for humans to use. The system was never fair to us. And except for me, other humans were literally fighting against the storm barehanded.
Thinking about that made me recall that deadly quest I got from that higher up. He was helpful and cooperative, but in fact he was just opportunistic.
Turning me into his slave, working for his cause and benefit in return for gaining something humans should have from the start was a mean move.
But what else could I do but accept? Sigh! We, humans, were destined to fail even before the apocalypse ever started!
Even if there were no dirty angels working in the shadows, trying to fasten our fall, we would have a very low chance of winning.
I had to better prepare. After all, the big differences between humans and other races would only grow wider the more time we advance in this shitty apocalypse.
"I have to use the heroic calling now," as I paused for a few minutes, I decided to send the videos I recorded over to all humans.
Humans must know there was a chance for them. The other races might look terrifying and deadly, but that didn't mean we weren't without any options here.
We had to fight, and even if they all lost the will or hope to survive, I had to show them the way. My recorded videos of my best ever battles might look as if I was boasting or something.
But they carried a hidden message, one that only ambitious souls would understand. If a normal human being like everyone else could achieve such greatness, then wouldn't that also mean others could also aspire to achieve as such?
Wouldn't these videos ignite the spark of challenge and resistance inside all humans? Well… I hoped this would succeed. Until the day I'd establish a grand communication system for all humans to use, my heroic callings were the only thing I could use to contact humans.
They were the only thing ever provided by the system for humans to get contact with each other on a worldwide scale.
[Do you want to use a heroic calling now?]
"Use it," I instantly said, "spread these three videos over. Let everyone see how I fought against hard and strong opponents and succeeded."
I selected three videos of my deadliest battles ever. One was against that illusionist archlord. One was against the dragon race archlord. And the last one was against the Hector race paragon.
These battles were my best ever so far, the three that would show my real strength and the essence of being a human.
We were such a weak race, but we were blessed with the desire to resist more than any other race in the apocalypse.
Humans… We were survivors by nature, warriors by soul, and ambitious like hell in our minds.
310 Rare Moment Of Peace
I selected the three videos and then a message popped up asking me to start recording something to be accompanied with the videos.
"My fellow humans, these are a few of my recent battles. I'm not boasting here, I'm just trying to tell you something… Greatness isn't limited to those damn races in the apocalypse. Humans… We have a chance, not less than any of them. Good luck."
[Do you want to send these three videos?]
"Send them."
I looked at the bright sky filled with the small shining suns with content. I hoped these videos and the recordings of my battle would be of help to humans.
[Your last use of heroic calling has caused a sensation all across your world]
But strange enough, this message popped up followed by many others.
[Many humans are touched by what you shared]
[Lots of human gods are touched by your performance]
[Lots of gods are now rushing to subscribe to your channel]
[Some traitors told other races gods about your doings]
[A wave of hatred is accumulating fast against you]
[Many other races gods are seeing you as their races greatest enemy in the apocalypse]
[Few gods shared your videos to the universal stream]
[Many eyes are now watching your past performance]
[Lots of gods are saying that this performance is nothing as this is the early stage of the apocalypse]
[Many doubt your ability to survive past quest ten]
[Many gods are searching for your channel]
[Your videos are now turning into a hot trend across the universe]
[Scattered human civilizations are now hearing about your name for the first time]
[Many alien races are hearing about your name for the first time]
[Congratulations! You are now in the top ten trending list across the universe of the most famous characters of the month]
[You can now expand your channel to accept double the size of its capacity]
"Expand it," I didn't know why my videos created such a ruckus. If there was someone to blame then these traitors would be in fault.
Damn traitors! I just realised something. It seemed as being traitors that they lost their chances to gain support from human gods. So they were supported by alien gods.
I sent my videos to all humans, and it seemed the system was still considering them part of our race even if they were considered a hybrid species now.
I had to be more cautious in the future. Any heroic calling must be used from now on over full humans, not hybrid ones, not to people gaining support from alien gods without human gods.
I got the support of an alien god, but my main god was Sith, a human race god. Thinking about that reminded me of that jumper and my other teammates.
The jumper had the support of that dirty god. I had to think about a way to sever the connection between the two. As for my other elite subordinates, some of them already had support of normal human gods.
I didn't know who had the support and who didn't. I also didn't know if they had the support of good gods or just normal ones.
I had my channel, and now it was welcoming a new wave of human gods. I could use it to select a few of the best gods, preferably higher grade gods, to support my elites.
As for the current gods supporting them, I could easily sever the connection with them. Also there was another main benefit about doing that.
If they gained support from the start, that meant they wouldn't have any empty slot for god support. That was bad. They wouldn't gain anymore chances to add slots to their profiles each couple of quests.
So I had to sever their support first. As for selecting better gods, I had to wait until they gained another slot.
But I had to wait until they arrived. As I didn't have anything to do, I sat over the chariot's roof, leaning my back over its side, closed my eyes and started to enjoy a rare moment of peace.
Yet I was destined to not enjoy any peace. After just half an hour, I got a message from Hilary and others, telling me they arrived at the shield.
[Just go and help secure the entire castles and emblems in the three cities] I sent them. After all, the cities were still not totally controlled yet.
I estimated they'd take roughly from two to three hours to cover up the entire city. [Beware, there is someone hiding in the shadows. He defended the buildings but didn't show himself up yet]
[Ok Mr. Famous guy] the jumper sent this in mockery, referring of course to my shared videos from earlier. I scoffed and closed the messages without responding to his provocations.
That dude… He was a real master in getting on my nerves. Anyway he had a task to finish, then we'd all meet.
I closed my eyes again, but just after twenty minutes I heard a lot of ruckus coming from down below, interrupting my peace. I stood up to see over a thousand people gathering up from every corner towards here.
"Time flew fast indeed," I stretched my body while feeling the need to rest.
But there was no time for me to do that. After finishing the next battle, I'd have to take a few days off to rest no matter what.
My body was supported with my stats and cultivation indeed, but it wasn't invincible. I had to give it rest from time to time, or else I might break without knowing it.
"Hi sir, we came as you requested," Wolf was the first to meet me up when I descended from my chariot. He looked more cautious and respectful to me than before.
"Why are you acting in this way?" I gave him a doubtful look. After all this dude was like a talking machine, not showing any regard to my presence at all.
311 Meeting The Big Military Companies' People
Yet this time Wolf looked more attentive to his words. He even used just a simple sentence as a greeting, and didn't lean to his usual way of speech.
"That's expected," Moore appeared next, patting over Wolf's shoulder in a way that annoyed the latter, "he got the direct orders to be more respectful to you, sir."
The last word he said seemed like it carried tons of mockery and sarcasm towards Wolf. The latter had an ugly expression, telling me what Moore said was true.
"It's not ok to keep suppressing yourself like that," I smiled before adding, "acting in front of me won't get you anywhere. You need to just be yourself around me."
"Really?!!" Wolf's tone told me he was excited by what I said. Yet it seemed he got a really strict orders from his superiors this time as his face changed abruptly before hurriedly adding, while lowering his head:
"Sorry sir, but I'll have to show you my true sincerity."
"Sigh," I could only shake my head helplessly before adding, "your sincerity appeared the moment you showed up here with all your people, ready to follow my arrangements to the letter."
Wolf looked at me with hesitation. That dude was still struggling against his superior orders. I didn't know what they told him, but anyway they managed to keep him under leash.
"What will we do now, sir?" Moore asked while pointing in little pride towards the large group of people he brought, "I gathered all the big minds in our company here. I even called those trainees and interns to come as well."
"I can see that," I noticed the number of people was still increasing, and that didn't include the youths from MIT. Those youths seemed to grow the habit of coming late to any meeting or lecture, even coming here as the last batch.
From just looking at the crowd in front of me, I could tell there were almost from four up to five thousand people here.
Most were from MIT without doubt. Then people from Raytheon company came second, and slightly less than a hundred people from Lockheed Martin came last.
Speaking to such a large group of people wasn't easy from the ground. I opened my market and found some sort of an item that could magnify sound, acting like big speakers.
I bought this, and it was like a cone shaped horn. I held it in one hand as I stood on the top of my chariot. I held my glaive with my other hand, leaning over it like I was using a walking stick or something.
Behind me Moore and Wolf stood with two of their most trusted men behind me. As for MIT students, those three from before stood behind me as well.
"I'm Hye, welcome to my forces," I said in greetings, something that seemed known to all of them, "I gathered you here so we can discuss everything about our future plans. As you know, the apocalypse we live in has left its deep marks over our past civilisation. Our tech was all lost, and now we are here to reclaim it."
Not a single one down below breathed or made a sound while I added:
"The first step in doing this would be solving the energy problem. Electricity is now obsolete. We need a new form of energy, one that can power up our new weapons and help our old way of life to continue."
I pointed my glaive towards the hills of dead monster bodies gathered over the distance, "these monsters use a unique way to produce energy and transform it into something corporeal. I don't want you to do all this in one go. First let's use the cores and salvage the energy from it. This energy will be the one we'll use later to build our new weapons."
I then turned to Moore and Wolf, "Have you brought any big guns here with you?"
The two nodded and instantly they started sending messages to their people down below. In a few minutes, two big things appeared.
The Raytheon people brought over a big cannon, while the Lockheed Martin brought their useless bomber.
"Wolf… Come on, don't you know these bombers are useless?" I couldn't help but turn to Wolf and say in an annoyed tone.
"Oh… It's just that…"
"They just brought these bombers as their top guns, hahaha," Moore laughed intentionaly to irritate Wolf. and he scored a perfect score in that.
"Stop it already! I won't tolerate such a loser from a small company speaking to me in that way! These bombers…" he started to rain his flood of words over the head of the poor Moore.
I watched from the side, all in silence, while inwardly laughing over the poor luck of Moore. That dude brought this over himself. What told him to annoy Wolf and let him open such a suppressed landslide of words?
I shook my head before saying after few minutes:
"Don't you have anything else?"
"We have rockets," Wolf lost his focus for a second and was this close from continuing his long lecture with me. Yet he forcibly stopped himself when he saw it was me who asked and couldn't help but tremble while trying his best to contain what he wanted to say.
"Dude… Like this you'll end up exploding in the end," I couldn't help but grin, resisting the urge to laugh. But Moore didn't restrain himself and laughed.
"Just wait… I'll teach you a lesson after this," Wolf realised his mistake and didn't fall for the same trap twice. He sent orders to his people down below, and yet they didn't take back their bombers.
They only brought a rocket launching big vehicle that was hardly moving thanks to the immense weight of the twelve rocket launching stations over its back.
"Now we are talking," seeing this rocket launching truck and that cannon with a slightly short and thick barrel. "What's the name of that weapon?" I pointed at it and asked.
312 [Bonus chapter] Comparison Between Two Warlords
"It's something they didn't produce," Wolf seemed to find a thing to bicker at Moore, "it's called Howitzer, a mix of cannon and mortar, something not produced by them."
"It's produced by BAE systems company," Moore didn't deny it, "but the shells used in it are made by us."
"Humph, being proud of something you didn't make… Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" Wolf kept coming at Moore, yet the latter seemed more collected than Wolf.
"It's normal," Moore calmly shrugged, "after all our company excels at making brilliant munitions to the different weapon systems of other companies."
"Pathetic," Wolf turned and pointed at the bomber. He seemed to want to boast in front of me using it as an example. Yet for a second there he froze, recalling my earlier comment about that bomber.
"Take this as an example," he shifted his hand while shaking as if he still couldn't believe what he was doing. It seemed in his company eyes, that stealth bomber was the crown jewel, something they took pride in making.
Throwing it aside like it was trash and selecting some sort of a commonly produced rocket launcher was something humiliating to Wolf and others standing behind him.
But they had to let their ego down about it. The apocalypse was harsh and we needed to adapt to it by all means. Even if this meant ditching what we previously considered our biggest achievement in life and starting from scratch.
"It's a brilliant rocket launcher system we produced, called M270."
"It's nice," I honestly said, "but that doesn't mean that artillery thing is bad either."
"Howitzer is the best artillery weapon in the world!" Moore said in pride, a phrase that was welcomed with a snort from Wolf and his two men behind him.
"Anyway," I turned to the large group of people watching this scene from down below, "we will need to modify and readjust the weapon systems we have and turn them into apocalypse friendly weapons. But first I have to tell you where the problem lies."
I pointed towards the Howitzer and added, "I want you to fire a shell at one of those big hills."
I randomly selected one hill and asked Moore's guys to fire it. I also did the same with that rocket launcher, asking Wolf's people to fire a single rocket at another hill.
"Fire!"
"Be careful! Fire!"
The two sides worked fast and in such amazing cooperation to fire the two weapons fast.
*Boom!*
*Boom!*
The two attacks landed fiercely over the two hills, releasing a mighty explosive sound alongside a massive cloud of dust.
Yet in just a span of a few seconds, things started to clear out. Strangely enough, the two hills remained unscathed, even the dead bodies of the aquatic monsters stood there without a single scratch over them.
Of course I anticipated such a result, and many people here did. "Can anyone tell me what went wrong here?" I asked, without specifying any group or company with that question.
"We have a theory."
"We too."
"We also have one."
Without any hesitation, the leaders of the three forces here spoke one by one. I looked at their faces while calmly responding: "Then tell."
"I'll start first," Wolf was so eager to prove himself to me as he took a step forward while adding, "we already studied lots of monsters back at our labs. We found out that these monsters have advanced armour, making it impossible for the current human weapons to harm them."
"And?" I wasn't impressed by what he said. Of course this was something basic and easy to guess.
"It's the penetration power of our munition," he said with weird excitement and confidence, "if we manage to elevate and upgrade our armour penetration abilities of our weapons' munitions, we can succeed in killing these monsters."
"Hmm… Interesting theory," I just said that before snapping my fingers and a group of my dragons appeared next to me, scaring those behind me.
"Go and bring dozens of these monsters here," I pointed randomly at one hill and in a flash, my dragons flew towards it. They brought back over a hundred of these monsters.
"Leave them here one by one," I ordered and any monster thrown over the chariot was cut into pieces by my glaive. My work speed was remarkable thanks to all the work I did before.
"Take them and gather them there and there," I selected two away locations before turning to the two behind me, "let your people launch another attack over one group. Let's see if your theory is right."
"Sir…" Wolf didn't get what I wanted to prove here so I interrupted him from saying any more with raising my glaive unto his face.
"If your theory is right, then our weapons here can devastate the monsters without their armours, right?"
It was easy to prove how deeply wrong they were. Just with one round of attacks, the same loud explosive sounds appeared with massive clouds of dust.
But that was it. The monsters didn't show any harm even when they were cut open by me. I turned to Wolf and said with a calm smile:
"Your theory is wrong. In fact it's not totally wrong. After all, the thick armours of these monsters can't be easily penetrated. Of course our weapons lack such a factor, but it's not the main core of the problem here."
"I have another theory, sir," Moore gave the dejected Wolf a light gaze. It seemed that the dude was so confident in his theory. "Tell," I shrugged as I casually said.
In fact I had the belief that not a single one of them would find the core of the problem. Of course MIT guys talked to me before, and they got to see parts of the big picture of the main problem we were having.
So if anyone here could be close to the core of the problem, it would be them.
"We also studied these monsters," Moore didn't want to show any weakness compared with Wolf's company, "we found out that the problem isn't only in the armour, but also in our might of weapons."
313 The True Problem In Human Weapons
"Explain further," I nodded as this dude's people seemed to get closer to the core of the problem more than Wolf's people.
"We found out that the amount of explosives used in each munition isn't enough to cause any harm to these monsters. So if we manage to produce much larger missiles and munitions, we'll be able to solve this problem."
"Alright, let's test it then," I was disappointed. They got close to the problem yet they ended up astray in the end.
"How, sir?" Moore gave me a weird look and I explained further:
"By your words, if we used more than one attack at these monsters at the same time, we'd end up damaging them, right?" I said before adding, "bring forth more of these big weapons. Let them all launch at the same time and let's see the end result."
"This…"
"Just do it," I knew it wouldn't work. But using words instead of showing them the result was wrong.
They listened to my words, brought more of their weapons. Each company brought five more of their big guns, and they attacked at the same time.
Twelve loud explosions shook the entire world while releasing thick clouds of dust. This time it took more than one minute for the dust to clear out and we could all see the result.
"It's not working," I said what I knew earlier, "your theory isn't valid as well. Next…"
I looked up at the three youths from MIT. the girl stepped forward as she said:
"After our last discussion, sir, we got to upgrade our theories about the main issue," she paused while slightly feeling like she cheated here.
"Continue…" I nodded in encouragement and she added after taking a deep breath:
"It's the problem of the explosives used itself… The materials we used aren't suited to face off these monsters."
"Explain further," as expected, those genius young minds were so fast in picking the hints in my words from before.
"We have to find new energy, plus new materials from the current era to use as explosives. Without that, we'll fail in upgrading the weapons."
"Good," I said in praise, "this is the main issue. The materials we are using aren't suitable for this part of our history. We need to adapt, change everything and use the materials provided by monsters and the apocalypse in making brand new weapons."
I turned to the rocket launcher, the one big weapon I held much hope for, "take this for an example. If we manage to change everything in it, using ores excavated from the apocalypse and materials from monsters to build it, and replacing the explosive powder inside with new explosive material from the new world, we'll have a deadly weapon we can depend entirely upon in changing the course of many big wars."
"But sir…"
"We've never met such explosive materials before!"
The two said in succession, and I simply took something out from my inventory.
"This is called the grenade of death," I handed one to each of those standing behind me, "they are priceless weapons of mass destruction. If you look closer, you'll see its structure isn't much different from the usual grenades we used to make, right?"
"This…"
"Be extra careful while dealing with this," I warned, "or else even I wouldn't be able to help you at all."
I took out more grenades and handed them over to them, "it's not the matter of the absence of materials. It's just you never took such a thing seriously before. For example, why didn't you search in the market for such materials?"
My words landed as a lightning bolt over their heads. They really took such a thing lightly and never seriously sought after gaining such materials. If they did, then the market was the first place to look for such materials.
"I can help you and provide lots of such materials over," I also had the card of the Bringold impact up my sleeve, "but you first have to change this.;."
I pointed at my head, referring to their mindset. Even if I provided them with the best kind of materials ever, they'd still fail to use them to show their fullest potential.
They looked at my grenades in daze while my words kept hammering this inside their subconscious minds.
"You need to start itching everything you built before. Stealth bombers? It's a great concept indeed but how can we use such a thing in such times? Anything flying over high altitude will be taken down by the system… No exception here."
"But sir…" Wolf was still reluctant to let go of such a thing, "we spent lots of time and effort, wrecking our minds to bring such weapons to humanity."
"You can then use the same concept and work over other things," I patted over his shoulder before adding, "for example, why not use the same stealth function over choppers? Even if you used such tech over the munitions, making them all invisible to any enemy, it would be much better than leaving it to rot in such an obsolete weapon, right?"
His eyes went wide in response to my words. I hoped he got what I meant and learnt the lesson. If not, then he would waste lots of time and effort without bringing me any good results.
"This place… is fantastic for us," I turned towards the MIT campus, "it's filled with brilliant young minds, not tainted with the fixed and rigid concepts of the lost days of human civilisations. They are revolutionary minds, ones that can bring great things to your inventions, making them adapt to the current times."
"We'll hire them of course," Moore was faster than Wolf to grab what I hinted at here.
"W… We'll also do the same," Wolf seemed to still be lost in his dilemma, but losing to Moore made him follow his steps blindly without much thinking.
"Well… In fact it's the opposite," I couldn't help but laugh before adding, "your previous prestige as the biggest military companies in the world is gone. From now on, you'll have to work under the leadership of those youths."
"This…"
"But sir…"
314 Making A Final Offer
The two got instant scare when they heard what I just said.
"What? You are coming to their homes, using their people and facilities, and you also want them to follow your old banners as well?" I calmly met their questionable gazes with a calm smile over my face.
"Time changes, and you have to adapt or fall behind and rot," I kept pouring buckets of cold water over their heads, "tell me then, what can your companies provide except for old and obsolete tech and weapons?"
"We…"
"We can give them anything they want!"
"Wrong," I slowly shook my head, "you have nothing of value to give to those young people here. Money? Wealth? Esteem and prestige? A highly honoured position in your company? Come on, be a little realistic please. In such a time and world, you have nothing of value to offer that they didn't already have."
The two looked at each other and at the other people beside them in silence and hesitation.
"I'll give you such a good offer out of my good will," I planted my glaive on the ground, leant over it using both hands, "you have five hours to consider this. If you agree, then you'll have to form new teams with these youths. Any team will be led by them and one representative of your companies. You'll have at most twenty percent share in their teams, not a single percent more."
I was doing this to protect the young minds from the polluted interests of those old dudes. In this world, it wasn't easy for anyone to abandon all their old beliefs entirely. Not when they lived most of their lives based on these useless and corrupted things.
Fame? Power? Success? Working at big names? Wealth? These were all obsolete. In this age, only strength mattered. Even with coins anyone could go to a short length and would eventually stop.
Those companies depended entirely over their past glory, something that wasn't of any use here. Just looking at Wolf made me inwardly sigh. Even after meeting me and talking for a long time, even after all the demonstrations and proving what they had in mind was wrong, that dude was still looking in greatness towards the steatlh bombers.
They were hopeless in my eyes, needing more time to adapt than the youngsters here. I wouldn't let the brilliant seeds here be ruined by such a bad way of thinking.
I needed these companies to provide guidance and more help to my geniuses here. But that didn't mean I'd allow them to take over or be the ones in control.
Or else things would end up by replicating the same old weapons without much changes in them. I'd not love to see such a result, not after paying much of my time and materials to them.
Time was our deadliest foe. For example modifying such a rocket launcher before the upcoming big battle would be much greater than modifying it by the end of the fourth quest.
And if they took much longer than this, then its value would decrease a lot. I had lots of places to use such weapons in the upcoming quests. Not to mention the golden quests I was looking for.
Thinking about modifying any weapon before the start of the big war in a few days was delusional indeed. But if they managed to do it before the start of the fifth quest or the golden quests, then it would be a great help to me.
I had to be ruthless, protecting those young people from the greed and stubbornness of the older ones. If these companies knew what I really offered here, and realised for real how terribly bad their situation was, then they'd not hesitate to agree on my offer.
After all, I wasn't shutting them down totally from the new world regime. They just had to make more compromises, and try to work their dirty tricks to gain more loyal followers from these youths than the other party.
Even if they all refused, I still had the normal military arsenal under my disposal. I'd have to ask for Karoline's help here again, hopefully she'd manage to pull some strings and bring many weapons for these youths to study.
It wasn't the best plan, but it was the back up one.
"Sir, I have a question here," Wolf's face was all dark as the faces of the rest here. Yet Moore showed the difference in intelligence between him and others as he added after I gave him the permission by a simple nod.
"If we agree, does that mean our CEOs will lose their control over us?"
That dude was smart indeed. He guessed what I was doing so damn fast and even came up with such a direct and very important question.
"Any general is valued by the strength of his army and the victories his army brought under his leadership," I slowly answered, before adding, "if their people managed to work together with the youths here and bring me good results with their support and help, then they'll have a place in my final big project."
"What project is that, sir?" Moore kept asking, while Wolf and others had an abrupt change in their faces. Instead of feeling played and looking dejected and even a little angry, they showed a look of interest and anticipation.
"What do you think I'm doing here exactly?" I didn't directly answer and instead threw the question back at them.
"Well… Perhaps building up a major force?"
"A big army? Want to become the biggest arm dealer in the apocalypse?"
Well… I had to admit, both of them lacked any imagination about this.
"Wrong," I shook my head before slowly adding, "I'm going to build a country, a kingdom to be more precise."
"A country?!!!" they of course didn't know the difference between a country and a kingdom in the apocalypse.
A country was a small thing that was built without the support of the system.
315 A Sincere Advice
In other words… If I didn't find a kingdom heart and integrate it into my kingdom, then it would be considered a country by the system.
Size didn't matter, strength had no value here as well… Only with the support of the system in the form of the kingdom heart, the system would consider all of this as a true kingdom.
This kingdom heart wasn't just a simple item, it was an official recognition from the system for my overall strength, intelligence, leadership, and determination.
That was why gaining kingdom hearts was such a tedious task that had more failure probability than success.
Yet for me I wasn't that stressed out. After all, the era of kingdoms wouldn't officially start before quest twenty or even beyond.
During that time, I'd have many chances to find such hearts. I just hoped I'd end up finding it earlier, so I could finish all the related tasks and conditions before reaching quest fifty.
"So… You, sir, want to be a king?" from the tone alone I could tell that Moore never expected such a thing.
And I simply nodded.
"In any kingdom, the king lies at the top while many trusted and capable subordinates vary in places and ranks underneath," I stopped there and didn't add any more.
"So your meaning, sir, is that our CEOs have the chance to become like earls and dukes?" Wolf didn't fall behind this time, seemingly excited and a little cautious about raising up his hopes.
"If their men, you and your scientists and engineers in other words, managed to contribute largely to my kingdom until the date of its establishment, then becoming as such isn't a far fetched dream."
The look over their faces this time was different, ground shaking different that before. I inwardly grinned. If their bosses got the bait like their minions, then they'd work their asses to help me achieve what I wanted.
Sometimes luring people with great things would ignite the desire to fulfil it even better than one had in mind. In face of such greedy and gold digger minds of their bosses, they wouldn't let such a chance slip by if they were smart.
"Just go and convey this message over to your bosses," I said before adding, "I'm willing to sign a contract with them stating what I just said. The rest depends on your performance next."
"We'll excuse ourselves then."
"We too. We won't be too late to return with the good news."
The two hurriedly led their people down my chariot as if they were in a race or something. Who remained behind were the three youths, who had looks of awe and daze over their faces.
"Do you know what I just did?" I slowly asked, while moving my eyes over the three of them.
"You… are trying to force them to help us?" the girl slowly asked while the other two kept their silence.
Even that funny guy who reminded me of the jumper with his attitude and comments remained silent. His face even showed a look of veneration, like he was looking up to his idol or something.
Dude… If you wanted to get inspiration from someone, then I'd love to introduce you to my dear jumper. I was sure if these two met, that youth would worship that jumper as if it was his god and mentor.
"I'm trying to protect you," I said before adding, "protecting the futuristic versions of you."
The three looked at each other and I doubted they'd get such a deep meaning. "Forget it, now it's not the time to waste on such things."
"What should we do, sir?" the calmer dude said and I raised my glaive in response to his face. This sudden move scared the three of them, forcing them to jump almost half a metre backward.
"Don't panic, I just want to correct the way you talk to me," I gave an innocent smile. After all, I used to move my glaive as if it was part of my hand, "call me lord, not sir, got it?"
"Hmm," the three nodded in unison and I couldn't help but inwardly laugh. The youths these days… They got scared pretty much easily.
"You need to get back there and start studying those monsters," I shifted the topic back to the urgent point, "energy is the basis of everything. We won't be able to start modifying the weapons or do anything without making progress in that regard."
"Then…" the calm dude looked at the other two while that funny one seemed to return to his nature once again.
"It's the question about those teams you talked about. Dunno if you think of us as a sports team or a group of amateurs or what, but we are all here based on our abilities and brilliant minds. None of us came here through a shortcut and we won't accept one."
Indeed he had a point here, despite his tone and way of speaking that was filled with tons of sarcasm.
"If you have such a big thing inside your head as you claim, then why do you want me to babysit you? Huh?" I responded sharply in the same way he spoke to me with, "don't give me that look. From now on, you are all my followers and I'm your lord. That means…"
I stepped closer while the other two retreated in reflex. That funny, jumper-like, dude stood in his place motionless while my dejeuner pressured him to not even move a finger.
"I'm the one giving the orders around here, and you… You just have to use that little thing called brain and try to find out ways to execute what I say. Or else…"
I stepped much closer, close enough to make my face this close to his to even feel his subtle trembling body, "I don't have permanent positions for anyone. Slack or fail and I'll kick your ass out of my way."
"Gulp," he finally reacted as he jumped backward like a cat I stepped over its tail or something.
"Keep that in your mind," I said to him before turning to the large crowd standing down below.
After all, I didn't move my speaker-like item away from my mouth all this time. Everything I said was perfectly heard by everyone.
"Keep that in all of your minds."
I said in warning and sincere advice to all of them. If they didn't keep showing me their value, I'd be forced to replace them with others with the talent and determination I needed.
316 A Provocation
My words landed and were responded with utter silence. I looked at the faces of those down below before turning to the three behind me.
"Go back now and start working," I said after I added them as friends, "I'll keep watching all of you. Also sign these contracts first."
I took one loyalty contract and one channel contract for each one of them. The three couldn't say a single word, signing the three in silence and obedience.
I watched them descend to their people down below while I had a guess about what was in their minds. It wasn't easy to be pressured like this, especially when you had such a brilliant mind and strong personality.
Great minds had rock hard personalities, or eccentric ones. I just hoped for those weird dudes down below to control themselves better.
Or else I'd have to step in and behave in a merciless way.
Now I finished dealing with this and it was time to let these minds prove themselves to me. As for the two companies, I wasn't that worried.
If they were half what I took them for, then they'd be smart enough to accept my offer. Or else they'd miss the opportunity of their lives.
The next step after that was for me to wait for my elites to finish controlling the city before gathering up. As they were still working, I started to consider whom to stay and whom to move out to control the area around.
Of course facing Hector wouldn't be impossible, but it was unlikely. That paragon was smart, and I had the feeling he already realised how bad his situation was.
His forces were affected with his curse. He would be either thinking about solutions to break the curse, or he would try to find another solution.
If I was him, I'd act realistic and put the interest of my race above mine. Being arrogant and greedy wouldn't help at all.
If he thought like that, he would keep trying to break the curse and that would affect the total performance of his race here. Of course that would be for the better for me, but I wasn't that excited about it.
After all from my interaction with Fang and Wryly, I realised these races were like a large group of vicious sharks.
One simple sign of weakness and that weakened shark would be mercilessly eaten by his kin. I gave a deadly blow to that paragon indeed, but that would also tempt other paragons to attack and claim his territory.
It would take time, and that bastard would try to resist and fight back, but in the end new paragons would appear here to harass me.
Thinking about that gave me a crazy idea. Of course I wouldn't seriously consider it for now, but I'd put it in my mind. If that happened… Damn! I'd be more than just a lucky human.
Lost in my thoughts, I didn't realise that I had a big smile over my face until after the passage of a few minutes. I was surprised by myself, thinking about such a bold idea and even dared to think about many strategies for it.
"I have to be humble," I said to myself, "at least until the right moment comes. Or else I'd just be dreaming about the impossible."
*Flash!*
Just before I could open my channel to see what my elites were doing, a sudden appearance of a big screen in front of my face startled me.
"What the heck is that?" I looked at this dark screen that kept flashing and dimming for a few minutes. I looked into my channel, there was nothing wrong there.
I didn't even open my channel when that screen appeared. I leant over my glaive, looking in interest and doubt towards this screen.
"Hi everyone," just before I grew tired of seeing black screen in front of my face, a tough looking face of a young man appeared in front of my eyes.
Just seeing this face… Pale brown eyes, short and thick black hair, dark skinned muscular body, with a deep fresh scar that took almost half of his neck… It was him!
Damn me! It was him!
"I'm Ed, or you can call me by my new name, the lord of death," he spoke in a tone I heard a lot of times before.
He was the one who established one of the three kingdoms of my human race back in my time! The lord of death, the king of torture, the nightmare of all livings… It was him! The founder of the Central kingdom, the one I was born and raised in!
"For you who don't know me, I'm now considered one of the strongest in the entire apocalypse. No race stood a chance against me, not those arrogant Dragons, not those maniac Berserkers, and surely not those fierce Selvators…"
He spoke and after controlling my ragged emotions and disturbed mind, I realised something.
"A heroic calling?!!" It seemed I wasn't the only one doing miracles here. In fact this dude wasn't a surprise at all. However didn't he shine after the tenth quest or what?
I looked at his sharp eyes, fierce face, and that horrifying scar. That scar was something he gained after fighting a group of archlords, killing two of them and wounding three before pushing them to flee for their lives.
But wait a second… Didn't that happen in the sixteen quest? I looked at his scar, closely watching the seemingly pink coloured flesh that appeared underneath a thin layer of a semi-transparent semi-healed skin.
This scar was recently acquired… I couldn't be wrong about this scar. He had just one scar on his neck, and it would heal to form a hideous shape of a disfigured fist over his neck, giving the impression that someone was holding his neck with his hand.
"I'm here to give a message to someone called… Hye!"
"What?!!" I heard my name just now, right? I looked up at his eyes and for a second there it felt like he was looking directly towards me.
317 The Lord Of Death, Ed
"I received many useless and silly videos from you… What? Do you feel so excited like a little kid learning how to walk for the first time? Do you think you are special because you kicked one archlord's ass here and there? Humph, you are nothing but a delusional loser in my eyes."
"You…" unconsciously I clenched both fists out of anger. That bastard… Did he waste one valuable heroic calling usage just to mock me?
What did you do to our race? Huh? Speaking high and mighty like you are my benefactor! If I'm a loser then you are no more than a beggar in my eyes!
"I'm fed up with those losers thinking high of themselves for achieving something I already did a long time ago. So I'm here to issue a challenge, and in it I'm intending to show no mercy to you at all."
I knew he wasn't the kind of person to consider mercy to anyone. He was even called a nightmare for all living beings, including humans as well.
A cold heart with no speck of mercy towards anything, that was him. I looked at those pale brown eyes, and waited to hear what that bastard wanted to say next.
"I'm also in the US, active in the western regions. I know you are trying your best at the eastern coast. So I'll give you an offer, limited by the time of our next meeting. If you didn't give me an answer by then, I'll consider you refusing my kindness and that means… War!"
War? Dude… You were in California. If I wasn't wrong, then before quest twenty, you wouldn't step yet into the mid zone of the former US continent.
"You might think it's impossible for the two of us to meet, but as your senior I'll have to slap you on the face and wake you up. At the fifth quest, there will be a chance to have something called the golden quests. I'll get that for sure, and if you are as strong as you claim, then you might have a chance in getting it."
"Might I have a chance? What an arrogant bastard you are!!"
"I'll wait for you there. If you decided to be sane and learnt your true place, then I'll warmly welcome you in my forces. If not, then I'll show you the real meaning of being strong."
I looked up at his face, our eyes seemingly breaking through all the shackles of space and looking directly at each other. "I'll wait for you there, either as a subordinate or a foe… But a word of warning… All my foes are lying dead, with no exception till this point. See you later… Foolish and delusional Hye."
*Flash!*
The screen turned all black again and remained there for a few minutes before fading out. Even after that bastard's face was gone, and even after the disappearance of that screen, I kept looking in the same direction as if I was looking at his eyes.
"So you took the trouble of using one of the heroic calls to just say these useless things to me? Pathetic!" I snorted, waved my glaive in the air before adding, as if he was standing in front of me:
"If you are this capable, then I'd love to see how you'll follow all these impressive words with deeds. I know you are strong and vicious, merciless towards your enemies and very ambitious. But that didn't happen this early. Compared to me…"
I looked around, looking at all the things I was doing here. I moved my eyes across the brilliant minds working down there for me, at my large army of warriors, at my much larger forces of humans scattered all over the city…
If he dared to consider himself a mighty person, then I'd call myself a paragon!
[Hahaha! At last! You finally met someone who is more shameless than you! Hahahaha! I can't believe that, hahaha!]
Just while I was feeling very irritated by that bastard, a message from the jumper popped up in front of my face.
That bastard… he was still in the mood to mock me!
[At least we are two hegemons clashing at each other. What about you? A mere jumper with nothing in his hand to do anything but watch]
[You… Do you want to die?]
[Hahaha! At least I won't fall on your hands, neither on that bastard's!]
[Boss… Boss… what are you going to do? He looks fierce! Have you seen his scar! Damn! It's more impressive and terrifying than mine!]
The next was the spearhead. That lunatic only cared about that scar and wasn't that much interested in anything else.
[Save your breaths and come here after you finish. I'm waiting at the MIT main campus, just near the river separating Boston from Cambridge cities]
They kept sending messages containing all kinds of questions, awe, and fear. I didn't want to talk with anyone right now. So I took an excuse of their current task and sent them all away for now.
All but one…
[Don't tell me you don't know who he is, right?] It was Hilary, and she kept her silence until all finished speaking and went to do their tasks. [I'm coming for you right now]
[Why not wait for others?]
[Afraid of your little girl? She is harmless, so stop worrying like that. I promise, I will eat you gently]
I closed her chat with a sneer. It wasn't time for me to think about any of that. As she said, this person was someone not to be taken lightly.
After all under all these conditions, he was one of the three who established kingdoms at my time. Someone like him wasn't easy, not easy at all!
Aside from his infamous reputation, he was someone worthy of admiration. Just standing alone in the face of all the races here and managing to stabilise himself and build an entire kingdom for us was a remarkable feat.
A feat that not a simple minded person or weak one would make. But that didn't mean I was weak or a loser compared to him.
318 Meeting Hilary
In fact I'd dare to say that in such a time and moment of the apocalypse, I was doing much better than what he would do in twenty quests.
He took twenty quests to just take full control over the western coast, reigning supreme there and starting to march over the central zone.
Unlike me, he aimed towards unifying the entire western coast before going to the midzone of the continent. But he took twenty quests to achieve that, starting to shine from quest ten.
That reminded me of something… How come he acted this early on and even gained a heroic calling?
Heroic calling would be gained by achieving something big. I suffered to collect my heroic callings. Even if the last few that I gained seemed to come much easier than the first one, it was still so damn hard for any ordinary human.
What? Did my coming back in time change something? I thought and couldn't tell what possibly went wrong. If that dude was active near my area, then I'd consider my actions to seriously impact him.
But he was way, way far away from me. Besides if just my single return did such changes, why didn't Hilary's repeated returns didn't cause any changes at all?
Also if I really inflicted a snowball motion of changes here, was that Ed an exception case? Or were there more cases like him?
It wasn't weird for Hilary to know about him. After all she lived through many lives in this version of her, with one reaching all the way to control the entire world.
She controlled the world entirely at once, and that meant she dealt with him and the other elites and paragons from the human race. Thinking about that, I spotted her coming up my stairs with a smile that told me things weren't that good at all.
"Don't give me that look as if I was a dead man already," I laughed while pointing at one of my Gollems for him to extend his arms for us as seats to sit on.
Just after using my chariot this long, I felt it still lacked many things here. I needed to buy luxurious furniture suiting my chariot.
"You just don't know whom you got trouble with," she sighed, ignored the thick arm of my gollem and sat directly in my lap.
Her hair was extending for metres behind her, giving her a nice look. I touched her soft skin, moved a few strands of her hair away from her alluring eyes.
"Do you like what you see?" she started again, "you can have it if you want."
"If I want something, then there is no one in the world to stop me from getting it," I said, meeting her seductive look and tone with a firm look of mine.
"So damn serious all the time," she chuckled, "you'll grow wrinkles here if you keep this act up."
She touched my forehead before we both looked at each other for long seconds. I didn't feel myself except when I was raising my lips off hers, feeling the sweet taste of her mouth in mine.
"We should talk business not love, my love," she said as if she was innocent here and I was the one to blame. "Don't look at me like this… I feel more desire to be naked right now in front of your daring eyes."
"Stop it," I shifted my eyes away almost instantly as I heard the word naked. Just imagining her fiery body like this made my desire ignite to a level unprecedented before.
If I didn't forcibly look away, I might have lost control and gotten tempted by her. Things would end up as a fierce battle against such a fierce body in one of my little rooms down below if that happened.
"Let's talk business then," I said before adding, "that dude… Is he that strong?"
"I don't know what he was in the time you came from," she looked up at the sky before sighing, "but I have to tell you this… Through my repeated attempts so far, I met up with him five times. I lost in four, and only crushed him once."
"The time when you controlled the entire world?" I asked and she nodded. "If you crushed him before, then I can do it again, right?"
"It's… not that easy," she seemed more doubtful towards my ability to crush that Ed.
"I'm not weak," I said in my defence.
"I wasn't weak in any time of my failed four attempts either," she didn't play along my line as she added, "if you wanted to know the two major advantages he has, the two deadliest weapons in his possession, then it would be cultivation and his god."
"Not his class?!!" I was surprised she didn't include his class in his strong points.
"Class? It's not that remarkable," she shook her head, "in fact yours are more impressive and much stronger than his."
"As if you know what my class is," I laughed and she gave me a stern look.
"It's not that hard to guess," she harrumphed, speaking in a weird prideful tone, "having the ability to summon all these weird warriors, plus those damn nasty soulers… Soulers gave away your class, or at least helped me to guess everything about it."
"Really?"
"Oh, you are doubting me," she adjusted her body away from my embrace, "let me tell you then… Your class is related to souls. It's not that hard to guess, after all soulers can't live with someone without giving them great amount of souls."
"This… You are really smart," I was taken aback with what she said, realising after one moment that she recognised soulers so she must have met them at some point in her long journey.
"Of course," she waved her long hair in a showy way, "after all I'm your girl."
"Who?" I teased her and she looked at me before coming closer and painting another kiss over my lips.
319 Any Weaknesses?
"Says your heart," she gave me a bright smile that made my mind go blank for one second.
"Ahem," I cleared my throat to control myself, while she met it with a laugh of amusement. "Let's talk about this Ed then. What's his class? Any clue about it?"
"Told you already, it's not that important," she pouted in a funny way, "anyway, it's something related to wars."
Under my demanding gazes, she finally said it. "Like Berserkers?" I asked and she paused as if she didn't know exactly what his class was.
"As I recall, he has the power to make his troops stronger," she slowly said before a flash of realisation appeared in her eyes, "it's like a stat boosting class for all of his troops in the field."
"Pretty strong indeed," I honestly said.
"Not that much, compared to yours at least," she shrugged before punching me weakly onto my shoulder, "yours are really terrifying. You can summon deadly armies of weird creatures, and control such a massive number of soulers. You are scared if we just compare the classes, and I'm talking about all other races in the apocalypse."
"But it seems not that much effective against his cultivation and god, right?" I gave her a serious look, and she nodded.
"I have to be fair here, your class is very deadly in any open war. But if that dude analysed your strength thoroughly, and he would do that for sure, then he will turn the clash into a personal fight between only the two of you."
"I see," I thought for a second, "his cultivation is much higher than mine, right?"
"It's not that," she seriously said, "that dude was so damn lucky to gain a blessing from a god compatible with his cultivation."
"How so?" It was the first time for me to hear about such a thing.
"Let's start with his god then… he isn't a human race god, but a god that belongs to a race that doesn't compete in any of our apocalyptic worlds."
"An alien god?!!! What race does he belong to?" I was shocked to hear that.
"It's a race you won't know," she said before adding, "it's called the warlords."
"Such a name… Is it the real name of a race or just their famed title?" I couldn't believe there would be a race that would be known by this name.
"It's their famed name, as for their original name, it's called Morengers," she said a weird name to my ears, one I never heard about before, "they are a bunch of crazy people, fighting wars much more than Berserkers. Berserkers are considered docile in comparison."
"Docile?!!" I couldn't believe that. Just picturing Wryly as a docile being was something weird and funny.
"Don't be surprised, they use a weird way to get stronger," she looked so damn serious, even pointing with her index finger here and there as if she was explaining to me in a lecture or something.
"They kill their foes, then absorb a portion of their strength. Adding a few portions with each kill, their strength will grow."
"This…" I was surprised when I heard that. Didn't that mean they would grow stronger exponentially or what?
"Don't rush to conclusions," she stopped me before adding, "there is a limit for anyone from that race to grow stronger. And that limit is…"
She stopped here and I could only think about one thing.
"Cultivation."
"Exactly," she said, "that race depended entirely over cultivation of ways that will build stronger bodies fast. But that's just a loser path as I heard from Ed before. The right path is to select a cultivation that will start weak and grow stronger with the help of the race's nature."
"But…"
"I know, he is human, right?" she got what I wanted to say before adding, "but that god gave him part of his power. I don't know all the details, but I saw the process of him absorbing parts of my dead elites five times! I know what I'm saying, he now has part of that race's power."
"That makes him a hybrid!" I was shocked to realise this. The king, the one who hailed to be the most merciless and bloody king in the entire human history pre and post apocalypse, the hero who established one mighty kingdom that lasted for a hundred years after the start of the apocalypse… He… Wasn't a human!
Damn! It never even crossed my mind.
"As for his cultivation, it's built over absorbing parts of the enemies he personally killed to grow stronger," she added, "it's a rare thing, something that even in that race doesn't happen except for one in an entire generation."
"This…"
"I told you… he has a cultivation base that supports that race's ability. His deadliest weapons are his cultivation and his god, as simple as that."
I blinked, stopped talking for a few minutes while absorbing everything she said so far.
This dude… aside from being half human half Morengers, he was really strong. He gained part of the power of the god supporting him. He was just like me, ending up gaining part of the old man's race's powers.
As for his cultivation, it wasn't that impressive in my eyes alone. At least I hoped for my cultivation to be far stronger and more unique than his. But combined with that race's power, it was really deadly.
Killing was his only way to get stronger. Absorbing parts of power from the ones he killed would keep his power rising without knowing a limit.
Even the limit known to the Morengers race didn't exist to him. Damn! He was lucky indeed in having such a combined god and cultivation.
"Any weakness then?" no one was invincible. If he was this strong in everything, then he would be a god and not a human.
"ًWell… you can consider his class as one of his weakness."
"That doesn't count," even if my class was superior to his, it wasn't enough to bridge the wide gap between our two individual strengths.
320 The Golden Quests
"Hmm… he isn't as helpful and cooperative as you. At least he never placed any human being in his eyes."
"It's expected," I shrugged, "after all he isn't entirely a human anymore. Besides, all of his strength came from that race and not from being a human. I think he might even hate himself for being born as a human."
"He once told me this," she nodded, confirming what I guessed already.
"But that doesn't count as a weakness."
"If you looked up at it from another angle, then it is," she said and I got what she meant.
"It's hard to prove he isn't a human. No one of his forces is going to believe me."
I knew what she wanted to say here. Having a leader that wasn't a human or wasn't on the side of humans was something enough to drive most of his forces away.
But history proved how cunning and cautious this dude was. After all, he succeeded in building a kingdom in my time.
"Hmm… I can't recall anything remarkable about his weakness."
"Then how come you defeated him once?" She told me this before. Out of five times they both clashed together, one ended up in her victory.
"That's… I don't frankly know the reason," she seemed struggling to give me an answer.
"Tell me, when did you meet him before? I mean considering the time of the apocalypse."
"All past quest fifteen," she instantly replied, "out of the five times, the one I defeated him was when I met up with him at quest fifteen."
"Hmm… Interesting."
"You got an idea or what?" she looked up at me with anticipation, but I shook my head.
"It's just a feeling, nothing more," I lied. After all, what she said matched what I knew about him.
Ed didn't shine before quest ten, didn't expand to the central zone until quest twenty or something. Facing him in quest fifteen proved this. And it also proved how wrong his timing this time was.
He wanted to meet up with me at quest five? That was too soon for him. If nothing new happened, then he was destined to lose.
Thinking about this calmed my thoughts for a bit. I started to slowly think about what I learnt about him from her. She told me he had such a unique ability from his god and cultivation.
But didn't these two need time to bring out results? Even if he was destined to grow strong, this would take much more time than just five quests.
I recalled what Ed said. He belittled my achievements, bragging that he did that before. According to what history recorded about him, he didn't kill a paragon before.
All foes he fought against were just of archlord calibre. This was logical though. After all, paragons seemed to sit back and watch the initial fighting going on between their archlords and other races' archlords.
This meant the strongest foes he might have killed so far would be archlords. Would that be threatening to me? In fact I doubted it.
Did he have another hidden weapon up his sleeve? Or did he receive external help from his god?
There was another option that I excluded almost instantly. He couldn't be the kind to underestimate his enemies out of his ego and pride.
If I had to choose, then I'd place my bets over the help from his god. If he got the help of his god, then why wouldn't I receive the help from mine?
Sith already left me a recording about his thoughts about my future cultivation path. I listened to it already and got lots of inspiration regarding what I should do.
But I never had a chance to think thoroughly about the questions that recording stirred up. In fact I never took the issue of cultivation seriously until now.
If there was a way to turn tables around against Ed then it would be through my cultivation. However…
I had both my hands busy with everything for a long time. I had to organise my forces and sent part out to claim the areas around my capital. Also I needed people to stand here in protection.
Then I'd have to go and enter that dungeon. After that there was my meeting with Fang and Wryly, and that big war.
After that war I might have a chance to sit idle and think about my cultivation. If things went smoothly for me, then I'd be able to do that in just the middle of quest three.
If things went south, then I might reach the early stages of the fourth quest before I'd have time to think about my cultivation.
"He asked me to meet up with him at the golden quest… Do you know how I can get that kind of quest?" This was something extra important for me.
Golden quests… The first time I heard about them was just before coming here. The old man told me to look for his race and help them out at golden quests.
After all this time in the apocalypse, I started to learn more about the real situation of the old man's race. That race wasn't living exactly in the universe.
It was trapped in a separate time loop as I understood. So how could golden quests help me save that race? Or the real question should be how the golden quests help me meet this race?
"It's easy for you," unlike what I expected, Hilary seemed confident about my ability to access golden quests, "after all golden quests are given as a prize for your overall performance in the previous quests."
"Like an evaluation?" I asked and she nodded.
"The system marks every five quests as an evaluation for everyone," she explained, "so at quest five, and considering your current achievement so far, I'm sure you'll be able to get access to the golden quest."
"But I'm not going to take part in quest three or four…" I paused as this was something unexpected for me. If the system was going to evaluate my progress and performance at the prior quests, then it was challenging for me to gain access to the golden quest.