I never thought about it. My big chariot fell into the lake waters like it was a dead big piece of rock! The water never entered through the shield, yet I couldn’t control the free fall of my chariot.

This way I’d end up closer to the gate, unable to even touch it. What a frustrating feeling this was!

Do you want to acquire the blessing of the aquatic building?

You’ll need to pay a price of one million stat points to use this ability on you

You’ll need to pay ten million stat points to use the effect of that building over you and over your mount

Do you want to pay?

“Pay ten million!” I shouted without any moment of thinking. At this critical moment, delaying a second would make a difference between life and death.

Just as my chariot started its journey to sink into the lake, I realised the reason behind me not being able to see things clearly down there.

The bottom of this lake wasn’t as superficial as I thought! It ended up in the shallow bottom for most parts, leaving behind a deep big hole that extended for a couple hundred metres in radius.

From that hole I could see herds of monsters coming forth from that shining gate deep there. From the look of it, my chariot would end up almost five hundred metres away from the edge of that hole.

That meant I’d be like a sitting duck if that building didn’t do its magic quite soon!

Just diving down for a few seconds told me a lot about how hard this fight would be. Water worked its magic and dealt a great blow to my warriors’ strength.

The attacks that could rumble the ground turned into much weaker forms down here. Even if I had all my forces with me, this fight wouldn’t be as easy as I thought.

As I kept shaking down below, the number of aquatic monsters coming at me directly swelled up to a terrifying figure. The lake was like a bottle, the surface was narrow and the depth was wide.

With such width, I knew that my ten thousand monsters working together wouldn’t be enough to shield my chariot off the incoming hostile monsters.

The only way for me was to dive directly towards that deep hole, aiming for the gate and shutting it down.

With this the influx of monsters here would be cut, and this fight wouldn’t take much time to be concluded.

Ten million stat points are deducted from your inventory

You now enjoy the blessing of the aquatic building of Albany city for one day

If you want to extend the duration, you’ll need to pay similar fee per day

*Fwoosh!*

Like my chariot was breathing underwater, giant bubbles appeared out of nowhere, engulfing my entire chariot. I could see turbulent currents of water roaring fiercely around my chariot, while a bright wave of white light emitted from it.

The blessing worked, and now it was time to put it under testing.

“Move forward!” The first thing I did was control my chariot forward. Unlike every other time I used it, I didn’t limit it to thinking alone.

I didn’t know if this blessing needed verbal orders or what, but there was no time to test it. I could see many monsters jumping into the water, coming from the other four gates inside the city.

Even with my warriors standing on guard up there, their numbers seemed too much to control. If this kept going for just ten more minutes, I’d be doomed to fail this attempt here.

Failure wasn’t an option here. I wasn’t fighting to secure this city, but for my futuristic battles, for my future.

I didn’t know what worked, but the chariot started moving. Its speed wasn’t anything compared to its speed in the air. But at least we were moving.

The currents of water created by my chariot was enough to send away any hostile monster coming at us from the sides and back. That left a lot of pressure over my forces, and I gave them the order to focus all their attacks over the front.

By this, all the incoming monsters didn’t pose any threat to me. Yet when I got near that hole, my chariot was bombarded with lots of heavy attacks coming from monsters defending the hole.

These monsters looked different. They were slightly bigger in shape than the other ones, almost double the size. They got three arched arms, very tall and thick seven octopus-like tentacles. And they had a layer of pure red energy surrounding their three arms.

Their projectiles were much fiercer than the others. And they had enough numbers to exceed a couple of thousands. They were floating just below the hole, forming a series of completed circles down there.

“You prepared a welcoming party for me? How rude I didn’t bring gifts,” I snorted back while pushing my big girl directly towards the hole.

Attacking with more advanced and much stronger monsters? It wouldn’t make any difference pal. This gate of yours would fall, and soon others would follow as well.

Once I reached the hole, the number of monsters killed by my forces was enough to block the entire lake as I expected earlier. But thanks to the expanding parts of it here, they only filled a small part of the ground.

“Energy pulse!” As I reached the hole, it was my priority to cause a disturbance at the defensive forces first. These bigger monsters seemed to keep coming from the portal down below, increasing in numbers by almost one thousand during the last few minutes.

Yet when my chariot unleashed the pulse wave attack, all the projectiles crashed and were forced to fall back. It wasn’t only the projectiles, but also the defending monsters were hit as well.

Part of them wasn’t ready, it seemed, got carried away with my pulse wave. As for the projectiles, a good part of them fell over their heads, causing more injuries and losses to these monsters.

“Keep firing,” and amidst all that, I moved my chariot through the hole, finally passing into the much bigger cavity underneath.