"All of my forces, I know we passed through hard times, however… It's my honour to tell you that the worst has already passed. The army that you see here belongs to us, belongs to William. To all of my forces hearing my words right now… Attack… Kill the enemies, kill everyone, kill Richard and bring me his head! To victory!"
Well, if anyone told them that a miracle happened here at this moment, they wouldn't believe him. But it was Lara, and the air she emitted was the air suited for a queen, a victorious and all mighty queen, not someone who was this close from losing everything.
The first to be jolted awake from this was Stark. He instantly ordered the masters on his side to do one simple thing, to retreat, run towards the grand army of masters surrounding the entire place.
This wasn't an act of cowardice, but an order to regulate things here. If he didn't do it, then it was destined for chaos to befall, where no one of the new army would recognise a friend from a foe.
So, it was the most crucial thing to move everyone first towards William's masters, separate themselves from the enemies, and make it clear who the enemy and ally was.
Shouting like this made his masters jolt awake as well, before they started to move towards the same direction Stark moved towards.
And what happened next was expected. A one-sided massacre occurred. And Lara kept herself standing on that tower, overlooking all this with cold eyes and trembling spirit.
She managed to revive, get back from the depths of the doors of death. And all this, such a miracle did happen because of one person; William.
The latter was now racing towards the location of the grand arena. He kept receiving reports from his vices, and finally got relieved when they confirmed that Lara was alive.
Unlike what he felt, Rick and Richard felt the total opposite than him. The two were just waiting for the confirmation of Lara's death, to receive the shocking news about the sudden appearance of a grand army.
Then news started to flood them, crushing any doubt they had about the origin and identity of this army.
"This…" Richard turned to Rick, to see the same look of disbelief over his ally's face.
"I never thought… How come he brought his guild's members all the way here?! No way!" Rick shook his head, jolting himself awake before adding, "the distance from that place to here will take weeks to cross. And such a grand army won't pass without getting noticed by our eyes… Weird… This is weird…"
Rick was baffled with such news, and his mind was this close to exploding. He couldn't believe that the second time he got in touch with William ended in the same disastrous defeat, the same way William did it before, without any logic or reason behind any of this.
"Great… Just great…" If he lost this war by normal means, without such a weird and unexplained large army's presence, then Rick wouldn't be even half this shocked or enraged.
If he lost by normal means, then he'd leave behind a torn apart city, with lots of ruins and little forces to gather. But now? With such an army, everything was going to get under control soon enough.
Not long time passed over the grand battles outside the city. If this army news spread over, then it would mean the end of any resistance. Resisting what exactly? Anyone in their right mind would lower their heads and accept the new sheriff in town!
"Are we going to leave? Like this?!!!" Richard was feeling no less bitterness inside than Rick. He already saw the dream of ruling over this city finally happening. And yet everything shattered.
It felt like a mirage, like it was so close and yet so damn far away from his reach. Richard didn't know if he made the wrong decision a few years ago, deciding to join hands with the dark forces in the area.
First, that big war that happened at the Scorching Lands five years ago dealt a big blow to all the dark forces around the world. Many righteous masters fought against the dark forces using the same tactics and methods William and others used before.
And when he thought things went from being bad to great by the appearance of a new dark lord, meeting up Rick, and hearing the brilliant plan about letting Lara clash with other forces by using William as the fuse, he thought he was blessed.
Yet he ended up realising it was a curse, a deadly and black curse that took everything, literally everything, away from him. He worked for long years, endured and faked his weakness and uselessness to just have everything he built getting smashed and turned into nothing.
"We are going to leave," Rick slowly nodded, taking something out of his ring, "but we won't leave empty handed, not like this."
"The weapon…" Richard's eyes shone brightly when he spotted what Rick held in his hands, "are you going to use it now?"
"I won't let him have such a grand place with such power," Rick hated William deep from the bones and spirit, "let's go. We need to prepare things out for this weapon to get activated…"
Rick stored that weapon again, before he took a ball out. He smashed it on the ground, and then green gas appeared, enveloping the two of them, before they vanished from here like they never existed.
It was a gift from Rick's dark master, one that could teleport Rick and a group of a hundred around towards any place randomly allocated one hundred kilometres away from the city.
Crossing such distance meant they didn't just get away from the city, but also bypassed all the ongoing clashes between the two sides. The two appeared on top of a small hill, and that made Rick recall the dark forces' bases he used to visit before William ruined everything for him.
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