Chapter seventy three

John's P.O.V.

My little performance for the Gondarian army went off without a hitch, in fact it went better than I expected and as a result of that I had the rest of the day free. At first I thought I'd go to New Hope and hang out with Sarah but she had queenly duties and as I cruised through the sky on my dragon with the air flowing through my hair , I just couldn't be bothered about the country just then.

Instead I turned to more personal issues, I needed to make a place of my own.

The Steelbenders had been very nice in opening their home to me and had given me more than enough space . In addition to that I'm sure Sarah would give me my own castle if I asked for it, but what I wanted was a place to get away from everybody and just work on my next project, basically like every super villain ,I needed a secret lair.

To make my secret lair I needed a secluded area away from everybody , so that no one would know about it ,fulfilling the secret part of secret lair. The only place that came to my mind was the badlands where the chimera and archfiends roamed, but since they weren't really a problem for me anymore and would act as a deterrent for anybody else I chose the badlands as the ideal location.

I flew at full speed towards the badlands and once I got there, I decided I would build my secret lair on a small mountain from which you can see miles around, as for the building itself I went for a giant black cube with no doors or windows. It was so large that even with my freakish mana regeneration it took me nearly half an hour to finish. It had 12 inch thick walls at maximum density I could make them. Then I camouflaged it to look like it was just a part of the mountain. Since it was my own illusion I could control it anyway I wanted, I opened a door that could fit me and my dragon and got inside.

Inside was big enough that you could fit three Boeing 737s end to end. Should be big enough for all my projects, and if its not then I could always expand. I took the dragon to a corner and made a room for it. I made it curl up inside and relinquished my control over it, it immediately turned inanimate and stiff. I named it after the meanest and most evil creature I've ever known. On a golden plate on its door I engraved the name Bianca.( That's the name of his mother )

Now that my new base was finished I wanted to bring the ARM (automatic ritual machine in case you have forgotten ) here from the borrows. I teleported to my former basement to remove and bring the wires and generators that make up the ARM.

The moment I got there I knew something was wrong, I could feel the earth shaking as if there were explosions above my head and dust was coming down from the ceiling because of it.

"Jules, any idea what is going on? Doesn't seem like normal seismic activity."

"The mana disturbance is through the roof, I believe this is the work of magic."

"Is somebody trying to get in here?"

"Although that is a possibility , it is highly unlikely. With the amount of mana disturbance just from ambient emissions ,they would have already made it here by now if they expended that much power. There are two more scenarios that are way more likely, either a major working is being performed in the area or there is a major magic battle occurring topside and based on all the shaking I am leaning towards the second one."

"The church might have caught up to us, but then who are they fighting?"

"Asking me won't answer the question, get up there and take a peak."

"That's really bad advice, you know that right?"

"Yeah, but when I give you good advice you ignore it, like for example now if I told you it was dumb to go up there into a situation that you have no clue about and could be potentially harmful to you, you would go up there anyways wouldn't you?"

"You do have a point , well what is life without a little risk, plus I've got this spiffy new armor now, nothing out there can hurt me . You're worrying for no reason."

" *sigh*.....why do I even bother?"

I made sure my armor was on right then teleported to what was left of my previous front yard, now it looked like I was at the moon, craters everywhere.

To my left was a dense jungle made up of wildly waving vines and trees that had menacing faces, clawed hands and feet.

To my right was what appeared to be legions of weak looking demons , some who could fly were circling around like vultures. The rest were swarming around giving the impression that their advantages lay in numbers even if they were comparatively weak.

Right in front of me was a glowing globe of light, and at some interval a glowing symbol would come out of it and strike down one of the demons or tree warriors.

It seems I've landed myself in the middle of a party.