Just from this battle, William's team, and especially the vice leaders, learnt a proper lesson about how to keep their mouths shut, not saying anything without returning to William first and getting his blessings.
The entire team felt bad about not sharing anything with Panther and others. After all they'd have not survived all this time partially thanks to their help and contribution.
The old and strong spirit masters got already pressured to such an extent, so it was expected for William's team to run short on their oil starting from day two of this war.
Even when they were dealing with weak enemies, just the sheer number of them made them already tired. That was what Ibra and others feared to face. And thanks to the mercy shown by the heavens upon them, they got Panther and his group to guard them while they were recovering. They even offered them recovery and healing potions from time to time, helping them more in surviving till now.
As they started to recover, they didn't miss to run after William and others, and also gather all the rings and loot they could get.
That made them take much longer to recover. They had no other choice but to do so. On top of that, their collection of rings kept increasing fast without getting affected by anything.
"But…" Panther was also sitting on the ground, watching one direction without shifting his eyes away, "the enemies got killed and we won the war. Why is he still standing like this?"
All were landing on the ground, extremely tired, all but one. William kept standing in his place motionless, not even moving a single tail or opening his eyes.
Even if the war ended, and there was not a single enemy around, William was standing right now while facing something new inside the test world.
In that weird world, he saw all the black fog getting thickened again when the last enemy fell. There were no more enemies to fight, but for a reason he didn't feel like everything was over.
And soon enough his hunch would be proven right.
In less than ten minutes, and while everyone outside was puzzled by William's sudden pause, the black fog inside started to change and formed something new.
"This… Is this a fox?" William was puzzled at first. The fog kept accumulating, taking the shape of something grand. And soon enough he could see something similar to his fox body form, but much bigger, more dangerous, and far stronger than his current fox form.
This fox was all black, pitch black in colour, with fire like black fog forming its body. It had two tails, just like William's. But seeing this and his grand form, made William not know why his fox spirit form was weaker and smaller than this one.
"Don't tell me I have to crush you to get out of here!" This black fox stood around half a kilometre away from William, didn't move a muscle, and kept just glaring at him with its shining black eyes.
William's body was bronze in colour before, and now it became silver. But seeing this black fox made him crave to have a black body.
He knew what black meant. It was equal to the legendary rank, the one that would take anyone away from this tiny world and let him join the outer world. But out there, William knew he'd start all from the black white grade all again. So having this black form was just temporary and was limited to this tiny world.
"I heard from my master that reaching the last and legendary rank in the outer world will give anyone the black coloured spirit power. Don't tell me I've to reach there to get such black fox body!"
He didn't dwindle over this matter for long. Soon enough, he started to think about the foe in front of him. "Going by colour alone, I'd say it's at the legendary rank… But that's not real, right?"
He knew trying to deal with a legendary grade enemy was something that he couldn't even dream of doing at his current stage of power. If dark gold grade was seen as the ceiling power of this tiny world, then the legendary grade was seen as the unreachable peak beyond that ceiling.
William didn't hurry to believe such crazy thoughts. He knew for a reason, he had to pass through this weird test in such an alien world to get out of here. And that meant there must be a way to do it.
Everything that happened so far was peculiar, but it was doable. If this black fox proved to be a legendary grade enemy, then things would reach a dead end.
"I don't have to think like this…" he started to calm his anxiety down, "first of all… Since I've got myself entrapped here and nothing could hurt me. Not to mention the endless supply of spirit power… If things kept going like usual, then this battle wasn't a hopeless one…"
He knew if things went out like they used to be here, then he'd be at least safe. And that made him slightly accept the general idea of fighting such a scary enemy right now.
However, things turned out unlike what he expected.
"Weak! You are damn weak!"
Just when William started to attack the black fox, and just as the first attack landed on it, the fox sighed while his eyes started to show signs of life.
"You… You are alive!!!" William was shocked. This was the first time for him to meet something that was alive in this place. And so it was easy to imagine how surprised he was.
"What do you take me for? A dead doll or something? Screw humans! They are really useless!"
"..."
William didn't know why but he felt this black fox was looking down on him. And the next words that came from this fox proved this point.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om