Tales Of The Mighty Dragonair

Gege never had the ability to spread over her portals at the places of Arthur's forces. She didn't lack the control over portals or the numbers needed to even surpass those of the dark angel mage.

However she had no such access to their locations to begin with. Arthur realized this from the start and so he decided to go for such a bet.

And his enemy just fell directly into it. Based on the recent exchanges between the two, Arthur would never make such a mistake of gambling with his enemy.

So the dark angel mage didn't see through Arthur's plan and fell directly into the trap.

"Boom!"

And now all that remained was for Arthur to take all such wrath by the help of Gege, while leaving his original to crush the remaining shields.

Plus…

"Divert them all over there," Arthur finally was satisfied with the immense number of lightning bolts descending over his head, "I suppose it would be enough to crush this portal for good."

Just as he said that, many portals appeared all over the standing shields. Just by their appearance and number, anyone could tell those standing inside were done for.

"Zing!"

"Zing!"

"Zing!"

Without much hurdle, the lightning bolts rained down the shields and penetrated them like they were nothing.

And they all landed over the portal. The portal seemed to be sturdy enough to take many bolts head on, but not with such numbers.

Just from the first impact, deep cracks spread all over the portal. Halfway through, Arthur heard a muffled explosion before a mighty ball of fire appeared all of sudden inside the shields.

"Take them in," Arthur felt bad from this rapidly growing ball of fire, "take everyone inside… Now!"

His scream wasn't groundless as the portal was crushed and released such a mighty explosion. The ball of fire started with red before it turned all white.

Its size kept increasing exponentially while Arthur stood his place watching his men getting absorbed inside Gege's portals.

And the first one to be taken inside was the original he created. After all he was the most precious asset of his forces.

Then the octopus and the dragons vanished next, before the rest of his forces.

'Your turn,' Gege hurriedly said while the ball of fire already covered the entire base, 'it's going to explode. You need to run now!'

Arthur raised his head towards the sky. The portals of the dark angel mage kept appearing non-stop while raining down a lot of lightning arcs that were enough to fry him thousands of times already.

"See you later," Arthur raised his hand and waved in provocation towards the dark angel mage's portals before he vanished inside one of Gege's.

Then he appeared once again inside the calm and peaceful world of his garden.

"Keep an eye for me in the outside world," he said before landing gracefully on the ground.

'There is something weird going on,' Gege said after a long period of silence. Arthur stayed in the tranquility of this world. He missed such peace and hoped oneday his life would return to its normal state like this.

"What happened?" Arthur wasn't much interested in what Gege was about to say. He knew he already dealt a great blow to his enemy by ruining such  a base.

For now he wanted to return to his lake city and remain there for as long as it would take. His enemy wouldn't find another suitable base for so long, meaning he would live in peace for a long time.

'I noticed many settlements all around were destroyed as well,' Gege said before adding, 'a similar ball of fire appeared from the center of each one and ate away the entire settlement.'

"What?" Arthur raised an eyebrow before asking, "do you mean the ones we already cleared?"

'No, they are the ones under the enemy's control,' Gege corrected, 'they are all away from our empire. Even those lying inside our empire and didn't clear yet had the same phenomenon.'

Arthur couldn't help but think deeply about this. "What's going on here exactly?" he couldn't help but ask without any answer.

'Ding! Perhaps there is some sort of connection between that portal and others,' the system proposed his hypothesis and the golden dragon said in agreement:

'I think so. After all it's not easy for someone from the higher realms to span his portals as he feels suitable in this world.'

"Do you mean that this portal was like the main one controlling others?" Arthur's eyes shone brightly before suddenly breaking out in laughter. "That means this dark mage has the short end of the stick this time, hahahaha."

Arthur laughed and the three beings in his mind didn't speak for a while. They all knew what it meant for their sworn enemy to lose his deadliest weapon like this.

"But that means we have a good chance in our hands," Arthur's eyes changed while he seriously added, "spread out the word… we won't retreat or stop our advance. We will keep adding more lands to my empire until that damn bastard returns to pester me again."

'Shouldn't we give the army time to recuperate first?' Gege asked.

'No, it's the wisest thing to push over your enemy when you hold the upper hand,' the golden dragon said in agreement with Arthur, 'we need to push as far as possible using this chance. We don't know when that enemy can repair the broken portal. This is our chance and next time that enemy won't let us destroy the portal this easily.'

"Yeah, we need to push with all our might," Arthur nodded before asking, "how are things outside?"

'The fire spread over the ground and now is dying away,' Gege said, 'but it's reign of destruction stretched out for tens of miles already.'

"That's cool," Arthur didn't care about that, "take out all my armies and make them spread all over the place. Also send the word for the others, they have to change their directions and spread out."

'Ding! Don't forget you need to build cities along the way,' the system said in warning and Arthur nodded.

"We won't have such a problem for so long," Arthur said before turning towards the grand world of his garden, "we already have a lot of people living here. Besides those we will capture from our expansion. We will use everything in our power to expand my territory at the fastest pace!"

'Ding! But there is a problem,' the system said before adding, 'Ding! I don't believe the rate of expansion will match the slow pace of building cities.'

"Your point?" Arthur knew what the system said was true, so he had to listen to more to judge.

'Ding! I mean you can expand and take roughly ten folds the current size of your empire in less than a week! But compared to this, you won't be able to build as many cities to cover this territory as possible.'

Arthur didn't get the point here, but the golden dragon did.

'What he wants to tell you is that the dark angel mage won't sit idle and watch you build cities like this. He will send a lot of armies to bring you down.'

"Let him come," Arthur couldn't help but take this matter lightly, "I'll seek his armies and destroy them all!"

'Ding! This isn't a practical thing,' the system objected, 'Ding! After all, with the increase in your empire size, the area needed to be defended will expand as well.'

At this moment, Arthur finally realized what they were trying to say. "So you are thinking doing this will weaken my empire?" he couldn't help but ask.

'If you did what we two think, then yeah it will weaken the empire and make you lose more than what you gained,' the golden dragon said and Arthur couldn't help but say:

"In other words, if I did the same as here and spread over many cities in the building process, I'll be obliged to spread out my forces to defend them, right?"

'Ding! You might have a great number of citizens to work as builders, but instead you have a limited number of mages to serve in your army,' the system said in clear before adding, 'Ding! Trying to expand the empire without the proper power backing it up is a grave mistake.'

'Yeah, you need to consider the limited power you have right now compared with your enemies,' the golden dragon said.

"So you want me to let this chance slip by and not try to seize it?" Arthur felt slightly angry from what they just said.

'Ding! There is a solution for all this,' the system seemed to expect Arthur's sharp reaction, 'Ding! You can send out all the forces like you want. In return they are asked to bring back all the people and resources they can find.'

'You can let Gege spread out her portals in certain zones to serve as relay points,' the golden dragon added in explanation, 'so that the forces won't need to go back all the way to the last known city.'

"Oh," Arthur's eyes shone slightly while adding, "it seems you two thought about this thoroughly already."

'Well, we knew your temper,' the golden dragon laughed, 'after all your sole focus for now was to crush the enemy of yours.. But you have to realize without proper foundation, all of this would end up for nothing.'