The more I heard, the more inwardly shocked I became. "Tsk! These Hescos truly live up to their name as the first race in the universe," I muttered to myself while attentively listening to every word coming out from this coward's mouth.
According to the tales he told me, the Hescos were forming an alliance with the angels supervising over my world apocalypse. They collected all the information they could about me and formed a grand plan depending on my points of weaknesses.
They knew about my usual style of fight, and knew that despite being strong as a sole person, I lacked strong powerhouses by my side.
By his description, my strongest and weakest point was the acquisition of different artefacts. Aside from them, I was powerless in their eyes.
So they planned everything from the start to take this point of strength away and turn it into a weakness instead.
I have to admit, they thoroughly studied me in such a short amount of time and managed to spot my fatal weakness.
The artefact in his possession was considered the weapon against my Achilles heel. They depended on sealing my artefacts to render all my artefacts useless.
They did a great job in that for sure. That sealing artefact gave me quite the headache already.
And that wasn't all!
They also got another artefact they didn't use yet. By what he said, this one had the ability to seal up space.
They didn't like my staff's ability to store locations and allow me to jump all over the world.
My staff wasn't an artefact, but it was a very crucial piece of gear in my arsenal.
If they managed to seal the space all over me, then I wouldn't be able to jump and help my forces or escape with my life.
As for that artefact which shattered my group of shields before, it was held by a paragon as expected. That dude was in the main base, which Matte told me about its location.
When I learnt about that, I knew why he tried to run towards the tunnels when I tried to catch him.
The base was underground! And as I guessed it before, the entire defensive area was remodelled by the help of lots of underground Hescos.
The Hescos turned this zone into such a complicated defensive zone. I asked him about how they managed to accurately pinpoint my location not only once, but twice.
He told me they used the help of someone in their race, with the gift of foresight. I thought about this dilemma before, and ended up with the explanation that they might have done something to tamper with my tickets opening.
But they didn't. As he told me, it was practically impossible for anyone to interfere with the tickets.
As for the location of that base, it was at a place I'd never expected at all; just around the hole opening!
It was hundreds of metres below that safe area I conquered from before. At this moment I knew why the Hescos kept attacking me in such a fervent way even when they were losing too much.
It turned out that they didn't want me to control that region, or else their headquarters would be jeopardised.
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It was in a place I'd never expected. When I thought about it, it made quite sense.
After all they planned everything to trap me inside that pit and rain down hell over me and my forces.
My sudden move towards the surface was pretty unexpected to them it seemed. They didn't plan that much ahead in the case I managed to infiltrate their surface area of defence.
As for the entrance to that base, it was from the pit itself. The highest layers there were linked directly to the base, even considered part of it.
The number of forces they gathered was already too much, more than what I expected. They still got tons of forces stationed outside the defensive zone, waiting for a chance to join this war.
Even if they tried to do things in haste, they failed to do everything they wanted. The base they built couldn't accommodate all the forces they assembled here.
Per his words, the Hescos gathered up all the paragons in this world, all the generals and capable forces, and even their controlled races in this world.
These races were like the Berserkers and Selvators who ended up under my clutches.
The amount gathered was enough to be described as most of the Hescos in this world. I didn't know what to say. I knew they'd amass a big force, but not to the degree of summoning most of their forces in such a way.
They used many treasures to facilitate the movement of their scattered forces from all over the world to here. That meant they got much more force than I hoped for.
The good piece of news amidst all this was that they already gathered up their paragons and capable generals in the base. As for these forces, they were led by second rate leaders and generals.
Yet even if they were considered second rate, I wouldn't underestimate them too much. They just had to cross a big distance and walk through a devastated ground to reach the base and the places of the big fights.
The tunnels connecting the layers in the pit with the surface here didn't extend beyond the base. So these forces didn't have any access to the hot spots right now.
But I'd not lower my guard. Even if they'd show up late, they'd still come. And when they would, the line of reinforcement would be established, delivering an endless supply of forces towards here.
In short, I'd have little time to act. And I had to strike hard to secure the paragons and generals, or kill most of them.
Once I realised this, I hurried up and started flying back to the base.
I tried first to use my staff, yet the space was sealed. I didn't feel any panic. As I knew the paragons and generals wouldn't send for the outer endless armies to come here yet per Matte confirmation.