If he joined hands with that dragon overlord, then things wouldn’t end up well for me. I had such a trophy to claim, why should I lose it then?

To do so, I had to make a feint attack first. And so I opened my friend list, and sent a message to Fang.

Do you know where that dragon archlord is right now? And his forces? Are they near Jersey city?

The answer came swiftly as Fang sent:

He is in the west, one hundred and twenty miles away from your city. His forces are yet to set out, so they are just limiting their activities in twenty miles radius around that dude

So he was far from me, that was such a relieving news for now.

*Clang!*

“You won’t find me, hahaha! You can’t, hahaha!”

Again that bastard was killed in my shadows using my sword. Two times were strange, but three? Something seemed wrong here.

One had to know the shadow masters could only move between shadows. I was all alone all this time, so where did he come from?

I looked around and all I could see was only my chariot and nothing else. Yes, he was hiding there… Then…

I opened the market and started to look for something that could help me kill all his shadows around. Just in few minutes, I finally found something useful.

The flying leaf of the lightning tree: Consumable item. Once used, it will fly for a hundred metres above the user’s head. The leaf will emit dazzling light resembling that of any star, radiating warmth as well. The area of coverage is a mile radius around the user. Can last for one day. Price: one hundred thousand coins

“Buy twenty,” I didn’t hesitate and the next moment I found the leaves inside my inventory.

They were in the shape of broad long silver white leaves. Once I took one out, that small icon inside my inventory turned to a big leaf with a length exceeding ten metres.

Then it floated out of my hand, flying for a hundred metres above my head. Once there, it seemed like it got burnt by some sort of lightning as many thin dancing blue arcs of lightning started to dance all around it.

Light came, and heat as well. The entire area of one mile around me got bathed under the bright and warm light from this leaf.

Races coming from other worlds were fine towards this sort of light. But monsters weren’t. Just when the entire area got lightened up, I started to hear many painful roars coming from everywhere.

“You deserve this,” I ignored all of these wails as I started to take many swords out of my inventory and threw them all over the chariot.

Each place my swords hit left behind a deafening roar from that illusionist. He was hiding inside my chariot as expected, taking advantage of all the shadows in here to hide his presence.

*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*

I kept walking step by step while throwing as many swords as needed to cover every single inch on the chariot’s rooftop. It took me roughly twenty minutes to clean the upper floor, then I started to head to the lower levels.

“You won’t be safe no matter what you do!”

“I’ll kill you! Do you f*cking hear me?!!”

“F*ck you, damn bastard!!”

And with my swords killing the shadows, the illusionist started to shout in panic and rage. It was clear he planned to keep harassing me using this dirty little trick of his.

But now I was killing off all of his shadows, leaving all blind in the dark.

After two hours, I finally cleaned the entire chariot from his annoying presence and also gathered up my swords.

“Now let’s arrange things here first,” I didn’t hurry to leave. After all, my chariot was hung midair, away from the reach of that bastard.

Lead your men and go to secure the north border of the city I sent to one of Fang’s men and also sent the same message to the reinforcement army who came from New York city.

I also left another small instruction before finally starting to move.

Of course my army here was enough to clean the enemies, but they’d take time. I was sure that the illusionist was still watching my moves from down below, so I headed west first.

My target was a city marked on the map drawn by Isabella and Leo; Newark city.

It wasn’t really my target, but I had to take a detour while going to hunt that bastard. I also wanted to check over the status of the cities close to here. Who knew, I might find something interesting or something worthy of my attention.

But the distance to that city wasn’t short as it appeared on that small map. I travelled for two hours before finally seeing a glimpse of that city’s damaged buildings.

“It’s like Jersey city,” I stood away from the city, enough so that my light wouldn’t reach there. I tried to call back that leaf but couldn’t. It seemed once used, one had to leave it high in the air.

It worked quite well against monsters, but it also was like a beacon to anyone standing afar. I was sure that those races inside the city were already aware of my presence a long time before coming here.

The city had five big gates hovering in midair, scattered across its size. I used my hawk skill and watched different zones of the city.

“They are amassing a big number of forces here,” without the need to go into the city and scan its castles, I knew all the humans were either killed or trapped in cages.

“Alright, let’s go and free them then,” despite this wasn’t in my plans, but knowing a large number of humans were trapped and would soon be moved to other realms made me act.

I was alone, and the enemy had a large number of forces. But who said I was weak? I got my chariot, and I got something else.

“Summon twenty dragons!” Just as I approached there, I instantly used up almost half of my soul points and summoned twenty small drags.

*Roar!*

They all roared in unison, before turning to my direction and bowed.

“Don’t come here,” I stopped them from approaching my chariot. After all, I cleaned it with difficulty from the filth of that illusionist. I didn’t want any shadow to hide here and keep tracking my movements. “Come with me, and kill anything I attack.”

My plan was simple. Against such a large number of enemies, only direct brute force would work.

Just as I came closer to the city, the first wave of attacks came. “Activate full powered version,” I didn’t hustle and released my strongest shield before following it with a wide ranged attack of my pulse wave.

*Boom!* *Boom!* *Flash!*

Just as I flew inside the city for five minutes, killing any resisting force that was here, a flash of red light fell over my head without any warning.

“Damn! I totally forgot about them,” I instantly summoned back all my drags and kept attacking while the star beam of light descended over the top of my head.

My chariot’s shield was strong enough to resist the attack. So I wasn’t worried about the angels here. Yet my drugs would die if left alone out there.

The beam lasted for twenty minutes straight. Those angels here seemed to be so filled with blessing points to the degree of releasing such a long attack as a welcome.

“Time to free humans,” as the third attack ended, I started to fly directly towards the closest portal.

It was protected by a dragon race. The moment I got there, I instantly released my dragons, and a big fight erupted.

The fight was simply one sided, where the dragons tried to resist and depended over the gate for that.

Yet I didn’t aim to control the castle, I only flew directly towards the gate and claimed it.

As I cut the source of their reinforcements, taking control of the castle was an easy thing to do. And by its fall, and the death of all the drags and their allied forces here, I eliminated one troublesome enemy at the beginning of this fight.

“One down, four others are left to go,” the next target was a gate controlled by berserkers. Those dudes were really warmongers, who didn’t listen to my words until I crushed the gate and then they started to listen.

“I have a friendship with your leader,” I said before adding, “leave this city and walk to another one. I won’t kill any of you after this.”

I had to admit, I thought dragons were hard to argue with before. But after taking almost an hour of arguing with Berserkers, I knew the latter race was on the top of the most stubborn races list in the entire apocalypse.

And they were also slightly dumb! I had to kill half of their remaining force before they finally listened to the sound of logic and left the city.

“Damn! I have to speak with him about this,” as I watched their fast vanishing backs, I opened my friendlist and sent a message to their leader.

I’ll see what I can do about that he only sent this back, giving me the impression even he wasn’t enough to control his people.

Damn! What did that race have inside their minds? Axes and swords or what?

“I have to see Selvators next,” I also sent a message to Fang without moving against any other gate.

I kept roaming the city, killing all the enemies I faced until Fang sent only one word back:

Done!

I liked that dude. He knew how to do business, swift and decisive. Not just like the other one, humph.

As I turned around the city, I noticed one group was on the move. Unlike what I sent for Fang, he didn’t order his forces to withdraw and relocate, but rather to hit the other two remaining gates with a large number of forces.

“That dude… He is acting greedy,” I shook my head when I saw that. As he wanted to take a gate, then fine. Let him take one and I’d take the other.

The one I moved towards wasn’t the illusionist gate. After all, those folks were troublesome to deal with. Last time I hit their gate they showered my chariot with many of their members.

If I wanted to claim that gate, then I’d have to call back my soulers. They were the only capable ones to deal with them swiftly. But that would also bring that bastard back to my chariot.

So I took a small detour and headed directly towards the gate with many girls standing on their walls and defensive towers.

“Kill!” without saying a single word, or listening to any of their bullsh*t, I sent out my dragons in an attack while following with my pulse wave.

The fight didn’t last for long, not like what happened at the last gate. The illusionists were cowards, but even a coward with a push back to the wall would definitely bite back.

The last fight would last for almost three hours in my best estimate. I didn’t stay for that long as I left after sending a message to Fang, arranging how to control the city.

So you want three gates and release all of your humans? Pay one gate and I’ll consider it he sent back, trying to bargain with me.

If you want another gate as a price then it’s fine, but you can’t just offer such little help in return for that

What price do you want then? That dude seemed so desperate to take one more gate here. I knew the reason of that. After all this was related to the end goal of the second quest.