The mountain started to tremble, with the ground shaking and other peaks vibrating in response to the activation.
The heart once activated released a bright ray of golden light, one that rose for hundreds of metres off the mountain, forming a beacon to anyone from far.
The ray of light didn't stop there, and began to release wisps of power. They were all golden in colour at first, started to change to silver, blue, green, and then white the more they elongated. At the end, they became transparent, fading into the world, making it a bit hard to see.
William knew these were tentacles formed by the heart, the things that would start absorbing spirit power from all formations connected to it. As these tentacles elongated and vanished in thin air, he knew it was time to start hitting the hostile formation.
As he was busy activating the heart, taking half an hour in doing so, things were growing intense at the Black Holes region. Sloth's strong masters and early batches of high end masters entered the area, to get welcomed with tons of shadows.
They were just how William described them, made of weird smoke, not suffering any injuries at all. But every time a master hit them hard enough, they'd shatter and dissipate in air, before taking a few minutes to regenerate and gather their smoke up again.
This bought the masters venturing inside enough time, enough to wait for William's plan to succeed.
The latter wasn't feeling any good at the moment. As he watched the masters advance into the Black Holes zone, he didn't hesitate to activate the heart. The tentacles appeared, and then he felt the expected immense pressure, coming from the spirit power.
It came from the grand formations William was linking the heart with. As spirit power gushed in crazy amounts, his body couldn't tolerate it and started to show deep wounds, on the verge of collapsing.
The pain was something unbearable, yet he endured and started to consume the healing elixirs and potions he prepared before. As the hostile formation was on a scale much bigger than what he imagined before, and it was built there for a long time, the spirit power coming from there was something scary.
Even if he was going to suffer a lot, much worse than what he expected before, he was still excited about this. The increase in the spirit power meant the heart would store much more of it, ending up helping him to raise his power faster.
For long minutes, he kept suffering from tons of damage, experiencing rounds of massive pain, followed by the soothing effects of the elixirs and potions. And during this, things were changing at the Black Holes area.
The moment William started to suffer the backlash from the spirit power, the shadows that filled the Black Holes area started to show signs of weakness.
Their speed, strength, and even their ability to regenerate were all negatively affected. The masters who were in the middle of fighting them felt the changes, and they all knew that William started to work.
"Let's spread the word," many thought about the same thing. As the formidable and high end masters were inside fighting these shadows, they stopped masters of early stage dark gold grade and weaker outside the zone.
They experienced how hellishly strong these shadows were, and they knew these weaker masters would do nothing in front of these enemies. But as the shadows were getting weaker, and William's plan was working, they decided to let masters of gold grade and higher to join the fray.
Things started to be better after the intervention of William and the new blood. The number of masters joining the war increased exponentially, with more standing outside the zone, waiting for their signal to march inside and join the battle.
William wasn't aware of any of this. He was too busy to handle the torture of the spirit power gushing from the entire world around. For an hour he suffered hellish pain, used tons of healing potions and elixirs, until the heart finally got on the right track.
It absorbed the spirit power in copious amounts, without the need for William to act too much. "Phew! I thought I was going to die," he felt his body trembling and couldn't help but fall on his knees and hands, leaning on the ground with body soaked in sweat.
William healed his body, but the mental pressure he suffered was still there. Not to mention such repetitive cycles of terrifying pain followed by the cooling effects of the elixirs and potions were something no one could properly handle.
Yet this wasn't something that bothered him. As long as the heart was starting to effectively store the spirit power, it meant everything was going as planned.
He lay himself there for half an hour, before finally standing up and starting to examine everything. The heart was doing fine, absorbing spirit power coming towards here without the need for him to intervene at the moment.
He knew the heart was able to suck dense amount of spirit power, but it still had a limit to how it could tolerate the absorbed spirit power. From time to time, William expected the need for him to suffer again, giving the heart enough time to digest the spirit power it absorbed.
As for the ongoing battle, things were progressing smoothly for Sloth's army. The shadows lost more of their power the more spirit power gushed towards here. And many of them already shattered, vanished without showing up again.
The masters fighting inside were now composed of the entire Sloth's army, and they were progressing like an unstoppable flood. They crushed any shadow they met, kept advancing, and now they were clashing with the dark masters hiding around.
These dark masters thought of the great loot they'd gain by taking such risk, never imagined they'd end up getting crushed like this.
The bloody massacre they imagined happened, but in a totally opposite way.
This chapter is updated by freew(e)bnovel.(c)om