Now, standing in the ruins of his own city, with the lives of his friends leaking out onto the pavent, William finally understood.
One created the poison. One wove the net. And the third... the third was
The hunt was on.
"The city didn’t fall because of the sheer weight of numbers or the elent of surprise," William muttered, his eyes darting across the cityscape as he carved through a group of enemy vanguard.
He wasn’t looking at the foot soldiers anymore; he was looking for the invisible strings being pulled. "It fell because of that third bastard’s unique ability. They didn’t just break the walls—they broke the city’s spirit."
In his past life, the order of the hunt had been different. But William was no longer a student following in his master’s wake; he was a king reclaiming his throne. He decided, then and there, to rewrite the sequence of fate. He wouldn’t prioritise the alchemist, Vladimir, yet.
To reach the heart of the spider, he first had to cut the legs of the protector. He would kill the Reaper first.
"What is he doing?" Anjie asked, her voice tight with anxiety. She stood at the edge of the central plaza, flanked by Becky, with the wounded Fang and the silent Lara behind them.
Becky narrowed her eyes, watching the way William’s silhouette flickered across the rooftops. He wasn’t heading for the palace, nor was he heading for the gates. He was jumping into the most densely packed enemy clusters, striking a few blows, and then retreating in a zigzag, erratic pattern.
"He is hunting," Becky said after a long silence. She recognised the rhythm of the movents—the way a predator baits a trap. "He is moving in a way that looks like weakness. He’s luring the Reaper out into the open."
"I’ve never seen him fight like this," Anjie whispered, her knuckles white as she gripped her weapon. "It’s like... he’s cautious. Almost as if he’s afraid of what’s coming."
"It’s only natural," Becky shrugged, though her eyes remained hard. She decided it was ti to level the playing field of their understanding.
"After all, the enemy he’s hunting isn’t from this world. He’s a monster from the Upper Realm. We t one just like him a week ago in the valley—a man who controlled the blood of the earth itself. William killed that one. He will kill this one, too."
The silence that followed was absolute. The air seed to be thick with the weight of her words.
Becky hadn’t realised that the people standing around her had already witnessed the nightmare of Lingerie; they knew exactly what an Upper Realm master could do to a Lower Realm’s reality.
Hearing that William had already faced and executed such a legend on his own was a revelation that hit them like a physical shock.
The realisation rippled through the survivors. If an Upper Realm figure was the cause of this devastation, and William was moving alone to confront him, the fear for their leader was instantly eclipsed by a burning, collective pride.
"We cannot let him fight that alone," Fang was the first to speak, his voice a raspy growl. Despite the fact that his body was still weeping spirit-poison and his legs were trembling, he forced himself to stand. He used his shattered pride as a crutch. "We need to move! We need to help him!"
"No," Becky said, stepping firmly into his path. She blocked the old man with the calm authority of soone who had seen the true scale of William’s power. "You will only get in his way. I was there in the valley.
I saw the clash. When William fights at that level, the area around him becos a dead zone for anyone else. If he needs us, he will ask. Right now, he needs us to hold this ground."
"But he is our Guild Master!" a wounded faction leader cried out, struggling to his feet. "We cannot sit here while he bleeds for our city!"
"He is our friend," Anjie added, her spirit sense locked onto William’s distant, flickering aura. "We can’t let him bear this weight in the dark."
Becky looked at the determination in their eyes and sighed. She knew she couldn’t stop them, and perhaps, she shouldn’t. "Then prepare yourselves. He is going to draw the Reaper out.
When the clash begins, our job isn’t to fight the Reaper—it’s to keep every other enemy in this city away from them. We provide the circle. We ensure no one interferes."
"I can do that," Fang said, though as he tried to take a step, his legs buckled. If not for his sword, which he drove into the cobblestones to use as a cane, he would have collapsed.
He gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his pale face. "You go. I’ll stay here and prepare the lightning array. I’ll turn this plaza into a fortress of thunder."
"Lightning what?" Becky blinked, confused by the technical jargon. To her, Fang just looked like a stubborn old man refusing to admit he was dying.
"I’ll form the offensive vanguard," Anjie said, her eyes burning with a new light. She turned toward the portal area they had arrived from. "Is there anyone left who can help us repair the portals? We need reinforcents from the other sectors if we’re going to hold a periter."
"Oh, about that," Becky said, a faint, sheepish smile crossing her face as she rembered a detail she’d forgotten to ntion. "I already fixed them. The portals are open."
"What the..." Anjie trailed off, her eyes fixed on Becky with a mixture of disbelief and growing frustration.
She wasn’t alone; every master in the plaza turned their head in a synchronised snap of confusion. "If the portals have been open this entire ti, why in the gods’ nas didn’t you say sothing before now?"
"No ti for this kind of talk!" Fang’s voice cut through the burgeoning argunt. Remarkably, the news seed to act as a tonic for the old man; he straightened his back, his tone regaining a portion of its forr iron.
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