Lord of the Myriad Worlds

After working through most of the night, the mismatched, clunky, oversized so-called enchanted chariot was assembled.

It looked like a wooden house on wheels.

From top to bottom, left to right — everything except the front was sheathed in square timber, including the outer sides of the wheels.

The whole thing was a size larger than before.

But this was no simple modification. Ten units of standard mana, once infused into the timber, upgraded its quality to four-star — and then a layer of tender green leaves sprouted across the surface. From a distance, it looked like a small moving forest.

Excellent camouflage.

The load weight had increased considerably, but Li Wei had taken advantage of the power cell repositioning to double the number of cells in the truck. Range was not going to be an issue.

"Well then, Li Wei — farewell. I genuinely don't like your odds. But I think — if I were Hathaway, and someone came 1,500 kilometers to find me, I'd probably agree too. Even if it's not rational. Not realistic."

"Either way — good luck."

The red-robed witch smiled and waved goodbye. The attitude from the day before was entirely gone. Some things you could just feel — she didn't think Li Wei was particularly powerful, she'd seen plenty of strong people. But someone this bold? That was rare. For a moment, she envied him.

Just a moment, though. Because reason would always win in the end.

She was certain: the moment Frost Duke learned that Hathaway had agreed to ally with Li Wei, he would intercept them. That would be a desperate, hopeless chase.

Even the most beautiful flower, if trampled into the mud, was no longer beautiful.

The roadside scenery was flying past. In the rearview mirror, he could just barely make out the flash of red in the distance. This had been a genuine windfall. That woman's parting words had clearly carried a deeper meaning.

1,500 kilometers?

Li Wei's territory to Ron's was a thousand kilometers. So Hathaway's territory was another five hundred kilometers beyond that?

Good.

"Adai — hunting time. I need you to scout a route ahead and mark any Ability User patrol squads."

Li Wei called out Adai. No more need for concealment — or rather, concealment had given way to speed. He needed to find Hathaway in the shortest possible time. Whether she was willing to ally and relocate was a separate question.

But barely half an hour later, Adai sent back a report: a bridge ahead had been destroyed, impassable, and the detour route's bridge had also been destroyed.

So either turn back and go through Ron's territory, or carve out a new path.

Interesting. Was this Ron's doing?

Li Wei drove up to the destroyed road bridge quickly. It had originally spanned a river-carved valley — a small bridge about twenty meters long, completely demolished. Not blown up — more like something weighing a dozen tons had rammed it at thirty kilometers per hour.

A Level 5 rock giant?

Understood. This had nothing to do with Ron.

Frost Duke's Ability Users.

So by extension — had all the road bridges around Ron's territory been destroyed the same way?

Li Wei thought it was very likely.

Because on the way here, he'd been cutting straight through the mountains, traversing ridges as if on flat ground — he might have simply bypassed all the destroyed bridges without knowing.

"No wonder Ron was so pessimistic. Does he know about these destroyed bridges? Or does he not know yet? Ha — that's actually hilarious. Frost Duke has some real talent on his side. The man himself might be someone with exceptional strategic instincts."

As Li Wei laughed, a thought suddenly struck him.

To sever the connection between his territory and Zhao Kewu's, Frost Duke had built a fortress south of the Great Bridge.

He'd assumed that was special treatment because he'd become the final boss target. But what if — between Hathaway's territory and Ron's territory, there was also a fortress under construction?

And between his own territory and Ron's, at some strategic chokepoint — was there another fortress being built there too?

Even between Socrates's territory and Hathaway's?

Frost Duke was playing a very long game.

Li Wei thought it through carefully, and his skin prickled.

He'd come west through the northern mountain range — seven or eight hundred kilometers east to west — entirely off-road. Had he missed something? Especially that river. There had to be plenty of road bridges and rail bridges on it. If Frost Duke had built a fortress a few hundred kilometers upstream from Riverside Fortress...

That would be a serious problem.

Things were more complicated than he'd thought. He'd been looking down on Ron earlier, but maybe Ron had some awareness of all this?

"This is going to be a problem. Because of that river, the relocation route is going to be very difficult."

Looking at the collapsed bridge in front of him, Li Wei sighed — then immediately got to work building a makeshift crossing.

Using three-star timber from his Resource Card.

A waste of good material. But there was no choice.

Li Wei had Adai continue scouting ahead while he jumped down into the valley, cleared the rubble, leveled the ground, then pulled out a thick log and used his enchanted dagger to carve four square mortise slots at the appropriate positions — like traditional joinery. He just needed to fit square beams of the right length into the slots and lock them with wooden wedges. That gave him a relatively stable pillar.

Honestly, every cut into the three-star timber made his heart bleed.

This was three-star quality wood.

What had he done to deserve this.

Fortunately, with Perception +7, a sharp four-star enchanted dagger, and a Level 4 Woodcutter with a Destiny Grid of 61, every hole he carved was perfectly dimensioned — tight fits, no gaps. Once the beams were seated, pulling them out would take real effort.

As long as the ground was properly leveled, the rest would hold.

For the twenty-meter gap, Li Wei carved eight such pillars, then cut matching trapezoidal slots at the tops, shaped more logs into beams of the right width, seated them, closed the joints, and connected everything.

The result was two plank bridges, each thirty centimeters wide — exactly matching the wheel track of his enchanted truck.

For extra security, Li Wei also — painfully — added horizontal, vertical, and diagonal bracing rods for overall stability. After testing everything, he got back in the truck, started it, and drove across in one smooth motion.

No need to watch whether the wheels were on target — his Perception +7 was more reliable than his eyes.

After crossing, he got out, disassembled the two makeshift bridges, tossed them in the truck bed, and moved on.

A hassle, yes. But it worked.

Adai reported back roughly every hour and a half. Surprisingly, after pushing nearly a hundred kilometers out, there was still no sign of any roaming Ability User squads.

Had they all gone east?

But as expected — every road bridge ahead had been smashed. Li Wei was almost laughing at this point.

By the end of that day, he'd covered less than a hundred kilometers and built six bridges.

Fortunately, all of them had spans under thirty meters, and the makeshift plank bridges he'd cut were a match for each one.

"On the way back, this route is absolutely out of the question. These Ability Users are insufferable."

"Should I detour around the outer edge of the northern mountain range?"

Night fell. Li Wei crouched by the roadside eating dinner. Adai was nowhere to be seen.

During the day, Adai's size was too large for high-altitude flight — he'd been cruising at forty or fifty meters above ground, which carried significant risk, but minimized the chance of being spotted from far away.

At night, though, Adai was in his element. Li Wei had no idea where he'd gone off to.

After eating his fill, Li Wei didn't rest. He got back in the truck and drove on, no headlights, navigating by Perception +7 alone.

Bridge repairs were still unavoidable, of course.

But nighttime had one advantage: unless he ran directly into an enemy, it was actually quite safe.

The Ability Users were blocking the connection between Ron and Hathaway, so they'd destroyed all the road bridges between the two territories. But against a lone traveler who could build his own bridges, they had no answer.

Through the entire night, Li Wei pushed another hundred kilometers forward. His bridge-building technique was getting smoother and faster — he even earned a decent amount of engineering experience and produced three one-star Engineering Cards.

Ha!

But trouble was coming along with the progress.

Just before dawn, Adai found Li Wei. In addition to bringing back a flash-frozen four-star mutant fish, he reported the situation ahead: a river was blocking the route. On the north bank, what should have been a pioneer-built fortress had been taken over by Ability Users as their stronghold.

Based on the images Adai had relayed, the place was garrisoned by at least six roaming Ability User squads — three hundred troops. In a worst case, four or five hundred wasn't out of the question.

It was a genuinely solid fortress, with part of it built directly onto the bridgehead. That meant a frontal assault was impossible — he'd have to go around.

"I wonder which genius built a fortress right there. Now Frost Duke's Ability Users occupied it without lifting a finger."

At this point, Li Wei was more certain than ever: Frost Duke was the center of the circle, and all the pioneering camps were arranged around the perimeter. Otherwise his Ability User Legion couldn't be radiating out in every direction like this.

"So — what do I do?"

Li Wei finally couldn't help frowning. There was one very important thing to resolve: where exactly was Hathaway's territory — north of the river, or south?

But regardless, with a fortress like this blocking the way, even if Hathaway agreed, how would the relocation even work?

Hundreds of civilians would need more than a dozen electric buses to transport. If the Freemen came under attack, who would he protect first?

Especially with all the road bridges destroyed — once you lost speed, it was a death sentence.

So — should he just fight his way through?

The thought leapt into Li Wei's mind with sudden boldness. Not a blind charge — but making full use of the Scout and Ranger's talents.

Ranger — the very word meant a master of guerrilla warfare.