635-650

635 A General Grade Souler

But till they'd come, I'd have to deal with these humans myself using my horn!

"Listen up," I took my horn out, wore it as a glove in my right arm, and started to speak, "I'm Hye, your lord, and this is the Kingdom of Heaven, your new home…"

I started to speak, not fast or too short about the situation here. I spoke about the new lives they'd live, the work waiting for them, and the big fights and challenges eyeing my humans in this apocalypse.

However I knew no matter how hard and hellish such an environment here would look like, they wouldn't get anything near what they experienced before.

To them, in their eyes, this place was considered a real heaven without doubt.

Just as I spoke, the dragon rider came back with lots of humans coming from far. They took almost ten minutes to reach this place, and they were all running.

"Take your breaths first," I said in welcome before continuing to explain the general things to the new humans here..

"You will now be assigned under the humans who got here before you. Listen to their instructions and follow them to the new work sites."

I turned my attention to the new humans. They were a group of ten thousands, not even enough to help and guide the hundreds of millions here.

But with my previous instructions and explanation, they got the general idea. I then spoke with the ten thousand humans, and told them about the plan of taking humans from here to the construction site led by Isac.

I watched the humans disperse into many groups, asking humans around about their preferences. At this moment, there were only fixed paths ahead of these new humans.

They'd either be fighters, go to the training grounds to be bathed with the blood of aquatic monsters, or they'd be workers.

Talents like blacksmiths and alchemists were required as well. Aside from these, farmers would go to the open fields at the outer zone of the capital towards the East.

As they started to work over the new humans, I started to see long rows going in different directions.

The training grounds were in the same direction as the construction sites. So most of the humans went there.

As for farmers, a good number also went to the East. I knew they wouldn't be able to understand how humans got to plant their crops here. But I hoped the old farmers would tell them stories about what I did before.

After these days, the soil around the river started to change. Also the area planted before affected the lands around it. So they'd find more land to plant, getting themselves busy once they'd arrive there.

As I solved the problem of workers in such a way, I started to think about the races. I was sure the size of the races caught by the Bringold impact would be huge.

Letting them come here wasn't practical and was a bit risky. It was better to lead them into the second Earth world, helping my people there in expanding the kingdom there by building more cities and towns.

However, when I thought about the size of races coming and humans, I started to grow worried.

There was an obvious disparity in numbers right now between my humans and races with these new batches coming.

Having a difference in millions wasn't that big. But if the races were in billions and my humans were in hundreds of millions, then this would be an issue.

The biggest problem I had was these races. They had no special benefit for me to use them in. Unlike my humans, I wasn't that interested in teaching them any craft or using them in anything.

Aside from killing them to get souls, I hoped they would get busy building the cities and towns in that world until the war would pass. After that, I'd try to bring part here to help in equalising the numbers of humans and races in both worlds.

I started amassing races as a revenge for what others did to my humans. But right now I was seriously considering stopping such a thing.

I didn't need just any race, I wanted warriors, talents, and also races with special traits like aquatic and aerial races.

Aside from these, I'd not ask for any more race. Not until I'd find a better way to use them.

Silverlining kept sending ores and tools to the side of this region. As my new humans got to know their new role, they started moving these things back to the construction site.

The delivery process continued for hours! I didn't stop there anymore and just went to check on Isac for a few minutes, spoke with her a little and let her know about what was coming towards her.

She was excited about all these workers! She asked for two hundred millions and I got more than that.

Now it was up to her to use such a colossal number of workers to build what we both wanted.

Then it was time for the delivery of warriors.

"He got them as expected."

My eyes shone brightly when I saw the six special tokens inside my inventory. They were the ones related to the souler general and his five elites.

I was so curious about that souler general, but first I went to a secluded place outside the capital, heading more towards the south.

I had a loyalty contract with that dude. But something told me it wouldn't be that easy to handle him.

As I went for tens of miles inside the unoccupied lands here, I stopped, took a deep breath, and summoned that general.

Soulers were a fierce race. They were shrouded in black fog, moving around like they were floating over the ground, attacking like they were flashing, killing without making a single sound.

They were the deadliest weapon I had in terms of one Vs one abilities. My fallen gods were the deadliest in terms of AOE attacks.

Both were the crown jewel of my personal army, and right now I was looking at who was supposed to be the fiercest souler I ever had.

And to be honest… This dude… Was really scary!

636 I Got Myself A Sovereign!

This dude was a giant! Soulers weren't that big in terms of body size. Yet this dude here was at least seven or eight metres tall.

He had his body covered up in black fog like my soulers. However my soulers reached this stage once they consumed stat points.

Even with his black fog, two red ruby-like gems shone in his head. They were his eyes, and they gave me such a dangerous feeling when I looked at them.

"You are… My new lord?" a deep and hoarse voice, a voice of someone who didn't speak for a long time, came from him.

"I'm Hye," I said, introducing myself, "do you have a name?"

At least he could speak like any sane race.

"I'm Lucias," he said, "I never thought someone would awaken me from my deep slumber. Don't they tell you about how dangerous and cursed my race is? I was?"

Deep slumber? So they kept these soulers alive using such a trick? It made quite sense indeed. And that was the reason why Silverlining was acting in such a nervous way before..

As long as this dude was sleeping, he wasn't a threat to anyone. But to make him mine, they needed to awaken him. I checked my soul number. They lost almost one million points.

So damn fierce! Just to awaken him and bring him here, he consumed what he usually would consume for a day.

"I know all about your race curse," I shrugged, "a cursive for others is nothing to me."

"Are you sure? It's your life we are speaking about here," he said in a tone that held more judgement than just stating facts, "you are a human, a weak and useless race in this vast universe. I can tell you were driven by greed for power and showed up, asked for me to come to serve you, not fully knowing what you are dealing with."

"Is that so?" I grinned, and with a wave of my arm, hundreds of thousands of soulers appeared covering a large stretch of land around us.

I used actions to prove my point, as it was useless to speak and explain things to him.

"This…" just seeing the huge number of soulers covering the ground beneath the chariot made him startled.

"All soulers… Heed my command and kneel!"

*Thud!*

The mighty sound of their knees hitting the ground echoed all over this part of the world.

"You… You have my kin… My people… They are serving you… A mere human! A worthless human! Dammit! We can kill you with just a thought! A mere thought and you are dead! How can they serve someone like you?"

"Because I'm their lord," I didn't take what he said as an offence. Human race's reputation across the universe was really low. He was just speaking out of his past experience, not judging the hegemony standing in front of him.

"And I'm the only one in the universe who can revive your old race's glory."

"You?!!" he asked in such shock and doubt. The more he spoke, the more his voice became human-like.

I could now feel his emotions from his voice. "I have a way, a way to solve the crisis you have."

"Hahahah! Do you think I'll buy that? Do you believe me, the mighty Lucias, the one who was once hailed as a sovereign of my race, will fall into such a childish trap?"

"I'm just stating the truth."

"Kid, you might not know that, but if you die, we also will die."

"The contract thing?" I asked, and he shook his head.

"Not only the contract. It runs in our blood. Once we swore to serve someone, then we will live and die with him. And I can tell you are just a kid who got some luck in this forsaken apocalypse, ended up trying to play with fire as if it was a toy."

"You are underestimating me," I evilly grinned, "these are your people, right?"

"Indeed. They are the lowest grade ones in our race, but they are part of my kin."

"Fine, go and ask them yourself then," as I expected, that lady brought to me the lowest scum of the souler race and sold them to me as if they were treasure.

But if such mighty soulers were the lowest grade in his race, how fierce and mighty his race was? How the hell did such a race fall from such height, and end up in such a way?

I didn't buy that curse thing. A race born with such harsh requirements would get adapted to such conditions. Something must have happened back there. Something big must have happened.

"And if you are lying?"

"And if I wasn't?"

The two of us kept looking at each other while his two red rubies glared and shone like they were blazing embers.

"Ok, I'll go down there and ask them myself," in a flash, he vanished. Or to be more precise, he left behind a long trail of black fog, thick enough to cover up two of his size.

A black fog tube appeared while arching over my chariot, flying for a distance in the air, before moving in between the souler army down below.

"Answer whatever question he has with honesty," I shouted, raising my voice in order for him to hear that.

I didn't want him to come complaining about me using the contract authority to force them to lie. I had nothing here to hide. I was able to make all of these serve and survive under my command.

He was a sovereign! Damn lord! He was a mighty sovereign in such a mighty race before!

How strong was he in his prime? He said he was in deep slumber, meaning this wasn't even close to half of his power.

What was his true power like when he was in his golden days? Damn! Just thinking about that made my heart race up!

One general? No, I'd go all out and ask for more later on. The more souls I'd collect, the more generals I'd have.

637 I'm An Anomaly!!!

A souler general for each one hundred million souls I'd collect. This was enough to sustain this general for a hundred days.

I wouldn't believe I'd stay a hundred day without having a big war!

But a general meant nothing without an army! In fact, what made this general's worth this high in my eyes was the big souler army I had here.

If I didn't have such a huge number of soulers under my command already, then this general wouldn't make any difference.

So I had to first work towards amassing soulers, then seek generals and elites later on.

I thought about taking elites out, but thought it wasn't needed. If a general vowed his allegiance to me willingly, then the elites wouldn't have a saying after that.

So I stood up there and watched that thick black fog tube expanding and reaching many places.

He seemed to not believe what the first few soulers he met said. So he took almost an hour, moving around and almost speaking with everyone..

My soulers were one of the earliest warriors I got. They fought alongside me in many battles, witnessed me triumph over my enemies and create my legend.

They stayed long enough to know how generous and mighty I was as a lord, how capable I was as well.

I was able to keep them alive for all this time without even struggling once! Not a single souler was lost thanks to the lack of souls.

All of my losses came in battles. And that was a fact no one would ever deny.

After one hour, the tube started to shrink fast, giving me the impression that all of that was that general's real body.

If so, then this general was in another realm than these common soulers down below.

"What did you find out?" as he returned, he kept glaring at me without saying a single word.

It seemed he was shocked, or doubted what he heard. But doubting all of these soulers' words? That would mean that the general had something loose in his head.

"They spoke about someone that can't be you," the first thing he said was that. "How come you, a mere human, a weak and worthless human, end up having such power and might?"

"So they told you about my deeds," I jumped over his useless remarks, "what do you think? Isn't it cool to serve a lord like me?"

"You spoke about reviving my race, how?" his eyes shone, seemingly he was taking me more seriously than before.

"You need souls, and I can deliver any amount you need," I shrugged, "I just need you to fight for me, kill all my enemies, and let me triumph over this apocalypse."

"So your dream is only to be a lord over the world? How low of a dream is that!"

"Come back!" I instantly called back all my soulers and stored them inside my inventory. He seemed puzzled with my actions, and the next one made his two ruby eyes look at me in a fiercer way.

"Let's go," I simply summoned a portal, "I'll show you that being a single world lord isn't even close to being called a dream to me."

I moved my chariot and passed through my portal. The next scene that appeared in front of my eyes was my second Earth world.

"This…"

"Let me introduce this to you," I waved my hands around, pointing at the many cities and towns underbuilt in a large stretch of land, reaching to the end of my sight, "it's my world. Here, I'm the lord of this world."

"…"

"I already have a world, competing in another. So thinking that my dream was to conquer a world and be its sole ruler and lord is a joke! I already achieved such a goal."

"Then…"

"I want to win the entire apocalypse cluster fierce competition. Then I'd go out there, to that bloody alien battlefield, kill and make a big name for myself, for my race."

I said what I had in mind, said in such honesty and sincerity. I wasn't aiming to just become a single world lord, I wanted to be a real powerhouse in the entire universe.

I wanted my name to be famous, spread universe wide, here and in the alien universe alike.

"You want to raise up your race?" He finally got what I really wanted. And I simply nodded. "Sigh! Such a dream… Such a crazy dream really suits a crazy anomaly like you."

"Anomaly?" The word he used to describe me piqued my interest.

"Sure! A human doing all this? Hahahaha! Even if someone told me that one of my race would fight on his own from the low point of no support or backing and climbed up to reach such a stage, I'd say he was lying to me!"

"…" It was my time to get shocked. I always thought what I did here was nothing much.

"If someone in my people back in my days did half of what you did, then he would deserve to be selected as the promising star of the new generation, and get the honour of being taught directly under my hands."

"Thanks for the compliment," I honestly responded to his indirectly praising words.

"I'm not trying to curry anything with you. I'm just stating facts. You did something unheard of before here. And right now you aim to get the help of my race? Without even flinching? Hesitating? Getting a scare? What's your secret?"

"It's my secret," I grinned, "so I won't tell."

"Sigh! I heard that there were soulers staying with you for over a month! I never thought that a human like you would be able to sustain such a heavy burden. No, I never thought a race in this universe would have the way to deal with our curse."

"I have a way," I slowly said, "and I have confidence in not only securing what you need, but also to find other generals and awaken them from their deep slumber."

638 The Reason Behind Souler Race Demise

"For real?" his eyes shone brighter, and this time it was threatening or domineering light. It gave me the feeling of loneliness and hope… Like someone who was living all his life abroad and finally got the chance of going home.

"But…" I gave him hope, but he had to understand how things worked here, "this comes on the premise of you serving me quite well. Without going through big wars and conquering everyone, I'd have no way to help your race."

"I see…" I laid everything in front of him, showed him everything and told him facts. I even sincerely spoke about my dreams and gave him my word to revive his race.

And it was his time to make a decision. Would he wholeheartedly pledge his allegiance to me? Or he would keep his obedience bound by the contract?

"Lord…" he finally made the choice, knelt on his knees and bowed his head to me, "I swear to serve you with my heart and soul till the end of my time."

"Great," I wanted to pat him on the shoulder, but I paused as he was shrouded all over in black fog.

"Tell me, you were in a deep slumber so your strength…"

"I'll just need a few souls to feed on and be alright," he stood up when I motioned him to do that..

Such a giant and fierce souler was standing by my side, giving me the impression I was nothing compared to him.

Anyone seeing the two of us right now would mistake me for being his servant, not the opposite.

"Souls? Not stat points?!" I looked at him in doubt.

"Stat points? These were used by the common people of my race. No, someone in my calibre will need a much stronger form of energy to restore my power."

"What about this?" I took a piece of the godly essence I had. After all this time, the amount I had shrunk in size.

I needed to find an illusionist archlord or even a paragon, fight with him to force any higher up from his side to show up.

Or else in less than a couple of months, I'd lose such a precious material from my inventory.

"This…" the moment I took it out, his eyes shone brightly.

"What about these then?" I took out a few orbs and crystals of the higher grade that I got from the lady.

"Not like this one," but it seemed compared to the godly essence I got first, they didn't pick his interest, "can I have it?"

"Will it help?" I stored the crystals and orbs away, while pointing at the small piece of essence in my hand.

It was in the size of thirty centimetres square at most. Not that big indeed.

Since I had few left, I had to be more cautious while using these. As for my fallen gods, I'd start shifting to use the crystals and orbs instead to power them up.

"It's enough to make me restore one third of my power… At least," he said in such craving and hunger towards this small piece, "is this how lord is keeping us alive?"

"Can you be alive using energy?" It was a new thing to learn about.

"Indeed, that was how we used to survive back in our days," he seemed to nod, but his fog only swirled for a moment before adding, "we consume souls as soul is the purest form of energy. But in peace times, we depended on a special kind of energy ore, one of a kind in the entire universe."

"Then? It got depleted?"

"It can't be depleted," he said in a voice filled with hatred and anger, "it was taken away from us!"

"Taken away?!!" I was surprised to hear that. Who was this domineering to come and take something from such a mighty race?

"It's… Sigh! It's complicated! Things started when we did great at the alien battleground. At first, we didn't take part in such useless fights. That alien universe wasn't even fighting with its full strength and attention with us."

"I know that," it was something I learnt about.

"But the system higher ups pushed over our leaders and made us take part in that fight. The promise of getting stronger and letting our boys train and evolve was irresistible! So we fought, and created a deep impact there."

"I can imagine that."

"And that is what caused our demise."

"How so?" I still didn't get it. Yet it seemed talking about the past stirred up deep memories, memories he seemed to bury a long time ago.

So his voice came filled with rage, remorse, hatred, anger, and regret.

"Doing this great came as a surprise for that alien universe. We… We were kind hearted back then, innocent in dealing with all this mess. I thought… We thought back then that this fight wasn't a big deal at all for our enemies. Yet we… I was wrong…"

From his tone, words, and his conflicted and self blaming emotions, I could tell he had a big role in taking up such a decision back then.

Well, he was a sovereign back in his prime. So it made sense for him to take part in such big decisions, right?

"The alien universe seemed to fight us in such a way because they were biding their time for another plan. They weren't taking us lightly or not focusing on us like we imagined, they were recruiting traitors from all over the corners of our universe…"

"They tried to bring us down, turning the worst of us against ourselves, right?"

"That's true. And using such traitors, even from my race, they managed to start a big revolt and take control of that big mine."

"Why didn't you go and take it back?" It was the first thing that jumped up in my mind. Even if they got defeated once, it didn't mean they would lose the war, right?

"That… That mine is an entire world on its own. We were the only one gaining access to it. But… As the revolts got control over it, they crushed any established connection between our world and theirs…"

639 Nature Is Scary!

"Was it a secluded solitary world?!" I asked in doubt and he nodded.

"Sigh, this world here is the same," I raised my head and looked at the clear sky here.

The previous scary atmosphere created by my cultivation was gone, and the clear bright sky returned again.

"This world… Damn! Are you sure?"

He seemed surprised, more than Isac at that time.

"Is it weird?"

"Indeed! There is a rule in the universe, solitary worlds select their owners, not the other way around."

"I'm… Flattered," I said, not to him but to the world here..

"It's not that, the point is… How the heck did this happen?!!"

"You can say I was lucky," I laughed, not speaking about anything related to the fight I got here or how I got the attention of this world's will.

I frankly didn't know what I did back then to make this world like me.

"Luck has nothing to do with this," he sighed, "anyway, as long as you have this world, you have to secure the connection runes planted here and in your world. With it, you can always come and leave as you wish."

Runes? Dude, I had no such a thing! This connection was secured by the system and it got integrated into my profile page.

That meant this world was more different than normal secluded solitary worlds in the universe. It was special, more special than I thought before.

And from what he said, I could now rest assured that no one would ever step a single foot here without my permission.

"Thanks for the advice," I turned my eyes towards this world. This place… It was going to be my own backyard, my secret world where I'd build up my forces and launch any attacks anywhere I wanted!

The soulers used their world to fix the major flaw in their race. And I'd use mine to fix the big flow in my race; weakness!

I'd turn humans from such weak and useless trash in the eyes of others to be such a mighty and scary race, feared and respected by everyone.

"If this piece will make you regain one third of your former power, then take this instead," I replaced the small godly essence piece in my hand with another bigger one.

And the moment I got it out, he jumped out in a fright.

"You… Have a much bigger piece?!!"

"Come on, stop acting like a child and consume it," I said with a grin, "I want to see what your full power looks like."

"Ok, lord," he showed a humble side of him as he got this larger piece of godly essence. He consumed it in an instant, letting his fog expand and surround it in a blink of an eye.

But the results of this process took much longer than I thought. I had to wait on the side for a couple of hours before the first changes happened.

He stayed in his place motionless. The only change I noticed once he consumed that godly essence was his eyes. He closed them, making me feel like he was training or something.

As I had such time, I started to roam the world and check over the places here. One more city was this close from getting finished alongside another cluster of five towns.

Angelica was working diligently and her city was progressing smoothly.

I stayed for long hours on Earth, so days passed here in return. I just had to sigh when I recalled the big defensive projects I had to build on Earth.

If I could find a way, build them here and move them as a whole there, then it wouldn't be an issue.

Sigh! This universe proved to me that there was nothing impossible. I just needed to dig deep enough to find what I wanted.

*Boom!*

Just as I was in the middle of my tour, a mighty explosive sound came just so close from me.

It was him, Lucias. I totally let him train in peace, and kept flying around getting myself busy with everything here.

Starting from his body, a thick pillar of black energy suddenly emerged from him. It extended in such scary speed to reach the depths of the sky, creating a swirling motion that expanded to envelop the entire seen part of the sky here.

Clouds resurfaced again, the same thick and black clouds.

Damn! What was going on here?

I looked at him. With all the thick layers of black fog, I couldn't tell even a single thing of what was going on with him.

I raised my eyes to watch the fierce and fast changes of the sky. It looked like a big storm was coming, and this was all created with that thick black pillar rising up from his head.

I felt the same as my people here when I was cultivating. Even if he was causing much fiercer response from the world than I did back then, I wasn't worried or scared.

This was my world! And the energy here was really wild and berserk. I knew no matter how strong he once was, he wouldn't withstand long training here.

If things went south, I could step in and absorb this energy to stabilise things. In the worst case scenario, I'd take him and return to Earth.

I stood there, watched in silence and anticipation. The clouds gathered up, roared from time to time, releasing fierce thick bolts of lightning from time to time.

They looked like a horde of angry lions, racing up down a cliff, clashing each other fiercely like they were clashing with their enemies.

Just a single sight in the sky would make anyone feel terrified and in awe. Nature… It was the true scary beast in the universe.

When watching such a move from nature, no one would feel any sense of pride or arrogance. I felt like I was an ant in front of all these changes, and I was the lord of this world.

So how would my subjects feel?

I sighed. They had to get used to such a thing from now on. Even if my valiant general here wouldn't cause such a scene, I'd cause it when I'd start my training.

640 He Is A Monster!!!

*Rumble!*

"It's getting a bit out of control…" I looked at the sky and saw many fierce thick bolts of lightning hitting the ground, causing considerable damage even to the already finished city and towns.

I couldn't allow this to continue! Four hours had passed since he started showing that pillar.

The more time passed, the more I felt the energy in that pillar getting richer and denser.

He showed no sign of slowing down or stopping anytime soon. I looked at this situation and had nothing else to do but to sit down, close my eyes, and welcome this challenge.

My general was creating such ruckus, and I had the responsibility to deal with it. I could feel the stirred up energy all over the place. His energy was adding more violence to the already violent energy.

Then let me start cultivating, diverting all this energy towards my shadow world. Come, come and show me how fierce you were, damn energy!

The moment I closed my eyes, I felt a fierce tempest of energy forming all over my body. It was much more aggressive than it was ever before..

Yet that didn't stop me! I didn't start this to cultivate but to control the situation.

So the fiercer that tempest was, the better. Come, come and try to cut my body to shreds.

Once that energy entered my body, I didn't even think about circulating it or try to control its flow. I let it come as dense and rich as it could.

All I did was to connect it directly with my feet, letting pass through that portal there, going into my shadow world.

And then I left everything else for my dark energy cluster.

This world's energy was fierce? Was acting so rampant? Humph! I dare to bet everything over my dark energy cluster. This was the real beast here!

Come, come with everything you got. The more, the better. I didn't know what was happening inside my shadow world, but I was confident in my dark energy cluster to take control over this situation.

All I did was to just guide that energy towards my shadow world, then I kept watching. I didn't risk trying to get any piece of this energy.

Being greedy sometimes would bring more harm than gain.

I lost count of time, kept channelling this berserk energy until I started to feel it was growing calm. The old energy returned slowly, and at this moment I decided to stop cultivating.

The moment I opened my eyes, I saw the same dark clouds up there. But the racing up clouds in torrents that were present before vanished. Only those steady and motionless clouds existed.

The lightning was still there, but it wasn't acting berserk like it did before. However, just with a single glance around, I could tell how massive the destruction here was.

Almost one third of my towns and cities got hit by these fierce lightning, driving all the people living there out. The peaceful world from before changed and I could sniff fear easily in the air.

My people were terrified!

"Dammit Hye! Why are you so damn focused on ruining this world and letting our efforts go to waste?!!"

The first voice I heard was that of Angelica. She stood just a few metres behind me, with a frustrated look over her face.

"Sorry about that," I said with zero sincerity, turned to watch my general but found nothing next to me.

He was just ten metres away from me when I started cultivating. "Where… Where is he?" I turned to Angelica and when I said this, a look of terror flashed over her face.

"That… That calamity was yours?!!" I got such a weird answer from her, making me not know what was going on exactly.

"He was a giant, shrouded in black fog," I tried to describe my souler general, but ended up stopping midway as this was all about him.

I have nothing else to say about him. He was big, covered totally in black fog. There was nothing more to say about him.

"Black? No, he was damn orange in colour!" she bellowed out before adding in such fear, "Hye! That monster… It can't be yours, right?"

"Monster?" I asked in doubt and the look of fear got more intensified over her darkened face.

"He is, he indeed is! Just a single breath of him and one million races fell! He just roared, and then another million fell! Damn Hye! He is a damn monster! A scary one, the scariest I've ever met!"

A single breath and one million died? A roar and another died? Damn! What the heck was that? Was that… Really my general? The true power of that general?

Damn fierce! If that was true then… Damn! Just thinking about this made my blood boil!

"Where is he?" I hurriedly asked, and Angelica retreated a couple of steps while her body started shaking.

"He… He is coming… He is coming…"

The last part she said came with such a terrifying scream as she turned around and started running. She ran like her life depended on it!

I turned around, and from the direction of the sky she was looking at I saw a small orange dot flying fast towards here.

It looked like it was flashing, teleporting from a point to another. It was bright orange, looking exactly like what she told me about.

And in the span of a minute or so, that orange dot appeared in front of me.

It was him! He was covered in bright orange colour, looking like fire engulfing his big body. The old black fog vanished and was replaced with such a fierce and blazing orange thick coat of raging fire.

Just seeing him standing on the deck of my chariot, this close up, made me feel awe.

He changed! Got damn changed and became such a cool dude! Dammit!

"Lucias?" I asked just to make sure it was him, and he simply knelt on my chariot, making it all tremble in such a fierce way.

"Lord… Thanks for your generosity!"

641 [Bonus chapter] Asking For More Soulers!

It was him! But his voice… It was his yet it looked like it got many years younger than what he was.

Looking at him from such close distance made me inwardly sigh. He got such a massive upgrade in everything, vibe, demeanour, strength, and even his soul and voice.

Even his age got younger! Damn! How could this be even possible?!!

"It's ok," I waved my hand as if I wasn't envious of him, "but I heard a few disturbing rumours about what you did. Was it you?"

"S… Sorry lord, I was just hungry and didn't want to disturb you during your training. I ate souls from other races than yours."

Well… At least he was considerate towards that point. Still… What he did… Just one breath… Just one roar… Damn!

What a fierce dude he was!

As I jumped over my shock from what he did and the transformation he had, I started to think about something else.

He was mine! That scary dude over here was mine!

"So you got enough for today?" I asked and he nodded.

"Thanks lord for showing mercy.".

"It's nothing, I got these races at first to harvest souls from them," I casually said, "tell me more about your power. Did you restore it fully?"

"Almost close to seventy percent."

Damn! All this and this dude wasn't even in his prime? Damn!

"Do you need more energy? I can get you more."

"No lord, I feel it's not the issue of energy," he slowly shook his head, as his blazing orange fire swayed from right to left.

"Then what?"

"I absorbed a ton of energy, from what you provided and from the world here. In fact if not for the world here, I'd have ended up with a much weaker form of me."

"I can tell that," what he did here was considered scary indeed. I couldn't even cause such a scene after two months of training.

Recalling that made me instantly scared!

"Tell me… How long did I take training here? How many days?"

"Days? Lord… you stayed here for two weeks already!"

"Dammit!"

I knew it! I bitterly sighed before hurriedly checking the messages.

As expected! My message record was filled with distressed messages from Silverlining, plus many messages from the lady nymph.

She got scared as well! She knew such a deal we had to strike was the last. She mistook my absence as my leave from our deals.

[Sorry, I got into a sudden training session] I was sent to Silverlining first.

[Damn Hye! Do you want to kill me or something? Didn't you say you are going to wait for me?]

[Sorry about that] I knew it was my fault for doing all this mess. [Are the offers ready to sign?]

[Yes! They are! And for all the sake of heavens, gods, or what you hold dear to yourself, please don't vanish this time until we end this deal!]

[I also want more warriors…]

[First let's conclude the sovereign's deal, or my head will be the price for all this delay!]

[Ok!]

He was really scared and I got nothing to object or argue about here. I waited and three contracts came in the next minute.

I read through the content of the contracts and found no issue in them. They included all the details we agreed upon before, and so I signed the three right away.

They were already signed by the three sovereigns. So when I did, the contracts became valid right away.

[It's done] I sent it to him, [Now can we talk about the warrior deals?]

I got enough warriors from him. But after seeing this souler general, I wanted more of them.

[What do you need? Just tell and I'll provide]

[I want soulers]

[Damn! More soulers?!!! Are you out of your mind or what? Isn't that scary general dude enough for you?]

[No, I need more. Common soulers this time] I knew I was going to end the deal with the Bringold impact. So it was just right to start securing another route for my soulers.

Or else I'd be stuck in the same deal with that greedy and unjust impact!

[Common soulers are easy to secure, but how much are we talking about here?]

[As much as you can get me. You know, I won't stop at any amount or price]

[Sure, I got you man. Ok, I'll first tell my sovereigns about the good news. Ah, when do you want your things delivered?]

I knew if I gave him any date during these days then I'd fail to meet it.

So I'll have to wait until later.

[Let it be when I tell you. I have a big fight coming up, and have to train and get stronger fast]

[Stronger? In my eyes you are doing great! You need nothing like this]

[Hahaha! Thanks, but I'd prefer to train]

[Sigh! Ok, good luck then]

I closed the chat with him to start another with the lady nymph.

[Sorry, was quite busy lately]

[Before you'd be the one asking and bothering me with messages. But now… Sigh! Ok, I got the list of the soulers, races, resources, and humans for you to check]

[Ok, send these over]

She even prepared materials… Damn! She went all out!

But when I saw the list, I couldn't help but sigh.

Even after all this time, she only managed to get me close up to eight hundred million humans and slightly over three billion resources.

The gap between the two impacts was clear from this list alone! I thought I'd have to peel my skin for such a deal, but it wasn't the case.

[Send everything over here] I decided to receive all the things here before resuming my training again.

[Cool. by the way, what will you order next?]

[Let me think and tell you] I didn't hurry to end all the ties with her before checking what Silverlining would bring for me.

The next ten hours I got myself busy receiving races and humans, signing contracts for all, and arranging them to work here.

642 Truth About Time Difference

I also selected those who volunteered to become fighters in my army. I'd take these few tens of millions back and let them train with everyone else.

Aside from that, the talents here were left for the people working already to guide and supervise them.

"Sigh! It's done," I felt a little exhausted mentally from dealing with all these things. I had to do it as everyone else was busy training and getting my capital ready for the upcoming war.

"Come, we will return back home," I said to my souler general, while feeling the waste of letting him rot inside my inventory.

Just by him standing by my side made me feel like I got a mountain supporting my back.

I opened a portal and returned back to Earth. I stayed here for two weeks, which would mean around a day passed back there.

When I came back, nothing much changed actually. The work was still progressing everywhere, and my forces were racing against time to get in shape.

"Lord… I want to train my boys," just as I delivered the new army to the training grounds, Lucias said..

"Sure, where do you want to train them?"

"Back at that world of yours," he said, "I'll try to get more careful this time."

"Are you sure?" I didn't hurry to agree. After all this dude created such a mess back there.

Besides, I was going to train as well. Things would grow worse if both of us got to train there at the same time.

"I won't train, but lead them to get more benefits from the dense energy there. The energy there is so beneficial for my race. And these boys are quite weak and skinned."

"Skinned?!" I raised an eyebrow, "I kept feeding them souls without any restraint!"

"It's not the problem of souls, it's the problem of cultivation. They lacked their cultivation, ending up so damn weak."

"I see," I said, "let them train there then. I'll leave this task over to you…"

I paused when I got to hear about the cultivation thing. "Damn! I totally forgot!" I slapped my forehead when I recalled the cultivation test of my boys.

We were supposed to get to test the new potions and see their effects. However things went astray, and I ended up losing track of time there.

"Come, let me bring you first into that world," I didn't know how long I'd take in this test. So it was better to just deliver him to the second Earth world before doing anything else.

I went back to that world, took out all the soulers from my inventory, even the new ones. I left them at one side, training under the leadership of Lucias.

I didn't forget the five elites I got. I got them out and simply left them to Lucias to arrange and handle. For me, they weren't that much stronger than Lucias.

As Lucias swore his allegiance to me, these five wouldn't cause any trouble for me.

Now… It was time for me to focus over the potion test. Hopefully things would end up quite well for my humans.

I went back and flew directly towards the place of Lily and her men. The size of the altar zone got expanded a lot, making me feel more confident about letting much more delve into cultivation.

However the issue still remained in the process of making potions. Such a process needed lots of manpower, talents, and resources.

Plus time.

I knew even with the increase in the number of altars, with the current production rate, we could at most let ten thousand humans start cultivating before wartime.

"Finally you came!" Just as I got closer from the altar region, I spotted Lily coming from far. She rode over the back of one of my dragons, and shouted when she got nearer.

She got so distressed to the point of going by herself to look for me.

"Sorry for that," I honestly apologised, "is everything ready?"

"Many, many hours ago," she jumped over my chariot while rolling her eyes. She waved at the female dragon rider as the girl left in a hurry.

"But you were nowhere to be found! I even asked Hilary and Isac and others about you. And I heard quite interesting story."

She gave me such a deep look, one that told me she knew about my second Earth and felt like I hid this information off her on purpose.

"It's just you were quite busy here," I shrugged as I casually said the reason, "it's not intentional."

"Then you can take me over there, right?"

"Now?!"

"Why not?" she grinned, making her fine scales slightly erect, "we waited for you for long hours. Waiting for another hour won't do any harm, right?"

"Fine," I didn't find anything wrong about letting her see this world. After all, I wanted to let her come in and assess it for training purposes.

"Come then," I opened a portal and led my chariot inside.

"D… Damn it Hye! You seem to have been here for a long time already!!!" The first remark she said after ten minutes of dropping her jaw and opening her mouth was this shout.

She was shocked and impressed, especially when she saw the magnitude of the cities and towns here.

"It's just a time difference between the two worlds," I said, "nothing much actually. I got it recently as well."

"T… Time difference?! The legendary time manipulation skill of the extinct time clan?!!!"

From her tone I knew she got more than I was aware of about the time difference here.

"What do you mean? It's a thing related to the system and this world here."

"Time difference isn't related to anything but the extinct and ancient time clan," she said in such a firm way, making me realise she was sure of what she was speaking about.

"Time isn't something trivial, nothing that anyone here in our time and universe can control or interfere with by any means."

643 Monster Dens

"No way! I was subjected to many time differences! Increasing time and decreasing time, I experienced them all!"

I couldn't forget what happened back at the dungeon challenge test and how that affected my forces in a negative way.

"I'm telling you what's known in the entire universe, there is no power to affect time! Only those old scary dudes who went extinct thousands of years ago could do it!"

"How?!!" It was my time to get shocked. I was subjected to different time differences, not only once, not only here.

"I don't know what's going on with you, but this thing here isn't related to any world or even to the system as you thought. If it's related to something, then it's related to you."

"Me?!!!" I got shaken from the depths of my soul when I heard what she just said. "How?! It's… Impossible!"

"It's the only explanation," yet she shrugged, adding in such confidence, "aside from you, there is nothing else can cause such scary time difference to this world.".

Was that true?!! I kept asking myself that! Just as I was thinking about this time difference seriously for the first time ever, I spotted and recalled a few important things.

First, the time difference only affected here and Earth! I noticed that staying here wouldn't affect the time running to other parts of the universe.

Be it the Bringold impact lady nymph or the Petals impact Silverlining, both weren't affected by the time difference at all.

I noticed such a thing before, and thought it was nothing much. But it was proof that time flew differently only between my Earth and my second Earth worlds.

So it wasn't a feature of the world, it was a feature related to me! The places I went to would get affected by this time difference.

And that meant this time difference thing was a thing related to me, not the world, not the universe, not the system or the apocalypse!

Then I recalled something I once heard and didn't think about before now.

Sith told me once about the old and sad story of the ancient angelic race. It was the race of that old man. It was the race that got entrapped in a loop of time for eternity until someone with the same abilities would go there and free them from such a curse.

He told me back then that the old man didn't just rewind me back in time, sending me to the start of everything. Sith was sure that I got a piece of that old man's power, a piece of that race's mighty power.

But he didn't state it clearly, he didn't say they were the ancient time clan Lily was speaking about.

Thinking about the time loop that race got entrapped in, the time rewinding effect that old man used on me, and the time difference affecting the world here… I got the pieces of puzzles together in the right order for the first time ever!

This race… It was a time clan race! And I got part of the old man's power, meaning I got the power to manipulate time as well!

Damn! Damn! This… This was really cool!

"Thanks," I honestly said to Lily. if not for her, I wouldn't have linked all these together.

"For what?"

"Just telling me information I wasn't aware of," I gave her such an indirect answer about her real contribution here.

I got the power of time, the power to manipulate and affect time. I could make a time difference to any place I'd visit.

Sometimes I'd accelerate time, other times I'd slow it down. In both cases, this was done out of my control. I didn't know how to control it, as I never knew I could!

But now… I had to find a way to better control this ability.

How? That was the million coins question.

"I just know much more than you do. After all I'm Hector Paragon, one who has taught everything about the universe since I was small. You are a human, so don't think about it too much."

She said this in a neutral tone, not arrogant or humble. "If you ever face anything that doesn't make sense, then seek my advice."

"I will," I honestly answered, "now, what do you think of the world here?"

"Sigh! Adding the fact that there is a time difference effect here, this world's value just skyrocketed!"

"But it's void of any monsters or other living creatures or races except for those I brought over."

"That's not an issue, don't you know there are many ways to bring monsters to any world aside from the apocalypse?"

I looked at the confidence overwhelming her face. She knew what she was talking about.

"What ways?" I had to ask. If this world got monsters here, it would turn into a heaven for my military forces.

The world was immense, much bigger than my Earth. So it wasn't bad to look for a distant part of it, maybe a different continent, release monsters there and let my forces train on them.

I also needed a source of meat. Back on my Earth, we had meat with no way to get crops. Here we got crops but no meat. It was ironic!

"There are many… Do you think the system created those monsters? No, there are many worlds with monsters only. The system only takes monsters from there and brings them here. As it does that, others can, right?"

"Can I buy monsters?! Like I'm buying races?!!"

"Indeed," she firmly nodded, "but not just in the same way. You have to look for hunters' impacts first. They will sell monster dens to you. Through these dens, you can let monsters be born and get to mate and increase their numbers fast."

"Dens?" I thought about the den thing I got from my deal with the three sovereigns. "But the monsters I'll get will be all young and weak!"

644 Let's Start The Test

"Not necessarily," she shook her head, "with the time difference bonus here, monsters will grow fast. They are monsters anyway, and breeding and increasing their numbers fast is their best trait."

"I see…" I thought for a second about the type of monsters I should get. I needed flying monsters to form a flying legion of mine.

If I could get many flying monster dens, then the problem would be solved.

"But… Finding those impacts is the real problem," she suddenly gave me such bad news, "they are so damn hard to find. And even if you found a way for any of them, it's much harder to convince them to help you."

"For real? Why is that?"

"It's how things work," she shrugged, "those hunters come from old and mighty races. They are very sceptical about dealing with new powers or names they don't know. Rumours say they got screwed before by many allies, so they grew suspicious and had such rules for their impacts."

"Aha, I see…" It seemed the treason ran deep in this universe! I got what she was talking about. It was just like what Soulers faced, what time clan true angels faced, and many other mighty races as well.

The alien universe, it was using the treason card to break apart this universe slowly, working over the powerhouses in it to weaken our universe..

And so far, their plan worked brilliantly! There was nothing harder to face than treason coming from friends and close ones.

We used to guard against enemies, lowered our guards with friends and family. But being a friend or part of the family doesn't mean you are a good one or something.

Souls… They were the most mysterious thing in life. One could be smiling in your face, while sharpening his dagger with poison to stab you from behind at any moment.

"So… How can I get to them then?"

"You have to look for a friend," she honestly advised, "a true friend who is willing to bet his name and reputation out for you. The best candidate is your god, you have one, right?"

Sith? Damn! This dude was always into something when I ever tried to contact him.

In normal situations, he would be too lazy to even respond to me! He wouldn't appear until there was a disaster befalling me, turning it into a big opportunity.

"He… Is quite busy," I sighed, feeling bitter to have such a mighty god without any means to get his help.

"Ouch! Then… You shall speak with your friends, friends from outside this world."

"I see…" Silverlining name popped up in my mind when she said that. The lady nymph would have come first in my mind, if not for what she just did lately.

"Without monsters… We can't train here… What a loss!" I related perfectly to her words and bitter feelings.

"It's my world, so it's not too late to come here and train after gaining monsters."

"So you have to work hard," she punched me weakly on the chest, "don't get lazy. You have something great here, and anything great needs more attention and much work than anything else."

"I'm not acting lazy at all," I said in defence, feeling unjust from what she said.

And my words made her laugh, seemingly she was just joking with me here.

"Ok, ok mighty human lord. Now, let's go back to your world. We have a test to do."

She looked around for the last time before vanishing inside the portal with me and my chariot. "Sigh! Only a few minutes passed here… Impressive!"

Once we got to Earth, she noticed that nothing much changed here. We stayed there for almost one hour. And that meant only three minutes passed here.

She got the same confusion and shock I got at my first travels between the two worlds.

"Let's go," I controlled my chariot and went directly towards the altar region.

As she said, everything was ready there. Her boys were scattered around a group of a hundred altar. Each altar had around fifty of my humans waiting, and on the side a pile of different sized and coloured potions were there.

They were ready, and only waiting for me.

"See? Everyone stayed like this for hours!" she pointed at the direction of the altars, and I could just jump over this point.

"Let's start then. What do we need to begin?"

"Just your presence, your eminence," she even did bow in such a theatrical way. This girl… She got too familiar with me.

Just wait until my fierce chick would come and see you act in this way. I swore she would devour you alive!

"Then go and let them begin."

"You should… Lower your chariot to the ground then."

"You can't jump down?" my chariot wasn't high off the ground to begin with. Using my rope, she could jump easily. Even the jumper could do it.

"No, it's not me, it's you," she rolled her eyes, "the altars will release a terrifying amount of energy. If you stay here, you'll either get entangled in this mess or affect the progress of this process."

"Ah, I see," I nodded in understanding before leading my chariot to a site not too close from the altar region.

She knew my chariot held a mighty shield, but she was worried this might affect the effect of the altars and potions. I agreed with her worries, and watched in silence while she was giving her Hector race boys the final instructions.

They stood also at the same distance away from the altars as I did. We were almost five hundred metres away, enough to stay away from any gush of energy.

"Can you have the honour of starting this?" She finally came to me after half an hour of talking and placing the final touches before beginning.

"Sure," I shrugged, took out my horn and made it audible all over the world, "Start! Let this be our historical moment of taking up all the human race to higher grounds."

645 The Hellish Struggle To Create A Dantian

Once I said, the humans started working. One by one, they consumed the potions in order.

It seemed there was a certain order to take these potions. First they consumed three, with faint colours of pale pink, green, and blue.

Then they went to the altar, and stood at the spacious platform of it. They sat down cross legged, closed their eyes while the other six potions lied in their laps.

"What now?" I waited for almost half an hour without anything else happening. They sat there, motionless, regulating their breathing as if they were cultivating.

But nothing else happened. I thought once they'd sit the altars would start shining and showing a change.

I imagined the altars releasing massive energy waves, helping them to start their cultivation journey.

"Shush… They need another half an hour," from the side, Lily whispered to me as if my voice was enough to disturb them. "They haven't started cultivating yet. So they are hearing everything and might get disturbed easily."

She kept whispering, even leaning closer to me to feel her warm breaths over my ears. Damn! That air… It made my body slightly tremble out of control..

In a reflex, I distanced myself from her with a metre or so. "Ok," I nodded, saying in the same whispering way as her.

She gave me a weird look for a second, hesitating to say something before dropping the matter.

I turned my attention fully towards the ones sitting on the altars. I wanted to see what was going to happen soon, ignoring Lily by my side for now.

Half an hour passed without any change. I was growing impatient when one of the five thousand humans here opened his eyes and stood up.

"What…" I was going to ask about what he was going to do but she stopped me by placing a finger over her lips.

Then she pointed in the direction of that human, and I saw him starting to climb the altar as if he was ascending a ladder.

And with each step he took, he emptied one potion in his mouth.

Each altar got five levels, each looking like a step my human boy had to climb.

The first two steps were easy, but the next three… It looked like he was struggling much to get higher, to climb to the top.

It was weird. The steps were there, and there was nothing stopping him from getting to the top.

But just the final step took him almost ten minutes and six failed attempts before he finally got there.

"He shouldn't stop, he shouldn't rest," Lily whispered in a low tone. I looked at her then at the human who was lying on his back, drenched up in his profuse sweat.

I didn't know what was needed for him to do next, but he looked too wasted in my eyes.

"Yes, stand up, that's right," but the next moment, I saw that human youth try to stand up, firmly leaning on his two fists to push his all shaking body up.

Slowly he stood up, and once he did, he swayed right and left giving me the impression he wouldn't last standing for much longer.

"Crush it! Crush it now!" from the side, I heard the anxious low tone of Lily. it gave me the impression that she was the one who was doing this trial, not my human!

And what was with what she just said?! Crush it? Shouldn't he swallow the potion or what?

That dude used eight potions so far, with only one left. It was the biggest, filled with pale white liquid.

Just as that dude swayed, this close from falling down again, he raised his fist holding the last potion and slammed it with all his might to the ground.

*Rumble!*

It was a simple potion made out of fragile material like glass getting smashed on the ground. But the effects it created was really mind blowing for me.

First the altar itself changed! The altar that stood all silent and cold all this time started to tremble. Every single ore there shone in bright light, making a myriad of colours coming from that altar.

The light was intense from the start. In the span of few breaths, the colours merged together to form a pale white light that started to gush out of the altar, going up towards the sky, getting more intense and width the more it got higher.

It looked majestic even from such a distance away! And the rumble it came started from the altar, and kept coming in rhythm like heart beats or something.

Then the next big change happened to my dude. He crushed the potion on the ground. And once he did, a gush of vapour appeared out of nowhere.

The potion got liquid, but once it got crushed, it turned into such a thick wave of pale white mist.

The dude got enveloped by this mist for a few seconds before it started to fade away. Just when that happened, I got to see the silhouette of that youth.

He wasn't down on the ground as I expected. Instead, it felt like his body got controlled by some sort of power, forcing his body to stand erect like it was a hammered nail over the top of that pillar.

"The mist… Is it the liquid effect?!" I turned to express my doubts to her. She nodded as she motioned to her lips again.

"Lower your voice, or else you'll disturb others."

"That… With all this chaos and noise, they didn't get disturbed yet?"

"These noises are only heard outside the range of the altar cluster," she shrugged, keeping her tone low, "and yes. That mist is the true form of the last potion. Or to be more precise, it's the result of the potion liquid interacting with the pillar and combining all the effects of the other eight potions inside the body of that human kid."

She pointed at the direction of the altar before adding:

"He now has to experience waves of pain while the eight potions are fusing together inside his body. The altar is like the fire baptising him, making the potions form into one thing."

"What?"

"A dantian," she said in a serious tone, "they will form a dantian inside their bodies. Then a few meridians will open next. How much I dunno. All depends on each person's abilities and talents."

646 Finding Hidden Gems

"I… See…" I now realise why that human was pinned in his place in such a way. He was forced by the link of the eight potions and the altar, with the last potion acting like a medium to facilitate all this.

As for the pain thing, well… My humans should experience hell if they want to gain power.

As I watched the mist getting thinner, I noticed it wasn't fading away. Instead, it was gathering around my human boy, forming a thin layer of pale white coat over his body.

And with each passing minute, that coat was getting thicker and much clearer to me. It was strengthening the bond between my kid and that altar.

The light gushing out from the altar kept rising up. The phenomenon was big enough to stir clouds around the end point of that pillar high in the sky.

This kind of energy… It looked quite fierce without doubt!

Lily was right. If I stayed there, and just imagined all these altars releasing such massive amounts of energy, I'd have ended up interfering with the process without doubt.

"Another is standing up," just as I was focusing with that kid of mine, another stood up and Lily just brought my attention to him..

He was climbing another altar, and was facing the same ordeal as the first one.

As he reached the top, more humans opened their eyes, stood up, and started climbing. All experienced the same thing. All had to go through the same trouble to reach the top.

*Rumble!* *Rumble!* *Rumble!*

More rumblings came from different altars while all the humans getting to the top of each altar struggled and fought with all their might to stand up and crush the last potion, releasing the same white mist.

One by one they climbed up, struggled to get to the top, and finally fought against the exhaustion and despair they all felt to crash the last potion.

White mist started to thickly appear in a large number of spots all over the place of altars. The more time passes, the more humans come up.

"So the last ones are the weakest?" After the passage of three hours, and out of the original five thousand humans, only less than a hundred remained seated at the bottom.

"No," Lily responded in a whispering tone, "it's the opposite!"

"Really?" I raised one eyebrow and couldn't help but ask for an explanation, "how?"

"Sitting there isn't just to prepare the mind and soul for the next step, but it's for starting to get acquainted with the energy in the world," she slowly explained, "so the more time one spent the stronger he would become."

"I see," it was related to getting familiar with the world's energy before starting the whole process. That meant those bunch of my humans had an affinity with the natural energy in this world.

Out of five thousands, only a few hundred had the talent and ability to become cultivators on their own. That was a very low ratio indeed.

I didn't need to ask, but give me any strong and famed race in the entire universe and this ratio would be much higher.

Without this trick here, my humans were destined to miss the train of cultivation.

Sigh!

This cheat way I had here had its limitations too. The process of making these potions was really long, tiring, time consuming, and needed lots of resources.

"What happens if someone fails to stand up and crush that last potion?" I asked when the last human climbed up and smashed his potion to pieces, releasing the white mist.

It took almost six hours for him to stand up. I took note of these less than a hundred human groups, deciding to shower them with more attention and care.

Strength wasn't only related to stats, experience, or being able to lead an army. Strength would come too from cultivation.

These less than a hundred humans were the seeds of the strong elites I'd nourish from now on. They would help in leading armies, doing missions, and be pillars of my kingdom.

"He will explode," she said, such a scary ending for anyone failing this, "I warned them already. Going through this isn't a joke. Either they'd live and become stronger, or fail and die as a punishment."

"…"

I looked in silence towards her. I never thought such a thing would happen. It was a choice, a hard to make choice, one that wouldn't just affect one's life, but might also end it.

"It's a relief all of them did great then," I sighed while looking at the mist and the thick pillars of light gushing out from the altars, "what now?"

"Now? We will have to leave them to end their transformation experience," she said, raising up her voice at last, "damn! It felt really hard to whisper like this all the time."

"You did great," I said in gratitude.

"Don't thank me yet," she turned her eyes away, towards the rest of the capital, "we just started. This path is long and dangerous… So don't expect all of them to succeed in doing something similar."

"I'll pray for their safety," I honestly said while moving my eyes around the capital, "my humans aren't weak or cowards! We have lots of negative traits, but none of these include any of these two."

"Fine then," she chuckled, "I'll keep watch here. You can go do whatever you want."

"In less than three days we will move out," I said in warning, "make sure to be ready, get everyone ready before that."

"Just don't go missing when the time comes."

"I won't miss that," I said with a short laugh while praying inside that I wouldn't miss that date and come too late.

During cultivating, I'd always lose track of time. That wasn't a good thing. But during the training, I'd be more focused.

And to me it always felt like it would take a few hours to train, ending up spending days and weeks in real time.

Damn hard!

647 It's Too Hard To Control My Cultivation Time

Three days… To anyone this would be a very short duration indeed. But to me, and in the second Earth world, this would turn into a much longer period.

Three days would take almost sixty days in that world according to my calculations.

Before leaving, I contacted all of my forces either directly or using messages. I told them about the date in three days, when we would start the big war.

I gave a general order for my forces to kill monsters without pausing, even asked for a large number of well-trained people to go to the ocean and start killing monsters near the shore.

I needed to secure lots of souls for Lucias and his men. And this way was the only thing I thought about.

Monsters in the ocean were in such large numbers to make it enough for their consumption. I also released my krakens and dragons, letting them fight to their heart content in the ocean.

Adding more of the aquatic races I got from the Bringold impact, I had a large number of forces working to kill monsters around the coastal line..

This would be enough to secure the needed souls to keep those soulers alive until the big battle's start.

I then checked over the current situation of all the enemies around my kingdom.

These forces didn't do anything new. Since they got out from the tunnels, they attacked the cities and towns and seemed to be satisfied with what they achieved.

I knew this was just the general setting before the real deal. And before that would happen, I'd come and crush these arrangements for that bastard.

I didn't just want to ruin this scheme, I wanted to go to the tunnels and explore them. However doing so was risky and would take lots of time.

I couldn't do it now. I had to wait until the fourth quest would start first. I had to see what was coming at me and control it. Once I stabilised things here, I'd aim towards that bastard next.

And at that time, the dagger I used before and left untouched all this time would have a time to shine.

As I finished my tour, I went to the second Earth world. The progress of building there was the current trend in that world.

I took a tour here before I went to the broken mansion of Hilary. Seeing it made me inwardly sigh. It was great this fiery girl wasn't here. Or else she would keep nagging about such damage and ask for a repair and compensation.

I sat cross legged, closed my eyes, and regulated my breathing. I went to check over Lucias and his army of soulers before finally coming here.

They were doing great. The training was progressing smoothly, without causing any trouble like that general did.

Even the five elites I gave to him didn't cause anything close to what he did before. I just hoped that once I started cultivating, things wouldn't get out of control.

Once I regulated my breathing, the fierce connection happened. The tempest of energy gushed towards me again, and I did like before.

But this time I tried to aim to not just absorb a small amount of energy. I tried to increase the amount I was absorbing while not over stressing over my meridians and dantians.

Time flew fast, and this time I tried to control my training sessions. I tried to stop every couple of hours to check over things and know how long I stayed in training.

But things didn't seem that easy! Time flew at a different pace during cultivation. At one time, I stayed for two hours training and when I woke up, I found that I stayed for two days.

The next session I stayed for two hours and found that I stayed for an entire month!

There was no rule! There was nothing to guide me here! Time passed in its own way, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't control it.

My third session lasted for three weeks, and my fourth lasted for two weeks.

Like this, I spent almost two months and ten days. I had twenty days left, and I greatly hesitated to start my fifth cultivation session.

If it took two or three weeks, it would be fine. But if it took one month or longer, it would be a great problem.

Two days passed in the outer world, leaving me more hesitant to start my training.

I knew my forces were getting ready by now. They would stop training, start arranging armies, assign squad leaders, small army leaders, generals, and the overall generals of each army.

There were tens of millions of my humans out there. Aside from sorting and arranging such a huge army, moving them out was also a problem.

Luckily Angelica selected a large number of humans from all the batches that arrived and assigned the task of cooking monster meat to them.

All the aquatic monsters killed during the training process, and all the monsters killed in the last battle in the capital were all cooked and turned into dried up rations for my army.

But moving such a big army and letting it take positions inside my kingdom would take long hours, at least ten to twenty hours.

That meant they'd take almost half a day time out there to reach their destination, and almost the same time to arrange and form armies.

So they'd start moving out during this day. If I started training, I might end up missing my deadline with them.

"It's better to go back then," I decided. After all, I'd leave my boys behind and start moving around to check over things.

I had to start scouting the paths my armies would take, to make sure there were no hidden enemies anywhere to alert the enemy about the movements of my armies.

Surprise was my biggest weapon this time. And I had to make sure he wouldn't sniff any news early on.

"Lord!"

648 Angelica Will Rule Over The Second Earth

Once I decided that, I moved out and went directly to Lucias. His soulers were still training, sitting on the ground while their bodies were covered in a thick layer of black fog.

But that fog was shining brightly from time to time, in a regular rhythm. Some of them had a slow rhythm, while others had a faster rhythm.

The faster ones had faint green colour appearing in the black fog. That gave me the impression they were evolving, close from breaking through or something.

But I had to stop them. I could just call them back and store them inside my inventory. However I felt like this would mess up with what Lucias was doing here.

"Make them stop," I ordered, "the big fight is drawing near."

"Right away, lord," Lucias seemed more respectful to me than before. It seemed during this time, and after testing my ability to keep him alive for all these days without struggling, I proved my strength and abilities to him.

In fact the number of souls in my class wasn't enough to keep him alive here for all this time. However thanks to my boys killing monsters during training, my soul count skyrocketed and kept rising up, making up for what this scary dude here consumed per day..

Adding all the soulers together, my daily consumption of souls was a staggering two million! That was a really high consumption rate. But luckily I kept it under check.

I waited on the side, while Lucias got his men on their legs. My first impression of them was good. They got stronger, and that was good news for me.

"Let's go," I called them back, stored them inside my inventory, all but Lucias.

"You will always be on my side," I told him my decision before taking another tour around.

I appointed Angelica to be the leader of this world during my absence. She did great leading the humans and races here, building almost five big cities and dozens of towns so far.

There was no need for walls or defensive structures. Yet I let her build a few every here and there.

I knew this world was a solitary one, secluded inside the heart of a fierce black hole, with no easy access to it.

But as the system brought me here once, it could bring more later on. Besides, the universe was vast and unfathomable. I wasn't sure there wasn't a way somewhere in the universe that might allow foreigners to come here.

The incident that happened to Lucias old mighty world was still fresh in my mind.

They were strong, much stronger than my current human kingdom. They were fierce, much fiercer than my weak humans.

And yet, their solitary world was taken away from them! He said it was thanks to treason, but that didn't negate the fact that solitary worlds were that safe and impregnable from penetration.

So I asked Angelica to start making forts on the big roads, and build a few defensive towers at the outer borders of the cities and towns.

I didn't want to overdo it. This wasn't an apocalyptic world after all. I just wanted the entire clusters of cities and towns to act as a whole unit, work as a gigantic fortress if things went wrong.

"Are you going to leave me behind?!"

She was surprised when she heard my order. I wanted her to remain here and supervise over the entire building process in this world.

"I have many, many capable men who can take over such trivial tasks! Your boy delivered lots of detailed drawings of the entire region. All they need to do is just follow these instructions."

She was referring to Isac. but she mistook my meaning here.

"I want you to stay here as a backup plan," I explained, "make your forces here ready. When I need them, you will come out to help."

"Ah, I see," knowing that she was going to take part in such a big battle made him chill out a bit. "I'll focus more on training my forces here then. The time difference will be in our favour. Just wait for tens of millions of forces next time you see me."

"Just don't overdo it," I felt like she was going to force everyone here to be a fighter, "we need them to mate and give birth to many human kids."

The cities and towns were bustling with life. But without kids running here and there, the general atmosphere seemed like it was lacking a lot.

The cheerful laughs of kids would turn any hell to a heaven. I wanted kids, I wanted as many kids as they could give me. I wanted my race to exceed tens of billions, hundreds of billions and even more!

Mighty races weren't just strong in their traits, physical features, and cultivation. They got a large number of their kin to fill entire worlds.

Just seeing any big race taking part in my apocalypse made me sigh. They had enough to even send worlds to take part in different apocalypses.

And the most shocking thing was that these worlds came from families inside these big races. How big were these races then?

I wanted my human race to rival them in everything, even in terms of numbers.

"I'll only support those wanting to be fighters," she shrugged, and I felt zero sincerity in her tone.

"Sigh! Just don't force anyone to join the army," I said in my last piece, "they saw enough of hell before coming here. Don't add more struggle to their lives. Not after they tasted the sweetness of peace and prosperity."

"Uhm, I'll keep that in mind," she said while I went back to my chariot, opened a portal, and went back to Earth.

The situation there was just exactly as I expected!

Lots of people were running right and left, led by the dragon riders of mine who took the role of guiding their movements.

649 Fools! The Got Stronger, So They Became Arrogant!

From every corner of my capital, all the forces started to move out. Like a gigantic beast, the colossal army of mine was getting amassed, arranged in eleven big armies, each dedicated to one of my trusted subordinates.

One was for me, one for the jumper, and one for Angelica. These three were destined to have a different path out of all the rest.

One of the jumpers would wait here for defence. I would leave the task of keeping my capital safe to them.

They'd scatter and take control over all the defensive structures finished so far. The building process would continue even during the process of this war, as one more fort or part of the wall getting done would make a difference in the end.

As for my and Angelica's armies, they both would go into my second earth world. They'd train under Angelica's command, getting ready to be deployed at any given moment as a backup reinforcement.

The rest would lie under one of my big names, including Isac and Lily. The two proved their worth so far, and they deserved an army under each.

I left such an arrangement before going to my second Earth world. And they were just following my orders..

As for the final plan of this war, the directions these forces would take, I had to wait until we all would be gathered to discuss things with them.

"This war… It's going to be formed from two big parts," after almost ten hours, the leaders of all armies came and gathered in my chariot.

All my friends were here, and they also brought a few of their trusted subordinates.

The five thousand humans cultivating didn't finish yet. It seemed the world energy here was so thin, not allowing them to finish so soon.

Cultivation took a long time to give birth to any fruit. Even my cultivation session took a long time and still didn't have a real impact on the level of my energy or my base.

It was a really long road that should have started a long time ago, since we were kids.

So I decided to leave them here, to help in times of need if things went south. I just hoped they wouldn't get interrupted and continue their training till the end.

"The first will start in ten more hours. We will move out and start aiming at the enemy inside our kingdom land…"

I went to the map drawn over the back of my chariot and started to draw an imaginary like using the tip of my glaive. It moved from high at the top, starting from Niagara falls, all the way down to the eastern borders of Texas.

"It looks like they got themselves stretched out pretty nice," the spearhead felt more confident than ever.

He got to train under such hellish circumstances, making him grow stronger and get a better hold at his ability.

He wasn't the only one getting such confidence, the rest also felt the same. Before this training, they were more like little kittens, afraid of any challenge, not wanting to fight a big battle alone.

But now? Each one of them was like a powerhouse in the making! Really giving things to the experts was the best decision I made so far.

I didn't even send a single force out to Fang. I didn't need to. Or I doubted the Selvators' training would be even close from the hellish training of the Hectors.

Even in big races, there were such differences that would make one mightier and more special than the other.

I wanted the best for my people. And that made me crave to get more Hectors.

That continent, that large piece of land that was close to that all silent pillar at the horizon… It was filled with tons of Hectors… I wanted them, I wanted all of them to serve my humans.

But that was left for later time. That continent was well secured for now. Once I'd get the chance, I'd rampage through all the forces there and turn them all into my followers.

"We are going to overrun them easily," Sara said in a tone of arrogance.

"Don't belittle them," I said in a serious tone, "they might look weak, but I fought these forces before. They have the ability to summon portals, sending out a large number of forces. If you underestimate them, then even with your millions of forces, you will lose!"

"This…" Leo looked at others while they showed their disbelief and doubt.

Seeing their confidence turning into such arrogance made me sigh. I was in their spot a few weeks before, and ended up learning my lesson with harsh losses.

"Being strong doesn't mean you are invincible. It's that damn enemy that outplayed us twice in a row and even dared to come and target our kingdom. Don't underestimate him. He isn't that kind of a fool to commit such silly mistakes. He left his forces out in the open for days now, without adding any more support to them."

"Your meaning…?" Hilary looked at others in a warning way, seemingly warning them from saying anything about what they believed.

"He is preparing something, and waiting for us to come at him. It's not logical to take such a long line without making an attempt to broaden it! He has a scheme, and that scheme will be scary. Not to mention…"

I moved to another spot, where the ocean was the ruler there. "… We got Hectors on our rear. If the two forces combined efforts, then during our all out attack, they will move."

"You mean…?!!" Isabella asked while she and others got what I was speaking about.

"That's part two of this big war, the hardest one. I'm sure that bastard will summon gates and bring forth tons of monsters and mercenaries to keep all of you entangled while the Hectors will come and hit our capital."

"We can stop them!" the spearhead spoke with the same arrogant tone, "We aren't the same, boss. We got trained, got stronger, and even our forces got stronger. We won't get entangled with anything! Nothing will stop us!"

650 Making Plans For The Epic War

"Don't be a fool," I had to hit him with the blunt edge of my glaive on the right shoulder, "even the deadly jumper couldn't break free from them, even when he led a vicious army of monsters."

"…!!!"

Using the name of the jumper scared them at last and brought them back to their senses.

Sigh! Why the hell didn't they trust my words and when I brought up the jumper's name they started to seriously consider things over?

Damn! Were they seeing the jumper as a stronger person than I? Screw them!

"But boss… The jumper… That dude is crazy…" Leo spoke in such disbelief. I recalled how badly the jumper treated this dude here at first, and that seemed to leave a dark spot in his heart and soul.

"I'm just telling you about what happened," I shrugged, "if not for my timely arrival and immense help, that dude would have ended up losing too much, or even lost his life.".

"…!!!"

"I don't want to see any of you missing next time," I said in a serious tone, putting an end to this point, "so try to not feel too overconfident about your true abilities, don't belittle your enemies, and always give justice to whoever is fighting you. And now…"

I closed up this page before pointing at the general map, "such arrangement of the enemy must be matched with a similar one from us. So, I'm going to assign only two armies to lead the frontline battle."

"Only two?!" Hilary asked in doubt, "shouldn't we add more? Stretching out two armies over such a big area is risky."

"That's needed," I knew what she wanted to say, but we were forced to take such a route, "we have to assign these two to keep the enemy busy. As for the rest, they will scatter in the lands behind these two armies. If the Hectors didn't come, they will move forward after assessing the entire situation."

"What if the Hectors came?" Alex finally spoke, "will they leave the frontline alone?"

"We have eleven armies here," I said, "three are out of the picture. The jumper's army will keep the capital safe during this time. Mine and Angelica will stay away for any urgent situation. So we got eight armies ready…"

I started to explain the general situation in much detail to them, "two will handle the frontline enemies, while the other six will be arranged in three main groups…"

I moved my glaive around the map, pointing to six spots I selected before, "two armies will be close to the frontline, three will be close to the capital, and the last one will be stationed in between the two."

"This…" Sara wanted to say something, but I stopped her with my eyes.

"The two near the frontline will be asked to go and support the frontal battle if things get heated up there. The three around the capital won't move until Hector's come."

"What if they didn't?" Leo asked.

"They won't move then," I gave my final order, "I won't risk sending armies away from the capital. Our lands are very vast, and sending armies far will be tricky."

"You seem quite sure about the alliance between that enemy of ours and the Hectors," Hilary said, and I firmly nodded.

"If I were him, I won't miss this chance at any cost," I slowly said, moving out my eyes around each single one of them, "and his top priority shall be to lure away as many forces as he can, leaving the capital unguarded and vulnerable."

"Hye is right," the all silent Lily finally spoke out, "my race… They are strong and also cunning. We know where our good traits lie. We have tons of aquatic monsters. That seemingly large distance will be covered using their help in a matter of minutes!"

"This…" Hilary paused while Lily continued:

"Our most beloved way to win is by using an element of surprise and coming with everything we got at an unprepared enemy. Having such a flashy victory has a great taste for us."

"Listen to the lady," I stepped in, "she is one of them, and she is the best to say her opinion about this."

I paused for an entire minute, giving them time to absorb what Lily said.

"Under no circumstance I'll give the order to move a single troop of these three armies," I stressed over this, giving them my word for that, "as for the last one, he will remain alert, waiting for my notice to move wherever I'll point."

"What about that bastard?" Hilary rolled her eyes, "that jumper? You left him out of this entire plan."

"He will play a different role," I got something itchy about the northern borders of my kingdom.

That enemy moved his forces to line up in such a way, attracting the attention of most of our forces stationed in the mainland, mostly at the central part of my kingdom.

But when I went to help that jumper, the size of the forces there… The preparations that the bastard had were getting on my nerves actually.

The jumper just moved north out of the blue in the enemy's eyes. Despite that, the enemy was able to summon such a large and fierce army to hit the jumper badly.

And on top of that, the enemy had time and abilities to lay out a deadly trap there at the big lakes there.

This… This all pointed out to one simple fact; that the enemy had strong forces in the north.

When I looked at the big map on top of my chariot after explaining the plan, I got an inspiration.

All of my forces were stretched deep and away from the north. If an army came from the north, from where Canada was before the apocalypse, and another army came from the Hector continent from the ocean side… Just imagine that!

Things would turn ugly for sure! My capital would be cornered from two directions, with enough forces to overrun any defences there.