The Ability Emperor's Might
When Viteau received word that the Explorer Base had been destroyed, he was utterly shocked—and utterly enraged.
There had not been many Ability Users under his command to begin with. He had only three to five eighth-tier Ability Kings, and only one of them could truly be considered his confidant.
At first, aside from a handful of trusted Ability Users, most of the people Viteau sent out to explore and collect Energy Stones were ordinary people, at most some burly soldiers from special forces units.
But once they had obtained a certain number of Energy Stones through exploration, things became entirely different for Viteau.
For a fourth-tier Ability User to advance to the fifth tier, only three Energy Stones were needed.
And with a hundred, a seventh-tier ability user could become an eighth-tier Ability King.
During that initial period, although Viteau lost some troops, he gained more than two thousand Energy Stones in exchange.
As a ninth-tier Ability Emperor, Viteau commanded an enormous force within the US Military.
Even this blunder was ultimately swept under the rug.
Using Energy Stones to recruit other Ability Users was an exceptionally generous offer, and quite a few Ability Users joined Viteau's Ability User force.
After all, recruiting Ability Users as subordinates with Energy Stones was extremely rare. Coupled with Viteau's previous setback, many people secretly guessed that he had likely discovered even more Energy Stones at that earlier Energy Stone site.
After speculating that Viteau had obtained a huge quantity of Energy Stones, both his old rivals and members of other factions successively sent people to investigate.
In the end, one of Viteau's old rivals sent out the ninth-tier Ability Emperor under his command. Yet even so, that ninth-tier Ability Emperor gained no advantage and returned grievously wounded instead.