The attack that came when William got momentarily distracted to check on his team wasn't that hard to counter actually. But just when William started to replenish his lost materials, another wave of attacks came from this monster, stopping him from doing what he wanted, forcing him to jump to the side, evading that incoming attack.
The monster controlled fire, making it form daggers in the air before fiercely moving towards William. In such darkness, the daggers were easily seen by everyone running fast away from here.
"Is he going to be alright?" Berry couldn't help but ask in worry. She recognised this attack, and it seemed this monster fought someone of fire-based spirit masters before.
It was the fiery daggers technique. It was known to be very brutal and deadly, used by spirit masters in silver grade or higher.
"Hush! We are going in the forest, and God knows what lurks inside," Ibra wanted to reprimand Berry for speaking up and breaking their silent run, but Sara was half a beat faster.
Berry wanted to argue, but the next words of Sara made her refrain from speaking again.
"Half an hour, if he didn't show up, we'll return to save him as we all agreed."
Hearing such words made Berry run in silence, while watching the flares of fire coming from far behind.
William knew he got faced with a troublesome clone of that enemy. He was prepared to fight anything, but not something that could shine in the darkness of this night.
Under such dancing bright light, William could finally see the true shape of his foe.
It wasn't that huge actually, looking like a humanoid beast, but it wasn't. It was standing on its rear legs, standing erect like a real human, but it expanded beyond four metres in height. Its face was like a tiger, a blue silver white tiger head with a thick furred neck and weird looking cubical shaped teeth.
Looking at it from any angle and distance would make anyone think it was a harmless monster. Its two front legs were acting like two thick arms, covered with fur at the elbows, with four sharp claws.
Comparing this with any gold grade, no, even silver grade monster would place this monster at the end of the list. William knew this might be the reason behind it being not known in this world. After all, anyone who saw it from afar wouldn't get interested in it, and whoever fought against it would end up dying.
"Your fire is going to attract many eyes here," William had to finish this battle quite fast, and also help in driving the attention of the monsters seeing these fires away from the time, "show me how fast you can run then..."
William didn't plan to fight the clone here. He decided long ago that once met, he'd have to take it away from the direction the team took.
It was a precaution so this battle wouldn't endanger anyone.
He never knew such action of his would result in a big crisis so soon!
"Wow! You are indeed all talk," William laughed, taunting that monster as he noticed how slow this dude was, "on this rate, you will entirely miss me, you know how hard it took you to find me, hahahaha!"
William knew it was better for him to stay silent, run as fast as he could, to evade this monster's senses. Or he should simply turn around, and let his sword and knives do all the talk.
However, he knew if he did any of that, then what he stepped up to do in the first place would all crumble and end in a big failure.
He had to keep this copy running after him for ten minutes or so. Like this, the monster would lose track of the team, and would totally be focused on him. By that point, he'd start killing this copy and run away before more clones would appear.
William kept running while taunting this monster from time to time. He controlled his speed to not be too fast, not using his lightning technique, saving up his spirit power.
The increase in his speed was thanks to his newly gained gears. They might place huge pressure over his body, consuming a small portion of his spirit power constantly, but they added lots of speed to him.
If William wanted, he could cross fifty metres in a single dash that would consume the same spirit power as before to cross ten metres. However, he wasn't that adept yet to such an increase in speed, couldn't make his jump pause more than once in each jump.
He refrained from using it in a curved path, and instead, he used the limited ten metres version of his technique.
The monster tried its best, yet it always failed to even get closer to William. William knew if he got more than five hundred metres off this monster, he'd be able to run away.
So, he always kept himself at the four hundred mark. "Sorry pal, but I got bored of toying with you," the time was right, and William started to show his higher speed advantage at this moment.
As William expected, just when he pulled the distance more than five hundred metres from that copy, he heard a few rustles coming from the trees around.
"More monsters got here, either more copies of this dude, or new monsters," William thought to himself, knowing that running was the best way to survive than fighting.
At this moment, even a white grade monster would be enough to end him up dead. He wasn't afraid of any monster at silver grade or lower, but he feared wasting his time here, fighting useless monsters, getting delayed from his escape, and ending up getting surrounded by this monster's deadly illusions.
William kept running while using his hearing as his guide. Any weird sound coming from any direction was enough for him to turn around, entirely change his running route to evade that spot.
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