The black fox spoke little, acted totally different than the first time he met it. "I feel like going through a landmine with my eyes blindfolded!" he muttered to himself, before thinking more seriously about this bizarre meeting.
"No… He gave me hints…" William realised that even if it was trivial, he got warnings and hints from the black fox.
It told him that the Nightmare monster prepared for so long for this battle. And according to what the black fox knew, the expected result of this war was the total annihilation of everyone.
William didn't even think that the black fox might have missed counting lots of his forces. So that meant whatever the Nightmare monster prepared, they all aimed towards killing lots of masters inside that region.
This hallucination grand formation was able to cut lots of masters down. William thought before that this was the deadliest trap the enemy prepared here. But now he changed his mind, this might be the slightest trial they were going to face.
"He mentioned intact, didn't use surviving or saving for example… That unique selection of words that it stressed over and didn't change when I asked about means this is also a hint…"
William started to guess what the black fox wanted him to do. "But… He mentioned just one side, and that's not a coincidence…"
William started to feel how complicated the brief meeting he had with the black fox was. The black fox said casual words, even masked everything by its weird attitude.
William recalled how the black fox spoke about his sworn enemy. It mentioned clearly that it hated that fox monster and didn't want to see it succeed.
So, the thought of getting excited about having a clash between the two of them wasn't a good thing actually. It didn't make any sense at all.
"It just did that to mask what he wanted to convey to me… It seems it's attached with tough strings after all…" William paused for a long minute, before knowing what he should do.
It might seem crazy, especially when he brought all these forces with himself. But if he risked them to fight by his side, he'd lose badly in the end.
The only way out of here was to remove the variable that controlled everything. If he sent everyone away from this area, then by any means this would end up in his big victory.
"I shall find Lara first," William looked around before sighing, "and I have to deal with this hallucination fast. I guess the entire area can be covered in a couple of days. But do I have such time in the first place?"
William knew this was going to be hard if he did it by normal means. Even if he changed and activated his spirit form, he wouldn't do it.
"To fight formations, one needs to use formations as well… It's indeed a wise man who said these words," William muttered to himself, while knowing this was going to be a bit tricky.
Yet he wasn't just thinking about how to free everyone from such hallucination. There was another dilemma he needed to fix if things didn't work out with Lara.
For a reason, he felt like all the portal cores Lara brought with weren't going to work. And if that happened, then the forces had to leave this region on foot.
When he reached this point, he couldn't help but recognise the hint the black fox gave to him. He told him that one side of the four forces had to survive this. And that meant one out of four sides was safe to pass through.
The other sides would be totally dangerous and might even be filled with tons of deadly traps. William took out the map he had from the settlement and looked at the general lay out of the entire terrain.
"I'm standing at the only open path leading to the inside… Lara is just opposite to me, while my guild is on my right, and Zin is on the left… One out of these four sides are safe… But which one is it?"
This was another dilemma he had to solve. For a reason, this adventure which he considered slightly safe and easy to handle turned out of his expectations, became like a deadly trap.
He was prepared for lots of traps and tricks of the enemy, yet he planned everything truly on the fact that the trial this time was like the last one.
Changing the nature of the trial meant changing everything for him. And right now, and at the early steps of this grand war, and before even stepping inside that region or seeing the walls and flags of that dark academy, William's back was pushed against a hard wall.
"I have to wake everyone up first, then I'll think about where to send them if the portal plan fails…" William shifted his full attention towards freeing everyone from this hallucination.
He didn't know how long he got, but he was going all out this time. To make such a grand formation to cover up such an area, one had to use a formidable source of spirit power to fuel it.
Normally, one would use spirit crystals to do it. But this would require tons of crystals, and also spreading them over a large area.
William didn't have that time to waste on doing that. So, he decided to look into his rings, see if he got something worthy to use.
"Don't tell me I have to use these…" After going through lots of stuff, William stood in front of a large pile of the same item. He took these out, and hoped to find something else but couldn't.
These were the grenades he had from the city and his guild branch. He got enough to turn any desperate war to be his win. Yet he didn't like spending these grenades here like this.
"I had no other choice," William knew these grenades might not look like a good source of spirit power, but in fact they were.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺