The two options held much importance in different aspects. However the one that I leant towards was the confrontation solution.

I wasn’t the kind to play all safe at such times. Great risks would bring great benefits. But that would require more attention from me towards the situation here.

“I’ll store the bookmarks of all big cities and key places here then,” I started to think about the best way to solve any uprising problem.

I knew problems would keep rising up all the time. These races wouldn’t just accept my presence next to them and swallow their big losses here.

In this war, the races lost big. Many archlords were killed, even paragons were lost. I believed the biggest race to suffer here was the Dragons followed by Selvators.

As for the Illusionists and Succubi, they were a bunch of cowards and cowards lived longer than courageous ones. Their losses weren’t any big at all.

If they got a speck of ambition and courage, they’d work to expand their territories in such times. But I greatly doubted that.

So the Dragons would try to expand their territory here. More archlords might come into the picture and their paragons might also appear from time to time.

But after killing all these paragons so far, the paragons here would start growing a fear towards me.

As for Selvators, if that paragon of Fang didn’t start depending more over him, let him expand his territory here and even didn’t show signs of appreciation and intention to upgrade his rank, then I’d force Fang towards expanding his territory and aim to work on his own.

Having a backup that didn’t work for your benefit and just hindered you wasn’t a good thing indeed. Getting rid of his useless support was the best course of action.

I might even let Fang seek another paragon’s help for now. I didn’t know how they could upgrade in ranks in their races. Was it an automatic system action or did they need the decision of a higher up in their race like a paragon?

I frankly didn’t know the answer, but I intended to ask Fang for it once we got secured.

Go up north I sent this message to all of my teammates, Fang, and Wryly. As for the jumper, he kept sending threatening messages, making me totally ignore what he said for now.

That dude just needed time to rest up.

Can I come up now?

Hilary never gave up on getting up to here. Anyway the situation became slightly stabilised. The forces were now almost this close from getting out.

I’m coming to pick you up, assign someone to lead your army until I arrive

I knew her current location, but gave her a few minutes to find someone to lead the army. As I reached her place, I threw the robe down and let her climb to my chariot.

“I was sick and worried about you.”

The first thing she did was to jump at my arms, leaning her body over, and give me such a warm and deep hug.

I couldn’t reject such a body thrown into my arms like this. As I held her and sat over the thick arm of one of my Gollams, she didn’t speak for a long time.

I felt something warm running down my arms and chest. When I checked it, it was her running tears.

This girl… She was really worried about me!

“Don’t worry like this,” I couldn’t help but softly whisper while slowly touching her chin, raising it up to make her eyes meet mine, “I’m not that weak or soft to be crushed by such things.”

“But… The world was bathed under a mighty red pillar of beam that gave me an instant scare! Then you vanished! Totally vanished like you were never here in the first place.”

Hearing her say that made me sigh. It looked horrifying indeed. But that wasn’t even close to what happened.

“I was the one to control such a beam,” I had to reassure her, “that attack was done by me.”

“Really?!!” she looked at me in surprise and doubt, and I nodded. Just seeing her alluring face and eyes from so close stirred all the heat inside my heart.

And when I heard her soft voice coming in such a way, my own will failed me and I ended up painting a soft kiss over her lips.

“Hye… I…” she seemed a little embarrassed, shy as if she wanted to ask for something vulgar or something.

“I know,” I painted another soft and slightly longer kiss this time over her lips to seal her words inside, “but let’s end this battle now and be together later.”

“Is that… For real?!!” her eyes released another gush of tears, and I slowly wiped them.

“Silly girl… I’m all yours.”

Saying that seemed to release a great pressure off my heart and shoulders. And when I said it, her eyes stopped crying and her face started to beam in pure happiness.

I had to admit… Seeing her smile and brightened up face made me happy. I didn’t know why, but at this moment the image of Karoline’s face appeared next to her, then it started to slowly fade away.

Karoline… She lacked a lot when compared with this goddess of beauty and strength lying in my arms right now.

Well… Sorry Karoline, but you first walked away from me and now you lost any chance for us to be together anymore.

What a twist in fate!

“Now what?” she wiped the trails of her tears off her face, adjusted her body to sit freely opposite to me, “where are we going now? What are we going to do?”

“We will not abandon the empty territories here,” I looked up at the map before adding, “we will control most of the central zone and east region.”

“With our forces?” She seemed doubtful about this plan, “we lost a lot, you know that, right?”