"I will try to keep them busy as much as I can, but we can't be too careless, right? Let's be ready for any trouble. Also send for Gor, make him prepare for walls and towers drawings and send some of his trusted workers to build many towers and a huge wall here. This mine will take time to be emptied, so we need to turn it into a real impregnable fortress."
She nodded, as she simply replied:
"I will relay all of your orders to him. Do you need us to go and capture more villages and towns? Do you want me to bring more workers from the city?"
"Nope," he shook his head firmly, "don't go out on your own, and don't accept any surrendering villages and towns here. who knows what tricks this wicked clan may pull."
"What if people come announcing their surrender to me?" she asked, feeling the heavy responsibility lied on her shoulders already.
He patted on her head while muttering:
"Just send them back to the direction of the city. all the area around here and towards the city is under our control now. you can send them with clear consciousness."
She felt a strange feeling as her hair was played by his fingers. her cheeks reddened expressing her anxiety as she glanced elsewhere while softly saying:
"What if they refused to leave?"
"Then kill them all!" he simply replied, before adding:
"This place is important, very important. Consider it as our clan's biggest secret place. treat it this way and never let any outsider in."
She nodded, as she understood all her responsibilities and his warnings well. He would prefer to leave Tina here as he initially thought, but after eliminating the threat of those villagers and their slave curses, there was no need for him to waste Tina here, especially when he knew the next fights will be really hard and stressful.
"Do you need any help from warriors here?" Lily asked, as she watched Arthur jumping over the back of Tina. "No, just keep things running here until I come back. I will try my best not to take much time there. let's go."
He said, while Sara jumped over Tina's back as well. She had eaten a lot of meat already while Arthur was freeing the villagers. Arthur then headed straight towards the portal, and the moment he did, he found himself standing on a huge place, dark, covered under a thick cloud of black fog.
"Just think about the map in your mind, and choose the star you wanted to head at."
Sara's whispering voice came as he closed his eyes and pictured the map in his mind. When he opened his eyes, he found the fog was gone, and a huge map was there, and he was standing on top of one of the stars.
The stars were all shining with bright red light, except for the one he was standing above, which was lightened in blue. Other stars were lightened in green, while five were dark black, dimmed not shining with any light.
"Can you see what I'm seeing now?" he asked.
"Sure, these green lighted stars are other gates opened here like the one we came from. Those red ones are the places hiding pillars inside, while these five are the ones you already conquered," she explained while pausing for a moment, "never thought you managed to snatch five pillars from their hands in one go."
He smiled and didn't comment, as he noticed the presence of thin silver threads, easily missed, connecting all these stars together. "Should we go to them?" he asked.
"Sure, anyway other than these routes isn't safe."
Her reply confirmed his guess, and as such he glanced at the map again. There were many red stars here, but few green ones. He noticed that most of the green ones were concentrated on the other end of his place, while no other star was behind him.
He started to memorize this map in its full version, and his mind began to formulate an invading strategy to all of these stars.
"We should start from that way," he pointed towards the right, as there were around twenty red stars there with no single green one at all. "Are we going to invade the green ones too? Mostly they are related to treasured places in this world."
He thought about her words well, but he didn't need to take such a risk. He was strong, but he had few fighters on his side, really scarce actually. So, he needed to venture carefully, trying not to alarm the main clan so soon.
The problems would start after finishing another area like this, standing to his left, as the remaining front would start to show green stars every now and then.
Dealing with green stars would prove to be challenging, especially that large number of them, exceeding twenty, clustered around another twenty red stars at the other end of his location.
"Let's deal with this one bit at a time then," he thought to himself, before patting on the head of Tina as he moved her large head towards certain direction as he said:
"Move straight forward there, don't take any turns."
Tine nodded as she already felt how dangerous it was here. she moved towards the direction he specified, penetrating the white fog in front of her. After a few minutes, they reached a red star, where they could enter the hidden pillar there.
"If we entered, then how can we go back here?" he asked, as this question popped up suddenly in his mind, just moments away from reaching the star, making Time pause from stepping over it.
"Inside every forest there is a portal linking it to here," Sara replied after retrieving the memories she absorbed.
"What is the preferred location of this portal?" he asked, as he didn't recall any portal inside the five hidden forests with pillars that he already conquered and obtained.
"It's usually located inside a large shack, where they store all the resources harvested from the pocket world, usually one kilometer away from the pillar location."
"There is a shack with resources stored inside?" he strangely asked back with much joy over his face. Any resources were welcomed and as she nodded, he closed his eyes and entered the heavenly garden with his consciousness to confirm the presence of such a shack.
The garden had seen ground shaking changes in the past days, as its size grew to reach a magnificent size of ten times its original area, covering many parts of the five black forests in green, adding more territory to it.
The purified conquered places weren't dead after all, as all the black trees turned green, and this black dead soil turned into a lavish coat of green grass, plants, and different types of herbs, declaring their allegiance to the heavenly garden.
He smiled when he saw this scene, and what made him happier was the fact that there were still nearly half of these forests unpurified yet.
As for the monsters, those dark monsters were now purified into normal monsters, gaining more power and boost through living here. He also saw many mating together, and some were already carrying their babies in their bellies.
"It seems time passes here quite differently than the outside world," he thought to himself, as all these changes weren't able to occur within a day or two!
The next thing he did was to scan one of the dark forests, looking for the place described by Sara for his shock, he found a large town, built entirely of simple wooden shacks, without any living person inside.
He wasn't polite and started checking a random sample of these shacks. Inside each one he found a huge pile of resources; ores, trees, even monster remains like blood, bone, and even horns were stockpiled there.
He also found some shacks with many scrolls regarding formations, and others filled with different strange types of potions. "It's a treasure trove, I have found a treasure trove!" he laughed wildly as his heart was throbbing with excitement and greed!
"Where they should put the portal then?" he got out of one of the shacks as he began to think about the most important thing right now; the portal!
"It should be in the central largest shack here," he guessed it, and then he started to look for such a shack with such a description.
And he found it! it was, strangely, an exact copy of the warehouse he just conquered. His mouth went wide from excitement, as he delved deeply inside the big warehouse, to be faced with an exact copy of the one he just came from.
This shack was filled with another kind of ore he didn't know about, stored in layers upon layers, left there unprotected and calmly waiting for him to grab them all! When he went to the central dome, he found two there!
"This isn't good, I need to seal these portals leading to the clan fast," he muttered, as he retrieved his consciousness, opened his eyes, and said with mixed feelings:
"Let's go, I have located the portal to this map already."
Tina heard his words and then went towards the star. The moment she stepped upon it, a flash of light enveloped the three of them, and in the next moment, they all appeared inside this large warehouse.
"Have we gone back again?" Tina muttered in confusion, but Arthur hurriedly patted her head as he softly whispered:
"Low profile, let's keep a low profile for now."
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