“Got it,” she seemed a bit energetic before she started to get herself busy sending messages. Good girl! She added many to her friend list, making it easier to get in contact with the dispersed humans.
“They are all coming back,” after a few minutes of silence and working, she raised her head and said in a tone filled with the will to fight.
“Do you want to lead this fight?” I noticed her desire for battle.
“Will you protect me?” out of the blue she pointed her two index fingers against each other and in front of her face while a cute look appeared in an irresistible way.
“Your safety is out of question now,” I sighed while helplessly smiling, “go, have fun and don’t over exert yourself.”
“Thanks, you are the best ever,” she jumped and crossed the one metre distance between us as she painted a soft kiss over my cheeks.
Then with a bright smile she sent me her farewell before descending to the ground.
“This girl…” I shook my head before watching her back vanishing amidst the ruins, “come… make sure no harm will happen to her.”
A group of twenty soulers appeared around without making a noise. They nodded and vanished using their superb speed, leaving behind only a long trail of black smoke.
“I’ll keep watching them from above,” as I had nothing else to do, so I decided to scout the area first.
The battle didn’t seem threatening but I had to be careful from any surprise attack. Who knew, that crazy dragon might just send his men over and make them infiltrate the city while the attack was going on.
As I decided so, I flew up using my intermediate version of my chariot. At this point of the apocalypse, only first grade water monsters would appear.
As for the ground monsters, they would show an upgrade by the appearance of new more powerful versions of the monsters.
Hyenas would grow sharp steel like spikes that would appear like thin needles. They would gain some protection against physical attack, but it wouldn’t differ much as their fatal weakness would still be there.
As for wolves, they’d get three small spikes in the middle of their heads. Their claws would grow bigger and become sharper. They’d be deadlier than ever but not to make me worry.
The new monsters to appear would be the spiky tiger, the mammoth lion, and different versions of poisonous scaled snakes.
Against each of these monsters, my forces might struggle. Yet each one had a weakness that I shared already with Karoline while she was training her troops.
Hopefully they’d learn their lessons and remember them quite well or else the death toll would be simply immense.
In a few minutes, my chariot brought me to the top of the western river. There I spotted a few groups of snakes and crocodiles that weren’t like anything on earth.
“So they are amassing the aquatic forces here,” from high stature I could see clearer than anyone else. The aquatic forces were gathered at some point, just directly opposite to the heart of Jersey city.
A sneak attack directed at the heart of my city… That looked promising as an idea. But who said I would let them have their way?
[Send a small army to guard the west border of the city, close to the direction of the city heart] I sent it to Karoline and she responded with a smiley face.
“Alright,” I didn’t stop there and kept wondering about the area beyond the river. What disturbed me was that not a single enemy force was spotted near here.
Then why were those aquatic monsters gathering up at the river? That was a puzzle that would soon be cleared.
In ten minutes I was almost about to give up looking in that direction when I saw something flashing. My chariot was moving at its normal speed when I noticed that something seemed to get shaky before returning to normal.
Would it be…! I didn’t hesitate to stop my chariot, returned to the spot I saw that strange refraction and couldn’t find anything abnormal there.
Ruins were everywhere and nothing looked amiss here. But I knew what I saw.
“If you thought you could mask your presence from my eyes, then you’d better use another method,” I opened my chariot’s interface and simply clicked over the energy pulse wave and released it.
In a radius of five hundred metres around me, the energy pulse wave moved fast like it had no rival. It looked like a wave of clear silver water from my position, and in the middle of that wave… Islands began to appear.
“Roar!” “Attack!” “Kill him!” “Roar!”
Many shouts and roars came from all directions around. To my surprise the enemies weren’t just one simple group, but massive groups of enemies that extended even beyond the reach of my pulse wave.
Damn! Did they think they could counter me with numbers alone?
Just with these shouts, the stealth cover they used to mask their presence was removed. I saw familiar faces in front of my eyes… a race that I totally missed during my calculations; the illusionists!
“So you are the real ones leading this attack? Interesting…” despite seeing thousands of them leading thousands of other races and tens of thousands of monsters, I didn’t flinch back.
The reason was obvious… I got my chariot and I was airborne and they weren’t! If they wanted to hit me, they had to exert double effort and would gain nothing in return.
“Activate the fully powered version,” I slowly said and instantly my chariot ignited with more power before a dense wave of attacks came.
*Sizzle!* *Boom!* *Bang!*
Different mixed sounds came when their attacks met my shield. My shield was something that even the god tears of their race didn’t even scratch. Not to mention the angelic deadly star weapon.
In a span of ten minutes, and after attacking continuously to the degree of lighting me up, the attacks finally stopped and strange silence ushered over everything around.
It was such a heaven deafening silence, one that would exert an irremovable weight over your chest and soul.
It was my presence’s irresistible threat that they all felt.
If they couldn’t even leave a scratch over my chariot, and I didn’t even budge an inch from my place, then things were clear to them.
Even if they came at me with such a grand formation of tens of thousands… They had zero chance of killing me.
Would I be able to kill them? That must be the question rumbling echoing inside their heads at the moment.
“Let me give you the answer then… Come forth my babies… come and kill them all!”
I didn’t summon another warrior but my precious soulers. They were simply killers, predators to any other race.
Summoning and releasing them over such a large army was like letting sharks lose in a herd of salmon fish.
And I helped from the above, releasing everything I got inside my chariot’s arsenal. Of course my chariot missed my mighty Gollems and their deadly giant ballista bolts. It also missed the various warriors working on the defensive platforms and weapons here.
Yet the fight was simply described as one sided game. I didn’t stand in my place and kept roaming around.
My first task was to scout and scan the area. Such a grand army couldn’t be simply summoned in response to a short call from the angels.
This one was being prepared long before that. “So I didn’t only attract the wrathful gazes of the dragons, but also the illusionists… interesting!”
It was the only explanation I got. After all, everywhere I went was filled with illusionists and their allied races. I flew over for an hour, scanning an area of a few miles on the surface.
The sheer number of forces here was really big. This army would only answer to one leader; an archlord.
I missed the illusionists’ archlord from my calculations. But who said I’d get chickened away by such a person?
If he was that dragon dude then I’d be threatened. Yet against such a stealth loving cowardly race, I got nothing to worry about.
Who knew? I might even slay an archlord tonight before even moving a finger against that dragon archlord.
[Be careful, the army is led by illusionists] I sent Karoline in warning before adding, [Make sure to use AOE attacks all the time. They can escape your eyes but can’t escape the attacks you release]
[So we shouldn’t go outside?] she asked before adding, [What about the force you asked for earlier? I’m hearing scary sounds coming from that direction on the other side of the river]
[It’s me clearing some flies] I sent, [Don’t scatter your forces and make sure to arrange magicians all around and they must be well protected]
[Ok]
[You shall stand down for now] I paused before adding, [Go to the behemoth body. My warriors there will keep you safe for now]
[Are they this dangerous?]
She didn’t see the horror of illusionists in one Vs one situations. [They are deadly if you faced them head on]
[I got my skill. I’ll stay here until I feel things aren’t safe]
This girl… Fine then.
“Come!” without going into an argument with her at this moment, I simply called forth two of my biggest dragons and ten of my small ones.
“Here, take these,” I gave the ten small ones enough stat points to turn them all mighty like the other two. Now I had fifteen grand dragons, enough to make me feel proud of myself.
“Go and make sure to keep Karoline safe,” I said to them before adding, “she has a team of soulers to protect her. Make sure they surround her tightly and guard her well.”
“Leave it to us, my lord,” one of those who gained their new powers said before others roared, “but this fight here…”
That bastard was acting sensational as he got something nice from me. “Just go and leave things here to me,” I waved my hand to them. In this fight I didn’t need their help unless something new came up.
What was weird though was the fact that the enemy didn’t plan on running away. Even when I roamed and scouted all their entire force, they didn’t show any signs of fleeing.
Why was that?
I kept flying over, taking endless attacks coming from down below without causing any harm to my chariot. In return for that, my soulers were clearing group after group of the enemy at a fast pace.
Those dudes only needed to flash through any enemy’s body and then it would be over. Their ability to kill was really terrifying. I needed to go back and ask for more of those monsters.
Against such big armies, having a small force of them wasn’t enough to clear the enemy or scare them fast. This might be the reason the enemy didn’t flee yet.
After all they only saw me and a few of my soulers fighting. Why would they run away then?
But something felt off here. What if they brought someone terrifying? What would be terrifying of such a race?
Don’t tell me… without hesitating I summoned two swords of mine and instantly turned around, raised them high up like I was holding daggers and not swords, then landed heavily on the ground.
*Clang!* *Clang!*
Was I overthinking it? My swords hit nothing but the empty ground of my chariot, releasing sparks of orange fire everywhere for a brief second.
But what was that? I felt like something flashed in front of my eyes the moment these sparks appeared.
“There!” without hesitating I turned around and landed another blow over a place only few metres away from me to the side.
*Clang!* *Clang!*
This time I saw it clearer… Someone was definitely here!
“Alright dude, your cover got blown away already,” I stood erect while having a calm expression on my face and a teasing smile.
A shadow master! We met again in the shadow master race!