When the vanguard arrived, I saw a grand gathering of a race waiting for us there.

They didn’t have the same complicated and dangerous looking defences like the Hescos had. But they didn’t pale in comparison in regard to numbers.

The place my forces appeared at was like a normal place in my world. It was filled with many cities and towns, with working portals in their skies.

This might be something good. After all it wasn’t that easy to find such a gathering of cities and towns with working portals in the worlds I opened so far.

Yet the race waiting for us out there looked like they were prepared for my arrival.

They gathered up tons of their forces, took refuge in the cities and towns. They had some sort of shield protecting these towns and cities, and they had many big guns out there as well.

They were standing in positions as if they were ready for a big war. My first guess was that our timing was bad and we arrived just in the middle of an ongoing brutal fight in that world.

It was either this race was prepared for an incoming hostile race, or they were just resisting zombies.

But after sending out the five armies formation and many weapons to help, I didn’t see any zombie or another race coming.

“Weird…” I didn’t hustle much about it, and simply let Lily and her capable generals lead that battle. Then I opened another world using a ticket, and there I found a similar situation waiting for my forces.

The part of the world my ticket opened at was filled with many towns and cities. They were heavily defended like before, and the race there was standing in wait as if they expected us.

One happening might be considered a coincidence, but two in a row wasn’t! This time I closely watched the fight for an hour or so, compared it with the fight going on in the previous world.

“They have weapons suited to long defensive battles… They can’t have arranged such weapons on a whim… That’s fishy!”

I muttered to myself while thinking about this. The first and only explanation I had was for the Hescos to interfere and pull strings from the shadows.

If this was true, then I’d expect just taking down one town or a city would cost my forces a hefty price.

“A battle of attrition then… That’s expected…” and after opening five worlds afterwards and they all showed the same weird scene, I knew the real aim of the Hescos.

I was now sure this was all planned by the Hescos. There was no other race or power in the entire apocalyptic trial who would target my forces like that.

In addition to that, seeing this confirmed my earlier doubts about their ability to foresee the opening places of my tickets.

And that wasn’t all! They must have the ability to change the places of my tickets to land in the middle of such densely packed hostile races, towns and cities.

After opening seven worlds in a row, it was clear what their goal was. Just sending five armies to each world wasn’t enough, it wasn’t even close enough.

The five armies sent in the first world just managed to claim their first town. And they lost a lot in the middle of this.

If I wanted to just control the entire landing places there, then forget about sending five armies, sending twenty wouldn’t even be enough!

The main issue my forces faced was how tightly packed these towns and cities were. If they tried to target one, the others would retaliate. And if they tried to target all, their forces would get stretched and be in danger of losing too much and accomplish nothing.

My generals out there tried everything. Some tried to send little forces to each surrounding town and city, to keep the forces inside occupied while focusing on taking down one city or town with the rest of the forces.

On the surface, it looked like a good idea. But when these generals tried this method, they failed.

And the reason behind this was that the enemy didn’t stand idle and watched my forces execute this plan smoothly. They sent out large armies from the far away cities and towns, and these armies landed on my big army and made the entire plan fail.

When the generals retreated and tried this method again, but left behind more forces to stop any incoming enemies from far, the remaining force they amassed wasn’t enough to take even a town down.

The sole town that fell into their hands fell after paying a huge cost. The generals there had to throw away any tactic, and went with everything they got towards a town and took it.

They paid a hefty price for doing so, but eventually they managed to claim this town. The defending forces there weren’t as big as those in a city thanks to the difference in size.

And the first thing these generals did after seizing up that town was to send for an urgent request for reinforcements.

“This can’t go on like this,” I turned to look around. My armies seemed endless, but I knew this wasn’t true.

If this kept going on like this, then before reaching the final battle with the Hescos then most of my forces would be lost or being occupied inside these useless battles.

Tsk! Dealing with these Hescos was indeed a pain!

What shall we do? Lily sent after her repeated messages for the request of sending more troops to these worlds, They won’t last long this way

Don’t send anyone, I’m going there to reinforce them myself if they wanted reinforcements, then I’d simply act as one.

I left behind the recordings and the gears needed to operate them to Lily. I asked her to distribute them all over the two worlds I got for everyone to watch the might of their lord and their kingdom.

And then I passed through the pillar of light and vanished through it.