"The last layer is the most important," he paused, looking at the final shape of his weapon while feeling little satisfaction and lots of anticipation towards it, "any great weapon must have a scary appearance, or else it won't be strong enough to intimidate the enemy with its mere appearance…"
William took this point quite seriously, even recalling all the scary shapes of different weapons he saw before in the outer world.
In the end, he decided to go with the black and gold colours, with long red lines and dots that would add more awe and fear to anyone seeing it.
William spent two hours alone in this process alone. He took utmost care and paid full attention towards this task, even forgetting about the hectic and crazy situation of Lara right now.
She listened to his advice and didn't call back any of her forces at the portal area. And as he expected, the enemy placed their full attention and focus over this region.
She thought William misjudged this time. If it was her, then she'd aim to follow her enemy and take him down first. But unlike what she expected, lots of Richard's faction masters started to flood towards the portal area, aiming to take full control over it.
When she thought about the possibility of her losing this place, she realised how grave the mistake she fell in was. She was naive, thinking like any normal army general or something, fighting with honour and dignity. But her enemy wasn't.
Richard's main goal was to have a strong stand for himself first. He got nothing to promise anyone with, nothing to back his claims for the position of the leader of the family. But if he managed to control the portal area, then he'd solve all this.
Not only that, as this would come as the greatest boost to him, it'd also be the worst blow she'd suffer aside from her death.
When she realised all this, she stressed over her grand uncle to not leave her place or send anyone to her support. Elder Stark was deeply worried over her, wanted to send lots of masters and lead them even to her side.
The entire portal area was filled with chaos, battles, and ruins. But weirdly enough, and per his words, not a single portal got hit or damaged at all. Yet all the travels to and from there got suspended thanks to this unsettled situation.
Lara went to the Spar Arena main building and gathered up all the masters she found there. As this was a place that wasn't as important as the portal area, the number of forces stationed here was already low. Not to mention it lacked enough high-end masters to fend off any attack.
eaglesnov?1,сoМ Knowing that and putting William's last and strict words in her mind, she started to consider this entire place as a fortress. And she started fortifying it with all the means she got.
Be it arrays, traps, and even digging the ground and forming a trench around the arena; she did everything she could until enemies started to appear.
Richard and Rick were imagining the best version of all this, the version that didn't happen at the end. Bad reports kept flooding them as if they were cursed or something.
"You told me this plan will succeed!" Richard's face grew dark when he received the latest report of losses. He turned towards Rick, and the latter didn't know what to say.
He learnt such tactics from his mysterious dark master. And per that master's words, this tactic was a foolproof plan, one that had zero chance of failure.
If Lara managed to survive the blast for any reason, then the scattered assassins would take her down. If she managed to get shielded by her forces, then she'd try to make a run for her life, abandoning the ship and leaving behind an unguarded portal area, waiting for anyone to come and claim it.
That was what the two of them planned and envisioned to happen before. And yet none of that happened! Lara didn't die, and she ran away without taking a single master off that area. That turned the situation from just sending masters to control the portal zone into a brutal battlefield, one that his side was losing badly at.
With each passing hour, more reinforcements came to support Lara and her side. Richard tried everything and did exactly as William imagined. He made sure to lure Lara's masters away from the city and keep them busy with bloody battles.
To do so, he also had to spend lots of his already limited forces, with much limited numbers to spare for the acquisition process of the portal zone.
So, when the entire plan failed for no specific reason, except for the crazy and unbelievable one that Lara managed to see through everything, his forces lost badly without having any fresh blood to gush into that part of the war.
Losing there meant losing everything. And that was what made Richard lose his calm at this moment.
"Don't fret like this," Rick rolled his eyes, "if we can't do it the way we planned, then why not shift our targets then?"
"What do you mean?" Richard got his anxiety slightly under control when he saw how calm and collected Rick was.
"Let's take Lara down."
"This… You do know we don't have any other masters! We even sent all the masters we got from other forces to lure Lara's masters away from the city!"
"We still have the ones fighting at the portal area," Rick didn't lose his cool against such a loud and nervous tone from Richard."
"But… They will get chased by that damn elder. And in the end, we'll lose them!"
"And we'll get Lara's head," Rick evilly smiled, "don't worry about these masters. We can get much more later on. As for the balance of power, once Lara died, the entire situation will flip to our side. There isn't any other candidate for the leader position."
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