Chapter 43 - 434-449

434 The Races' Fierce Rules

"You are so mean and cold, the coldest person I've ever met!" she complained yet I knew such a lustful girl would never take my no as an insult.

"How are you all doing now?" as I got myself freed from Karoline, it was the time to check over everyone else.

"It was… Bad," Sara was the first to speak while I noticed Leo standing arm to arm and body to body with Alex.

It seemed these two got together and that loose cannon inside that Leo found its target at last.

"I never want to experience such a thing ever again!" Isabella said, and the spearhead couldn't help but pat her warmly on the shoulder.

"Don't worry, we will try our best to catch that bastard," I said before looking over Fang and Wryly, "but first we need to commence a big meeting about our next move. Come, let's talk over there."

I led them back into my chariot. Just as we arrived up there, Karoline looked around before asking in puzzlement, "where is that jerk? Last time I saw him was when we got out. He roared like a wounded beast and led everyone under him into the depth of the enemy."

"He was courageous," that was how Wryly saw what that mentally ill jumper did.

"He isn't in his right mind," I just said this before looking at everyone, "now let's talk about what we should do next. Any suggestions?"

My words landed and all of my team went silent. The only one who spoke was Fang.

"We lost it big this time," he delivered the bad news, "despite killing lots of big names, we ended up losing many of our normal forces."

"If not for someone to act selfish and cowardish, we wouldn't have lost this big," Isabella showed her fierce side as she directly looked at Fang and said these words.

"You… You don't have the right to address me, human girl!"

"Watch out dude, she is my girl!" the spearhead was stirred up, moved to stand in front of Isabella, shielding her behind his big body.

"Easy boys," I had to intervene and stop this from escalating, "Fang did what was best for his forces."

"And ended up losing the biggest out of all of us," Wryly didn't let this chance slip by this easily.

"Says the one who runs around like a mad dog looking for bones," Fang's sharp tongue proved its worth indeed. But Wryly only snorted, pointed around as he said:

"Just take a look out there and tell me, who is the biggest fool to lose most of his forces? And for what? To stay behind and not share the pleasure of fight with all of us?"

"It's called tactic, dumbhead," Fang snorted back, and before I could say a single word to stop these two dogs barking at each other, Wryly instantly said:

"Tactic or not, you lost it big and needs lots of time to recuperate."

"That's not entirely true," at this moment I stepped in, and made sure no one would speak as I moved my eyes around in clear warning. "I have an idea for the two of you. Do it and you'll guarantee lots of support and forces to your aid."

"You mean…" Fang's face changed slightly before firmly shaking his head, "it won't work. Our races don't go by this arrangement."

"See this," I didn't instantly answer and instead I pointed at the two dead bodies of paragons here, "one is for you, and the other for Wryly."

"This…" Wryly's face changed slightly as he realised at last what I was talking about. "Will it work?"

Weirdly enough he turned to Fang who shrugged, "just tell him that, not me. He is the one believing our races are ruled by this pathetic rule."

"The rule of power isn't pathetic," I instantly said, "don't tell me your paragons won't acknowledge you for that."

"They might appreciate our doing indeed, but not to the degree of making us upgrade," Fang sighed, and Wryly nodded in agreement.

"It doens't work this way, bro. We need to achieve some milestones before getting upgraded."

"I wasn't speaking about getting upgraded here," I lied, "I just wanted you to ask your paragons for a simple request."

"Which is?" Fang asked in doubt, while giving me a curious gaze.

"Just ask for all the forces without archlords to be assigned to you," I shrugged, "after all those archlords were killed on our hands, mostly of course."

"This…" the two looked at each other before Fang took the role of answering me, "by custom, any dead archlord will be filled by selecting the most capable dudes out of our forces to get promoted."

"Then you should work fast," I shrugged, "I don't care what your races' rules are, and you shouldn't bother with that. Life taught me that whoever holds strength is the one who has the right to speak and determine everything. F*ck rules, they are only created for the losers and the pathetic weaklings."

My words landed and the two went into silence. They seemed to not believe in what I said, seeing little hope in accomplishing that.

So I had to add my last piece here.

"Just tell your paragons that your friend, the human race Hye with the title of paragon slayer is wondering about how much forces you will get."

"This…" this time the two literally jumped on their feet, "are we going to threaten our paragons?"

"I killed many already, so don't give me such a scary look and go and do what I just said."

I didn't give the chance to ask or negotiate. Sometimes cutting any path for argument or negotiation with others would be the best approach to force them to do something big.

These two didn't get it yet. Their paragons wouldn't look at them like any paragon would to any of his archlords.

These paragons would always see my shadow looming behind these two. And just as I stated, I was now famed for killing and slaying paragons.

And that would leave any paragon scared from the idea of turning into an enemy of mine at this point at least.

435 Strange Finding

I realised that paragons weren't that scary. And that was because we were still at the early stages of the apocalypse. Later on they might turn frightening. But they needed to survive to reach that stage, right?

So even if these two were trapped into seeing things from the rules of their races, things wouldn't turn out like this. Their paragons would fear me, fear them, and would eventually succumb to their desires.

But they had to act fast before those dirty paragons would assign people to the free forces. If that happened, then it would be a problem indeed.

"Go, start speaking with your paragons," I waved my hands for them to go and start their talk.

As the two moved in such reluctance towards the corners of my chariot, Isabella whispered:

"Will they get what you want?"

"No one can say no in the face of death," I shrugged, "if they refused, then it would be more perfect to go and find one of these two and kill him. That would knock some sense into the other one."

"This…" of course thinking about going into another big war this soon was crazy. I laughed over their expression before saying:

"Joking, I was just joking."

"…"

"Don't give me that face, I'm not that war maniac like him," I pointed at Wryly's direction when I noticed their gloomy faces.

They seemed to not believe my words as a joke and took them as if they were real. "If they didn't agree then it would be better to just look for another masters for these two. Who would say no to someone with my backing?"

"You…" Karoline shook her head before Leo added:

"I like your mind, boss. Dirty, but cool, I like it."

"Stop it guys," I didn't know why but I just wanted to laugh when I heard what they said, "anyway, let's talk about your losses. Is it big?"

Once I mentioned their losses, bitter sighs and darkened and pained faces appeared in front of me.

"Boss, we were doing great," the spearhead said, "but starting from that damn thing that enveloped us and we lost our advantage. Even at the last fight where we were trying to run away, we still ended up losing a lot."

"At least one third of mine are gone," Karoline was more specific, "and the rest are… still injured and exhausted from all these fights."

"Boss, can't we just let our forces rest during the upcoming quest? We don't have to take part in the upcoming two at least, right?" Leo said and moved his eyes around.

"We won't take part in the next two quests," I said it out loud, making them all feel comfortable. "Anyway, where are these dudes from that cult? And those representing the MIT academy?" I turned around, trying to change the topic and give them a space to rest.

This fight… It was really stressful over all of them without doubt. Even one of my best, the jumper, got serious damage at his mind.

So taking part in the upcoming quests? That was indeed the plan before, but not anymore. Right now my top priority was for them to rest, build up, and start strengthening themselves and their forces.

"We… don't know," but the answer I got from Isabella made me feel puzzled.

"Weren't they with you?" I asked and as they looked at each other in such way I knew they must have been lost in the middle of all this.

[Where are you?] I first sent message to that dude from the cult. I had him as a friend so it was easy for me to find him.

But the three students from MIT weren't friends with me. So I had to let them look for these three here, or wait until arriving back at the capital and ask for them there.

[Help me, boss, help me, please]

This message came as a surprise. I didn't get what was going on. But before I'd ask him, he sent more messages.

[Thanks god! I thought… I thought you were dead. I thought I'd be dead as well… I'm crying right now out of happiness]

[Where are you? What's going on? What happened?]

[I've been captured by strange looking dudes] he sent this weird message before adding, [They aren't like any race here. I dunno where they came from, but they landed over me when I got trapped inside that big scary thing. They took me away, and I dunno where I'm right now]

[Calm down dude, as you are speaking to me now means you are still in the world here] I said, but he sent this message next:

[No boss, I'm not! And I'm not alone! Many of us got teleported through some sort of a portal]

[A portal? How do you know that?]

[I got sick, like sea sick. It's a portal, I know for sure. Plus boss, since when our sky is pale green and we have two big suns in the sky? On is purple and the other is brown?]

Well… That dude meant one thing indeed… You weren't in this world anymore.

But how? Oh, it hit me once I thought about it. Didn't I speak with that green nymph lady even when we were worlds apart?

[Don't panic, and just tell me your current situation]

[I'm not afraid anymore! As long as my boss is alive then I won't just die]

That dude… he seemed to be this desperate to even feel alive by knowing I was here.

[Alright, try to tell me what you know about this race and this world. Also is there many humans there with you?]

[We are trapped into deep caves in some sort of a desert terrain. We are all good, eating, drinking, and resting well. Damn, even many are now having fun with girls and forgetting all about this damn hell we are in]

[Focus, concentrate on facts please] I stopped him before continuing to add rubbish and useless words. I just needed to know more about this race.

436 I Saved The Best For You

A weird race that came to my world, grabbed my people and went away… That was weird. Linking all this with what happened before from that mysterious enemy of mine, made me realise the two must be connected.

So gaining more info about this race meant gaining more intel about the true identity of that dude. Hopefully I'd be able to locate even that race's world, hopefully I'd be able to find more about this race's weaknesses and habits.

However my high hopes got shattered as he gave me not a single useful info about this race.

[Dude… Try to work better and harder. I need more info, more solid info about this race and world so I can help you]

[Sure, sure boss… Just leave me here for a couple of days and I'll give you what you want]

That jerk! I had no option but to leave him out there. [Ok, I'm depending on you] I sent this encouraging words to him before closing the chat.

"What's wrong?" Isabella asked, and everyone were waiting for my explanation.

"It seems while you were trapped, another race came in, abducted many of our humans, before vanishing again."

"This…"

"How come this happened and we never heard of it?"

Just at this moment, Fang returned and said that.

"You tell me," I turned to him, "how come an alien race comes here and do whatever they wanted without even get seen by anyone."

"I…Never heard of such a thing," Fang seemed puzzled as much as I was. That meant even the races surrounding my boys here didn't get a glimpse on what happened.

And that left only a single theory for me in my head. This race must have come here in the gap between trapping my forces and summoning the races to surround us.

Weird… All of this seemed to be meticulously prepared beforehand. That left only that mysterious foe as a suspect.

Scary! He was a scary opponent indeed.

"Just try to get info about such incident," I told Fang without much hope in him reaching anything, "how did it go with your paragon?"

"He didn't say much," Fang seemed to not be that excited about it, "he just said he will consider it."

"He didn't refuse at least," I shrugged, "just give him time. Now let's talk about your territory."

"Mine?" he pointed to himself before adding, "I want something here. And I already have my area at the east."

"Not enough," I went to the map, took my glaive out and used it as a stick, "you will hold this entire region."

I pointed at the east coast, starting from southern half of Virginia down to upper parts of Georgia.

"This…" his face showed a mix of excitement and trouble.

"What?" I turned to look fully at him, "I thought you will be excited to have such a wide area away from all the trouble here."

"It's just that more than half of these lands belong to other archlords of other races," he sighed, "of course I'd love to control all this, but…"

"Don't tell me most of them are still alive."

"You don't mean…"

"Dude, this fight crushed at least two full armies of all races. Tell me, how did these races gather their forces if not from areas around here?" I returned to the map before adding, "I bet most of these lands are now empty, with forces without archlords to lead them."

"If that's the case, then…" his eyes shown in fierce way. He got the idea and bought it.

"I'll leave this section over to you," I said before adding as Wryly was coming here, "if you ever needed help, just send me a message."

"Ok," he nodded, "shall I depart now?"

He was so eager to move out and claim his new territory.

"Move where?" Wryly just arrived and missed the talk here.

"I'm going to take all this for myself, hahaha," Fang pointed at the area I assigned to him before adding, "and if I got a chance, I'll also move down till the ocean."

"If you can, you should go for Florida then," I shrugged. After all I knew Florida was doomed to have many fierce tsunamis and volcanic eruptions during the upcoming quests.

Comparing it with New York, Florida was going to have it tough at the upcoming weeks. If that dude wanted a piece of it, then he was free to go for it.

But later on, that place would be one of the most important pieces in the new land. Rich lands of other races realms would merge with Florida, forming what my people called at my time as the golden zone.

It was rich in resources, and that made it also a hot cake in the eyes of all races. For decades, that region changed ownership over dozens of times, and endless souls were sacrificed on its altar.

Anyway, Fang was my man. He had the right to take it and I'd just control it from the shadows using him as my puppet. As for the upcoming natural disasters, I'd say he was a cunning and well informative dude. He would do just fine down there.

"What about me?" Wrly pointed to himself, and I couldn't help but smile.

"I saved the best part for you, my dear brother in arms," I said that and Fang hardly controlled himself from laughing.

That dude seemed to get what I wanted to say here. Great minds thought alike after all… And the dirty cunning ones indeed.

"Where? Where?" Wryly seemed to get riled up when he saw that his rival here got such a wide area.

"I left this area here for you," I pointed at the area south of Michigan, all the way down to Kentucky, "it's not losing in size to Fang's, and above all it's filled with interesting fights against all races."

"Great!" Wryly's eyes shone in bright light as he clenched both fists out of his happiness. Seeing him react like that made me feel little guilty, and made Fang roll his eyes in helpless way.

It seemed that only Wryly didn't get he got played by me, yet everyone else got it.

437 Going Back To Boston

"I'm leaving," as Fang saw all this and got amused, he decided to leave. But it seemed he wasn't the only hyped up one here.

"I'll also go," Wryly suddenly said, "I need to arrange many things and see those bastards running around to kill them."

He was indeed a perfect example of a war supporter. I had nothing to say but to just remind them: "Give me all the updates about the deals with your paragons."

"Ok."

"Don't raise up your hopes."

The two left with their armies while I stood up on my chariot and watched them.

To be honest, the size of their forces wasn't that much as I imagined. Also it was clear how smaller Fang's forces were.

"What about us?" as the two left with their forces, Isabella came to ask.

"We will stay back and build up our forces," I slowly said as I turned to face all of them, "we… Lack of a lot of things. We need to train and get stronger."

"We got you, boss, we need nothing more," the spearhead tried to crack a joke but this was a wrong mindset to have.

"That's wrong," I said it out loud, "at the last couple of fights, I had to go away for unknown periods of time. And you took the toll out of it. First was at that dungeon thing, then it occurred again during the fight with the alien universe…"

I paused, letting them all understand what I was speaking about before adding, "So we need to train and evolve. These aren't our old peaceful times where one of two elite humans could lead the entire race to a better future. In these times, everyone should be unique and act for the better future of all of us. Without that, we will lose bit by bit until we end up losing at the end."

"We are with you boss."

"Just tell us what you want us to do."

"I have followed you since day one of the apocalypse, and you know I deeply trust you. Just tell us what you want and we will do it."

All of them started to show their support, one by one. I nodded to each one, as this moment was a real decisive one.

The most ironic thing here was that everyone was present, all but my two aces; the jumper and Hilary. One was sick and the other… Was recuperating from her exhaustion.

"We first will arrange our forces here," I looked around before adding, "I don't know the exact topography of the area. Speak with you and draw a more detailed map of the area from here to Kentucky in the south, then all the way to the eastern coast. Arrange your forces in pyramid shape, the closer to the hot the zone the less forces we have, and vice versa."

"What?!!!" they all looked at me in a weird way. Of course they expected me to arrange the forces opposite to this, but I wasn't that short sighted.

"The areas next to the hot zones controlled by Wryly's boys aren't that much important to me," I slowly explained before adding, "so we are going to turn these zones into buffer areas, areas that will work to delay any enemy progress without much losses."

They started to get my point fast. "But… Won't the Berserker be mad?"

This question came from none other than Hilary. My girl came up, dressed in loose armour that extended like a gown over her exposed long legs.

"Get dressed girl," Karoline was the first to jump and hug here. She took out a longer armour and a cape, placed both over my girl's sexy body to hide it.

Well, it seemed she just got up drowsy and dizzy, and came here without getting time to wake fully.

Yet she managed to get most of what happened, meaning she was eavesdropping for long enough.

What? Did she lazily wake up and decide to just keep in the bed and listen to our talk up above her? Or did she use some sort of spying item? Did she think I'd cheat on her?

This girl… This chick… She was turning more unbearable if she kept doing this.

"He won't say anything against this," I shrugged, motioned for her to come and surrounded her with my arms in a big hug. "He is just a war lover, and letting fight is the best thing he will ever dream about."

"O… Ok," she weakly said, leant her head in surrender over my chest while surrounding my body with her petite arms.

As for her long hair, it just was left behind her, extending for a metre or so over the chariot.

"What?" I noticed the gazes of others, and couldn't help but look directly at them.

"Nothing… Nothing boss," Leo raised both hands in the air.

"You are indeed my boss," and the spearhead just threw such a mean comment that gave him a long glare.

As for the girls, they seemed to decide to spare the talk with me and had it with my girl instead.

"So you are going to select one tenth of your forces and station them in all the cities and towns under our control," I returned to the main topic before adding, "then with each state distance, you will station twenty percent. As for the rest, they will come with us towards the capital."

"Boston?" Sara asked and I nodded.

"What are we going to do with all of them?" Isabella seemed to not like my idea, though, "we should just spread them here to gain more experience."

"Perhaps the boss is planning to let them into the dungeon," Leo said.

"Even so," Sara joined, seemingly standing on the same step as Isabella on this topic, "we should let them gain fighting experience, not limit their actions around the peaceful capital."

"Are you done?" I was looking calm towards all this. Just saying these words made them all startled, look at me in doubt as I added:

"I'm not just going to let them go into the dungeon we cleared, but also we will go to another dungeon to clear later on and let them keep clearing it. However…"

438 The Jealous Hilary

I paused for a moment before seriously adding, "there is a much more important task than this… Each and every one of you and your forces will be trained to open your cultivation base and start dwelling onto the path of being cultivators."

"Cultivators?!!" this word might seem alien to many, very weird indeed to all. I nodded as I gave them a few seconds before starting to explain what it meant.

The more I spoke, the more understanding they became. After all, when they learnt that by opening cultivation they would grow stronger and be much fiercer, all of them became much enthusiastic about this.

"Don't leave behind the bad news," but when I stopped talking, Hilary touched my chin and said in a weak and weirdly alluring voice.

"What bad news, boss?" the spearhead asked, and I had to inwardly sigh.

"Humans… We aren't naturally born with innate talent towards cultivation," I slowly said, "so there is no guarantee that all of you will open a cultivation base."

"…"

"Then how can we open our cultivation?" The spearhead looked around and everyone seemed to share the same point of view like him.

"We will use someone's help," I said, trying to reassure them.

"That scaled chick?" Angelica said, making me wonder what these girls saw in Lily to call her chick and be seen as a threatening rival by Hilary.

For me she wasn't that bad, but her scales were still a barrier for me to see her innate beauty it seemed.

"Hectors used a way to allow all the humans under their command to start cultivation," I explained further, bypassing the point of Lily being sexy and such. "We will use their help to do the same with us."

"Cool," Hilary freed herself from me, and added with a gaze that held threatening warnings, "I'll deal with her from now on. At least I'm one of the few here with cultivation opened."

I looked at her in a weird way. I was sure her real reasons behind this weren't related to what she just provided.

She was acting jealous, making me unable to decide for now about what I should do with her request.

"I'll also keep an eye over things," even if she had her cultivation opened, she was still lacking in a lot of things. Besides, Lily would only answer to me, not anyone else.

"Really?" She gave me such a long gaze as if she was asking me to reconsider.

"You know I hate scales," I tried to get her to my side, but she retreated, took a few steps away before standing with Karoline with slightly reddened eyes.

What was wrong with this chick? Why was she acting like this?

Sigh!

I decided to drop her matter for now. When she'd see me deal with Lily she might understand.

"So you also have your cultivation opened, boss?" Leo tried to break this awkward moment by asking this.

"I opened it not long ago," I didn't hide it from them, "but I'm still in the early stages of my cultivation."

"Does it have stages?" the talk returned to the right track again, as Sara asked in curiosity.

I gave them a short introduction to the world of cultivation, how bases are generally arranged, and a few talk about techniques.

"Can you show us, boss?" the spearhead's eyes shone brightly, "if I can use a technique to boost my ability then I'd be unstoppable."

"You are already unstoppable," Isabella showed a soft side of her, a weird side to be honest to be seen from such a fierce girl.

But it seemed her relationship with the spearhead developed into the right direction.

"I just used the help of my boss at that time," that dude wasn't that shameless to give himself all the credit about the battle he shone at, "without all the crystals and energy things he gave me, I'd have failed miserably in this."

"So," Sara ignored these two before adding, "with cultivation, we can add more strength to us and augment existing abilities?"

"And awaken them if they ever exist," I added this before adding, "in fact we also lack in another field, the natural powers field. I need you to try and use the cultivation experience to not only become stronger, but also to try and unlock any hidden abilities in you. Hopefully you'll be able to use natural powers based attacks like fire, ice, and lightning."

"That would be cool!" Leo jumped at this moment, "we'll be like real gamers! Playing the games we had before all this happened."

"Yes, something like this," if he could get the idea in that way, then why not? "Anyway, go out now and arrange your forces. Once ready, we will leave."

"Take me with you," just as I watched everyone leave, Hilary seemed to still be angry with me as she said that to Angelica.

"Don't you dare," but before the latter would respond, I glared at her and gave her such a threatening warning.

"Why? Huh? You are deeply immersed in your lust!" she pointed at my little treasure, making Angelica feel awkward.

"I'll… Leave," she decided to not butt in that complicated situation, preferred to leave and let the two of us try and handle things on our own.

"What?" Was her escape boat just left, Hilary turned to me and crossed her arms. She acted like a real kid angry with her father or something.

She started knocking on the ground with her legs, making her body tremble, and even her hair started to sway with her angry moves.

But even when she was acting like this, she looked like a sparkling star in my eyes.

"See…" I moved towards her and she seemed to get startled by my sudden move.

"What? Stay away from me, Hector lover…" before she would continue her barrage of angry shouts, I closed the gap between us with a swift jump, held her soft body in my arms, leant her over me, and sealed her lips with mine.

439 Leaving

And without giving her a chance, I carried her body, went down below, went to the same room that witnessed our love moments, and started to create new sweet memories in there.

Even if she was mad, once our bodies got attached to each other without any barrier, she dropped all the act and showed her true self.

A sexy goddess was what she was like. And in such a little room with a closed door on the two of us, her moans kept causing a continuous chorus as her body kept bouncing off like a pro dancer.

We lasted for much longer this time. After all she held much more energy that she wanted to vent. After long hours, she finally got to sleep peacefully on my arms, with ragged breaths and sweaty body.

Her two lumps on her chest kept rising up and down, making me unable to look away for a long time.

I closed the door swiftly behind, releasing a long sigh of reluctance to leave such a perfect body behind.

But I knew by this time my team would have finished arranging their troops, and were waiting for my next order.

I knew this because Angelica never stopped spamming me with her messages all the time. I had to say she was quite persistent and very annoying.

She wanted to check on Hilary, as the latter seemed to ignore all her messages as well. But I didn't know why Angelica kept pestering me, and let Hilary off the hook.

However, that was for the best. Hilary gave me such a good time that I'd never forget for a long time.

L'amour was really something essential in life, like oxygen in the air for our bodies, it was as important as that for our souls.

[Gather at my chariot] I sent to all of them, letting them come here. I planned to take them all the way to the capital, while their forces would start the journey of return on their own.

These lands were now all controlled by my forces. For the first time ever since the start of the apocalypse, humans had a place they could freely move and live without feeling threatened in their lives.

Of course that was temporary. After all the next quests held more challenges for all of us.

One quest was to defend the conquered cities and towns, any place with emblems and castles, against the fierce swarm of monsters.

Then the next quest would be the challenge between city lords. This quest wasn't that threatening to us. As the nearest hostile city lords were hundreds of miles away.

But the next quest was the problem. Monsters would pop out from anywhere around the cities and towns. There were no restraints to them, nothing we could do but fight and kill them once they appeared.

The good news was that we would get many materials and meat. But we would also lose lots of forces during this. In fact it would be a headache to roam this vast territory and free any controlled city or town from the clutches of these monsters.

My forces weren't going to stay in each single town and city in my land. So it was acceptable to lose a portion of it for monsters, to fight again to reclaim these with the various forces scattered around.

But I had to speak with my boys about this, so they wouldn't get stirred up or demotivated when we'd get such losses.

"You are still alive!" The first thing Angelica said was this.

"Stupid girl! How would I be dead and message you all?" I rolled my eyes when I heard her weird comment, the one that made everyone look at the two of us in question.

"Where is… You know…" Angelica didn't drop the matter, looked around before she voluntarily moved down stairs. I looked at her back before shaking my head. This girl… She was trying to act friendly or she had ulterior motives?

Anyway, I was already fed up to the brim to think about another meal. I looked at the other puzzled looking dudes and girls as I said:

"Ignore this, let's talk about an important thing first," as I said that, I controlled my chariot to start rising up, prepared to fly.

"Are we leaving now, boss?" The spearhead looked around as if this dude got scared by what I just did.

"What? Don't tell me you didn't finish deploying and arranging your troops."

"No… It's just…" he looked at the others and I felt there was something they wanted to say but hesitated.

"What?" I looked impatiently, "my chariot is about to launch, are you ready to leave or not?"

"The jumper's forces," Isabella finally spoke on behalf of everyone else, "that dude… His forces are in a much more terrible situation than all of us. We thought of taking them back and letting them recuperate at the capital."

"Ok," I didn't see anything wrong with doing this. After all that crazy jerk drove his forces to the brink of death alongside him.

Taking them with us to the capital wasn't something bad. "You already covered the entire defences with your forces, right?"

I asked and they nodded. "Let's hope that dude will give you a big thank you when he wakes up."

"Where is he, boss?" Leo asked.

"What? Did you miss his annoying presence that much?"

"N… No," Leo looked like a cat that stepped upon its tail. He looked around in fear and doubt, "I just find it weird to not see him around."

"He just needs rest," I gave such an excuse without delving too much into the details. Once we'd arrive at the capital, I'd ask for anyone with psychological experience to deal with his troubled mind.

Hopefully that long time friend won't be lost forever.

As I led them on my chariot, I started to act as a vanguard.

We moved fast and reached areas way before the army would reach.

440 Weird Things Kept Happening

Just seeing the emptied cities and towns down below reminded me of something.

"By the way," I stopped my chariot on top of a desolate city, "when I came looking for you, I noticed that all the cities and towns were emptied. Do you know the reason for that?"

"That…" everyone finally noticed this weird and bizarre thing. They looked down at the city while Sara asked:

"Isn't it possible to be a limited case in some areas?"

"Yes boss, after all we fought a large number of races' forces. They must have emptied their lands for their armies to be formed," the spearhead said, but the two didn't convince me.

"That's not possible," I slowly shook my head before adding, "as you see here, this is supposed to be one of our cities, or at least one we already freed before."

We were standing on top of a city called Toledo. It was a big city in Ohio state. "We already dominated Ohio during the course of war. Plus not a single time the races ever evacuated the cities and towns like this."

"Boss, they aren't defended so it's great news to us," Leo said, and others nodded in agreement.

But I still didn't feel cool about this weird situation.

"Ok, our boys will find it easy to dominate these cities and towns as you said," I faked my agreement with what he said, but didn't truly feel any confidence or calm.

Since that bastard appeared in my world and attacked my forces and weird sh*t kept happening.

But as they said, at least these cities and towns would be defenceless. Hopefully another disaster wouldn't befall us.

"Are we going to wait for them here or go back?" Isabella noticed my stop without any intention to move.

"Let's wait," I was still not feeling great about leaving behind the entire army like this.

"So we can get down there and rest?" Alex suddenly asked, and I mistook her meaning for the inner rooms in my chariot.

"Sure, you can go down there and have a rest, the rooms are mostly empty."

"No, I meant the city down below," Alex pointed at the city, "I want to walk in a city that didn't have any monsters to kill or any threats against my life."

I looked up at her. Since day one I'd heard about her and she was always in dangerous situations. "Ok, but make sure to keep in touch with me if anything happens."

"Don't worry boss," the spearhead said, "I'll make sure to keep an eye over them."

"Over who?" Leo gave him a cold gaze and I couldn't help but inwardly sigh.

It seemed the spearhead saw himself senior in these matters as he hooked with Isabella earlier than Leo did with Alex.

I let my chariot descend in the centre of the city, letting them disembark and leave.

The city was just a stretch of ruins without any sign of the old human civilization. Seeing them see beauty in such ruins made me inwardly sigh.

"I had to consider a total rebuilding plan for all the cities and towns under my command," I muttered, recalling how better the cities and towns in my past life were.

Of course that was the result of human efforts for long decades. But that didn't mean I couldn't start doing this, at least the zones I knew for sure were well protected like the areas adjacent to my capital.

"As I have time…" I paused, raised my head up as I added, "I did my part in the quest you gave me, and now you have to honour our agreement."

"I was speaking out loud, speaking to the system higher up. I had a deal with him. Killing those alien universe monsters and creatures and winning in return for a global human communication system.

That system is much more important now than ever. As the system was heading towards quest five, I knew what I stopped at quest two was now inevitable to happen.

The global wide natural disasters would occur starting from the upcoming quests till quest ten.

In addition to warning the humans across the world about that, and to start establishing global rescue groups at the hot zones I was aware of, I also needed to start knowing the strong powerhouses in the human race.

Of course not all of them would be friends of mine. Just recalling that Ed jerk made me sigh. Such a strong dude was destined to be my enemy. And my guts told me he wasn't going to be the only one or the last to join that list.

Those weird human forces that appeared before were also a strong candidate for a hostile human powerhouse. Such a force gathered and controlled by someone to stand against a coalition army of Dragons and Selvators was some sort of a feat without doubt.

And that dude just vanished like he never ever existed. Damn! Since that jerk appeared here and weird stuff kept happening all over me.

That dude was just one of these examples. I didn't know where he was going. Was he killed? Or did he just get scared and run away from the heated battle?

I hardly believed that. If he was such a dude, then he would have run away before facing the coalition army. Well… I had to find answers about that dude and his forces as well.

I knew many humans got abducted by a weird race, teleported and held captive in some sort of a prison world.

Well… I had a lot of time to think about all these things. And that was also one of the reasons I wanted for the communication system to be established.

With it, I could start recruiting more forces here. It wasn't going to be easy indeed, considering how the big forces already started dividing up our Earth.

But later on, and as the new worlds would merge with Earth, these forces would shift their focus elsewhere. I could use that chance and move any far forces here.

441 [Bonus chapter] A Week Waiting Period

Anyway, I had to wait for that higher up's response first. If he didn't answer, then I'd return to the contract and try to find a solution with the system's help.

Thinking about using the system to force a system higher up to do something seemed a bit weird and funny. However contracts were obligatory, even for those higher ups.

[I'm working on it, human kid. Don't think such a thing is done with a flip of switch]

The answer came in the form of this simple message. I didn't know but I felt like he was trying to get away from this deal or just buying himself more time.

"Just don't take that long, or else our contract won't be valid anymore."

[I'm doing my part, don't think I'm slacking here!]

"I hope you aren't," I didn't buy any of his words. I was sure now more than ever he was slacking.

I opened the contract and made sure the conditions there were limiting the payment by the fulfilment of that dude's promise.

And there was also a time limit of one week after doing my part. Almost one and half day was gone so he had less than five and half left. So he wasn't in the wrong yet. But his actions made me a little impatient.

If he stuck to the deal and waited till the end of the week, then I had one week void of anything major.

Should I lead my boys into dungeons? Or should I focus first over opening cultivation?

In fact opening the cultivation held much more importance than going into the dungeons. Besides, I also needed to take time and focus on raising my spiritual energy.

Besides, I got lots of things into my shadow world. I didn't pay it a visit since sending these there.

Anyway, I had more time for me to do all these. Also I had to consider what I should do with my kingdom.

I read a lot of records before about how the three kingdoms appeared in this world and how they survived and thrived till my last day there.

They did lots of work indeed. Building an empire was much different than building an army. Both needed talented people to lead them.

Armies need soldiers, kingdoms need people. The two might look similar but I knew how much harder it was to gather enough people to build an empire.

Just looking at my current situation proved that. The lands here were already under my control but the world looked desolate.

Without having enough population to fill up and live in these lands, they would end up being controlled lands and not a true kingdom.

That was where the communication system kicked in. without it, I lacked any good meaning in increasing the number of my people.

Even using the deals with Fang and Wryly wouldn't be enough. I needed to attract more people from all the eastern coast, and the central zone as well.

Hopefully humans would survive in large numbers until that system became a reality.

I looked up from my chariot at the city here. Things were calm, like the calmness of a cemetery.

It looked desolate. I knew even if my forces arrived, the place wouldn't look any much better.

How much would I leave here? Few thousand? Tens of thousands? I didn't think even ten thousand would be stationed here. Only a few thousands, at most five, would be here.

Should I let them start mating and give birth to new human offspring? Well, it was one of the most stable actions and solutions to such a problem.

But were times really that stable to push my people to take such a major step? It wasn't a simple thing, and if many brutal wars erupted, then losses wouldn't be just in numbers but in family members.

This might deal a great blow to their spirits, as it might ignite more.

It was… A tough choice indeed. Even I, the strongest one here, wasn't that sure about taking such a step myself.

Having fun was cool, but establishing a family? That was something big.

Ok, it was better to leave this for later then.

"Where is everyone?"

Just at this moment, I heard Hilary's weak voice coming from my back.

I turned and saw her. This chick… She was wearing her armour loose, exposing two gems in her chest again.

"Can't you properly get dressed before coming up," I sighed, and she gave me a blaming look as if this was my fault.

"I always wake up and see you away not by my side. That makes me rush up here to check on you."

"What? Are you afraid something bad will happen to me or something?" I walked to her, and like we had tacit understanding, she leant her body over mine, letting her head rest over my chest.

"I just… Don't like the idea of losing you," she said in such weird words, letting me feel a little warmth in the depth of my heart.

"Don't worry," I gave her a deep hug before starting to properly dress her.

"Where is… Everyone?" after painting a soft kiss over her sweet lips, she asked, looking around to see none but my Gollams, Bulltors, and shield bearers.

"They are out there," I motioned my head towards the city.

"Is there a fight going on here or something?" she moved to the edge of the chariot, and I simply hugged her back while looking at the devastated and ruined city.

"They are just strolling."

"In this desolate place?" she turned to face me, leant over the edge of the chariot with one leg, showing such an irresistible posture in front of me.

I couldn't hold myself but to carry her from the thighs, push her up and let her sit over the edge. Her head was on the same level as mine, while her long hair extended down over the chariot.

"What?" she asked as if she didn't know what she was inviting me to do.

"You know we just had fun twice in a row," I said while slowly moving my hands over her exposed thighs.

442 The Devastated Jumper

"A third is a no then?" she winked as she said in such a tone. It was so damn hard to resist the invitation with such tone and posture.

"Let's see about that then," I carried her over my shoulder and the world filled with her sweet laughs before turning into a long chorus of moaning and screaming.

This was the third time in such a short time but frankly… Each time held a different taste. She was like a big and endless treasure volt, with each visit would reveal another part of her delicacies.

As I ended, I decided to sleep and have more rest this time. There was no urgent thing for me to do. Everyone was just having fun, resting all over the city, so why wouldn't I have my rest as well?

I slept for such a long time to wake up and see Hilary sitting on the edge of the bed, with a big smile over her face.

"What?" I stood slowly up, looked at her as she shook her head.

"It's just fun seeing you sleeping next to me in such peace of mind."

"Peace is a valuable thing now for us to enjoy all the time," I just stated the truth, "and I just slept like I've never done for a long time."

I stretched my body, feeling more relaxed and lazy than ever. In fact, even in my past life, I never had such a deep and peaceful sleep.

Worrying about living my next day was always so stressful. But here, I had to not worry anymore.

I was a king, and a king shouldn't worry about his next day but his next decade or something.

"By the way," as I rested and enjoyed this, I took out meat and liquor and shared these with her, "there is someone angry and always roaring from the side rooms."

She motioned her head towards the direction of the room I imprisoned the jumper at.

"Is he still awake?" I looked at the direction she pointed at and she just shrugged.

"I dunno why are you keeping him in such a way. Is he that dangerous?"

I thought about this for a few minutes. During which she kept eating and drinking with me.

"Let's pay him a visit then," I said but as we two reached that jerk's door, I stopped her as I added, "he might be dangerous. So be careful."

"You don't seem to take him so seriously," she said while taking out a long and heavy looking broadsword. It was dark red and gold in colour, giving a dangerous aura.

"I can handle him on my own," I didn't need a weapon to control that jerk. But the moment the door opened, I felt like a loose bull hit me on the chest.

"F*ck you! I'll kill you! I'll tear you to shreds! Do you hear me!"

His coarse and furious voice rang in my ears. However with all this, with his sudden jump and series of punches, I didn't even budge an inch.

If it was before, I'd say I would be a little worried about my life. But now? Humph! I have improved a lot since our first meeting together.

The weak Hye I was on before changed. Even if that jumper used all of his power to smash against me, I wasn't even fazed.

It didn't feel nice though, but I simply waved my hand, circulated my spiritual energy in my body and pushed his body away.

*Bang!*

His body flew and hit the other wall of his room fiercely before rolling on the ground and stopping by his bed. He even coughed blood, making Hilary look at me in a weird and surprised way.

"I just got my cultivation base higher," I said this simple explanation before turning my full attention towards the jumper.

"You…" he slowly stood up, with a long trail of blood coming down his mask. Just from this hit, that dude emptied all of his frustration and anger, and looked at me with weak eyes.

I looked at him in defiance. If he wanted to keep doing this then I was ready for such a thing. But he would be a fool if he just sought for a beating.

"Why?" a simple word came out from his mask, making me feel more pained from the inside.

"Because you were going to kill yourself."

"Why do you care about me?" he looked at me for a moment, before shouting: "why didn't you let me die! I wanted to die! Damn! I can't just jump over or I'd be dead!"

"You…" Hilary came to my side at this moment. She was still holding her sword, fearing for that jumper to come at her. "Is he alright?" she pointed at her mind, while I only sighed.

He was indeed not in his right state of mind. He just asked to be left to die, and yet he said he didn't jump because it would kill him.

"Dude, I don't know what you saw, but it was all fake."

"No! I saw him die again!" he jumped and came at me again. Yet this time I stood like a solid rock without giving any chance for him to push me. At the same time I kept my hands by the side of my body, clenching the fists without saying a single word.

"I saw… I saw him die… Again… And again… All these times were real… I… I felt his body… Sob!"

Just as he reached my body, he weirdly leant over and started crying. Without his strength to hit me, his body started to slowly slip down to the ground.

"Hey… Hey… get yourself together," Hilary couldn't tolerate seeing him in such a state. She moved, held his body before falling on the ground. But before she could reach him, I simply kicked his body fiercely, throwing him all the way again to the wall of the room.

443 He Needs A Waking Up Call

He needed a beating, and this was something refreshing to be honest. Even if he was in such a weak state, he was still that jerk that kept pestering me all this time.

"Wake up!" I shouted, "This… This was all an illusion, like a dream… no, it's like a nightmare."

It felt wrong to use the word dream about this. This time he stayed there on the ground without any intention to even raise his head to face mine.

"It was all fake! That angel died, died a long time ago! Wake up! You are jumping all over the apocalypse to just save him."

"B… But… Sob… He… Sob… Died… at… Sob… My hands…"

I didn't think even after all this time, the jumper didn't get it out of his head. Damn! That bastard who did all this seemed to specifically target him. Out of all my people, he selected the right dude to crush, and found his weak spot and kept pushing mercilessly on it.

He even got to live through that same moment over and over again until he broke down. I wasn't acting judgmental here. After all, if I was in his shoes, I would have never ended up in any better situation than him.

"Is…" Hilary tucked me from the arm, but I gave her a warning gaze.

This was all the jumper's secrets, or the second most important secret in his own list of secrets.

As for the other one, his biggest secret, I hoped he wouldn't reveal it now, not when he was in such a condition.

"Sob… Sob…" but all that came from him were these repeated sobbing. He was crying, bitterly crying as if losing that angel was refreshing and the wound was still alive.

"You…" seeing him like that made me shake my head in deep sympathy. Using this approach wasn't going to work. It seemed I had to be softer.

So I went and sat by his side, and said without even looking at him.

"We started this together… I still recall the first moment we two met. Do you still remember it?"

"Sob… you were weak… Sob…" even when he was crying, he was still acting like a jerk.

"Yes," but I simply nodded, "at that time, you were stronger, far stronger than myself. If you wanted, you could have crushed me to a pulp using a finger."

"…"

He slowly stopped crying, raised his head at last and looked at me. Well, if these memories messed up with his head then it was better to start from the beginning of everything.

"That moment we had a conversation, a deal was made, and we started to walk this path shoulder to shoulder."

"Don't put me in the same basket as you," he started acting mean again, making me inwardly smile.

At least this true self was still there. If he lost his focus or got deluded by what he experienced, it was the role of friends like myself to shake him awake and return him back to the right track.

"Do you remember what we two talked about back then?" I turned to gaze at his eyes. They were still felt with tears, but it seemed he was controlling his pain for now.

"…"

For a few minutes he struggled, and resumed crying silently this time. I stayed all silent, didn't speak, only waited for him to answer me.

"I… Remember…" he sobbed again, "you told me to not jump again and prevented me from doing this to save him."

Damn! He got it all wrong! "And you did it for your own benefit, neglecting mine."

"That's… Not what happened," I had to shake him back, "we agreed to do this to help you save your friend."

"How? How can I'm prevented from jumping? Jumping around is the only way I had to save him. You deprived it from me, took it away…"

Despite his aggressive words, his tone was weak, much weaker than ever. And at the end of it, he couldn't control himself and started crying again.

"Jumping around?" as he was even deluded to see the simple facts of my actions, then it was better to bluntly say it to him, "jumping wasn't your way to save him, but your way to run away from saving him."

"Don't say that!" he roared in pain, deep pain, as he punched me in the face. But this time I didn't even need to use my spiritual energy to stop his hand.

His punch lacked any strength at all, as if it was a breeze of air moving over my face or something.

"You jumped, started an apocalypse, saw it was so damn hard to keep moving forward, then decided to jump over it again. Doing this over and over again, running all the time, made your first intention to save him turn against you."

"Hye… Please…" from the direction of the door, Hilary spoke in a weak tone filled with emotions.

I knew this was the first time for her to see through the deepest layers of the jumper. She never expected, like anyone else, that beneath that hard and cold mask, such a fragile soul would be there.

And as she saw his true self, she didn't stay aggressive or cold to him like everyone else. She would now understand why despite all this bad attitude this man gave to me, I still kept him by my side all this time.

He was a pathetic… really pathetic soul that didn't just get crushed and deformed from the apocalypse, but got shattered and was beyond any repair.

Only by the presence of such friends like me by his side would he have the strength to keep moving forward.

Saving his friend might seem like a noble cause, but I knew better. Linking everything I knew about him, I got to say he was doing it for love.

And right now he was honestly expressing his feelings, in a subtle and indirect way of course. But as he was honest, Hilary got touched by his words and emotions, felt deeply related and had great empathy with him.

"He needed that," I waved to her to not come over, "I know what I'm doing."

444 His Wound Never Healed

And then I turned to face him, as I added:

"Running away might seem an easy, easy solution for you to follow. You kept saying you wanted to rescue him, but why didn't you ever stay long enough to meet him before?"

"Stop! Stop! Just stop it!" he roared again, and his yellings and pathetic powerless punches didn't manage to stop me from continuing.

"If you really wanted to save him, at least you'd have waited for a stage before jumping. You know you can see him before quest fifteen, and yet you chose to not do so."

"Stop! Stop!"

"Do you know… Why?" I kept talking, "do you know why you didn't even think about staying long enough for one apocalypse, or work so damn hard to just see him once? Do you even want to see him?"

"No… No… I can't! I can't!" Instead of punching me, he just shouted at the world, as a beast who was roaring at the unfairness of this world in its last breaths.

"Why? Why didn't you do that?"

"Stop it!"

"Don't you want to save him? How do you want to do so and you never planned to even see his face once more?"

"No! No… I can't see him… No way… I can't… Sob!"

He returned to cry, and this time his crying was so loud to make anyone break from hearing and seeing him in such a state.

"Tell me! Why?! Why goddammit!" I didn't feel myself shouting at him. If he kept enclosing himself like this, not willing to take that last step towards freeing his soul from this burden, then I'd force him to do so.

"Hye!" Hilary couldn't tolerate this again, but before she would add anything else I shouted:

"Tell me why!!!"

"Because I won't be able to save him!" he turned to face me, blurted it out at last. "I… I tried… Tried to save him many times but failed… I can't… I'm not doing this to save him… I'm trying to just run away, run as far away as possible from even meeting him again… Sob… Sob…"

By just saying it out loud, he finally relieved himself from such a burden. I always suspected it. Why did he never live through any quest past ten?

He once stayed at fifteen before he finally got this cursed ability. Since then he kept leaping through apocalypses, doing everything till quest ten before jumping over again.

At first I thought he was facing great trouble in keeping up, or the apocalypse was just too much. But just when I met Hilary I knew it. This dude… He wasn't even trying!

He was just wasting his time, jumping from one apocalypse to another until he would die in the end under unforeseen circumstances.

He didn't plan to save that friend of his. He never intended to do so. He was just living through that deep trauma of his, and all this was just a perfect façade for him to escape.

So when he was relieved through what caused all this to him, he fell to such a rock bottom state.

And that wasn't without a proper reason. He never lived past that moment, not even for a single moment.

Also knowing about the opportunity to meet his friend when using the golden quests at quest five and ten made it more obvious… He was well aware of it yet he never took advantage of this chance not even once.

He wouldn't even dream about meeting up with his friend once again, or else everything he lived in, the fake life he weaved around his soul like it was his coffin would shatter.

And that exactly was what happened when he lived through that memory over and over again.

"Dude…" As I left him crying for ten minutes, and endured the blaming burning gazes from Hilary while she only got warning gazes back from mine, I finally said, "I know all that, and I thank gods for giving me the chance to bind you here since the two of us met."

"Sob… So you can just… Sob… Kill me? Or enjoy… Sob… My pain and torture?" his voice was weak, but when he said the last phrase, it seemed it got more strength as he added in a fierce way:

"Yes, yes… You are just like those god bastards! You enjoy watching me in pain, ain't you? You are no better than them!"

"Sigh, you got it all wrong again, buddie."

"Then what?" he shouted, and I knew it was time to give him something to live for.

"I want to help you, help you to truly go and save your friend, for real and not just dreaming about it."

"You…" I was so close to him that I could feel his body trembling.

"You started all this by running away, but deep down your soul you wanted to save him. You really want that, right pal?"

"…"

"To save him, you have to stop running. Our contract between the two of us does that."

"Yes, turning me into a slave of yours…"

I didn't give him time to speak this time. There was something else wrong with his head. Every time I tried to help, he would find a wrong conclusion and throw everything at it.

And weirdly enough, each time I'd end up the villain, the one to be blamed, the evil man in his life.

Weird, right?

"That contract is your protection shield from your damaged soul," I interrupted him by adding, "you didn't get over your past pain yet. Even after all this time, all you saw is just darkness, pain, and loss. You never saw the glimpse of hope in any of this."

"…"

"Let me tell you this… that moment when the two of us met for the first time, I promised you to help you save your friend. And now I'm repeating the same promise… I'll do whatever I can and make you save his life from getting killed."

"S…Stop…"

"I'll help you go through everything, even start a war against his race's enemies. No matter what is required, I pledge I'll do it. And I will do it with all my power. Just… stand up and be on my side while doing all this."

"… Sob… Sob…"

And in return for my words, he finally nodded, and exploded again into crying once more.

445 The Contract Of Secrecy

"Stay with him," as I got what I wanted from him, I stood up, motioned for Hilary to come and console the jumper.

"He…"

"Sigh," I turned to look at the jumper before adding, "dude, she heard everything and now she knows about your past. Remove that mask and let her see your true identity."

I didn't wait for him to respond as I left, leaving Hilary behind in a state of puzzlement that turned into a massive shock with a loud scream of surprise.

I knew he listened to my words and removed the mask. It didn't feel that bad. After all Hilary was the closest one to the two of us in terms of time travel and this sh*t.

"I hope you can console him better than I did," I muttered while ascending to the top of my chariot.

The world there looked the same, but for a reason it felt darker and much gloomier than ever. Talking with the jumper and listening to all he said was a really bad experience, one that I didn't want to go through ever again.

Just a single mistake, an easy escape from dealing fully with one's trauma would turn things to such a mess. In fact I didn't have such a thing in my life, luckily.

If I did, I didn't know if I'd be like him one day or not.

Yet that also made me realise something… Whoever came at us and attacked my forces knew exactly what he was doing.

He even selected the weakest link in my forces and hit him fiercely like this. If not for that damn illusion, nothing of this would have ever happened.

I didn't know about the rest of my team, but I knew all the weaknesses of the jumper's past life. And weirdly enough, that mysterious foe also was aware of this.

Well… It was another piece of puzzlement added to the long pile of such things. I didn't think much about it as I lacked any info to solve it.

[Boss… Our boys are already here]

Just as I was watching the gloomy world here, I spotted the dust caused by the arrival of the big army frontline here.

And with it, the spearhead was fast enough to send me this message in the next couple of minutes.

[I saw them. Ok, enough from this short vacation and bring your as*yes over here now] I sent this to everyone, while watching the army coming closer from the distance.

They seemed to walk in an organised way, moving in big groups, each formed of almost ten to twenty thousand forces.

[We will come after deploying the forces in the region]

[Give us an hour, boss]

[I need to arrange my boys over this area]

They responded to this, making me realise they didn't plan to arrange defences here yet. "Those lazy idiots… They just planned the defences around the frontline zone…" I shook my head in disappointment, deciding to give them hellish training after our return to the capital.

And so I had to stay and wait for them for many hours. During which, I thought about going down there and checking over the jumper. But I didn't.

I had to trust Hilary on doing the right thing here. She now knew all the secrets about the jumper, having more motives to help him more than before.

"That dude… He isn't dead, right?" I recalled the paragon I managed to snatch away from the Selvators. He was left bleeding and so damn weak to lose his consciousness once he agreed to join me.

I didn't add him as my friend yet, but who said I couldn't message him using the contract between the two of us?

[Hey dude, are you alive or what?]

I sent this message but didn't get anything in an answer. "Sigh, he must be sleeping," I didn't find any other explanation for neglecting my message but this.

"Let him rest, it's only two days since he got that wound," I knew he didn't get enough time to return to his peak. He might be sensitive towards his image, just like any arrogant bastard would be.

He was a paragon, so I could understand that. Anyway, by his removal from the list of his race's paragons, the path for Fang was wide opened to become one in the future.

"These two jerks… They didn't return to me with any news," even after the passage of all this time, the two didn't give me a single damn message about what happened between them and their paragons.

If Fang was the only one to not give me answers, I'd say he was trying to seize something good from behind my back.

But Wryly also didn't answer me. And that meant one thing; there was no news or things were getting much complicated for them to say a single word.

[Hey you… Any news yet?]

I sent this message to the two of them, and waited for a few minutes before the first one answered.

Of course it was Wryly. And what he said made me feel a little puzzled.

[Sorry bro, I'm heading to a grand meeting with my paragon]

[A meeting? About what?]

[Can't say! Even speaking to you might be a breach of the contract I signed with him. So, good bye for now]

Weirdly enough no matter what I sent later on, that dude didn't respond. And at the same time, Fang also didn't answer even once.

"So their paragons asked them both for a meeting, and even forced them to sign a contract? Why is that?" I thought, feeling that this was quite unusual.

They might be afraid of me. After all, I was a paragon killer. So they would prefer to meet the two up after signing such a secrecy contract with Fang and Wryly.

Also that might be a way to drive these two away from me. Well… I didn't know what was going on here, but this meeting was weird and suspicious.

If it was a single occurrence then I'd understand. But the two? And the same conditions happened with the two… That meant the two paragons, at least, were on the same page with each other.

Selvators and Berserkers… And before that Selvators and Dragons… Things seemed much deeper than I might have thought.

446 The Scared Spearhead

I'd have to wait until they ended their meeting and then I'd interrogate them for everything. I wouldn't just settle with something like it was a secret and such bullshit.

Anyway, as I had nothing else to do, I decided to rest until my team finished what they were doing.

It took slightly longer than I expected. The first to come up was Hilary. And from the look over her face, I knew she was feeling conflicted about what she already knew.

"You know…" She paused, not knowing what she should say.

"Shush, this is his secret, and we shall work to protect it together," I whispered to her, motioned with fingers on lips to stop talking about this.

"His? Are you still calling him that?!!" She was still not sure about how to deal with the jumper. But in my eyes, as long as the jumper decided to keep his identity hidden, then I should simply respect his desire.

"It's not up to us anyway to decide that, " I said before adding, "everyone of us has his secrets. We don't need to expose his secrets until he decides to do so himself."

"But…"

"Just forget what you saw and knew," I sighed, "just treat him the same way you did all this time."

"He is… Pathetic," she sighed, went to my side and sat as she leant her head over my shoulder, "I never thought behind that cold mask would exist such a fragile person."

"It's… Just unfortunate how things went wrong for him," I also felt bad about him, "we are his friends, and I believe we are the only friends he acquired since that incident happened."

"I… Can't believe it yet," she closed her eyes as she added in soft tone, "he is just a poor person. I hope I could have the chance to help him."

"We can," I patted on her head, "we will."

"Hmm…"

She just nodded and didn't add anymore. I also kept myself silent, only looked at the distance and enjoyed this rare moment of peace.

As for that jumper, I didn't need to ask. He deserved a long period of rest. Avoiding everyone was the right course of action here. If he ended up dealing with others, he might just recur again and relapse.

I wasn't in any rush right now to ask him to help. The upcoming period, luckily, was one which required planning and preparations.

"Oh, it seems whenever you two got the chance, you won't stop acting like two teenagers."

Just after a couple of hours of rest, the familiar voice of Angelica came while she wasn't doing any control over her laughs.

"Stop it," Hilary turned her head and looked at her in warning, "come here girl, let me know your latest news."

"I'll excuse myself then," I knew sitting here and listening to such girl gossip was a nightmare for me.

"What? As if you already don't know," Angelica gave me such a look as if I was living with her all the time or something.

"I'm leaving," I didn't give anyone a room to say anymore, stood up and went to a far corner than where these two sat.

But I didn't have time to enjoy staying away like that in peace. The next to come were the couples, the spearhead and his girl; Isabella. Then Alex came with Leo.

Then Sara came last.

And by this, my team was all here, only missing the jumper.

"Boss, we are ready to move out," the spearhead said while stealing a few glances at the two girls sitting head to head and whispering to each other.

"Are they… Plotting something against you?" I didn't know where this dude got such an idea from. He came closer and whispered as if he was telling something extremely important and serious.

"They are plotting against you," I rolled my eyes before adding, "they are saying the spearhead doesn't deserve the angelic Isabella and are thinking about ways to separate you from each other."

"Damn! Damn! Boss, boss! Please! Please, I beg you!"

That idiot… He bought it as if there was no chance for it to be a joke. As from his side, Isabella was hardly controlling herself from laughing and giggling.

She was too smart to know this was a prank. But that spearhead was just acting all insecure and kept pleading for me to interfere and stop this from happening.

"Please boss, I'll do anything you ask for."

"Ok, leave this to me," I said in confidence, while everyone around were trying to look away, trying not to look the spearhead in the eye or else they'd explode in laughter.

"Boss, don't let them touch me and my Alex," Leo said, faking his worry like a spearhead.

I gave that dude a warning gaze. This joke must stop here or these two girls would go crazy and turn it into a reality.

"Dude, stop playing with fire," I said in an honest way, "or else I won't be able to help you."

"This… Ok…" he seemed to get terrified when I said that, stealing gazes from time to time at the two girls sitting at the corner.

"Now, are you all ready to move?" I didn't want anyone to keep talking about this joke or else it would turn by our words into a reality.

As they nodded, and said things about how they finished deploying their forces around, I started to control my chariot and fly towards the direction of my capital.

The journey from here to Boston took six hours of direct flying. We passed over lots of empty cities and towns for almost two hours, before finally reaching a zone where we started to see races at these places.

Of course these cities and towns had only my humans, Berserkers, and Selvators. No other race was there.

"We need to check these towns and cities," but Sara seemed to think about the presence of few races here and there, "if we found any, we should kill."

447 I'm Afraid Of Hybrid Monsters

"That's something easy to do," Isabella shrugged, "let's just ask our forces to start sweeping these places and look for any hostile races."

"Boss, we are still friends with Berserkers and Selvators, right?" Leo asked, and I felt like this was was acting dumb or something.

"They are our allies," I said before adding, clearing this point out for anyone with any doubt about it, "they are going to be our long term allies in the apocalypse, until I say otherwise."

"Cool."

"You are the boss."

"I'll listen to your orders all the time."

As they all got it, they started talking among themselves about many things regarding their forces.

I just listened and didn't say anything in the middle. They knew what they were speaking about better, and I had nothing to share in that regard.

I only had my full attention towards the next steps in my plan.

However just before we could reach Boston, only one hour away, a message appeared all of sudden in front of me and also for everyone.

[Quest three starts now]

[As you are punished, you won't get any tasks for the quest]

[Still anything in the quest that will affect you will still happen]

[So stay prepared and alerted]

"Boss… Boss… This…" the spearhead seemed a bit panicking right now as he got the same messages I got, or similar to it.

"Calm down," I instantly said to reassure everyone, "we are going to just have a few attacks from time to time, and we'll conquer them in the end."

"Right," Sara said in a strong tone, "we aren't weak anyway."

"Yes, we have strong forces and we can crush any enemy no matter what!" Leo got pumped up alongside Sara, making himself get a deep gaze from her.

It seemed their break up didn't go smoothly like I thought, and the two were still having friction.

"Anyway," I said to end any problem before happening, "keep in touch with your forces. If anything weird happens, notify me first before doing anything else."

"Is it needed?" Hilary came at this moment with Angelica. It seemed as the two got the message, they ended their long girl talk and came to stay with us.

"We don't need to risk anything," I shrugged, "we have the advantage right now. So why just take risks when we can avoid them?"

"Let's hope there are no disasters happening anytime soon," the spearhead sighed.

"As if you are our pillar, the one who is doing everything major and important," Angelica rolled her eyes when she heard him saying that.

The spearhead was about to say something when he suddenly stopped. It seemed he recalled the little joke I cracked before, making him restrain himself from saying anything to stir more trouble at him.

"Let's just start up by gathering information," I said, trying to put things in order, "let's see what's the nature of this quest."

"As if you don't know what's going to happen," Hilary came to my side and punched me weakly on the shoulder.

"As if you also don't know about it," I laughed while she put an innocent expression on her face.

"I'm not like you, you are a real monster who knows literally everything."

"Me? A monster?" I acted as if I was getting insulted here or something.

"Hahaha, she is the only one who can vouch for that," Angelica said in such a playful tone that added dirty intentions to her words.

Damn girl! Did your mind get to such dirty thoughts? "Stop it!" this didn't come from me, but from Hilary who seemed to have her face a little red.

Such a chick was able to get embarrassed? That was new.

"Are we going to Boston right away or will we wait first to see this quest thing?" Isabella ignored all this, while her face also showed a faint redness just like Sara.

Only Alex seemed to not be affected by what Angelica said. Of course she wouldn't, after all she was Angelica's ex.

"Wait?" what she proposed made me pause.

"We should," Hilary nodded, before adding, "it's supposed to be the ninth quest or something. I lost track of these quests anyway. They just messed everything up…"

She suddenly raised both middle fingers in the air towards the sky as she shouted, "screw you bastard! Keep messing up with things, and I'll screw you in the end."

I knew whom she was speaking towards. She was shouting at her rival. But girl… The one who caused all this mess wasn't that jerk, but me.

However, as they proposed, it was better to wait and see.

"What do you mean by that?" Leo asked while the spearhead kept his silence and his facade of being docile.

"The quests are messed up," Hilary started to expose such a hidden part of them, "the quest we are going to have isn't supposed to happen now. But we are going to have a quest where all city lords are going to be tested. Hordes of monsters will come and attack everywhere… a bloody massacre, that's what we are going to face."

"What?" all turned to look at me, as if I was the one to be blamed here.

"What?" I scoffed, "don't tell me you are going to get terrified of many monsters."

"It's not just many," Hillary seemed to be more focused on this, "these monsters are supposed to have flying and aquatic ones."

"We aren't yet at the stage to have flying monsters," I said to correct her.

But she shook her head.

"I don't think that bastard will take all the trouble to just bring us normal monsters. Besides, most of the monsters attacking us will be hybrids."

"Hybrids?!!" the face of Angelica changed when she heard this ominous word.

"Don't tell me you are still afraid of hybrids," I rolled my eyes at her, "you know the monsters we killed when the Hectors attacked us were all hybrids."

"Damn!" she jumped up in a fright. This girl… What exactly was she afraid of?

We killed those monsters and defeated the Hectors. She shouldn't feel scared like this. Instead she should feel more at ease.

Weird girl… Don't tell me she got a trauma from that useless incident!

448 How To Deal With The Upcoming Quest

"So we are going to have hybrid monsters alongside flying ones?" Sara asked, ignoring the panic Angelica was in.

"We are going to have many," Hilary kept speaking about this upcoming challenge, "and the worst thing is that portals will open, portals that won't close before killing all monsters for seven continuous days."

"Seven days?!!" it was my time to get surprised, "isn't it supposed to be just one or two?"

"No, that bastard will use the worst version," she sighed, "the worst lasted for seven days."

"That…" everyone was shocked when they heard that.

"Don't worry, we can lose a few places," I was already prepared for such a loss. But it was time for them to accept such loss.

"Losing areas? Are you sure?" Hillary asked, feeling a little surprised by what I just said.

"Losing parts isn't a big deal," I shrugged, "as long as we control this, and make sure not a key part is lost, we can play it safe."

"I hate the idea of losing anything," Sara said in faint anger, "why can't we just go and defend with everything we got?"

"Yes boss, we have lots of forces anyway," the spearhead couldn't tolerate such an idea as well.

"We should fight!"

"For what?" I watched their enthusiasm, something I already expected, "it's not going to give us anything good. Not a single benefit. Don't forget, we are shadowed from this quest and the one coming afterwards."

"But…"

Before Hilary would add another piece of defence for her point of view, I added:

"We are going to have it nice and easy if we do as you all say. But what about the next quest? What about the fifth quest? We are going to have not a single stat point during these two quests. If I was one of my enemies, I'd wait for the end of the fourth quest or the beginning of the fifth and come at me with everything I got."

"That makes killing these monsters more valuable," Isabella seemed to get over her fear for a little. "If we get attacked while many of our territories are lost, we will have it harder to stop those enemies."

"That's not truly the case," I sighed, "do you think these monsters are hostile to us and friendly to them? They are acting aggressive against all of us. So it's just ok to let parts of our lands get conquered by monsters. At some point, this might serve as a tactical advantage."

"But…"

I stopped her again from adding more useless logic. "Besides, we have to get our boys stronger in different ways. Stat points aren't the sole factor to define strength. We still have a cultivation path to try out. Also we got our dungeons to venture through, and we got the weapon upgrade project to focus on…"

I stated the few areas we got to work at during this time. I didn't even mention working over the groundwork of the kingdom, building its rules and systems, and making sure we had something that would last for a long time.

The kingdom part was very important. After all, just jumping around and fighting monsters like we were a bunch of fire fighters wasn't cool.

It wouldn't bring us anywhere to be honest. We had to set rules, systems, regimes that we would all follow even if I wasn't present.

I was here most of the time. Putting aside the two coincidences that happened lately where I was temporarily away, I knew I'd leave for a longer time thanks to the golden quests.

And I would take at least my jumper and Hilary with me, in addition to a decent sized force of mine.

So I had to make sure before leaving that everything was going to be ok when I was away. Or else once I was gone, all we accomplished so far would be threatened and might be lost.

They didn't get all this. Even Hilary, the one who managed to once rule supreme over the world, didn't get it either. That wasn't a mistake on their part… They were just inexperienced in this matter.

All they knew for now was fight, fight until they bring their foes down or otherwise. But that was good in times of big wars. But what about times of peace? What about the big plans of building the kingdom up?

"Let's just give up a few places," I gave the final decision here, and they had to live with it, "we need to plan which places we should abandon. We don't want to let key places linking our frontier to be lost. Also we need to plan the places we are going to lose to safeguard against the upcoming attacks from other races."

"If we are going to do this," Hilary sighed, "then we have to let areas of our south be taken. The north and west are very vital to us. Also the centre can't be lost."

"This is just a hell of big territory to cover up," Isabella said.

"We have to accept losing a few territories in the north," I said, "after all our most important zone is the west and centre. Also we can't just lose the entire southern region. We need to have a bridge with the southern allies of Selvators."

"So we have to distribute most of our forces like this," Sara paused before adding, "we won't have enough for your major plan."

"We will have to improvise," I thought for a second about the many tactics I knew about fighting large numbers of monsters, "for example we can just station a certain number of forces for a big region. They will just rotate and move to defend one area at a time."

"This will exhaust them," Sara said, and everyone nodded.

"We have to do this," I had no other solution but this, "also we can keep moving forces from the capital to the hot zones. Whenever we got forces with cultivation opened, they could move and help and replace other forces."

449 Kneel!

"So we are going to rotate our forces all the time… Can't we just look for more forces to recruit?" Hilary asked and I had to admit my lack of solutions here.

"We have no way to get more humans to our side."

"What about your warriors?" Hilary asked again, "you can bring more, right?"

"Limited numbers each time… But…" I paused as I recalled the big number of races I could bring from the Bringold impact.

I could get hundreds of thousands, but they were a collection of many races. Most of them were weak and useless, but at this moment I'd say no to such a thing.

Having fodders was perfect. Right now I was going to allow most of my human forces to grow stronger and be elites.

Any army wouldn't be an army without proper fodders. "Leave this to me, I'll try to help," I said, without promising much.

"I know you must have a way," Hilary punched me at the shoulder again, and everyone laughed.

"Our boss always has a solution," the spearhead said, and I only glared at him in warning.

I didn't promise to solve this, I just said I'd try my best.

"Go and check your forces," I said before adding, "and let me see what I can do."

"We depend on you boss!"

"I know you can solve this."

"I'll wait for the good news."

They all moved away while saying a word or two like this. I just wanted them to leave me free for the next few minutes to contact the lady green nymph.

As for them, they had to start gathering up info about the current situation in the entire map. After they gathered every intel, I'd just bring my new captured races and force them to fight for me in the hot zones.

From now on, I'd form armies with humans as the commanders and squad leaders, while the main bulk would be formed of the captured races.

[Hey, do you have the next batch of slaves ready?]

[Waiting for you to be free to send them]

The answer came swiftly just as I sent the message. It seemed that she was free or just waiting for me to ask.

[How many?]

[One batch, like before]

[When can you provide another?]

[If you are in need, I can push it to bring a batch twice a day]

[That would be great]

[But the price…]

Damn! This girl never got enough of the bones.

[How much?]

[Double!]

[Damn!]

[That's if you are so eager to have more at a shorter interval. I can provide the same batches in the same old order, once per one to two days]

[Ok, make it fast then] I didn't hesitate to agree, [also if you can increase the number of batches for extra bones, then do it]

[Oh, you seem to be in need of forces]

[Can you do it?]

[I'll see… Give me few hours]

[Send the batch you got now then]

[On the way]

As she closed up with me, I got a message notifying me of the arriving races.

They were all bound with contracts. But I knew they would also cause trouble as they arrived, so I summoned my personal forces first.

"Bring them over," I said and the next moment a portal opened and a large gush of forces of different races appeared.

They came in big numbers, and in the next few minutes they covered the entire world. I had to raise my chariot up a little to be able to see their full numbers.

"Wow! Boss… Are they all yours?!!!" The spearhead came as the races gushed out from the big portal. They kept coming out while my team seemed to stop what they were doing and came to stand on the edge of the chariot on my side.

"I didn't imagine you would be able to bring such a large army once I asked for it," Hilary looked at me in dazzling eyes, "damn! You are really on your own level."

"It's nothing," I shrugged.

"Are they all ours?" Sara pointed at their large number that kept increasing. They came from ten different races, and once they came out, they started to group together.

"They are bound by contract but…" I paused as I started to fly lower, "Listen up, I'm Hye, your lord. From now on, you are going to serve me."

My words echoed in the entire world while I moved with my chariot all over their heads to add more impact to what I just said.

"Screw you!"

"You are just a tyrant!"

"Bring me home!"

"I won't serve such a kid! A worthless human kid!"

Many shouts of refusal came, and I simply snapped my fingers in response to all of them. "Kill those who spoke ill about me," I said in a strong and domineering tone. "And anyone trying to help, kill them as well."

"Aaah!"

The world was filled with echoes of brutal and blood curdling screams. My soulers were the ones to get the order, and they moved as fast as they used to, and anyone who dared to speak against my words ended up dying.

Few tried to help their friends and comrades, ending up getting killed without mercy or exception.

Gradually the ruckus down below died down, until it became all silent.

"Anyone else want to say anything?" I moved around, repeating such sentences in such a domineering way. "Let's start over then, I'm Hye, your lord, and you are now my loyal subjects. What I say you will do, like… Kneel!"

My order landed and in the next moment, many had to fall on their knees as I said. But at the same time many didn't move, and just as they denied my orders, they started to fall on the ground motionless in such a scary situation.

"Kneel fast!"

"Don't disobey or you'll die!"

Just at this moment, the spearhead and Leo showed their fast reactions, shouting in such fake sincerity to advise all of those still standing.

Of course those down there weren't stupid, they knew they were bound by loyalty contract with me. So defying such a direct order was equal to death.