Chapter 1225 Things Aren't Quite Right

So why did Hescos stop showing up? I looked closer, and the doors of the underground forts were still opened and not closed. I thought Sara found out something and managed to block the entrance of these forts, or even blew them up.

However this didn't happen. And I couldn't tell what made the Hescos stop coming out from this layer.

I first took out lots of bones, filled the flat space down at the bottom with many warriors and left tons of stat crystals for them to consume. As for the ones who were already here, I sent them out to help Sara control the second layer.

There were close to forty million warriors, mostly with filled up stat points. They were a strong force, and I didn't hesitate to send them over to help Sara and the other five generals.

The armies were still coming from the portal till now. They were helping to fill in the gaps created by the lost forces on my side.

At the same time, many legions of big guns were sent here from the research department. They joined the battle early on, since the coming of Sara and her army. But in such battles, their contribution was still low.

If they wanted to show off their might, then they had to switch places with those forces up at the highest point of this fortress.

If I managed to do that, then this battle would have a frightening turn over.

I just took a wide glance around before shifting my attention towards another place, the second layer.

[What happened at the first layer while I was away?] Before deciding what I should do next, I had first to understand what happened back at the first layer.

BEst

What the Hescos did there didn't make any sense to me. I smelt something fishy, and so I wanted to know more about how they conquered this layer.

[What? We came, we crushed them, and we conquered that layer] she replied in such pride before adding, [And watch while we are going to take the second layer and layers beyond]

[I didn't mean that] I knew she misunderstood my point, [I want to know how you managed to stop the outflux of the Hescos from the underground forts]

[Oh, about that… It happened so sudden. Once we took over the entire layer, I led people over these forts and found no one there]

Found no one there? My heart clenched the moment I heard these words.

As I feared, there was a dirty plot behind this. [Did you send anyone to scout these forts?]

[I did, and all they found was empty tunnels and deserted forts]

Interesting… I paused for a long minute, thinking more about this weird incident.

There was one simple and dangerous explanation for all this… The Hescos wanted us to lower our guards and go for higher layers and then they'd come to backstab us.

Such a nasty plan was scary. Luckily for me, I got a glimpse of how huge their forces up there were.

If I didn't, I might have suspected they ran out of forces and couldn't keep up with mine.

As I figured out their plan, what should I do then?

I have many options in front of me. First I'd leave behind forces to take over the defences at these forts, making the best use of these.

Doing this would alarm the enemy and make the Hescos realise their plot got exposed.

It would be safe to do so, but it would also be quite passive. I didn't like such an option and instantly discarded it.

The next option I got was to play alongside them, feign my fall into their trap and continue doing things as if I never suspected anything.

Doing this meant I'd never leave behind a single soldier to keep an eye over these forts. It'd make the enemy lower their guard and continue building up their plans over this one.

This option was quite risky, as the enemy would come in large numbers the moment they decided to move out. Trying to stop all these forces up there from coming here was pointless.

It'd be a losing battle, and my only hope would rely on one simple factor; my warriors.

I could take out tons of warriors and let them get stronger using stat crystals. This would end up perfectly well if I managed to raise tens of millions, hundreds of millions of warriors even and stored them away in secret.

I could do that. In such a chaotic battle, doing such a thing wouldn't be noticed by the Hescos. But it had another drawback.

I should station myself all the time here, or I should store the location of this place using my staff and jump here when needed.

But if they sealed the space here, or the space up there, then I'd be strangled and wouldn't be able to arrive in time to deploy my forces.

I wouldn't fear storing up warriors after filling their requirements of stat points. But my biggest fear would lie in the second variable, my presence here when the Hescos started their counter attack.

I sucked in cold breath and decided against doing this plan. If I did so, the enemy would always have the upper hand and I'd be on a more passive side all the time.

"I should be more daring," I clenched my fists while considering my third option.

The enemy wasn't the only one capable of drawing plans, I also could do that. The enemy also wasn't the only one able to make a counter attack, I also could do that.

I took a long and deep glance over the deserted forts at the first layer. "If they want to do this, then they'll wait until my forces claim more than half of these layers…"

I knew doing this would take days, and that was enough for my crazy plan.

After all, doing what I planned would take a couple of days to get accomplished.