Even elder Stark felt the same immense shock when he arrived there. The entire Spar Arena was now surrounded by deep trenches, lots of traps and defensive arrays that turned the entire place into a fortress.
Richard's side tried their best to infiltrate through such fortifications, ending up losing many masters just to claim little space. When elder Stark arrived, and after he passed his shock, he realised why Lara dared to do that crazy move.
She wasn't idly waiting here to get surrounded and attacked. When he saw such a defensive measure filling the entire place around, he knew this war wasn't lost, not yet.
Anyone on Lara's side seeing this got their moral skyrocket again. Everyone thought about the dark future of their family, thought about the inescapable fate of losing their leader. But when they saw this scene, they all knew there was still hope.
And feeling such a thing was indeed quite dangerous to both sides. Richard and Rick got the news, and that made all their happiness and laughs choke in their throats.
They imagined the remaining part of this war was going to end quite smoothly. Lara was on her last feet, and her forces were thinned out, stretched and exhausted, and were even sent to save William.
But when they got the reports about the strong defences there, they felt real danger. Stalling for time seemed to be Lara's plan. Buying time until the outside forces of her would return would be quite disastrous.
From the start, the balance of this war was flipped in regard for the total master numbers of both sides.
"We need to do something… Didn't you tell me you have a weapon that your master gave you before? Why not use it now?" Richard felt like rising up to the seventh heaven to just fall deep down to the lowest hell. He turned to Rick, and thought about the craziest idea ever.
eaglesnov?1,сoМ "You do know that once I use this, there is no turning back," Rick seriously looked at Richard, "you'll lose everything. This city, the family, your precious portal area, literally everything! Are you sure you want to do that?"
The words said by Rick managed to knock little sense into Richard's mind. The latter paused, lost in thought for a few minutes before making up his mind, "let's wait then. If it becomes impossible to win this war, then it's better to burn everything before leaving."
"Ok," Rick wasn't really attached to this city, never placed it in his eyes at all. He came here to just cause trouble to William, try to take him down. But if he failed in doing so, it'd be great to bring such calamity upon William and others.
Rick already tasted how scary William would be when he'd receive support. It was better to crush this place, get rid of any possible allies for him, rather than giving William more masters he could use later on.
As the two decided, they kept listening to the incoming reports. Gradually, their side started to make their way through all the defensive measures Lara sat back there.
Even if she used everything she got, it wasn't enough to heavily secure this arena. She kept fighting with the little number of masters she got, trying to fend off any enemies coming through the defensive net of hers. As for Stark, he fought crazily with his force, killing lots of the enemies, and tried to scatter them around.
Yet as Lara's side got a glimpse of hope ignited in their spirits, the enemies also got their source of inspiration, the fear of death.
As they knew they got cornered like this, without any way of retreat or running away without getting killed, they turned their full attention towards taking Lara down.
Their only hope was to reach Lara, kill her, and issue a deadly blow to the morals of her forces. Using the depression and sadness that'd follow after her death, they'd find many chances to run away.
So, the intensity of this battle grew to a new level. And soon enough, things started to look bad to Lara and her side.
[Retreat now! There is no way to stop all of them before they'll reach you!] Stark kept trying to persuade her to leave this place and make a run for her life. But he failed in doing so.
"Just hang on, I'm sure when he'll arrive, things will be better. Besides, there is no way for me to run from here, there is no other safe place in the entire city for me. It's all dead ends now!"
Her words held tons of logic and weird heaviness to them. Stark knew she was right, and yet he couldn't help himself to watch her fall in front of his eyes, not when he was this close by.
Things were going hectic here. At the same time, the forces Stark sent by Lara's orders finally managed to crush their way through the merchant group.
They selected this as their first target as it was the weakest in the entire forces in the city that had access to the underground city. Merchants were weak in themselves, but they always were strong thanks to hiring the services of mercenaries and guards.
As the forces in the city lost much of their forces before at the battle inside the Lost City, and the rest were sent to keep Lara's forces away from the city, it was expected to find little masters defending that merchant base.
Once the forces arrived at the Lost City, they started to look for William in a fervent way. They also relayed the news over to Stark and Lara, while the latter tried to contact William without any success.
William was now about to lay the last touches over his weapon. In the next half an hour, he finally finished what he was doing.
"Phew! At last, I did it! But… I need to test it… Shall I do it here or…"
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