But Ibra was all alone right now. If they retreated and teleported away, then he got to also run for his life. Thinking about calling him back wasn't going to work. The entire city was totally surrounded by a tight circle of scary monsters. If he came here, he'd be asking for his own death.
"Send someone to check on the portals, we need everything ready before retreating," William said to Lara, and the latter took a few seconds before doing what he said.
She sent many teams to the portal area. They were the ones who used to work there and knew what they should do to make the portals work.
William knew leading everyone to the open area of the portal zone without preparing everything beforehand was an act of suicide. So, he waited until Lara sent the experienced teams out, and that also attracted the attention of everyone in the city.
Slowly shouts demanding the death of the monsters and asking to stand their ground and fight started to rise and spread all over the place. William looked at such stubborn spirits, knowing that these masters were the best, were the most any city, academy, impact, guild, or master would dream to have.
Seeing this, knowing that once they stayed behind, they'd die, William sighed in pain. He didn't want to let such good masters die, and yet he had no power to do anything to save them.
"What will we do?" Berry couldn't help but ask while feeling inwardly shaken by such a growing atmosphere around. It reminded her of her clan, reminded her of what her clan's masters did before when their home got attacked.
"What else?" William shrugged, "we have to retreat," even if he hated leaving such capable masters behind to die, there was no other choice for him but to do that.
"But…"
"No way! Are you sure of what you are saying?!!!"
And before Sara would issue her opinion and try to convince William to stick around and fight, Lara's loud shout came to startle all of them.
"What happened?" William felt like the entire world got shaken underneath his feet the moment he heard her shout. There was only one thing that could make her act like this, and that was the damage of the portal area or anything close to that.
The portals were their only way out from here, the only place William thought about to run safely with everyone. He planned everything based on these portals, never thinking about the possibility of losing them or something.
So, it was expected how much he panicked the moment he heard her shout, thinking of the worse.
But against what he feared, none of that happened. In fact, it was something great.
"The portal… There… There are masters flooding out from them!!!"
"..."
William took a couple of moments before he got what she just said. "For real? Hahahaha! At last! Reinforcements arrived!"
"Yes… But…" the look of excitement over her face slowly faded away, making William look at her in a questioning way. "There is a group of masters who want to speak with me before sending their forces here."
"I see…" William's mind worked fast, and he instantly guessed what was going on here, "let me go and speak with them then. You can't leave the battlefield, or else everyone will get the wrong idea."
"Do you know why they are asking to meet?" Lara didn't bother about what he just said, and instead she felt worried about such a weird request at such a critical time.
All she thought about was something that originated from her life as a businesswoman and a leader of a big family. She thought they came here to extort her and her family and city, asking for extravagant prices to help, taking advantage of such low points in their fate.
Even if she hated getting extorted like this, in return to save everyone and everything she was willing to agree on anything.
But William knew better. He could already guess what these forces want in return for helping save the city. "Don't worry, I know they came with good intentions."
"Good or bad, do we have a choice in the first place?" she took what William said as a way to reassure her, "go there then, and speak on my behalf. I accept any conditions and prices they'll ask for, no matter what. Our city… Our home… Our people… All of this must be saved!"
William liked how she acted at such a moment. Even if she over thought about everything, he still liked how she was determined to save everything and everyone.
"Leave it to me," William turned to his friends and vices, "stay here, and make sure everyone is ready for a big counterattack."
"Do you want us to come with you?" Lang asked, and William simply shook his head. He called back Charley, letting it cover his chest for now. He was now in his human form and didn't plan to change into a fox form yet.
He knew those waiting for them at the portal area were either the leaders of big forces all over the continent, or their representatives.
William recalled asking Lara to spread out the word of what the forces here did. The simple move he didn't think about except for a form of retaliation towards such despicable traitors ended up saving their lives, saving this city, and helping them to rebuild everything.
These folks arrived here to speak about one thing, about replacing the vacancy left by the various forces in the city.
Of course, they'd ask for lots of things, like the right to be part in deciding matters in the city, allocating pieces of land to their forces to use as bases, the right to use the portals, the freedom to recruit any master and bring any sizeable forces here, doing business freely and such things.
William knew Lara wouldn't object on anything, no one in the city would actually reject any condition no matter how harsh it was.
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