"I now know why many volunteered to come here," the mage said in a promising tone, "make sure this world won't belong to you, never will."
"I'm the one to decide that," Arthur waved his sword to clash with the defensive shield, releasing sparks of fire out of this simple touch. "What do you plan to do now? Dare to step outside and fight with me?"
"I have no time to waste on such a weakling," the grandmaster arrogantly said, "this place is now sealed off. I will be the supreme leader here and you… shall crawl back to the hole you came from and pray I won't find you."
Arthur couldn't help but laugh, expand his arms and expose his chest. "Why should I be such a loser? C'mon, I'm right here in front of your eyes. Come and show me how worthy you are to be called a grandmaster."
"You…" the grandmaster mage seemed to be enraged to the point he even moved for a meter before he paused. His body kept shaking as he was trying to control his urge to go out and kill Arthur at the spot. "Humph, I will kill you one day. After all, I know where you live, punk."
"And I know where you live, stupid dark mage," Arthur didn't show any sign of weakness however his provocation failed to lure that leader out.
Arthur watched the grandmaster mage retreat back to the inside of the settlement. He then turned his eyes around and tried to find a single weakness in this shield.
However even before he could do so, a sudden gush of a higher form of dark energy appeared all of sudden from the shield. He moved his eyes back to see that dark grandmaster planting some sort of a black crystal in the earth of the settlement.
"So you came well prepared," Arthur couldn't help but sigh while watching the shield all around getting fiercer. All the points of weaknesses he spotted before got amended and strengthened.
If he wanted to break through this shield now he would waste many days to do so. And the end result wouldn't be that good either.
Arthur could only retreat back to his friends before saying: "Let's go."
"What about this settlement?" Amera asked in doubt.
"What about that grandmaster?" the crow said in high fighting spirit, "I can exchange many pouts with him without losing! He isn't that strong after all."
"Let's fight another day," Arthur decided already to leave, "besides we are too exhausted from the war we just won. Let's have some days of rest before thinking about what to do."
Arthur didn't plan this out of his fear or hesitation. He figured out what happened here would happen at many places already around the world.
According to the slip of tongue of that dark grandmaster, the dark angel mage would send a lot of his caliber to this world.
He knew they weren't that strong, but they still were formidable enough to threaten his plans. "So you want to buy yourself time… but for what?" Arthur couldn't help but think about the plan of his main enemy, the dark angel mage.
The dark angel mage wouldn't send such weaklings here hoping to take Arthur down. He saw what Arthur was able to do, how he fought equally with the dark dragonair clan grandmaster without losing.
Even against him, Arthur was able to see his energy and could antagonize it using the higher form of white energy.
But right now he lacked such energy and he knew that dark angel mage wouldn't dare to come here without a proper plan.
And so Arthur started to think deeply about the hidden purpose behind such actions. Why would that mage ask for more time? Did he plan to crush the higher realms first before coming at him? Or he was aiming at another target?
"Sigh, things just got complicated at the time we should enjoy our victory and have rest," he couldn't help but be frustrated from this hard life of mages in this universe.
If he was living as a cultivator, he would have grown numb out of the long peaceful life there. The two seemed quite opposite to each other, making him feel bitter as to which way of life was better than the other.
As for the real reason behind his retreat was to think about a way to demolish these shields. After all he was sure anyone coming from the higher realms would obtain such an important orb.
Such an orb would make sure to turn this world into a jungle of traps for him, hard to crack and a lot to block his path.
"He wants me to sit tight as a duck and not expand," Arthur thought about this before another issue appeared in his mind. "Is this world… this special?"
It all started with Aemie. The moment she did those strange actions and sent out her lover and many of her elites to her, Arthur started to have such a theory.
And then when he fought with that young dark angel mage, he became more suspicious about the real value of this realm.
The appearance of the grandmasters and that dark angel mage in this world could be justified as a war between giants. But with this sudden actions from the dark angel mage despite their prior agreement made him realize it was much harder to drop this world than dropping the successor of his.
The only clue Arthur got was the prophecies Deem and Gor spoke about. "I have to ask them to write them down for me to read," he decided that once returned to his cities he wouldn't hesitate to make them do this.
After all he had no other way to know the hidden truth about this world. "Unless…" he shifted his eyes and gazed towards Nicole for a brief moment before returning to see the horizon up ahead. "I hope she had some valuable info to tell."
The other person here who would know such hidden facts was Nicole. He was quite sure she wouldn't stay still and wouldn't try to dig up the real reasons behind Aemie's weird decision.
And he simply hoped she reached something so he could better assess the situation.
"Oh, there is another settlement there," the crow suddenly pointed in one direction, "should I test it first?"
Arthur watched the settlement in his own unique eyes. Without the need to go there by himself, he could easily see the higher form of dark energy spreading all over the place.
Another dark grandmaster just appeared in this part of the world.. And that simply confirmed Arthur's doubts.
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