"What? I know nothing," Lara already expected such a message from the city leaders, and prepared an answer already for all this hustle; which was total denial.
Yet she never thought such a thing would happen. She thought they'd notice William's departure, and didn't even imagine that he'd take such a grand step, one that'd stir up all such responses from the city masters.
At the same time, she first realised how grand William's reputation was in the entire master community. She was always by his side and didn't have the chance to experience the opinion of others about him.
As she now knew, she got to admire him even more and knew her earlier decision of following him and leaving the city was right.
She got away from the expected interrogation of the city masters by what she stood by. She kept denying anything about William, denied knowing anything about his plans or moves. She wasn't faking it, and that helped her to speak honestly and with sincerity most of the time.
In the end, the city masters couldn't help but wish her luck, asking her to stay safe with others and try to get to know why William made such a move. She promised to return back with answers, a lie that none of the masters believed.
Once she stored away the Message Paper, she turned to the entire team and narrated what happened.
"Told you, he is going to come and do something big," Sara and Berry boasted about what they said before. And Lara couldn't find an answer to that.
"Let's try to move faster then," as they learnt about the grand army marching here with their boss and following him, they got pumped by more courage, "we don't need to fear those inside anyway."
Thomas was right, they didn't need to bother with those masters inside that grand fort. The news of what William did spread over to the ones stationed here, and they learnt about the grand army coming for them.
So they locked up everything, raised the bridges, and the walls were filled to the brim with masters ready to fight. Clamours of armour and war supplies getting moved inside the fort were so loud to reach the team's ears. And they knew the news must have reached those masters.
"They are indeed hostile to us," seeing this made Lara jump to this conclusion with absolute certainty. And everyone else nodded in agreement.
If these masters were forces belonging to any city master, then they wouldn't have reacted in this way. It was a possibility, slim but still a possibility. And now everyone was sure they weren't part of the city, and they held ill intentions towards it.
"We can move freely now," and by what they did, everyone knew they could now move without much worry. Even if they got spotted, and they were sure that'd happen, they were sure the enemies inside that grand fort were very busy preparing for the upcoming fight.
At the same time, the city leaders were away in five different places, discussing everything about what happened back in the city.
They knew keeping the news off the ears of the five traitors was impossible. And many didn't like how William responded to this situation.
They did as William expected, and didn't want to confront the five as they told Lara. Instead, they wanted to amass enough army discreetly, send it away without attracting any attention if possible, hit that place and uncover the truth about it. Then they'd start dealing with the five traitors after that.
And yet William wasn't patient, acting out of their expectations. The latter saw directly through their hesitation. He knew they acted like that because of the long period of peace in this city.
When danger vanishes, the mindset of people would change. Warriors became peacekeepers, and their leaders would turn into investors and merchants. Caring about wealth and peace was detrimental to any master. And William hated such situations the most!
Yet he wasn't against having such safe havens in the middle of all this chaos. That was why he didn't object when things developed down this path in this city or back at the Scorching Lands. In fact, he was quite thankful that people who got tired and sick of fighting got a chance to live in safe places.
So against such uncertainty and questionable force nearby, William decided to act fiercely against it. Yet he never expected the entire city would follow him out in such a way. And when he got the news, he was quite happy about such a response, as it said a lot about his current prestige in the entire world.
"What's the meaning of this? They are my forces! Are you trying to be hostile to me?!" As the five traitors got wind of what happened, they all stormed in rage, claiming to have the ownership of that mysterious force, and directly confronting other leaders.
If this happened at one or two places, it wouldn't be weird. But all five of them said the same thing in the same breath as if they were trained to say so a long time ago.
The leaders were connected via spirit telepathy, and they all shared what they just heard with each other. Without the need to say a single word, they all turned to the traitors and acted.
"What's the meaning of this?"
"Do you want the city to usher under ruins?"
"This is treason!"
"You are backstabbing the same leaders who supported the city!"
"How dare you! I'll see you rot in hell!"
As the attacks landed fiercely and without any warning, the five traitors were shocked. All shouted and cursed, tried to resist and fight back but failed. They were outnumbered, and out of nowhere lots of high-end masters came out from the areas around.
They couldn't believe their eyes. And soon enough, two of them took the crystals out.
Seeing the same crystal that Lara described made everyone's hearts fall to their feet.
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