77-84

Chapter 77 - [Bonus Chapter] My Ability Is Rubbish

"This…" the major felt unease towards this, but Karoline interfered as she showed a tinge of her brilliance.

"We can discuss anything after we clear this situation first."

Clear this situation? I hardly prevented myself from laughing. C'mon girl, who did you think I was? A green kid who was blessed to have few monsters on his side? Humph!

If the situation was cleared, then I'd lose the leverage I got now. That was a nice move, but I wasn't that foolish.

"We have to talk now," I stressed over this point, "don't worry, my little boys are handling everything as we speak."

She hesitated and seemed to not want to talk right now. Of course someone who lived and was raised in such a deep , strong political family would be very efficient in mind games and word tactics.

But who could use words to stop force? I held the upper hand here, not thanks to words but to my pure strength.

"Can't we just wait?" as she looked to the major on the side for help, the latter tried to exert little pressure on me.

"It won't do," I shook my head, before hammering over the point deeply into their minds, "I'm not here just to help. I have other business to do. If you don't cooperate, then I'll just leave and attend to my own stuff."

If she feigned ignorance about her current situation, then after stating it out loud clearly, she had no way to escape from my clutches now.

I didn't just say I was busy, but I mentioned it twice that I didn't attend to anything that didn't belong to me. She was smart enough to get my hints, and from the look on her pretty face I could tell she got what I wanted to convey.

As she had no other way around this, she only sighed before motioning with her head to the mayor to clear the area for the two of us.

The major didn't literally leave, but he led his men to form a big circle with a radius of a hundred metres around.

"It's not good to use one's lowest point for your own gain," the first thing she said was this direct and slightly bold. I didn't feel offended at all and instead beamed with a grin.

"We aren't in times of civilization anymore," I said, "watch around, take a good deep look over what's going on here."

I waved my hands around, clearing a path for her to see the brutal fighting ongoing at the front. "I know you are a smart girl, smart enough to know this isn't a world war or a nuclear war, but a merciless invasion from aliens and monsters."

She followed my hands and looked at the fight for a long time. Her face changed a few times before she resigned to her fate.

"What do you want from me?" she sighed as she helplessly said.

"I want you to follow me from now on," as she was bold enough to start the talk in such direct way, I matched her boldness with my words, "I'm gathering up all the elites and forming a grand army, grand and strong enough to make sure we sustain the current situation and overcome any obstacles ahead."

"This…" she seemed to not expect that request from me. For a moment there I was puzzled as well, thinking about what she might have thought I'd request from her here.

"I'm cursed," what I didn't expect was for her to speak about her own ability directly like that. Her tone wasn't sincere only, but it held an immense load of loneliness and sadness. "Anyone standing by my side is destined to be killed."

"The city destroying star weapon?" I raised my hand to point to the sky and that simple move and my short words shocked her greatly.

She looked at me with wide rounded eyes, trembling lips as if she wanted to say something but didn't find the words to express it.

"I faced such a weapon, not only once but thrice," I said in a firm tone, a tone that wouldn't leave any room for doubt or speculation from her end. "I don't fear the angels either. They are already my greatest foe, ones that I faced and fought, triumphed not only once but every single time."

"You…'' At this point, she seemed to lose a great deal of her loneliness. Damn girl! Did you think you were the only one fighting against the cruel fate and dirty angels here? Did you think you were the only one going through such torment?

Poor girl! Such a poor girl!

"You aren't the only one fighting against these despicable angels," as I saw through her, I had to give her little support by stating facts. "Not only me, there are lots of people putting their lives on the line, fighting against those angels from the start."

"I… I…" she seemed to never think about such a thing before, "they… They told me…" her words stuttered while her body kept shaking violently.

She shook out of rage, but not against the angels only but it seemed against herself as well. Smart people always tend to harshly treat themselves when they realise they made a mistake, especially such a naive mistake of not thinking rationally and taking all options in their account before.

Like now. If she just worked her smart brain a little more, though outside the box, she would definitely have reached such a conclusion a long time earlier.

"They told you that you are a special case? One in a kind? The only one resisting them or posing a danger to them?" I calmly said while giving her time to get over all this.

And she seemed to lose her ability to form words and only resigned to nodding as a response.

"Let me teach you a crucial lesson and harsh fact about those angels…" I paused for a moment before adding in a deep and serious tone, "they are liars! Treacherous race whose sole purpose is to wipe all of humans off the world and gain total control over the new world to come."

"New world? Will this world change?" She was fast in turning over her loss and jumped over her weak moments in such a brilliant way. I could helplessly inwardly smile bitterly at her amazing brain and intelligence.

"It's something easy to guess, right?" I shrugged before adding, "I'm now on a mission to stop them from doing such a thing. They are trying to merge many worlds, alien worlds with strong and terrifying races, with our world."

"So you are gathering people for that?" she asked before she turned towards the major direction and something floated on her face for a moment.

It seemed like she was struggling against something, something I didn't know about.

"What's wrong?" I asked without knowing why I was concerned about her at this moment.

"Well… I'm in a harder situation at the moment than you think," she sighed while lowering her head for a brief moment. "My parents… My family… they are all gone!"

"Killed by monsters?" I asked, "or the angels?"

She shook her head as she answered:

"Neither! In fact no one knows what happened. They were just in air force one at the start of the apocalypse, with all the chiefs of our nation. The plan simply crashed and went missing after that."

"My condolence," I said with little sympathy. In these harsh times, many families were killed and it just became such a bitter routine. Yet the people here still didn't get used to such loss.

"Thanks," despite the fact that she must have felt my insinceriness here, she still thanked me in an honest tone, "but that left the entire country only for me to rule. This…"

I could tell what she was thinking about right now. This wasn't a dilemma, it was simply a poisonous deadly effect left from the civilization of humans before the apocalypse.

"Let me ask you a question," I didn't reprimand her or even harshly give her a long lecture. I used another way to teach her what I wanted to say here. "Do you think in such an apocalyptic time, where we are haunted by monsters, our fates are controlled by systems and angels, even gods appeared… Do you think in this time countries can still persist? Can it exist?"

My sudden question came again out of the box. Her eyes went all round again, while she remained silent and didn't have the courage to give me a proper answer.

Yet after a few breaths, she shook her head, admitting the impossibility of such a scenario.

"Then will you waste your time, your life, your future potential and boundless possibilities for walking such a doomed to fail path?"

"Is there another option then?" instead of acknowledging what I said, she instead said in such a bitter and hoarse voice.

This girl… She already thought about this! Yet she didn't find another solution or hope, so she resigned to such a dark path.

"There is," I firmly nodded, "there is a path that can lead not only to establish countries, but strong and vast nations that can be called true kingdoms."

"Kingdoms? In our time?" she still lingered to the past. The past was past. In her time, kingdoms ceased to exist. But in the apocalypse time, kingdoms had the only chance to exist.

"Indeed," I nodded, "I can't promise you much. After all, the enemies are so treacherous and hard to resist. The path I'm walking isn't a nice one, but filled with thorns. But I can promise you that; if I ever succeeded to reach such an end alive, I will create something that won't only help us, but will become the shield and sword for the remaining humans in this world."

This was the first time for me to confess my great plan to anyone. I didn't know why, but she had such an aura that made me want to get her at any cost by my side.

In fact she held great importance. All the military people would listen to a move of her fingers or a word from her mouth. But at this moment I felt like my desire for her was slightly different.

What was it? I truly didn't know! Hopefully it wouldn't be something bad!

"So you are saying…" she paused to sort out her thoughts before adding, "you are going to establish a strong kingdom and help in protecting people?"

Of course I was going to establish a kingdom to become a king! But in another view, then yeah, I was going to help others as well.

So I simply nodded and that was enough as an answer for her.

"If you promised that for me, then I can't reject your offer. But…" she stopped again and I knew why.

"What's your ability?" I asked, "the one that gave you the attention of the angels?"

"It's not that big if you asked me or anyway special," she sighed before adding in a tone void of any excitement, "I can freeze time for a few seconds, up to a minute. I can also instantly teleport away during the effect of my skill. That's why I didn't get killed from one hellish attack of that scary weapon before!"

Damn girl! All this and it wasn't satisfying?!! C'mon! Don't tell me you want something more!!!

As I didn't know what to say to her as a response, I couldn't help but ask:

"How can such a skill be bad?"

"It consumes my stat points, can you believe that?" she said in frustration, "not only stat points. But if I wanted to add these effects on others, I would have to pay an astronomical price of millions of coins per use! Can you believe that? It's useless, damn useless!"

You are the useless one, girl! Damn! How come such heaven defying skill wasn't mine in the first place!

A skill to freeze time? And also to instantly teleport me away? What the heck was that skill?!!!

And on top of that… she wasn't even satisfied with it? I felt I needed to find a hole and bury myself with dirt when I thought about that!

"Ahem," I tried to control my thoughts, "let's not talk about that. When you join me, not to mention coins, even stat points will run endlessly in your inventory."

She was like Alex, had the same kind of heaven defying ability.. The two skills worked in the same way, using stat points when activated.

Chapter 78 - Controlling The Army

In addition to that, Karoline had to spend coins. C'mon, I got nothing more than these two right now in my inventory!

"Are you trying to brag in front of me?" yet she mistook my meaning and laughed. For a reason there, her laugh seemed pure and enchanting.

"I'm not," I simply took out a large crystal before throwing it at her in a careless manner, "take this as a gift for now."

"This…" once she held my stat crystal, she instantly froze and her face turned ashen white for long seconds. Turning like a clear sky turning into a storm, her ashened face changed into deep red out of excitement.

Even her body trembled!

I never expected her to react this way to my stat crystal. C'mon girl, if I knew that from the beginning then I should have just taken it from the start!

"Do you have more?" She looked at me like she was looking at a large piece of ice cream.

Don't tell me she was thinking about robbing me, right?

"Ahem," I cleared my throat again and tried to act magnanimous, "this can prove my sincerity. Once you join me, you won't have to suffer from any shorting in stats or coins."

"I accept," she even jumped and held my arm while my crystal was instantly gone! "C'mon, what shall I do to join your forces? I'll do anything to prove my worth!"

"Ahem," being so close to me and feeling her rushing hot breaths made me feel slightly uncomfortable in a nice way that I didn't like. "You just need to sign these two contracts," I took out two ready contracts and gave it to her, "with it you'll be officially part of my team."

"Just this?" without even hesitating, she signed both and instantly turned into my lackey.

Damn! A former president's daughter, and an old president's granddaughter was now a lackey of mine! Damn! My luck was really boundless!!

"My lady… You…"

At this moment, the major appeared without warning and tried to stop her from signing the two contracts. But he moved slower than her. As the two contracts vanished in thin air, turning into specks of light, his hands only hit nothing.

"What?" she looked at that major and at this moment I could feel her old self return again. She looked as strong and aloof like before, yet her eyes weren't that dim anymore.

They were both shining and gleaming in the bright light of hope and dreams. She might look the same on the surface, but she was a totally different person than before.

Without waiting for that major to explain himself, something appeared in my hand while I stretched the other with his extended arm.

"Give me a drop of your blood here."

"What?!" the major looked in shock at me. He wasn't the only one, but Karoline also felt the same.

I held my precious rat-detecting compass in my hand. Since I got her, then it was time to clean the house and organise things.

"Leave a drop of your blood here," I firmly said while the major only looked at Karoline, making me look at her in return.

"Just do it," she said without a speck of hesitation, "from now onward, any order from Hye is an order coming from me."

"My lady…"

"Just do it, major!" Karoline didn't know what my compass was for, but she showed her absolute trust in me at this moment.

Good girl!

As he complied with such an aggressive gaze at me, I held my sword out in my other hand, waiting for the traitor's result.

Luckily for him, he was just an enthusiatic dumb patriot major… Not a traitor.

"You are good," I said without explaining much, "gather up all your forces. And tell those helis to descend and their crews to come out."

"Now?!" The major looked again out of habit to Karoline and she simply put an impatient look on her face. "Alright," he helplessly retreated, executing my orders without approving them.

Who cared about his opinion anyway? From this moment onward, I will execute my authority to the fullest here!

I wasn't their boss, but their boss was my lackey!

"What is that?" like a curious cat looking at a flying feather in the air dancing without wind, she came and looked at the compass with shining eyes.

"It's a rat detector," I simply said without saying more. But she was smart enough to realise what I meant.

"You mean… there are people working with them?!" she opened her mouth and even covered it with the palm of her hand.

Girl! Who said you could act in such a way? Damn! You just look too delicious to turn down!

"They are known as traitors…" I started to educate her more about the ugly face of the world we were living in. After I finished explaining these things, the major returned with a large number of his boys.

All the tanks stopped fire, and even the helis started to come down. "We are ready," he said, not to me but to Karoline.

And she turned to me, waiting for my instructions.

"Get in one line," I said before I recalled five of each warrior back and even one dragon. Then I resummoned them and left them around.

Their sudden presence startled everyone, making them feel the pressure of fear.

"Just stay where you are, and don't move," my words came loud and clear, "anyone moving or running, will be instantly barbecued with my mighty warriors."

Karoline gave me a wandering glance, but I didn't say anything anymore. This girl didn't see the past purging ceremonies I held, or saw many traitors running away at one time.

With all my warriors scattered per my arrangement, locking down any possible way for anyone to run, I was ready to start.

Yet I didn't actually start until all the choppers were on the ground and everyone stood in that line.

"The process is easy," I said while the major stood behind Karoline, who stood with her never ending curiosity by my side, "just drop your blood over here and it's done."

Whispers appeared but Karoline's next words that came to support me silenced everyone.

"Follow his orders, they are like mine."

Good girl! But the whispers coming from them weren't all out of their doubts. I bet that many of them were traitors acting in disguise.

I didn't forget those people inside the station. As the station was already underground, with no possible way to run away except from the entrances at the surface or the tunnels at the ground, I left two bulltors to deal with these openings on the surface for now.

If anyone managed to bypass them, then he or she would face the wrathful retribution of the dragon hovering alone midair at the moment.

"Come," as things were arranged, I started my rat checking, "leave your blood here."

Just as he hesitated for a second, he finally left a blood drop before the compass arms danced and stopped on two indicators.

"A human… and a traitor… Die!"

"St…"

I didn't give him a chance to even scream for help. My sword moved fast like wind and cleaved his head apart from his body in a swift way.

If my strength stat was enough to make my swords penetrate the thickly defended monster skin, then against humans they were like cutting cheese with knives!

"This…" even Karoline had to doubt and paused at my actions.

"Go," I didn't explain much, "place your hand over his dead body, "I simply kicked that headless body aside like it was a sack of garbage.

"And?" Karoline asked without moving.

"Just do it," I gave her a reassuring smile. As she moved to touch that dead body, all the gazes of everyone fell on her at this moment.

And all could see her face changing from doubt to absolute shock, then into pure rage.

"That damn f*cking traitor! And he was one of those I trusted during my escape!"

She didn't just shout and curse, she even stood up and started to kick his dead body with great rage.

"F*ck you! F*ck all traitors! I'll kill each and single one of you, do you hear me? All of you traitors will die in my hands!"

She broke into such a bizarre wave of anger that I even felt I couldn't tolerate or control. Jesus! That girl was really scary when mad!

She didn't even yell and few started to run away the next moment. My eyes shone brightly while I simply snapped my fingers.

"Don't kill them," I ordered in a calm way, "just break their arms and legs and bring them for her to kill."

If she was mad, then she should vent that on them better than on me! Besides she needed all the coins and stat points at the moment. So killing them would give her a big boost for now.

As for my share, ten percent wasn't that bad.

"What's going on here?" It wasn't only the mayor who was surprised and puzzled by this. Even the all calm and steady Karoline turned into such a fierce tigress without proper reason.

"Go," I turned to the major as I hinted with my head, "place your hand over that dead body and you'll understand."

The major was a clean person, slightly thick headed and loyal but he was clean.

As expected, and just like his lady, once that major touched the corpse of the traitor, his eyes went wide open and then rage boiled up from his face.

"Damn you!" he stood up and unlike Karoline, he didn't kick that headless body with his leg. Instead he used his pistol and emptied its bullets entirely in that body. "Damn traitor! Damn you all!"

As things were proved again by two different people, I had no reason to stop what I was doing. As things went on, many traitors were found and killed.

Some tried to run, some tried to cause trouble, but anyone who dared to do that was instantly grabbed from his head by my warriors and dragged to Karoline to kill.

The girl didn't show any mercy for any traitor. After all these traitors were threatening not only her plans to escape, but literally her life.

Just thinking about a few people who acted like friends and allies while they were secretly working with the enemy… even I wouldn't act with any speck of humanity or decency with them.

Just in the next half an hour, a big pile of killed bodies appeared next to her. "Go and bring everyone inside that station," as I noticed fewer traitors were detected, so I gave such an order to the major and a bunch of the clean soldiers I just scanned.

"Roger that!"

Since discovering the truth of my words, that major's attitude changed slightly for the better with me. He was a military person, knowing only facts and nothing else.

He went inside the station before returning with a large number of people. I never thought such a large number of survivors were here.

I noticed many reporters and cameramen, a few wealthy and authoritative guys and ladies from their sleek and neat clothes, and lots and lots of youths appeared as well.

The strange thing was that the youths mostly wore uniforms with large words of world student forum on their backs.

"They were going to an event for the world student forum?" I turned to Karoline and asked. Karoline at the moment was someone else.

Forget everything about elegance and cuteness, she was covered by red blood and her face looked vicious and scary. Her anger was now taking control of her, only venting it with loud and noticeable breaths.

"Hoff!" she only answered me with a big blow of breath, big enough to push a few strands of her hair away.

And I avoided her the moment she did that! Never come near a lioness when she is angry, never, you hear me?

"Karoline… What's the meaning of this?"

Chapter 79 - Going To Fort Hamilton Base

The bunch of wealthy looking men and women seemed to not like what was going on here. I didn't know why, but just looking at them made me feel nauseous!

Each one of them had a group of bodyguards protecting them. They weren't originally much in number, counting less than twenty. Yet when adding the ten big guards on each one's side, the number became like a small army.

The most noticeable thing about their guards were the full armours they wore. Double weapons, helmets, even gauntlets and boots… they had everything!

Even when I met the spearhead group, they didn't look this strong or perfect! Something seems fishy here, something definitely stink!

"What's wrong?" Karoline looked at them with her bloodied version, "get in line or accept death!"

Damn girl! Did you steal that line from me or what? What should I say now? Clap at your performance or what?

"What the heck… even your father can't speak in such a way to us!" a spoiled lady in her late twenties said while crossing her arms over her big and unbelievably protruding chest.

*Snap!*

I didn't need to listen to more bullshit anymore. I just snapped my fingers as I raised my arm to the sky. I lowered my arm and pointed to that disgusting group of spoiled rich people and the next moment… my dragon descended.

*Bang!*

He landed there with his massive body that exuded inhuman strength. Just his presence there made everyone know his or her rightful place.

Then my dragon added a bit of spices to this situation.

*Roar!*

One single and long roar erupted while he moved his long head right and left to make everyone get a piece of it. I was sure now these good for nothing rich groups would pee themselves if my dragon continued his domineering show.

"Just stand in the line," I spoke again, "or else I'll let little boy here drag you there."

I winked and motioned with my head to the direction of the line then totally ignored them. My words were clear, if they didn't comply then they would die.

Just as they were about to move to the line forcibly, I found another traitor.

"A traitor for angels is here, take him," I kicked his as* and pushed him flying towards Karoline's way. My girl didn't disappoint me and swiftly cut his throat in a smooth manner.

This scene looked like a piece cut from a horror movie in the eyes of the new people coming here. But for unknown reason, that bunch of rich people looked at each other, and without prior agreement each ran in a different direction while shouting over their guards to follow.

"If anyone follows them, he will die!" Karoline was faster than me in stating such a fact to the guards. Damn girl! Stop stealing my lines!

The guards stood in daze for a few seconds, enough to see with their eyes the fate of any running traitor.

I already suspected those rich people. They might have been rich before the time of the apocalypse, but how come they were capable of arming all their guards like a grand army?

Even I lacked this ability, or didn't want to just become a rich sponsor without restraints!

Only someone with an open source of coins and other resources wouldn't care about this. Such rich people who got rich mostly since their birth were such low and dirty people.

Screw them! Let them all die and rot!

"Half for you," I said even before the screams of agony and help came from their throat, "and half for me."

"Fine," Karoline didn't fight me over them. After all, it was generous of me to let her take all the loot for now.

"Stand in the line," after such a bloody show, I said in a calm tone that didn't carry any hope for traitors, "or try to outrun my little boys here."

Of course they would be dreaming if they thought about the latter. For a traitor, he or she would have only a single end.

Right now it was judgement day for traitors, nothing less, nothing more.

As time passed by, more and more traitors were found and killed. I never imagined such a number of survivors would exist in such a small part of the city.

I scanned almost five thousand people, almost half were soldiers. Out of them, one fifth were traitors.

With time Karoline started to learn bad habits like me.

"Damn it! This damn traitor is so poor!"

"Just this? And you dare to call yourself a traitor?"

"An agent for the dirty angels yet you have only this few coins in your account? Tsk!"

She started to give such comments half an hour ago. I simply watched from the side and didn't comment, mostly shaking my head in regret.

Yeah, coins and stats could change people, how unfortunate!

"We are done," as the last person was scanned and was clean, I turned to the big pile of dead bodies and grinned.

Half of those rich people were still alive, waiting for my sword. I stored away my compass and started a spree of killing and collecting my rewards.

Those filthy rich folks!! They were even filthy rich in the apocalypse!

Just from the ten I killed, I gained a few million coins and lots of items. Stat points, gems, and crystals were there. Gears, scrolls, and weapons were in piles!

I even didn't feel any will to go and get the ten percent off the other traitors. These ten were simply fine for me.

But I didn't do that! Anything I could gain would be useful. I didn't only need them for myself, but for my growing force.

Not to mention I had two bottomless pits in the form of Alex and Karoline!

One of the biggest gains here was the guards of those rich folks. Two hundred strong and fully equipped guards were now mine.

In addition to that I got the elites of the army. And their tanks, rocket launchers, and helis.

They weren't enough for now, but who said my vision was limited to under my feet?

"What now?" Karoline changed, changed a lot. She came and stood like she was a veteran warrior, not even caring to wipe out the almost dried up blood over her face.

"You… come here," I pointed at the major. The latter hurriedly came and didn't comment on my way of calling him.

I needed something else, something that might be described as going over the border. So I needed to show him who was the boss here, so he wouldn't act like I feared.

"You came from which military base?" I asked, and yet this wasn't the big question I had in mind.

"Many bases actually," the major was baffled when he heard that question. He even returned to his old habit, looking back at Karoline who simply shrugged as if she was saying: This is your sh*t buddy, handle it properly or else I can't help you!

"We grouped at Fort Hamilton army base in Brooklyn before coming to support the lady," as he found himself lonely without Karoline's support, he had to give me something.

"Good," I nodded as this wasn't my aim in the first place, "do you have a connection with other army bases over the states?" I asked and again it wasn't my main question.

"We have a stable morse code network running so far," he slowly said, seemingly not like the direction our little conversation was heading.

But I didn't give a damn about what he felt and added:

"Cool, then you have a connection with big arsenals?" I paused before adding, "big military factories all across the states, do you have connections with them?"

Now this was my real question. As I asked, I saw a hint of hesitation and slight rejection over his face. It was known how strict the military code worked. Yet that was in times apart from these.

"We aren't in the old regime anymore," as I saw the flash of rejection spark clearly on his face, I had to push forward, "the states are gone! The civilization will be ruined, and if we don't act fast, even the military will be lost."

"This…"

"Just take a look around, take a good look all over the place and tell me this: can the army handle this situation? Can the army personnel, weapons, and even the deadly ammunition handle the monsters?"

He was loyal, so he didn't express his own thoughts and instead looked at Karoline.

"The army can't," Karoline found herself pushed to intervene. This major seemed to feel immense pressure just from my words. "But what can we do?"

"A lot," I firmly said, "if we manage to salvage a few factories, save a few forces from getting destroyed, then we have a big advantage… I can't say it will show itself now, but in the future I'm sure it will make a big difference."

Karoline was already on my side, so she returned to the major and gave him a deep and meaningful glance. The mayor had no other choice here.

"I'll contact them and see what I can do," he gave me the answer I didn't want to hear.

"Take Karoline with you," I hurriedly stopped him, "let her give them the order."

A flash of relief appeared over his face for a brief moment before another drastically opposite look of worry appeared again.

Yeah, I was such a greedy person who wouldn't let such a chance slip by and would meticulously plan for it. Yeah, I aimed at your army and arsenal, using the current chief in staff by your old state rules to have all this.

What could you possibly do? Huh?

Having no other choice but stall for time, he said:

"But the only working morse system here is back at the base."

I knew he was referring to the base he mentioned in Brooklyn. "That's great," unlike what he expected, I smiled in contentment and even patted his shoulders, "I have business to do here in Brooklyn anyway. Let's go."

"What about… what about these?" the major was sh*I was scared when he heard my words. He pointed like a scaredy cat at the direction of the ongoing fight.

"Oh them?" I shrugged, "I'll let my army handle them. Ask everyone to retreat and make sure your boys cover up everyone."

The major didn't get what I meant. But during the past few hours, Isabella finished scanning her forces and joined the big fight at the bridge.

It was time for my new boys to show up on the stage.

"They should be done by now," a few hours were enough to crush all the monsters coming from Manhattan to here, right?

[What's up?]

As if I was chatting with her, I sent her this casual and famous message in this era… I suppose!

[I'm with spearhead right now] she sent back, [We cleared all the incoming monsters at the bridge. Currently all the forces are scattered to clear the Queens]

[Drop Queens for now] it wasn't urgent, [bring most of the ones you can spare, lead them to Brooklyn. I'll let my dragons in the sky to guide you]

[A fun fight is there?] it wasn't here who sent me this, but the all excited spearhead.

He was a bloodthirsty violent guy, best suited in fights and such battles. I couldn't help but smile. I was lucky to have such astounding talents on my side.

[Lots and lots of monsters to kill] I sent back.

[We are coming] he sent, [Five minutes at most and the front boys will reach you there. Hell, they will be celebrating to hear that instead of fighting over crumbs]

I closed the chat and instantly sent my four dragons to the other side of the river.. I wanted to see what impact those new boys would have, especially to those military and youths around.

Chapter 80 - Teleportation System Staff

The wait wasn't for long. As the spearhead just said, in five minutes I could hear the loud bangs of fighting coming from the front.

"What's going on?" Karoline, who stood all silent on my side while cleaning herself from the blood at last, said in surprise when she heard these noises.

"My army is here," I felt pride in saying these words. A youngster like me who came to this point of time having nothing but knowledge was now speaking like a mighty warlord.

Damn!

The new boys were really capable, hungry for battle. They came hot and in such large numbers to create an instant impact. The street bustling with monsters was now crushed open, and most of the monsters were either killed or routed.

I noticed a pattern there. No matter where or who, the moment one monster was killed by someone, that person would lean over, cut the monster with such precision and claim its core and materials.

"Good lads," I commended over their swift performance. They were hungry not to kill but to collect more loot. The more loot they gathered, the richer they became, the stronger they would be.

That was such a good looking vicious circle, helping me and my boys to grow stronger at a fast pace.

"Let's go," as everything was settled here, I was ready to move.

[We are here] also I dared to leave here when I got this message from Isabella and spearheaded it at the exact moment.

"What about them?" The impact my boys left on the major was immense.

"They know what they should do," I only called over ten of each of my warriors, and two dragons to accompany me. The rest were left to help others to quickly clear the monsters and claim the castles.

The walk to that base didn't take longer than half an hour. The helis went ahead of us, while rocket launchers and big tanks moved slower alongside.

All the way to the base the major kept asking about how to become strong and efficient in fighting monsters like my boys.

For a war veteran like him and other soldiers around, seeing those young and weak inexperienced youths fighting and even winning the monsters was a shocking blow to them.

They weren't the only ones interested in hearing my words, all of the people walking by my side also listened attentively as well.

But I didn't say much. I only clearly stated that once they join my forces officially, integrating with them, they would come to learn many cool things like these.

My answer didn't quench any of their thirst, but they came to show my importance here. I wasn't just someone fooling around these times alongside my warriors, but I was far more important than that.

On the side, I could feel the pride look over Karoline's face. She seemed to silently say to everyone here: See? This is the man I chose to follow. He is great, right?

Or that's what I hoped she was thinking in her mind right now.

The fort of Hamilton base wasn't that big like I imagined. The front yard of it had many old-time cannons, plus lots of gears and ammunition boxes.

A bunch of big helis were at the side, giving me the impression that they travelled for a long distance.

"Go inside," I said in a firm tone to Karoline, "make them all follow you, and by following you they are going to follow me."

"Don't worry, I can handle those old timers," she gave me such a firm answer before she vanished inside with the major.

As I had to wait, I started to communicate with my scattered forces all over the city.

The jumper already completed scanning Brooklyn and now was heading towards the Bronx, the last piece in this city.

Angelica was having a fun time with Alex. The latter pleaded to come and join me, while the former seemed too excited to even think about that for now.

Isabella was working her best with spearheads, killing their way inside Brooklyn. The two left enough forces at Queens, enough to crush the rest of the traitor forces at the castles there and claim them for me.

"It's going better than I thought," everything was heading perfectly well towards my final goal. I expected to control this city in the next few hours.

Then the far risky mission to cross the Hudson river and go to the nearby Jersey city would start.

The biggest threat there wouldn't be the monsters or traitors, but in the angels of this city.

Each place in this world was now controlled by three angel groups. Like New York city, it had three angels that I worked all my time to exhaust their blessing before.

But that wasn't the case in Jersey city. The three angels there were already fresh and had all their blessing mostly intact.

If I thought for a brief second that the amount of blessing they paid for the change of this quest and modifying it would be enough to weaken them, then I would be a fool!

But I was lucky! In other city occasions, I had to cross a lot of distance, walking through towns and counties with more angels to worry about.

Just thinking about the threat of just three angels made me frown. The deadliest thing they would use against me was that nasty weapon in space.

I looked up, thinking if there was no way to make that weapon useless.

I had Karoline for now, but she was barely enough. I doubted that even with my immense support for her so far, she would be able to save all my forces from getting killed.

I led such a big army, an army that I couldn't protect for now. "There must be something I could do," I didn't lose all hope and went directly to the market.

I wasn't looking for a defensive item. After all there was no such a big scale defensive gear in such early stages of the apocalypse.

I had to think outside the box, I needed a genuine idea to solve this problem.

If I went there all alone, I was sure I could survive with my warriors, dragons, and Karoline by my side.

Yet I would have to work all over again, work from scratch and repeat the entire process once again.

If this was the case for that city only, then it wouldn't be a problem. After all I was pressured with impending bomb coming in the form of the second quest.

However I was looking at the big picture, thinking of the events that would happen after that.

The end of the second quest was either one of the two extreme results. Either I would fail and the entire human race would be purged by the other races, or I would win.

In case of my win, I wouldn't only save endless human beings from annihilation or even save myself, but I'd also become the sole ruler and the lord of two cities.

The next step logically would be to withstand the wrath of monsters. This time monsters would evolve, showing new breeds and more diverse types of monsters.

The aquatic monsters would appear. Also I wouldn't remove the possibility of even the appearance of hybrid monsters here.

If that was the case, then I had to not only defend, but I had to find a way to replenish my lost forces.

The two cities weren't just two strong footholds for me, but also wide open gates to the vast world. Each city had lots of places connected to them, either counties as neighbourhoods, or towns that weren't far away from here.

In everything I thought about, a way to solve the threat of that weapon was a must to have. Not only for now, but for the future.

So I started to thoroughly search the market. I started with the class market, but I couldn't find anything useful in this case.

"Then the general market," I didn't lose hope yet. The market was such a big place where I could find anything there.

But everything was limited to my current class rank, quest stage, and the amount of wealth I had. I currently have slightly over fifty million coins.

It was a shocking wealth for anyone, even for me. But to get what I wanted, I had a feeling this wouldn't be enough.

And I had another feeling that after finding this item and getting it, I would turn into a beggar once again.

But I didn't care about that. I didn't inherit my wealth or got it by luck. I worked my as* here to become this rich. What if I became poor again? I was confident that I would rise up again.

"First let's search for a solution before anything else," I started to search randomly. The market that had few pages before now had hundreds of them.

There was a search icon for me to use, but the problem was that I didn't know what I was looking for. At this moment, I hoped my luck would still be on my side and find this item fast.

I scanned for half an hour with no result at all. Things in the general market were shifting fast, so fast that with surfing a page, few items would disappear and more would emerge.

"That won't do," reaching to the middle page, I couldn't continue like that! "Let's check that auction place then."

What I was looking for was the front interface of the general market, not the auction interface. The auction was something that would bleed my wallet till the last penny.

I tried to evade it, but I had no hope of finding anything useful in the general market.

Just as I opened the auction interface, I found an item that might be useful.

"Damn! Fifty million coins as a starter! What price will it end up at then?"

I clenched my fists, feeling the pressure of the lack of my coins at the moment. But that item was really precious! Something that suited my needs if used in the right way.

[Teleportation system staff: Unique grade item. An ancient staff that's being made by an unknown genius. Once used, you can link two places apart through an instant teleportation portal. Can be used more than once, but each time must consume one million coins]

This was a solution away from the typical defensive tools I might have thought about. Yet when considering this, I could easily create portals between two places and move part of my army to dominate a battle before recalling them back.

But that alone wasn't enough. The issue wasn't only about moving the boys from one place to another, but also to protect them at any place I'd visit.

Just thinking about depleting the angels of any city or town off their blessing points each time I moved was simply illogical and practically impossible.

Unless I was ready to spend more time in each zone, it would only result in disastrous failure and delay my speed by a big chunk.

I couldn't do that! I needed something else, something that wouldn't be sold at the general market auction this time.

As I got a way to secure moving my troops, then I had a glimpse of an idea about what I should do to protect them from that deadly weapon.

Karoline's ability was really OP, yet she was limited by many things for now. What if I found her a useful item that was class limited only and could help her ability to show its true power?

She could freeze time, and use instant teleportation to get away from the way of harm. What if I found a gadget that could expand her ability's reach to cover not people but a certain area around her?

So I only needed to make her move fast and reach any place around in the city we were at in mere seconds before the attack arrived. To do so I might need another item to boost her movement speed.. And I just saw many of such items, and they didn't cost much.

Chapter 81 - Ton Of Bad News

However, all my dreams were shattered. I searched the entire class auction market for almost one full hour without finding anything suitable.

As I reached this end, I had to either wait and hope that my item would drop like a miracle from the sky, or I could get it from another route.

I opened my channel interface and changed the sittings again to make me receive all the notifications from gods.

"Hey gods, I need your help here," I raised my head to the sky. I was sure that my subscribers wouldn't all be that helpful, but I only needed one god to help me here.

And I dared to say I had at least one trustworthy god in my channel.

"I want a class specific item, one that can expand and turn the ability of my Karoline to become an area specific not person specific," I added in a loud tone while waiting for their answer.

[I can help you] a message came, [But you need to receive my blessing after the end of the next quest]

The second quest was big, very big. So it was expected the rewards of such a quest would include an opening slot for receiving god's blessing.

I didn't think about this point before! Just this message made me realise the size of headache I was going to have at the end of that quest.

All the gods following me with pure interest would crave to get me on their sides. Of course that wasn't bad. Having the blessing of a god was something necessary for me.

But I didn't put a plan yet for the god I needed. After all I wouldn't settle with a low grade god after all I did.

[I can also help] Another god joined the fray and also gave me the same condition. Soon, my eyes got cloudy and blocked by the immense number of messages coming from gods with the same content.

Damn! I never expected my casual request to stir all this much trouble.

But who said I wasn't out of options here?

"So you want me to select one of you as my sponsor god, right?" I calmly said, in a slow way to give my mind time to finalise my response to them. "Cool, I didn't see anything wrong about doing that. But…"

I deliberately paused. I already had a vague idea about what I should do to get the best deal out of this.

I knew the higher and mightiest gods wouldn't be in my channel, not yet. If I had one of them right now, then I wouldn't hesitate to agree on his or her offer.

But let's be realistic here please. Such gods were so aloof and had their own sense of pride. They also wouldn't set their gazes upon such a newbie apocalypse where races were still struggling to survive.

So putting aside the mightiest gods like the triple Olympus gods, the four godly gods of the Egyptian Neters, and the mightiest five great Chinese deities.

That was only if considering three pantheons of the human world, not to mention other pantheons of other human civilizations, and other races pantheons and great gods as well.

So to sort it out in simple words; it was a big mess to deal with!

"I only have one request, a reasonable one," I paused before adding, "as you can see, the sheer number of gods asking me to accept their blessing and sponsorship is immense! So I need to sort things out here, and I need your help to do that."

Of course I wasn't bluffing. I needed a way to know which god was worthy to become my pillar.

As I waited for a long minute, not a single message came. It seemed the gods were waiting for my next words. I kept an eye over the count of my subscribers, and strangely and unlike my expectations the number didn't decrease, it kept increasing instead.

"I need two things from you, one right now and one later on," I started stating my own conditions, "once the second quest is over, I need to have a one and one talk with each one of the interested ones. To make things fair and smooth, I'll spread this video over the universe, hoping for any god to come and join. But I have to say, whoever misses the first condition will have lower chances if he or she isn't capable enough."

Of course I kept the first condition off limits for now. As I said these, I was sure to stop, select that part from the broadcast, and then spread it over the entire universe.

As I was done with this, I finally returned to the main topic here. "Now for the first condition… As you can see, I'm constantly getting threatened by the angels by that star weapon in space. I can't move on without getting killed. My forces can't help me expand without being threatened of wiping out. I need a little help here. So if you are eager, send me one message of your offer, explain the offer to me, and I'll compare the offers and select the best offers I get."

I didn't limit myself to only one god. After all who said I wouldn't get more slots for sponsorship later on?

"I can accept more good blessings in the upcoming quests, you all know that. But I can't promise any slots without a sincere show of support from you. As you know, once I accept your sponsorship, I can't renege on that and will need your constant help to move forward. So, if I found no good offers here, then I had to accept none. But if I got any good offer, I wouldn't decline it."

The gods went into silence for long minutes. And I waited. During this wait, I got useless messages like:

[Many gods' eyes are shining from your impressive way of thinking]

[Few gods are showing their discontent, stating that you are supposed to be the one begging for their support, not the gods loathing your satisfaction]

[Many gods are rolling up their eyes when they heard such comment]

[Few gods are even forming alliances with each other, exchanging items and making deals even with outside gods]

[Newly joined god is feeling amazed by how you are running your channel]

[Many gods are wrecking their minds to give the best offer for you]

[Few gods are leaving the channel while expressing their dissatisfaction all across the network]

"These gods… Sigh!" I only shook my head while feeling the gods were like spoiled kids playing with toys, toys like myself.

The ones who left weren't anything worthy of my concern. I could already tell they belonged to the side of the angels to begin with.

Of course they wouldn't be satisfied! After all, I expected many great things to be offered to me from those gods. If they could exert a total ban of that devilish weapon, wouldn't that be a game changing move?

Damn! I couldn't control my excitement here. But the next message made me calm down forcibly, like pouring water buckets over my head.

[Many gods are asking for a time limit for this offer]

[Many other gods are nodding in agreement]

[That request have garnished at least ninety percent approval of your channel supporters]

[What's your decision?]

"Hmm… Time limit?" I frowned for a moment before I grinned. "Alright, I can set the limit to just before reaching Jersey city. I'll work a little here in New York City, taking more hours to control the entire place here. This will be the time limit I can offer."

Of course if they waited till I got to Jersey city then the offer would be useless. I couldn't set foot there without getting smashed and banged by those three angels lying in wait over there.

I knew angels weren't on the same page, but I was sure the three angels of New York city must have informed their peers in Jersey city.

These three angels here were literally hating me to the bone!

[All the gods are delighted by this time limit]

[Many gods are now contacting their friends]

[A big impact is being noticed in the world of gods]

"World of gods?!!" This was the first time ever to hear such a concept. But I dropped my thoughts about it as Karoline finally came out from the fort.

Damn! I totally forgot myself here! How long was it? One hour? Perhaps two hours, right?

Was speaking with the army generals and those military manufacturers this tiring?

Let's hope she managed to reach something good with them.

But just as she came closer to me, I could see beyond her stunning and mesmerising pure blue eyes a tinge of tiredness and sadness.

Did they refuse or what?

"What happened?" I asked first, "You took a long time to do this!"

"Do you think talking to such people can be done in just a minute or two?" she rolled her eyes and from her tone, I could ascertain her faint anger.

"How did it go then?" I asked, as this was the only thing I truly cared about for now.

I had to secure a factory and army engineers on my side, I must!

"First of all," she said in a tiring tone, "the angels got most of the defensive big names in the US."

Well, not the best start to be honest. Yet it was expected.

"Most and not all?" I asked, trying to shift her to the good news. Yet she seemed to stick to saying bad news only for now!

"As for army leaders, most of those who remained alive had also sold their souls to these shitty angels!"

"..."

"I tried to use my name and current status to force them to flip over, yet I only hit a dead end with all of them."

Well, these were very good lists of bad news girls! C'mon, give me the good ones. Your man here was craving for one!

"Out of the army arsenal, almost ninety percent fell in the hands of the angels," yet she kept showering her bad news non-stop! "As for these warehouses, they were already destroyed by monsters as I heard."

Ruthless! The angel race was really ruthless and decisive in their moves!

"As for the defensive firms, the ones with the angels did the same," she said in an angry tone, "those bastards! They dared to tell me that the government is over already and they aren't bound by anything or any obsolete rule! How come they treat my US like that? It's the US! The country that made their names and their wealth and brilliant careers!"

At this point I resigned to silence. If I spoke, I would definitely agree on what those traitors just said. Bitter or not, harsh or not, this was the true ugly face of the apocalypse.

Karoline was just like many, lots and lots of people who entered the first stages of the apocalypse addicted to the past lifestyle they lived their lives in.

And it seemed it was hard for such people to wake up! I always mocked such people whenever I read about them in the records. But seeing Karoline's actions and reactions right now made me realise I wrongly got the entire thing!

This wasn't something as easy as flipping over a switch and becoming someone else. It was easy for someone like me, but it was surely not that easy for people like her.

"Those rats! I wish I could meet them later and rob their inventories with my two hands!!" her body even shook, and on the side the face of the major was dark.

"So we haven't got anything at all?" After giving her a few minutes to vent and curse out her anger, I asked in a cautious way.

I needed to learn about the good news girl, bring it on!

"Part of this is thanks to you," just as I waited for her to speak up, the major, unexpectedly, was the one to speak.

"What do you mean by that?" I asked while feeling the slight aggressiveness in his tone.

"Some of the rich ones you killed were the sons and daughters of the owners of these companies," he said before adding in a blaming tone, "if you didn't kill them, they wouldn't have become this stubborn!"

"They knew," Karoline explained, "the angels delivered what happened here even in video feed to them."

"Are you blaming me?"

Chapter 82 - [Bonus Chapter] The Very Important Massachusetts State

I didn't know if I should laugh or cry, "Don't be ridiculous! Even if I repeated that moment a hundred times, I would still kill all of them! They are traitors! Engrave that deeply in your head, major, a traitor is someone either to be killed or be bound by a contract on the system honour."

My words showered mercilessly over his head. That major mistake here. Did he think there was a chance for some of them to return back from that dark path?

C'mon man, be a little realistic here please!

"Tell me the good news," as my mood turned, I turned to Karoline and demanded in a firm tone.

And finally she complied.

"Out of over a hundred US defence companies, we got the recognition and promise for help from four of them… But…"

"But what?"

"The angels are already targeting them as we speak," she gave another piece of bad news even now, "out of their grand factories and warehouses, only the ones located at their headquarters still stand intact. As for the rest…"

"I don't need that much anyway," I didn't care about the size of their losses, I only needed their superb minds.

Even if they could only provide fifty engineers at this point, I wouldn't see that as a loss in any possible way.

"Do they have their military engineers at these headquarters?" I asked before adding, "how far are these bases from here? Are they under attack at the moment? What about the military forces? How much did we get?"

I showered her with many questions and she could only blink in front of my impatience.

"Well, I don't know anything about their engineers," she said in an honest surprised tone, "all I asked was their cooperation and the readiness to move out their arsenal…"

She paused as if she got what I wanted wrongly this time, "Did you want their military gear or their engineers?"

"Both," I instantly answered, "but if I have to choose, then those brilliant minds come first."

"Don't be ridiculous," the mayor seemed to still be trapped in that useless circle of thoughts, "These are the top four defensive companies not only in the entire nation but in the whole world! Take the Reston company… They are the ones who make M1A1, M1A2, and the recently added M1A3 mighty Abram's tanks!"

"Not to mention Raytheon technology company, the one who is making great engines and many kinds of missiles… The Northrop Grumman corp which makes a lot of our rocket launchers, armoured cars and tanks…"

"And the biggest fish of all of them," the major seemed to forget the chaotic times we were living and was lost in his old days thoughts, "Lockheed Martin… They are giants! A real beast in the military industry worldwide! Not only they are vastly diverse in making literally everything, their recent stealth bombers are pieces of art!"

"C'mon folks, wake up," I had to knock some sense into their thick heated heads, not only by my words but also by using my knuckles and knocking over their heads, "we are at the time of the apocalypse! That's not going to work."

"The recently developed stealth bomber…" the major tried to resist my logic, but I poured tons of cold water over his head, with the hope for him to chill out.

"Any plane going to the higher atmosphere will fall," I said with a firm tone, "the apocalypse diffuses a large force field to isolate our world from outer space. Nothing outside that gigantic dome would survive, least your proudful stealth bombers."

"..."

"..."

The two looked at me in silence. I knew the major wasn't that easy to knock off his old useless military pride at this era. But for Karoline, she now had the reason she looked for what caused her family to perish.

"What do you want me to do?" after taking a deep breath, and seemingly controlling her emotions and anger, she asked in a decisive way.

"Go back and get the info about their engineers," I said, "tell them to not move out, we are the ones coming for them. They only needed to gather anything useful, all the materials needed, all the gears and their grand arsenals in one single location. Fortify and only defend, that's their mission. They have to use the help of the system, other survivors to ensure they will secure their places. Where are they located anyway?"

They said weird names that I couldn't even recall! Luckily I got that hot military headed major next to answer.

"Three of them are located in Virginia state," he said before adding, "all around Washington D.C."

"How far is this state from here?"

I wasn't a citizen of the US, so I didn't get to know the answer for that.

"It's not a small distance," Karoline said with a deep sigh, "by a car, we can luckily arrive there in five hours if the road isn't crowded."

"Roads are empty, we are at the times of a disaster," I reminded her again before adding, "and using a car won't work! We can only travel on foot for now."

"Foot!" The two of them looked at me as if they were seeing a crazy man.

"Guys, wake up," again I knocked their heads with my knuckles, "we have our systems and stats! Why do you think we have the speed stat then? Right now I dare to say having fully equipped one hundred points in speed stat is faster than a car!"

"This…" Karoline was shocked to speak and I could only shake my head.

"Then three are in Washington, what's the fourth one? And where?" I prayed it wouldn't be on the other coast or something far away than that.

"It's Raytheon tech corp," Karoline said, "it's located in the north, at Massachusetts state."

"This…" once I heard that name, I couldn't help but recall another thing, "isn't there the famous MIT?"

"It's located in the same state, yes," Karoline nodded in agreement.

"That's great then!" MIT was one of the brightest technology universities in the entire world, if not the best! "Make them dispatch a force there, save all they could and bring back every single student with them if possible."

"This…" Karoline frowned before the major interfered and explained:

"The two are literally located near each other," he said before adding, "the MIT university is located in a city called Cambridge city. The Raytheon corp is located at Waltham city; the two are just this close from Boston city."

I didn't know the former two, but the latter Boston city was a very famed one for many things. Many human heroes came from there, hopefully I'd have the chance to meet and recruit a few of them.

"It's settled then," I said, "make them either move to the MIT campus and fortify it, or move the MIT survivors back to their base, whatever works for them."

I now closed the file of the defensive military firms. I also gained access to MIT genius kids. Hopefully many survived so far, and I prayed most would still be alive until I arrived there.

Now all that remained was the army matters.

"How did we do with the loyal army leaders?" I asked while giving the major a warning glance. I didn't like stupidity, I always felt it was quite contagious and got on my nerves.

"It's not that great either," Karoline sighed in a tired way, "we managed to get only ten percent of the former army forces approval. And most of them are far away from here."

"Ten percent?" It was still higher than what I expected. "How many are near us?"

"Only two percent," the major spoke again, not able to resist himself, "they are situated around Virginia state. They can come here if we want."

"No," I firmly denied this, "let them be ready to move when we arrive."

"Move?" Karoline asked with doubt, "are we going somewhere after Virginia?"

Anyone coming from that era would think about the capital of the US 'former country, Washington D.C. I knew this wouldn't look logical, but I couldn't stay there for many reasons.

First of all, that city was filled with many politicians, wealthy people, and famous influencers and names from all over the US. Without the need to even think about it, I was sure that the city was in the hands of the angels and their loyal dogs; traitors.

Going there would be suicidal, not to me but to many forces I gathered with much difficulty.

"We are going to move to the north," I said before adding, "to Massachusetts state."

"To MIT?" Karoline asked.

"To the Raytheon tech base?" the major asked.

"Whatever they agreed upon, the base where they gather will be our main base from now on."

They might not know what I knew, but I didn't explain to them anything. In my eyes, that place in the north was like a gold mine, something I couldn't and wouldn't lose under any circumstances.

"Go back now," I said, "we have limited time here. I'll move out in less than two hours, so make sure you get everything wrapped."

"Going to Virginia?" The mayor was still thinking about going to the capital.

"To Jersey city first," first things first, "later on we will move to Virginia."

"What about my boys?" the major asked again, "will we take them with us? Leave them here?"

That man… he thought highly of himself and his prideful boys. "You all will remain here," I said before adding, "there are many castles scattered around the city. You'll arrange your troops to be stationed inside these castles."

"That's it?" he asked with a dejected tone.

"Yeah, that's it for now," and I poured more icy cold water buckets on his head. C'mon man, if not for me around, you and your boys would have been killed.

"What about me?" Karoline asked in obvious fear.

"You'll come with me for sure," it was obvious that I wouldn't leave you behind. Don't give me that scared face girl, nothing could harm you as long as you were on my side.

As the two vanished again inside the fort base, I started my final arrangements to leave this city.

The first I contacted was the jumper. He was almost finished scouting the last area of the city, Bronx. That would leave only one place untouched so far, Staten island.

As for Isabella and the spearhead, the two were on the spree of taking out the castles in Brooklyn. I simply gave them the order to cross the bridge and reach Staten Island once finished. And I urged them to do that faster.

They were doing a great job for now. Yet that was all thanks to my warriors. Once I left, their speed and efficiency to take castles with minimal losses would drastically change.

I estimated to have only two hours left here. According to the jumper, the number of monsters in the Bronx area wasn't that much to worry about.

I planned to wait until they captured Staten Island then leave. As for Bronx, they could take control of it smoothly before the next quest arrived.

As I finished doing so, I sent for all my top fighters to assemble in two hours. Angelica, Alex, Isabella, the spearhead, and the jumper were notified by this. Adding Karoline to the mix, I was sure my line up was realy formidable.

I only lacked a big army to support all of us. Hopefully the gods will be ready before I leave. I expected great things from them to be honest.

As I finished doing all that, I checked over the auction and didn't hesitate anymore. I bought that staff with its buyout price, stored it for now inside my inventory.

Once seeing the inventory filled with useless items, I didn't hesitate to put all of these things on sale. The monster cores and materials would lose their value by the beginning of the second quest.

If I waited, then I'd sell them with a loss.. I estimated to gain almost fifteen million coins from them, just enough to sustain the needs of my two bottomless pits for now.

Chapter 83 - The Unexpected Benefit Of The Staff

As I had nothing else to do here, I found a calm place next to the base's wall and let my body fall on the ground. I was tired! Got out a few pieces of meat and drank mouthful gulps of the water I had.

Then I closed my eyes and slept like a baby.

My sleep lasted for a blink of an eye for me. At some point, I felt someone holding my shoulders and shaking me in a violent way.

"What?!!" I hurriedly opened my eyes, jolted to my feet and instantly took out my swords. I was ready to fight, fight even the one who woke me up.

Who would wake someone up in such a violent way except for that maniac jumper?

"Rise and shine, sleepy boy," the jumper's hoarse voice came and I felt a hint of a smile over his covered face with that ugly mask of his.

"Damn you," I didn't let my interrupted sleep go without shouting in anger. Who in his right mind would go and wake people in such a harsh way?

Come one man, I lacked good sleep in this f*cking apocalypse! Why did it have to be this way when waking me up? What did I do wrong to deserve all that?

"We are here for half an hour now," Isabella laughed, "and you're snoring… God! It was a torture!"

"I never snore!" I glared at her but in return I was welcomed with a wave of laughter from everyone here.

They were all here, all my valiant heroes. Even Karoline was here as well with the major who did nothing but to show a mocking smile on his face.

"Alright," as I had no way to go back to sleep now, I stretched my arms and legs, "how are the operations of controlling castles going?"

"We controlled everything south from Queens," the spearhead said, "all that remains now is the Bronx."

"Great," I looked at the jumper, "the Bronx doesn't have many monsters, right?"

He nodded while I could imagine his slaking smile behind his mask.

"Where are we going to go now?" Alex seemed more unsettled with Angelica literally holding her arm in hers and acting all lovey dovey with her.

"First we need to arrange things here," I said before turning to the major. I didn't want him to lead, but in the light of lacking any fighting experience here, and with the fact of my need for someone to control and give military commands, he was the best without doubt.

"You'll be the one leading New York forces," I said, and it seemed my decision came as a surprise even to him.

"S… Sure," he said in doubt, "what should I do?"

"Three things," I raised three fingers in his face before adding, "first make sure you control the entire city as fast as possible. Don't let a single monster slip by, and try to minimise the losses as far as possible."

"I can do that," he nodded and he gave me a reassuring feeling.

"The second task is to strengthen our current troops," I turned to the large military forces we had here, "all of them must kill monsters using their systems and abilities. They must buy out cold war weapons from the market, increase their stats by selling items in the market and exchanging them for stat points. There are packs sold in the market which can help them increase their stats faster…"

I started planning out the big plan of turning those war veterans into strong and capable fighters. In fact the big weakness all my forces had in common was the lack of military experience.

And ironically speaking that weakness was perfectly solved by those military personnel. Yet what was ironic was that they didn't work over their stats or used their system properly, turning them into weak humans despite having such a unique advantage.

So turning all those military people from people of the already gone civilization into people of the apocalypse was a must.

Yet the major seemed a bit hesitant and didn't give me the same confident feeling when he nodded in response. I knew he looked down on our retired looking weapons and gears.

But come on man, you couldn't even kill a single monster even with all the heavy guns you had, but we could! We easily could kill a monster now using those out of age looking weapons and gears and moves!

"The last thing is that after doing all this, you need to stretch out our forces. Send some to the nearby counties, make them train and kill more monsters, evolve further until they fill their stats with the highest points ever."

I paused for a second before adding, "our next target would be going to Jersey city. I would do something that would enable the forces to come through in a special way. The base would be here, in his spot."

I took out my staff, the one I bought before to solve one problem. Once I took it out, I started to examine its stats.

[Teleportation system staff: Unique grade item. An ancient staff that's being made by an unknown genius. Once used, you can link two places apart through an instant teleportation portal. Can be used more than once, but each time must consume one million coins]

The staff was like a long rod, with a crystal gem in both ends. The shaft was smooth and milky white in colour. Just taking it out made the eyes of many look at me in doubt.

I didn't explain anything and simply pointed one of its ends to the ground. A message popped up the next moment once I did that.

[Do you want to mark this location for future use? To mark a place, you'll need to pay ten thousand coins per time]

What? I could mark and store locations using the staff? Knowing this made me realise how heaven shaking this staff would be.

In just mere minutes, my mind orchestrated many usages for this staff. I couldn't only use it to mobilise my army anywhere I wanted, but I also could use this as a brilliant ambushing method.

Just imagine I went around places I knew enemy forces would come through. Just thinking about this made me so much excited that I wanted to go all over the world now and mark everywhere using my staff.

But I had to deal with the Jersey city situation first and foremost. As I accepted, another message appeared.

[Location is saved successfully]

[Ten thousand coins are deducted]

[You can activated the staff ability to link two saved bookmarks once you have at least two places marked in the staff memory]

[Each linking attempt will cost you one million coins, and will last for an entire day]

The time duration was new for me, but it didn't matter much. As long as I had the bookmarks saved without a time limit, that meant I was able to link any two spots together anytime I wanted.

What did it mean? I felt like a spider queen, weaving her large network silently across the entire world.

It might not seem big and that much useful for now. But later on, no matter where I was, I could simply intervene and save the situation simply using this method.

But I had to have more coins at the moment rather than ever! If I was faced with a situation I couldn't help but from far away, then I had to be ready to consume one million coins at any given moment.

Adding the amount needed for Alex and Karoline, that meant I had to store three million coins at least without touching inside my account.

Knowing that I was going to kill many strong race fighters next made me not feel any worry for now.

"Alright, follow me," as I finished arranging things here, I started moving towards the direction of Manhattan.

I didn't forget to mark a place in Queens, before marking another in Manhattan.

The scene of the city changed, least to be said, it became a picture of a fairy tale story compared to before. Yet it was much better than the images I saw in the records about the destruction of this magnificent city.

During our walk, I knew that Karoline did her task as I told her. The army generals loyal to her and the four big defensive military firms agreed to do as I planned.

As for the Raytheon tech corp, they explained that they already had connections with MIT university. They said the two locations were considered special, but they would try to move the corp big machines to the MIT campus.

After all, the university was much safer than any military defensive corps base. Just by hearing their answer I realised the leaders of that branch of the corp were smart enough and knew how to adapt in these harsh times.

Hopefully the transition would go smoothly, and their losses wouldn't be that great.

Standing on the side of Manhattan, I learnt about two ways to go to Jersey city. The two cities were separated by the Hudson river, with either going through one bridge on the surface or through two tunnels under water.

Our best option was a bridge that was located at the Hudson heights, just at the northern parts of Manhattan. It was called the George Washington bridge.

The tunnels were considered a very risky move in my opinion. On the surface, ground monsters were only the hyenas or the wolves.

But underground, there were other dangerous breeds of monsters. Bronzed rats, the scaled worms, the slithering snakes, the bugling frogs, the life sucker bugs were just a simple example of such a deadly variety of such monsters.

If I had the choice, then it would definitely be going through the bridge. Luckily for us, the bridge stood erect and intact, with one side secured from my boys, the other end was clouded in mystery at Jersey city.

"This is George Washington bridge," Isabella stood in front of us acting as a new yorker guide, at least for me. "We can cross it and reach Jersey city on the other side."

"What's the plan here?" The jumper was direct and impatient as usual. In fact during our march, he was the least to speak, the least to interact with anyone.

In fact, aside from Alex who tried her best to shield herself from Angelica using me, he was also sticking to my side like a shadow.

The others were smoothly talking with each other. Be it Isabella or Karoline, the two girls were chatting like they were old friends.

The spearhead was, strangely, sticking his but with Isabella. The latter looked at me in a weird way a couple of times before I finally intervened and stopped that spearhead from annoying her.

The seven of us stood in front of this modern looking bridge. Unlike the other bridges that seemed fit to such an era, this silver metallic one made in modern fashion stood out of the picture.

It was a grand bridge, with two big steel towers from each side, linked together with gigantic steel cables.

It had two decks, making it more spacious than other bridges. However it also showed the same desolate image of the bridges I saw so far.

Many cars were scattered in an irregular and chaotic way till the end of my sight could reach. Many doors were opened, many cars were ending head to head with other cars. Despite not a single smoke rose up from the bridge, the marks of a fire engulfing many cars were obvious in my eyes.

"We can go above or through the lower deck," Isabella continued to play her role perfectly, "which side should we go through?"

"We should decide our tactics beforehand," the jumper was still fixed over his point, "I want to go and scout the city and report things back."

That jumper! He seemed to like the free and leisure task of going around and playing Spiderman all over the city without the need to break a sweat in a fight!

Chapter 84 - Gollems!

"You can't have your way this time," despite knowing how valuable his contribution might be.

"I can keep my life intact," he was smart enough to get my point without delving into details, "I'm a jumper!" Yet his last remark was really pointless.

Stop bragging boy, your jumper ability was just impressive if you decided to abandon us and save your neck!

"You can keep your life, but we will be in great danger," I rolled up my eyes in response to his words, "don't forget the angels of that city had the total blessing of the first quest without much loss yet."

My words carried enough weight to stop him from boasting.

"Look! Something is going over there!"

All of sudden, Alex shouted and attracted my attention to the other side of the bridge.

It seemed out of being constantly facing threats she developed such a cautious nature. She was the first to notice the big shadows appearing at the other end of the bridge.

"They are from other races," the jumper seemed to have a skill to see far away, like myself. "What are they trying to do? Intimidate us?" he snorted, taking this in a light way.

But the other group that appeared had real distinctive features. Their bodies were so big like small hills. Even if we put five elephants together, they would still be inferior to that race.

Dark silver skin, with bronzed lines covering almost every inch in a semi-circular fashion. Two curved long tusks came out from the back of their armpits, adding more ferocity to their saw like sharp three rows of teeth in their jaws.

But that wasn't the main threat here, their two thick and giant arms ending with club like fists and not fingers were!

They arched their body, not thanks to their immense body weight but thanks to the very sturdy and very heavy arm muscles.

"Gollems!" I muttered in a deep voice, "this bridge… Damn those angels! They react really fast!"

"What are Gollems?" Alex asked.

"Like those mythical creatures in our legends?" Isabella added.

Yet before I could say anything in return, the group that was formed of a dozen of Gollems lined up fast, raised their giant fists high in the air and extended their backs before they slammed in one time at the bridge.

*Boom!* *Crack!* *Woosh!*

A gush of air erupted all of sudden coming from their direction before a loud booming sound accompanied by obvious cracking and terrifying noises from the entire bridge erupted afterwards!

The big bridge, the bridge with double decks, in just mere minutes broke and most of its parts fell into the river and got washed away.

All that remained were the two big towers, and the one at the opposite end seemed to have many obvious cracks on its surface.

"This…" even the spearhead was stupefied when he saw this! The only one who remained calm was the jumper.

"They are the Gollem race," I said bitterly while turning my back to the river and walking away, "let's go. That race has insane physical ability, enough to destroy two bridges of that size."

"So we are abandoning going there?" Angelica jumped by my side, or literally by Alex's side who was sticking her body with mine.

"We aren't," I couldn't drop the mission of going to Jersey city, "we'll go through the tunnels. What's the biggest tunnel we have here?"

Isabella returned to her guiding role as she answered:

"It would be Lincoln," she paused as if she was arranging her thoughts, "it's at the south west from the park, just west of the famous empire state building."

"That's around ten to fifteen minutes from here running," I said.

"Are we going to run?!" The jumper looked at me with his cold eyes behind his mask, but I didn't care.

"Yeah, got a problem with that?" I said and before anyone else would say anything funny, I started to run, "let's go. We need to fasten our moves."

I knew the angels were ready at the tunnels. But if they managed to bring other races to Jersey city, then I would prefer to fight underground monsters than those races.

I didn't dwindle a lot about the Gollems. In my fight against the combined hellish attacks of that star weapon, the angels brought the dragons to me.

So what would prevent the other city angels from doing the same?

The angels were a meticulous race, I could give them that credit. But if I managed to outrun their time schedule expected of my moves here, then I would be able to avoid some trouble.

That was on the condition of me getting past the tunnel faster than their forces would gather.

As we ran, I stored all my warriors inside my inventory. Using them was one of the deadliest weapons I had. But I knew that dealing with other races wouldn't be smooth.

Take those Gollems for example, outside from my four dragons, other warriors of mine wouldn't be able but to stop them.

Penetrating such armoured skin of theirs would become a challenge. But the big factor on my side would be their slow movement. And that was why I was running right now.

Facing even dragon races wouldn't get on my nerves like those race games with their defence! I didn't realise it before, but I was a type of an all out offence, zero defence guy.

"Will we have to fight wolves and hyenas again?" As we stood at the dark entrance of that tunnel, Alex couldn't help asking in doubt and obvious fright.

"Don't worry, I can handle the darkness in this tunnel," the jumper finally did something useful. He took out a large number of diamond shaped crystals that were all sparkling and shimmered in strange bright gold light.

"These are the golden heart fire crystals," he said before throwing them all at the entrance.

"Wait," Alex said in fright, "shouldn't we have one each?"

"You don't get how these work," I looked with envy at the jumper. Such an item wasn't enough to be bought using coins! I once read one had to unlock a certain rank god blessing before obtaining these.

Thinking about gods, I couldn't help but frown. I kept my channel notification open all the time, yet I didn't receive a single message from them.

"Come on, your time is running short here… Tick tock… Tick tock…" I couldn't help but look upwards, towards that gloomy looking dark sky.

"What are you talking about?" The jumper gave me a side glance in disgust, "are you still hoping for some help from those useless for nothing gods?"

I was surprised that he saw through my actions this clearly. "How did you know?" I couldn't help but ask.

"How couldn't I know and you went all the way blabbering about your quest," he rolled up his eyes as if he saw through my deep secret or something.

"What's going on?" Isabella couldn't control her curiosity and asked in a girly way.

She wasn't alone, everyone else was the same.

But I didn't care about her question. I only frowned about something else.

"Do you have a god blessing already?"

If another survivor told me this, then I would accept it. But that jumper, as someone who lived through many apocalyptic runs before… How could he commit such a naive mistake?

"What? Don't tell me you only think of the blessing sponsorship as the only method to contact with gods?" he spoke as if he knew something I didn't. And he was right!

This thing he was talking about was a thing I was oblivious about.

"No time for such talk now," yet he mysteriously stopped me from asking further, "you know your little video caused a stir up into many gods up there? Even I heard rumours that some big names are paying attention to you."

Well, this came out of the blue. But I couldn't deny how delighted I was. "So why aren't they responding now?" Even if I was happy to hear that, the absurd silence in my channel and notifications made me frown.

"Come on, do you think a big name planning to join your offer will come without pressure and a threat?"

His words just confirmed my guess. Damn! Could I attract one of those big names? Really? Then take all the time you want, gods, I wouldn't be in a hurry here.

The crystals the jumper threw just now didn't fall, but floated midair. They didn't even stand there but started to move, some returned, some stayed, and the rest delved deeply inside the tunnel, illuminating it.

This miraculous scene surprised everyone but me. Those golden heart fire crystals were originally connected with the jumper and fell totally under the whims of his thoughts.

So they weren't just a typical kind of illuminating crystals. In addition to lightning such deep darkness, they had a fierce explosive offence ability.

Lucky him! What else would he have inside that inventory of his? For a moment there I really wanted to kill him and explore his inventory.

But I wasn't that mad, luckily.

"Let's go," I summoned one third of my warriors and made them surround us. Inside such an underground environment, we were exposed to dangers from any direction.

The entrance was in the shape of a giant inverted U shape, twisting just after tens of metres ahead. And there were three of such entrances, but we took the left side entrance.

The logic was simple. If we chose the middle, then we would be exposed to attacks from all directions, monsters coming from other tunnels on the sides.

But taking the right or the left would make us slightly protected. Choosing the left was to increase the distance those Gollems needed to cross to reach us.

Hopefully we could bypass the tunnel before they would arrive.

The size of the inside of the tunnel wasn't that big anyway. The curved cement ceiling was around ten metres high, not allowing for my precious dragons to exert their full strength indeed.

Not to mention the tunnel only had two paths inside, further limiting the mobility of my troops.

So I couldn't take my full warriors out either. One third seemed a bit enough while the healers, the magicians, and the archers were scattered among us.

"Keep running!"

The tunnel was like the bridges I saw before, filled with many deserted cars and lots of destruction. However the more we ran inside that tunnel, the denser the stench of blood and rotted flesh.

"It seems there was a big massacre here!" As we ran for a few minutes, we already came to see the source of such a smell.

The tunnel was slightly over two kilometres in length. We just crossed half a kilometre when we saw a grand scene, and evidence of the monster's brutality.

Lots and lots of corpses lied and filled the entire tunnel from where we stood.

"They seemed to try and hide inside the tunnel," Angelica couldn't take the scene and put her hand over her mouth, trying to prevent herself from vomiting.

It was bloody, brutal, and disgusting. The corpses weren't intact, and we could see a large number of monsters still feeding on the corpses.

"No time for that," I pulled her arm and made her stand erect. She was about to vomit, but she had to withstand that.

We had no time to lose here. The monsters already spotted us.

"Bronzed rats!" The jumper recognized those vicious types of monsters fast, "be aware, such monsters move in large packs, have very agile, very fast reactions, and have slightly tough skin."

He nailed the main points of these rats to be honest! "Just use all your force while hitting them," I added, "aim for their armpits, it's their main weakness."

*Screech!*

As the rats came closer, a few of them screeched in a loud way. I knew this was their way to call upon more of their kin, trying to overrun us with sheer numbers.

That was their biggest and most efficient tactic.

"Shield up front, Bulltors behind," I didn't sit idle in front of these rats.

Each rat was like a big cow, having a big bellowed abdomen with a pointy head and tapering long tail.. They were one and half metres in height, covered with bronzed shiny skin that gave the impression of its thickness and sturdiness.