Chapter 1285: Thirteen’s Dirty Ploy After his meeting ended, Castor went to his private teleportation gate, allowing him to teleport to any city in Artem that had a teleportation gate. His destination was none other than the Serenor Continent, where his ally, Regulus, waited for him. Of course, in order to hide his identity, he wore a mask and a hooded robe. He might be powerful, but he didn’t wish for the other Artemians to know who he was as he walked the streets that led him to the palace of his partner in crime. "You’ve come," Regulus said as soon as Castor arrived at the main gate of his palace. "I was expecting you. The others are already waiting in the conference room. Please follow me." Castor nodded and followed Regulus inside the palace. When they arrived at their destination, he saw the powerhouses that represented Regulus’ faction. Two High Archons and Nine Archons. Regulus had more powerhouses under his banner, but when it came to overall strength, the two of them were nearly equal. Castor was more powerful than Regulus, and the same could be said for their subordinates. If Regulus had quantity, Castor had quality, so he didn’t feel too much pressure after seeing all of them gathered in one room. "That brat sure knows how to use his authority to badmouth people," Regulus said as soon as Castor was seated. "How do you plan to handle the reply of the populace? All of them are now paying close attention to our movements." "I already said this to my subordinates, but their opinion doesn’t matter." Castor shrugged. "So what if they know that we planned to rebel? What can they do about it?" Regulus didn’t rebuke his ally, and simply smiled faintly. "Then what about Rana? What do you plan to do about her?" "What about her?" Castor arched an eyebrow. "What can she do? Does she dare to oppose us? I would like to see her try." "She still holds a sizable army under her command," Regulus replied. "If she allies with the King, we might suffer great losses on our side." "Then... should we deal with her now?" Castor asked evilly. "If all of us here enact a preemptive strike, she won’t know what hit her." Regulus pondered for a bit before giving his reply. "I thought of doing that as well, but knowing her, she would have already made her own preparations after hearing that announcement. She’s not stupid, you know? As long as her family is safe, she will fight us even if she is disadvantaged." Castor chuckled after hearing Regulus’ reply. "I don’t think she will do such a thing. Rana will not fight a losing battle. As long as we don’t attack her, she will just sit on the fence and watch until the rebellion ends." "It wouldn’t hurt to get some insurance," Regulus insisted. "We should visit her later and make sure she understands her place." Castor nodded because he didn’t mind doing what his ally had proposed. Although he was already sure of his victory, it wouldn’t hurt to smoothen out things a bit with Rana Avior. "How is your preparation coming along?" Castos asked because this was the most important matter at the moment. He and Regulus were strong, but breaking past the defenses of the palace with only the two of them wouldn’t be a walk in the park. They would still need an army to brute force their way through the castle’s defenses and see if there were any hidden traps that could endanger beings as powerful as them. "We will need two weeks," Regulus replied. "My men said the same, but I told them to finish their preparations in a week," Castor commented. "Can’t you and your men do the same?" "No." Regulus shook his head. "Ten days is possible, but a week is too little time." A frown appeared on Castor’s face, but he didn’t say anything else. He knew that Regulus was someone who covered all of his bases, so if he said that a week was impossible, then he would have no choice but to wait for ten days. "Fine." Castor nodded. "We will move in ten days." The High Archons and the Archons inside the room all sighed in relief internally because ten days were already cutting it close. However, since their plan of rebellion had already been brought to light, they had no choice but to speed things up a bit. After their talks ended, the two Celestials headed to Regulus’ private Teleportation Gate, planning to head to the City of Lyra to confront Rana. However, just as they set their coordinates, a red blinking light appeared on the controller. "I told you she’s not stupid." Regulus frowned after seeing the red blinking light. The red light indicated that they wouldn’t be able to teleport directly to the city because their access to it had been disabled. Thirteen had already informed Rana beforehand that she should disable the "intercontinental teleport function" of her teleportation gates, preventing those from the other continents to directly warp into their location. He had done the same thing to the capital city, as well as the surrounding areas, preventing any army without his authorization from teleporting into the territories they controlled. While Thirteen was making the Runic Formation, Tiona and her Demons had traveled all across the main continent using the teleportation gates, and changed their program. If Castos and Regulus wished to head to the Main Continent, they would have no choice but to do it by ship or by air. This would then buy Thirteen precious time to add several layers of protection in the capital, as well as the surrounding cities. Their travel from the town of Wyr had made him realize that even with airships, it would take them nearly half a month to reach the capital city of Velgrande. Moving an army into a wide span of land was a very difficult thing to do. Even the Jinns had trouble in doing so and had to find a place where they could stay away from the sight of the Artemians. "Damn it... they had disabled all the places where we can teleport to," Castor almost smashed the control panel after several minutes of manually imputing the coordinates of each teleportation gate that he used in the past. "It seems that they have done this before they held the state of the nation address," Regulus commented. "Looks like we will have to move our armies the old-fashioned way. This means that it will take us a longer time to move our troops, and reach the mainland." While the two Celestials were cursing whoever disabled the teleportation gates, Thirteen and Cranky met with Rana to talk to her one more time. The teenage boy’s dirty ploy would definitely buy them enough time to prepare their defenses and monitor the movements of their enemies. Thirteen hoped that they would be able to convince Rana to change her mind and support them in fighting against the two Celestials, whom they believed would not leave her alone in peace. It was possible that Castor and Regulus would have ignored her existence, but they couldn’t afford to do that right now. Since they would need to bring their armies to the mainland, they would also need massive amounts of food and resources to make their way to the capital city of Velgrande. The City of Lyra was the first place that these two armies would visit, and there was no certainty that Castor and Regulus wouldn’t attack her after a long, annoying journey, which would take them a month or two to complete.