?When Thirteen opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the blue moon, which the natives of Solterra called Chandrea.
“A dream?” Thirteen muttered.
Just as the last dregs of sleep were starting to escape his senses, he felt something wet on his cheek, so he used his hand to wipe it.
‘Tears?’ Thirteen thought as he looked at his wet fingers. ‘No. It wasn’t a dream.’
He didn’t know how it happened, but he managed to meet Callie in a Dream World.
There, he asked her to pass all her memories to him so that he would be able to come up with a plan to counter the people of Artem.
Thirteen recalled everything he had said in that dream and Callie’s reaction to his words.
He could still remember the resigned look on her face as if she had already accepted her fate.
The only thing she wished for was death, for that was the only way for her suffering to end.
“As if I would let that happen.” Thirteen covered his eyes with his right hand. “If I can’t even save one cannon fodder, how can I possibly defy fate?”
A few minutes passed in silence when suddenly, the thing that the boy was sleeping on, moved.
Thirteen found himself gently sliding down from the back of the Devil-Horned Honey Badger, who had been waiting patiently for Thirteen to wake up.
“Good Morning, Cranky.”
The ten-year-old said as soon as his feet touched the ground.
The Honey Badger ignored the boy and walked away in order to hunt for its breakfast.
It was giving the “It’s not like I waited for you to wake up before I look for food, okay? Don’t get the wrong idea” vibe, making the boy shake his head as he watched the Rank 8 Sovereign of the Warsor Plains walk away.
But before Thirteen could even do anything, he heard several voices from behind him.
“Look! It’s really him!”
“Wow! So the stories were true!”
“Be respectful, okay? Our King once said that Zion has a very short temper.”
The ten-year-old couldn’t help but scratch his head because he was starting to remember everything.
Due to the difference in time zones, it was nearly midnight when he teleported from the Branch Headquarters of the Raziel Brotherhood to the Valbarra Archipelago.
Since Thirteen could revisit the places that he had been in the past once a day, he had set a waypoint beside the Monolith of Heroes, which had been built to honor him and his subordinates.
The Monolith had become a pilgrimage site of the entire Archipelago.
Everyone undergoing their coming-of-age ceremonies was required to visit the Monolith of Heroes before they were recognized as true men.
The Devil-Horned Honey Badger didn’t attack these pilgrims and tolerated them to a certain extent.
Cranky had already marked the Monolith of Heroes as part of its den, so no one dared to desecrate it in any way.
Also, guards were stationed to guard the Monoliths.
A representative of the Barbarians, Tigerkins, Trolls, and Ogres would always be at the site, keeping law and order.
These guards would stay to watch over the Monolith for a week before being replaced by another set of guards who would also stay for a week.
Since Thirteen was hailed as one of the Heroes of the Realm, those who were making their pilgrimage to the Monoliths looked at him as if he were a celebrity.
“Hey, is it possible for you to pass a message to your Kings?” Thirteen asked the guards, who were looking at him with a respectful gaze.
“It is possible,” the Barbarian Guard replied. “We have messenger hawks that allow us to communicate with our respective Lords. Do you wish to send a message, Lord Zion?”
Thirteen blinked because being called Lord Zion nearly made him look behind his back to see if the guard was referring to someone else.
But since he knew that he was the one that the guard was referring to, he just nodded his head.
“Yes,” Thirteen replied. “I need to pass a message to your Kings. Can you give me something to write on?”
The Barbarian didn’t hesitate to procure a scroll, as well as a piece of charcoal that could be used for writing.
Thirteen scribbled a few words on the scroll, stating the message that he wanted to pass along to the leaders of the Valbarra Archipelago.
After writing the letter four times, he passed them to the Guards so that they could deliver them as soon as possible.
After he passed them his letters, the ten-year-old did a few stretches before sitting cross-legged on the ground.
“Time to eat, Tiona,” Thirteen said as he handfed the Black Snake a small Beast Core.
He had plenty of food in his spatial storage because Adira made sure that he took the food supplies she prepared before heading to the Valbarra Archipelago.
‘I will return to the Arcadia Archipelago after two days,’ Thirteen thought. ‘I just hope that everyone is doing their work properly even if I am away.’
Right now, there was a variable named Albion who might get in the way of his plans.
However, with the restrictions that had been placed on the Unicorn by Metatron, it would be extremely hard for him to defy Thirteen’s orders.
Because of this, he decided to bring the Unicorn back to Arcadia so that he would be useful for a change.
Thirteen had ordered Albion to help Uncle Boo communicate with the Rank 5 Monsters and above of the Archipelago and fight alongside them.
What they needed right now were numbers that could match the army of Otherwolders that would appear on the island during the Lunar Eclipse.
Their enemies both had quality and quantity, so it was very important that these monsters cooperated with his plan.
Similar to the Wanderers, the Gate of the Moonlight also worked on monsters and beasts.
The Gate didn’t connect to a single place.
It connected to multiple places.
If the Wanderers were to pass through it, they would find themselves in Pangea.
As for the monsters, they would appear at a random place in Solterra after passing through the gate.
Simply put, the Gate of the Moonlight was the only way to survive the massacre that was about to take place.
If hundreds of monsters and Wanderers were to all head in that direction, Thirteen believed that even the people of Artem wouldn’t be able to stop all of them.
Now that he had acquired Callie’s memories, he now knew the strategy that his enemies were going to employ when they descended on the Arcadia Archipelago.
Thirteen was someone who kept his promises.
So, he would make sure that the invaders who had made Callie suffer would also be at the receiving end of his counterattack.
‘Such a dirty strategy.’ Thirteen sneered after replaying the young lady’s memories inside his head. ‘Fortunately, I also play dirty. Let’s see whose dirty strategy will win in the end.’
Thirteen understood that he was fighting an uphill battle because he was unable to use Rune Magic at this time.
It was no longer possible to create an ideal battlefield against the people of Artem.
When he used his Rune Magic to help Mikhail clear his mission, it didn’t sit well with Laplace Demon and The One.
Because of this, he was banned from using Rune Magic to help his family members clear their missions.
If Shasha wasn’t in the Arcadia Archipelago, then Thirteen would be able to use his Rune Magic freely.
But since this was no longer an option, he needed to create Plan B, Plan C, and Plan D, in order to ensure that the Otherworlders wouldn’t be able to one-sidedly massacre them and use them as sacrifices to revive their dying Moon Princess.