Upon arriving at Antares, they found a massive army already waiting for them.
Half of the entire Jinn population in the continent was going with them to this battle.
The remaining half would continue to manage their territories that would be left behind.
It was already discussed that the only high-ranking Majin that would remain in Antares was Kamrusepa.
King Valtheron, Bask, Zarn, and Queen Ceres would all accompany him to Artem.
This was a strategic arrangement since Thirteen needed Kamrusepa to act as deterrence for the the Jinns who would remain in Antares.
Now that the big shots were going away, it would be easy for those who had ambitions to take this chance to rise up and take control of the continent.
To prevent that from happening, the leaders of the Blackfang Dominion and the Venom Heart Cabal agreed to let Kamrusepa stay, trusting she would not take control of their forces when they were gone.
Before Thirteen left to meet with his family, he had instructed the half of his demons that would remain in Antares to inscribe a runic formation that would open the gate leading to Artem.
This task had long been finished, and they simply remained to ensure that no one would sabotage the formation.
"Are all of you ready?" Thirteen asked the countless Jinns, who were standing in front of him. Dıscover more novels at novel✶fire.net
The teenage boy could feel the hate in their shout, but he didn’t put it to heart. Anyone would feel reluctant to wage a war that they didn’t want to fight, so he didn’t say anything and simply activated the formation.
A giant portal that was over a hundred-meters tall appeared in front of the Jinn Army.
"Forward March!" Thirteen ordered.
King Valtheron gritted his teeth as he led his faction to enter the portal.
They would be the vanguard and would be the first to face whatever was waiting for them on the other side.
Even Thirteen didn’t have any idea about what waited for them on the other side. He only knew that the gate would lead them to Artem, and that was all the information he currently possessed.
The procession of entering the gate took an hour before Thirteen and Cranky stepped inside of it.
They were the last to enter the gate to ensure that no one would try to escape and avoid going to Artem like they had agreed on.
When Thirteen regained his senses, he found himself standing in a wide-open plane.
The Jinns were all around him and had already moved according to their plan.
Each faction had sent a scouting party to check their surroundings. If they saw any Artemians, they would immediately return to report it.
They were all told to not engage no matter what to prevent the local armies from knowing their arrival.
The first thing they needed to do was to secure a base, which would become their first stronghold in Artem.
"Tiona, I’ll leave it to you," Thirteen said, and the black snake nodded in understanding.
Tiona crawled down Thirteen’s body and buried herself in the ground while summoning her Demon Army.
Cranky could easily scout the surroundings, but he didn’t dare to leave Thirteen’s side since he didn’t trust the Jinns to uphold their promise.
Although they had signed a magical contract, there might be some desperate individuals who wished to take him with them to the afterlife.
An hour later, one of the scouts reported that they had found a small town located northeast from their location.
Thirteen immediately sent Tiona a telepathic message to head to the town for an investigation.
He wasn’t a fan of senseless killing, so unless it was absolutely necessary, he wouldn’t harm the local residents of the world who were just living their normal lives.
The Artemians looked very much like humans, so Thirteen was confident that he would be able to mingle with them to act as a spy or a scout if need be.
His plan was to first know of his location before summoning Erasmus.
Erasmus was using King Astrion’s body, allowing him to freely go in and out of the Artemian Capital City.
With that, he would meet with Queen Miriamele and pass Thirteen’s handwritten letter, which would ask for her help in laying down the foundation for their invasion.
Of course, only Erasmus would be able to enter the city. It would look too suspicious if he marched with an army composed of Jinns behind him.
This was a two-pronged attack, which Thirteen and Erasmus had organized. One was going to attack from outside, while the other was going to attack from within.
Erasmus was a walking one-man-army.
He had dumped all of his Undead Minions inside his personal domain in the Order of the Apocalypse, which he could summon to attack the rear of the enemy army.
However, no matter how strong they were, they didn’t dare to act so brazenly because Artem had three other Celestials defending it.
At the end of the day, King Astrion was only a High-Archon, not strong enough to contend with Celestials.
While waiting for the reports of the scouts, the Jinns were already looking for a mountain range or a valley to hide the bulk of their army.
Those who could dig were already making underground tunnels.
While there were many Jinns who could fly, they had limited the number of flying Jinns because they would easily be spotted from afar if they all traveled together.
What they needed now was to bide their time while gathering information about the world they were planning to invade.
The Jinns were already used to this kind of warfare because they were a race that were bred to conquer worlds.
Thirteen had much to learn from their ways, so aside from telling them to not do any senseless killing, he left them to do what they needed to do.
Half an hour later, Tiona reported that the town only had a few guards to protect it.
The majority of them only had the Master Rank, and the strongest person in the town was only a Champion.
It would be far too easy to take control of it, but Thirteen decided to summon Erasmus to help him infiltrate and ordered the Jinns to stay on standby.
Since their ultimate destination was the Royal Capital of the Artemians, they had to prioritize discretion above all else.