If not for William's previous cooperation with them, they'd have suffered more severe backlash. Returning with even one tenth of the overall masters who activated the formation with their lives intact would be a blessing.
He now hoped for the Cardinals to uncover more of William's secrets, and then share these with him. Even if he didn't get anything in return, he knew he was about to get selected as one of the Cardinals soon enough. And when he'd be one of them, he'd get to learn the things he wanted to know.
"I believe you can get to the main base now," Arthur wanted now to send William away as fast as he could, "that young man is giving me a headache about his cursed friend. He is waiting back with his legion members. Let's go, I'll take you all towards the portal."
William wasn't dejected by such a change of attitude. He knew he got the better end of the stick out of this deal.
If it was up to him, he'd prefer to stay here for a longer time. But he knew Arthur already changed heart towards him, and he might even force him to leave. So it was better to keep the last string of friendship between the two rather than turning this into some sort of enmity.
As the two walked outside, William noticed the large number of masters stationed outside the rocky hall. This came as a little surprise to him, and he landed a questioning look over Arthur, one that the latter ignored and didn't bother to explain.
William kept his thoughts to himself. He walked for an hour inside many corridors, descending stairs, realising how huge this place was.
He met lots of masters in the long walk, and they all cupped their hands and respectively greeted Arthur. William got the impression after some time that Arthur was showing off on him. And he didn't know why he wanted to do so.
Arthur did indeed want to convey such an impression. He knew his meeting with this youngster was just the mere beginning of a long series of future meetings, and he wanted to establish his hierarchy in front of this youngster.
Arthur had the feeling that every single time he'd meet William later on wouldn't be less shocking than this one. Not to mention with each meeting, William would grow stronger and more authoritative.
So, it was better to show off when William was weak, in an attempt to make this youngster feel awed towards him. He didn't know that William wasn't a bit affected by any of that.
"At last," the moment Jeremy saw William, he couldn't help but heave a long sigh of relief. He then turned towards Arthur, "can we go on our way now?"
"Follow me," Arthur didn't show anything on his face, and simply turned around and took them into a short tour this time. In less than five minutes, the entire legion found themselves standing in front of a gigantic portal, one that stretched for tens of metres in height and width.
William knew such a portal would require tons of power to operate, and he didn't care about that. He knew the branch here would shoulder such expenditure, and he simply waited on the side for a few hours until Arthur's men operated the portal.
The moment it got activated, a torrent of golden light appeared, twirling in a gigantic circle with pitch blackness in the centre.
"The portal is ready," Arthur stood in the front of the portal, looking at William and not anyone else, "let's hope our next meeting will be far more interesting than this one."
"I hope to not touch that world of yours again," William lied, before walking alongside Leo's legion, passing through the portal.
"You'll have to pass through my base next time to return home," Arthur said these words when William passed by his side. And the latter didn't care about such words and kept walking steadily to the front.
The portal felt like it was a lake of frozen water. The moment William passed through it, his body sank slowly, while getting extremely cold.
He knew this was the effect of a high concentrated spirit power used to operate this portal. And soon enough, the blackness around got cleared up, replaced by bright dots of light that kept enlarging, increasing in number, and merging together.
*Thud!*
William landed on the ground, while feeling like his body was close to freezing to death. He didn't panic, took a spirit power regenerating potion out, and gulped its content without any hesitation.
This was the sign of his spirit power getting pressured by the portal's, and to fix this he needed to replenish his spirit power using potions or elixirs.
"What took you so long?" Just as William recuperated and felt better, he heard this loud shout coming from far. When he looked around, he found himself standing in a much gigantic hall, one that made him feel dwarfed by staying in it.
The entire place was made out of rocks, but the ceiling and walls were hundreds of metres away from him. The entire place had five colossal portals, with a much larger one in the centre of them.
The moment William spotted this one, his eyes shone brightly as he softly muttered: "The interworld portal!!!"
This portal was the one that led the owners and founder of this place to make it this big. The portal was at least two hundred metres in height and width, looking like a small mountain on its own.
Just standing far from it made William feel as if he was an ant standing in front of a giant. And he knew if he stood much closer, he'd feel like a speck of dust compared to it.
The portal looked black, as if it was cold dead. It wasn't activated yet, and William knew to activate it, an insane amount of power was needed.
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