And so William took out his map and started to read one scroll after another. At the same time, he started to place dots and marks over the map, trying to see the grand layout of this scary war plan.
And as he found the right method to read these scrolls, he started to go on a wide spree of reading them.
He spent close to an entire day doing this. The number of scrolls were in the hundreds, and he had to filter them and try to find the locations mentioned in these scrolls over the map.
Slowly the map started to get filled with lots of red dots and marks, even lines for the movements of the forces mentioned in these scrolls.
When he got finished, and as he stood by the side of his big map, he couldn't help but suck in a cold air of breath.
"This… It's not a secret that nothing reached the ears of these folks in the academy back then…" William saw that around one hundred miles around the academy and its clans, a huge red stain was filling most of the map!
The activities of these teams even reached the areas of the kingdom's capital. And their goal was one, to take over the forts, academies, settlements, and bases of any normal spirit masters in this region and kill everyone there!
Such a grand scale war should have shocked the entire world. However, as William saw it, and when he recalled all the delicate and meticulous planning in these scrolls, he knew having anyone escaping alive from all this was impossible.
All the routes were blocked, and all the safe spots in tens of thousands of miles were under attack. All the ways around each clan, fort, base, or even a main route was filled with lots of enemy teams.
Trying to run away was a futile attempt. And as the war avoided the Aspire academy, none ever heard or felt anything about it.
When William recalled things back, he was shocked to realise another thing. "The date… The date of this grand move just matches the date of that big spirit master tournament… Wait a minute… Back then, I recall a grand missing incident in many of the academy's spirit masters. It was rumoured that anyone adventuring far away never returned again, never heard from… Don't tell me it's all related to this…"
William didn't have all the scrolls of the entire dark spirit master community. But with the grand number he got, he had a clear view about the ongoing war and its arrangement.
There were even a few scrolls that spoke about places far away from here, not included in that big map he had. And that meant such a move wasn't just limited to here and was also covering up many places in the world.
"Is it just the kingdom or is it targeted against everyone in this world?" William didn't know the answer to this. But he felt like the dark spirit master community wasn't acting without higher orders and arrangement.
And that meant there was some sort of leadership, leaders who were taking control over all the bad deeds going on in this tiny world.
In addition to that, this move seemed to be connected with the upcoming spirit master grand contest. To William, he never cared about such contests before, not now even. But after knowing all this, he started to feel he had to act.
Doing things here would ensure safety for the people in this part of the world. But how about the rest of the world?
No matter how he looked at it, the map that was now dyed red gave him the impression that this was a huge movement. If he wasn't sure this wasn't the time of the true apocalypse, he'd mistake it for being that scary event.
"It's like… They are preparing the set for what yet to happen…" He could tell the true goal behind all this. The dark spirit masters were just trying to cut the power of normal ones by a big chunk, killing all the strong spirit masters they could target, weakening this side before the grand apocalypse would befall.
"I believe when taking down the dark spirit masters' forts and hidden bases, I'll find lots more of these scrolls… And by then, I can see the grander picture perhaps…"
He sighed, before turning his eyes towards his academy. "I read that they wanted to kill the resisting movement starting from the academy. But they never spoke about invading or attacking it… Weird…"
He read in the scrolls many plans about invading and attacking this fort, other strong places away from here. But he never found a single scroll speaking about his academy.
"Don't tell me they already consider it in their pockets…" William got shocked when he recalled a single person, Rick! "It seems they are moving in both directions, using strength and underhanded methods to take over the strong places in this world… If that's true, then…"
His eyes shifted around the map, looking at rare other places that this grand plan missed. "It's either there are scrolls speaking about attacking these places, and I didn't yet find them. Or these folks already got these places in their pockets, never planning to touch them at all for now…"
The entire scheme of the dark spirit masters in this tiny world started to unveil in front of William's eyes. He also knew the dark spirit masters weren't moving alone. They got scary folks like Transformers on their back, not to mention monsters.
If he added all this up, with the estimated million-man strong army the dark spirit masters were preparing, he knew this world was indeed doomed.
"Trying to secure a place in such darkness is a must…" William knew he had no power to change and save everyone. But at least he could foil the enemy plans in this region, turning it from a dark spot into a sliver ray of light, a safe haven for himself and his guild in the middle of all this night.
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