William didn't want to guess, so he spoke directly with Sloth using the special scroll.
"I haven't reached there yet, but the battle going on out there is quite massive! I can swear on my name and honour this! Pick up pace, the distance to that place is quite massive."
William reassured him, as they were already running at their top speed towards the same direction. As there were many dark gold masters out there, he asked them to detach and go ahead, running fast to catch up with Sloth early on.
William didn't know what was going on out there, or who was fighting which. But he could easily tell the situation for those from the capital wasn't that good.
The high-end masters didn't easily agree with his orders. They came here just to protect the offspring of many big names and families from their world. But under the persistence of these young masters, they finally moved out to support Sloth.
William and the others kept running for many hours. After ten hours of departing the capital, he finally got news from Sloth.
"They are alive! Hahahaha! The entire royal family is fighting alongside other big shots here. We have hope, things aren't lost yet!"
The excited tone of Sloth came from the vague shadow that appeared in front of William. The latter hoped the masters he sent would catch up to Sloth.
William told Sloth to engage, a thing he didn't need to remind him of. He also told him that a group of strong masters were heading towards him, plus the rest of the army trailing them from behind.
"Don't worry, I won't let a single one of them die until your arrival!"
"Who said I'm worried about them?" William rolled his eyes. He just wanted to know what happened here and check over the situation of the new king appointed to this kingdom.
He was sure the moment they'd join the battle, the fate of the royal family and others with them would change. Yet he asked Sloth to gather intel about the enemies and send this news to him.
Sloth already scanned part of the ongoing battle. According to him, the royal family and others took shelter in a deep valley, one that ran deeply in a huge series of mountains. That place got four entrances to it, which were the main focus of the ongoing last-stand battle.
On one side, there were masters fighting desperately to stop the enemies from passing through, and on another, there were tons of monsters and masters, masters wearing black coats and capes, the dark masters.
William wasn't surprised to learn about that. He already expected them to be behind what happened here.
According to what Sloth said, it seemed the royal family and the masters on their side came here recently and ended up fighting the incoming enemies without having enough time to lay down any defences.
Sloth then went radio off and started to help his kingdom's leaders to survive this. As for William, he kept his silence for an hour or so, thinking deeply about what Sloth said.
"The monsters out there are many, but they aren't that strong. The dark masters are numerous, but they lack enough high-end masters to threaten the capital, lest to destroy it… What's going on here? Something is off…"
This was what puzzled William the most. No matter how he looked at it, there was no way the capital would fall under such invading force.
As he was lost in thoughts, the army marched closer until all of sudden something happened. William was running in his human form, and didn't activate his spirit body as there was no need to. But at some point, and as he was lost in his thoughts, he felt a weird surge of spirit power running through his body, before his spirit body got activated on its own.
"Stop! Everyone stop and retreat!" William took just a few seconds before he linked the dots. Without any hesitation, he raised his voice to the max, shouted, and even used his lightning element to make his voice thunder for many kilometres around.
The moment he shouted, everyone thought there was an enemy attack. Without a single moment of hesitation, they all stopped, and retreated as he ordered, while scanning the world around using spirit sense.
"What's going on?"
"Where is the enemy?"
Yet they all noticed nothing abnormal, and couldn't help but turn to William who was still standing a few hundreds of metres away from the frontlines of the small army.
"Just stand there and don't take a single forward," William shouted again and didn't explain anything. Slowly he kept walking towards them, taking step by step, as if he was walking in a landmine or something.
They didn't get it, but his spirit body reacted to something in the air, something that didn't have a colour or smell. William didn't need to think about what caused this, as his snake spirit was the one that got stirred by what was in the air.
Such spirit was stirred before when he came to meet the toxic fog for the first time. Thanks to it, he was able to withstand the toxin in the air without feeling anything and was able to handle the deadly fog when he got teleported to the back of that flying behemoth in the other world.
As his snake spirit got stirred up again, he was sure there was something in the air, something corrosive and toxic at the same time. He was going to be fine, but the army of masters following him wouldn't, the army of masters fighting far distance away wouldn't.
It hit him all of a sudden, finally revealing pieces of the truth of what happened at the capital. "So that fog and toxin weren't just aimed to take down the king, but the entire capital… Don't tell me it has a weakening effect or something…"
William started to see the mysterious puzzle much clearer now.
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