As I finished checking these grenades, we were on the outskirts of Jersey city.

I had to admit, this city looked really ugly at this moment. Unlike the bustling city with life from before, this city was more like a graveyard.

Everything on the stretch of my eyes was filled with scattered ruins. At many spots there were still many long tongues of smoke rising from the ground.

In brief… it wasn’t a city but one of those deep scars which the apocalypse left on Earth.

“What happened here?” The girls gathered around me and looked in surprise towards the city.

“It’s the natural thing after any fight in the apocalypse,” I simply shrugged before turning my attention towards four places.

Five big gates hovered hundred metres above the ground in four different places. The fifth was already mine, so I first went towards the other four to claim them.

“What are these?” Leo asked while his eyes were glimmering in bright light. He was curious, of course, like any human.

“It’s a gate,” I stopped the chariot only a few metres away from the gate. I jumped over the edge of the chariot while adding, “it links our world with worlds beyond ours.”

“Alien worlds?” he asked, “like those in movies?”

“Dude,” I rolled my eyes while the message of acquiring control over the gate flashed in front of my eyes, “from where did you think all these monsters came from?”

“…”

He didn’t answer and I wasn’t looking for any. As I got control easily over this one, I moved towards the other three.

Until I gained control over the last gate, I didn’t lower my guard. The first gate I conquered wasn’t an easy task at all.

But for some reason, not a single sound came from the other side of the gate. I didn’t know why and I didn’t care.

“Let’s check the monster,” as I completed this task, I looked towards the fallen mountain that was at the south part of the city.

“Let us go and control the castles here,” Isabella said in a fighting spirit.

“Don’t get overheated about this,” I started to land my chariot on the ground before adding, “there is no enemy or a single monster remaining here.”

“We have to conquer them anyway,” the spearhead stood as usual on Isabella’s side and I only nodded.

“Can I also go?” Leo said while stealing sneaky gazes towards Angelica.

“Go with him,” I said to the two girls. After all, I didn’t need their help in the upcoming process.

“Why us?” Angelica seemed annoyed, but Alex jumped to stand with Leo. it seemed she found in Leo a way to annoy Angelica, leaving a faint smile over my face.

“What about me?” Karoline, who kept standing silent during this journey, asked.

“You’ll remain with me,” I said in a decisive tone. Of course there was little chance the angels of this city would pose a threat over her. But I didn’t like the idea of her moving away after things calmed down here at last.

“Alright,” and as an obedient girl she nodded, making my heart palpitate for no obvious reason.

“I’ll take my men with me,” Leo’s sound came from down below.

“Give the others half of them,” but my answer was swift and held a hidden message. Dude, they weren’t your men the moment you joined my forces.

I saw a flash of disappointment over his face but before he could answer, Angelica nudged him by her arm. “We will do that, boss, right?”

“Y… Yes,” I dunno why but in front of Angelica he looked a bit nervous.

The few thousands inside my chariot evacuated and distributed over the ground. As I rose up again, I could see the earlier army that was led by Sara working all over the city to claim castles.

“They can control everything before the next quest starts,” I said in content before turning my full attention towards that dead behemoth.

It was a treasure trove in my eyes. Once I reached there, I didn’t find only the jumper but also another figure.

“Hi,” I said to Fang, “Did you wait for so long?”

“I just came half an hour ago,” he said.

“Where did you go?” the jumper asked in an impatient tone, “we are pinned here without knowing what to do. I hate standing idle!”

“You have to get accustomed to that,” I ignored the two for a second before summoning the rest of my warriors, “go,” I pointed at the enormous behemoth and they all flashed towards it.

“Do you plan to mine this thing?” Fang asked in a surprised tone.

“Do you want a piece?” I asked, “I can trade some with you in exchange for good things like these.”

I took out the big weapon I claimed from the leader of the dragons. Just by taking it out, Fang realised what I did.

“You managed to kill him? Hahaha!” He laughed as if he was surprised to see proof of me killing that dragon.

“He tried to run away, but how can I let him do that?” I smiled while the jumper nodded in praise while examining that weapon in interest.

“Keep your hands off,” I said in warning, “this is mine,” I took it back before turning to Fang, “so can we make such a deal?”

“Sorry pal,” he shrugged, “my items are only mine. But you gained something nice here.”

“Stingy Selvator,” I murmured while turning my eyes towards the giant behemoth, “don’t tell me this thing is a common cabbage in your eyes.”

“It’s not that,” he shook his head before adding in a bitter tone, “if it was up to me, I’d rather take a big chunk of it. But my things were given to me by my family, and I need them to survive the upcoming fights.”

“As if you are weak to feel threatened,” I sighed, “aside from that dude, the girl of that succubus race didn’t have such nice things.”

“That’s expected,” Fang said as if it was something granted, “both aren’t archlords. But dragons are dragons after all. Even such a regent had such weapons in his inventory.”

“Regent?” I asked, “what does that mean?”

“It’s our pyramid of leadership,” he explained, “any race coming here will have such a pyramid of ranks. On the high top are the mighty and heaven-selected paragons. Way down the ladder the regent stands and archlords are just one rank above them.”

“Ah,” at this moment I recalled what the angels addressed him with from before, “so you are an archlord? Damn! Now I feel more regretful for not killing you!”

“Hahaha, if you had the ability to do that why didn’t you do it?” The one to answer wasn’t Fang but the jumper.

Dude… stop bricking me at every corner!

“Anyway I need to leave the city soon and go north,” Fang said before adding in a serious tone, “mentioning the archlords, you need to watch out from the dragon’s archlord… that dude is really ruthless.”

“As strong as you?” I asked, trying to get an assessment about that dragon.

“No, I can’t even compare to him,” but unlike what I imagined, Fang shook his head. Damn! Even such an archlord of Selvators admitted that dude’s superiority. “He is scary!”

Before I could ask more, a system message popped up in front of me.

And I wasn’t the only one to get such a message.

The main second quest is now officially starts

Quest details: for the next week, you are asked to take control of as many emblems and castles in your city as possible

According to the final number of the controlled emblems and castles in the city, the rewards will be assigned accordingly

“This…” I stood in daze while looking around, “where did those angels go? Aren’t they supposed to give us the quest?”

“You scared them away,” the jumper said while shaking his head as if this was something funny in his eyes.

“What did you get?” Unlike the two of us, Fang kept standing still for five minutes. Once he waved his hand in the air closing the window that he could only see, I asked.

“I got a quest as you did,” he said before noticing something was wrong, “what? Didn’t you get the quest details as well?”

“It was just two sentences only,” the jumper looked at me like I was a criminal or something, “thanks to certain someone, the angels seemed to be so pissed off.”

“Hahaha, that’s funny, hahaha,” Fang laughed and the jumper joined him. These two… why did I feel the urge to slap them on the face at this moment?

“What did you get?” I asked, “a quest to control cities and try to open gates to our world?”

I already knew about the real content of this quest. Of course I didn’t have anything to do with that short quest. It was already settled before that humans would have only such a lacking explanation regarding this quest.

“You ask as if you know,” Fang gave me a weird gaze, and he wasn’t the only one to look at me like this.

“Don’t tell me you got a different quest than me,” the jumper showed more doubt than Fang. After all that dude remained by my side for so long and he knew more about my mysterious things.

“I got the same short quest,” the all standing silent Karoline finally spoke up, “it was only two brief messages with not much explanation.”

“Then…” the jumper’s eyes flashed in bright light but I simply ignored him.

“Did you get that quest to open a gate to our world?” I asked Fang again, and this time he simply nodded in agreement.

“This quest isn’t going to be simple,” he said, “after all there are many stages and levels of difficulty in it. The largest reward is regarding merging our worlds with yours… why do I have the feeling that you already know about that?”

“I just had a tip from my god,” I gave such lame excuse that didn’t even convince my girl.

“Sorry pal,” Fang turned over this page as he added, “in this quest I’ll have to attack humans and control as many cities as I can.”

“It’s not that bad,” I smiled mysteriously, “you do what you have to do, and I’ll do my task towards my race as well.”

“You…” he gave me a deeper gaze before sighing, “anyway you should be quite busy in this city and its surroundings. So I’ll retreat away from here and go up north. But… that dragon archlord… he will be a nuisance for you… and me…”

“What do you know about him?” I asked but before I could hear his answer, I heard a bustling sound coming from one direction. It was a group of my force walking towards a nearby castle.

“You already freed your people, that’s good. I was worried you would miss them.”

“Feed my people?!” it suddenly hit me, “damn! Don’t tell me there are humans trapped in cages in the gate castles!”

“Not only these castles,” he shook his head before adding, “it’s all the castles in this city and many castles in ten miles around it.”

“You!!!” The jumper suddenly jumped and grabbed Fang by the collar. That dude was emitting dangerous air, but the next instant Fang released a far more dangerous air pulse wave that even pushed me a few steps backwards.

And the jumper didn’t fare too well against him.

“Sorry man, but this was something I had to do,” Fang said in a neutral tone, “we were enemies before, don’t forget about that. I just came to alert you about these people. After all, the destruction here would mask any of their presence.”

“Damn!” The jumper didn’t stand a single moment as he darted towards one direction. He was such an impatient dude to move alone.

Instead of being controlled by anger like him, I simply opened my chat and sent the order to all of my girls, Leo, and the spearhead about this info.

“Thanks,” I said in an honest tone, “I almost missed that.”

“No problem pal,” Fang shrugged.

“What about that dragon archlord then?” I asked, “what do you know about him?”

And instantly his facial features changed to show how serious this topic was.