Thirteen’s team finally arrived at the city. The first thing he did was order the Wanderers with Flying Avatars to scout and to not let down their guard. According to his intelligence report, the Monsters that came out of the West Dimensional Gates were Beetle-Type Jinns. This meant that there were some of them that were capable of flight. Although they couldn’t fly long distances or stay in the air for long periods, they still posed a threat to the Wanderers who were scouting from the sky. Truth be told, Thirteen didn’t really need to ask the Wanderers to scout since he had Athena, conveniently located in outer space, giving Thirteen a satellite view of everything that was happening in Glory City. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦 This was also the reason why he found out Andre’s location, prompting him to ask the members of the Ashford Clan to assist them in their operation. Of course, he needed the scouts in the air to make people think that he was basing his decision based on the information that they were about to give him. This would make people less suspicious of his actions after the threat of the Monster Outbreak came to an end. "Minotaurs at nine o’clock!" Sherry reported from the sky. "Team 1, 2, 3, and 4, hold your ground and secure the perimeter," Thirteen ordered. "Feel free to find advantageous locations for you to unleash your ranged attacks. The enemies will be arriving in five minutes. "Do not fight them in close quarters. We will whittle them down with range attacks and retreat whenever they are close. Once they’re in your range, fire away and go for the kill!" The Wanderers no longer questioned Thirteen’s orders. Those who specialized in close combat like Roland and Derek protected the Archers like Mildred and the Spell Casters like Erica. But, Erica was no ordinary Sorceress. She had plenty of ways on how to survive in a chaotic battle after everything that she had been through with Thirteen. Erica was about to summon a Fireball to annihilate a group of Minotaurs, but Thirteen’s words rang through her communicator. "Don’t use spells that have an area of effect!" Thirteen ordered. "Just use your Magic Bullets. We don’t want to start a fire in the city." Erica canceled her spell without a second thought and unleashed a barrage of Magic Bullets that rained down on the Minotaurs, who had discovered the location of their prey. Unfortunately for them, they miscalculated. This time, the prey was them. The enraged monsters could only roar in frustration, as they tried to dodge the attacks that were coming from the sky. Thirteen, who was connected with Athena, was already seeing green dots coming to their location from the west. These friendly forces were none other than Andre’s team, who had come to assist Thirteen’s operation. The Minotaurs, who found themselves being attacked from two sides, were forced to split their forces. This was a decent plan. But in reality, it was a very wrong move for the Jinns. There were two Champions, eight Grandmasters, and dozens of Masters on Andre’s team. These two forces were the combined units from the two teams that were meant to deal with one Dimensional Gate each. Now that their forces had combined into one, their fighting prowess had also increased drastically. They cut through the minotaur horde like a hot knife through butter, killing as many as they could to vent out their frustrations. Thirteen then ordered the range units to stop attacking and allow the close combat specialists to move in for the kill. Roland and Derek, who finally had the chance to shine, led the charge to face the Minotaurs. The battle was won fairly easily, and half of the Minotaur army was annihilated. However, Thirteen knew that this was just the start. Andre and the others didn’t know that the two other Dimensional Gates had also mutated and turned into red Dimensional Gates. A Rank 7 Minotaur King and a Rank 7 Hercules Beetle had emerged from the gates, bringing with them three Rank 6 Overlords each and a dozen Rank 5 Alpha Monsters. The main reason why Thirteen asked Andre to assist them was to let the Elite Unit from the Ashford Clan merge with their own, giving them a higher chance of dealing with the Monster Outbreak. For now, Thirteen pushed aside the thought of identifying the cause as to why the three Gates mutated at the same time. Clearly, this was no coincidence, and this might be the workings of Higher-Ranking Jinns who were on the other side of the Dimensional Gate. Perhaps they were using these Dimensional Gates as an experiment to create more mutated gates in the future. If the same thing were to happen in the upcoming Jinn Invasion in the Cygni Continent, the battle that they would face might be more deadly than he initially expected. "Sir Andre, over here," Thirteen casually waved at the leader of the Ashford Clan and called him over. "You’ve got some guts, kid," Andre said as soon as he arrived in front of the teenage boy. "Do you really think that you can have your wa—" "The two other Dimensional Gates have also mutated," Thirteen interjected before Andre could finish whatever he was going to say. And just like he expected, Andre reacted strongly to his statement. "W-What?! Are you sure about this?!" Andre demanded. "I’m sure of it," Thirteen replied. "But we have to move now. Two of the five Blade-Scaled Pangolins are headed for the Shelter in the East of the city. They are accompanied by six Rank 4 Alpha Pangolins and nearly two hundred Rank 3 Pangolins." "Damn!" Andre cursed internally. "They’re headed towards the Glory Academy!" All cities had at least one to two academies, where children who were about to have their First Wandering would be trained for the sake of surviving their first mission in Solterra. These academies were made with shelters under them, which could also be used by civilians to hide during a Monster Outbreak. Although the Professors in these academies were Grandmasters, they were not enough to handle the threat that was headed in their direction. "Let’s go and deal with the small fries first," Thirteen proposed. "Everyone, follow me!" Thirteen didn’t even wait for Andre’s reply before taking the lead to head to the East, where the academy was located. Sensing that this was not the time to argue about who was in charge, Andre also ordered his people to head to the academy. His wife was one of the Professors there, so even if Zion didn’t say anything, he would bring the entirety of his forces to aid his beloved. While all of this was happening, a Magma Bal-Boa was busy digging tunnels underground. His Master had given him orders, and Rocky didn’t hesitate to follow his Master’s will. Now that there were three Rank 7 Sovereigns in the City, things would turn incredibly complicated if these three monsters were to join hands and attack the Defenders at the same time. Thirteen had already thought of this possibility, so he decided to carry out a plan that would neutralize one or two of these behemoths. While he couldn’t expose his trump cards in the open, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t use them right under everyone’s nose. For now, he prioritized saving the shelter where those who didn’t leave the city went to hide. Everyone thought that the members of the Ashford Clan would be able to deal with the current threat without much problem, so there were hundreds of people who remained and simply stayed in one of the twelve Shelters in the city. Of course, Thirteen had also ordered his Demons to protect the other shelters from harm. While his Monster Army couldn’t make an appearance, they were also not idle and were preparing to fight the battles that would soon happen. However, these battles would take place in places that people couldn’t see. The reason why Rocky was busy digging underground was so that his friends could also fight to their heart’s content. When Thirteen said that the enemies were just Rank 7 Monsters, he truly didn’t think of them as a big deal. Why? Because Rocky was a peak Rank 7 Sovereign, while Giga and the rest were Rank 6 Sovereigns and peak monsters as well. They only needed a catalyst to break through to the next Rank, which would make them incomparably stronger. Norman wasn’t the only one eyeing the Red-Scaled Warlord Pangolin. Thirteen had also set his sights on this monster. He didn’t mind if the Ashford Clan and the Stallard Clan were to get the Minotaur King and the Hercules Beetle. As long as the Warlord Pangolin fell in his hands, he would have already profited greatly in his undercover operation. He was simply using the chaos to target the monster that had the highest value that appeared in Glory City before the reinforcements from the Ashford and Stallard Clans arrived at the scene.