What was weird in the eyes of many masters was the lack of any monster. Many thought monsters got terrified of such a gathering of humans, and others thought this was the act of dark masters. William knew both were correct. And he didn't care about fighting any monsters during their travels.
The distance between them and the Black Holes region would take one month normally to travel. During which, more masters kept joining them, as many grew impatient and moved to station themselves at the border of this region.
They were the type to seek adrenaline in life, the type that William liked the most. Totally opposite to them, there were many masters who loved playing it safe, and waited for the grand army to move, even moving at the rear end of the grand armies.
William didn't interfere in anything, simply walking towards his destination while thinking about the Black Holes zone. He also was concerned about his enemy back in his world, the Nightmare monster.
He might have drifted away from the contest that was going on at the Novistic kingdom, but he didn't feel any loss or regret. He never liked the idea of taking part in this contest, and only decided to take part in it to find and kill his enemy.
Yet he ended up experiencing another adventure in this world. Lots of time passed, and he was sure the Nightmare monster must have finished the contest and was now far away from the kingdom's capital.
William didn't know that his enemy didn't just take part of the contest, but he grew mad when he learnt about his absence. In return for this, he left a small surprise for William once he'd return back.
Karoline kept showing interest in everything that she met, done by masters around, or even simply caused by nature. When the sky dimmed and rain fell, she kept speaking about how amazing it was to feel the rain drops while being a human.
William and others ignored her, as everyone who knew her started to deal with her as if they were dealing with a very young girl, not exceeding five years in age.
She was weak on top of that, and that made everyone underestimate her. They bought William's story and didn't doubt it even for the slightest. Even Angelica who had her doubts before dealt with her as someone who had a deformity in her mind or some sort of illness.
The journey looked endless, especially with the lack of any action or events. During which, the different masters leading the armies marching to war gathered twice, discussing the newest intel about the frontline.
Sloth told William everything about these two meetings, and the news he learnt there weren't that surprising to William, despite them being shocking for other leaders.
The dark masters saw their inability to defend against the sudden surge in their enemies' numbers. And so, they called for more reinforcements from other dark masters in the continent, a call that got lots of responses.
That made the entire Black Holes are filled with endless dark masters and traps. It felt like there was death awaiting the normal masters at every corner. And William saw this normal and quite expected.
As they drew closer, the general atmosphere changed and became heavy. The masters who were chatting, laughing, and taking this as a guaranteed win march towards their sworn enemies got all silenced now. More bad news kept flooding and spreading all over the armies in the past few weeks about the dark masters waiting up ahead and their insane preparations.
No one knew who was spreading such news, but it was easy to guess their identity. In such colossal number of masters, it was easy for the dark masters to infiltrate the ranks of normal masters, spreading such rumours and false intel even.
They wanted to deal a crushing blow to the unbelievable high morale of the masters. And William knew such psychological tactic was one of the most favourable tactics for dark masters in the outer world. And he knew how serious the current situation was.
Even if the news and rumours spreading were half false, an army who lost their morale before a fight was destined to lose.
The more they advanced, the more disturbing rumours spread. William once heard a rumour about the presence of a legendary grade monster on the side of the dark masters, and another about the presence of a mythical monster on their side as well. Another rumour was speaking about the endless trenches that filled the entire area, completely full of deadly acid and weird liquids that could kill anything in mere breaths!
He knew all this was the work of the dark masters' imagination, and they were deadly serious about tricking the masters marching towards them and letting them believe they were going to lose badly, even before the fight would start.
"This is a seriously bad situation," just when there was just one travel distance between their current location and the outer edges of the Black Holes area, Sloth came while fuming in frustration and rage, "these rumours… I don't know who the hell is spreading them!"
"What's wrong?" William calmly asked. During their march, he kept his silence, didn't show any reaction to any of that.
"What's wrong?!! Everything is wrong! Just look around you! Everyone is already thinking about their death, their defeat! Those bastards are preparing lots of defensive measures, but it's not that bad. It's not even half that bad!"
"I know," William rolled his eyes, "don't tell me the grand mentor of the Novistic kingdom doesn't have a solution for this."
"Me?" Sloth went silent for a few seconds, before giving William a weird look, "don't tell me you have a way out of this!!"
"Sure," William calmly smiled, "just prepare a strong force, one that's composed of elite masters from our army. Then follow me."
"Where?" Sloth didn't get it yet, but when William explained everything to him, he realised what a simple and yet effective counterplan he missed.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om