"How... How on earth do you know of this?!!" A third voice landed, the tone filled with imnse shock.
One of the figures on the far-left throne leaned forward, his hood falling back to reveal a face etched with disbelief. "Who the hell are you? That formation is a secret guarded by the architectural guilds of the High Heavens!"
"Just nobody," William calmly said, though the dangerous glint in his eyes suggested otherwise. "But what brought the Black Serpents to my little world? What’s the catch here? Are you paid enough and feeling bored to co down here and play with weak masters like us? Or is there a deeper rot in your organisation that requires you to scavenge for scraps in the lower realms?"
This ti, silence prevailed for a few minutes. The only sounds were the crackling of the portals and the low, hungry growls of William’s fifty monsters. Finally, a fourth voice ca with a long, weary sigh. "It seems the intel is correct! There is a loose cannon here, a failed spirit portion of that damn beast!"
William was puzzled at first, his brow furrowing as he processed the cryptic terminology. Before he could demand a clarification, another enemy spoke from the central throne, revealing everything to him in a wave of arrogance.
"Even if the Fox monster lost control over one less copy, he is still a copy! He won’t pose much threat to us in the grand sche of things!"
"Oh, you know about the Fox monster," William’s eyes shone with a bright and dangerous light. The ntion of the Fox—the entity that had haunted his past life and lood over his current one—sharpened his focus to a razor’s edge.
"How about this then? I usually kill all the enemies I et, especially those from the dark camp. But you seem remarkably well-inford. Why don’t we reach an agreent? You tell who provided your intel, and I might make your deaths quick."
"Hahaha, that’s funny," the enemy leader started to say, but before he could continue his derisive laugh, another enemy spoke, cutting him off. "He is terrified of us. He’s trying to negotiate because he knows the gap. Unfortunately for you, little copy, we were paid a handso sum to get rid of you specifically. On other occasions, I’d love to keep you alive—dissect you and do more tests on your soul. It’s not every day one gets to et a living copy of that beast!"
"Yes, it’s indeed unfortunate," another voice added, "but those beasts asked us to kill him on top of everything else. The contract is absolute."
The next words made William’s mind freeze. He had assud his enemies were rely greedy human rcenaries from the upper realm.
He never thought the ones who hired those bastards were monsters. And it felt like his presence—his very existence in this tiline—was well known to monsters from the upper realm. This was no longer a local conflict; it was a targeted assassination.
"It isn’t the Fox monster, then who?" William muttered to himself, not asking the question to his enemies, but to the shadows of his own mory.
If the Fox wasn’t the one who sent them, then there was another player on the board, soone even more deeply embedded in the chanics of the apocalypse.
"I can tell you are dying to know the answer," another enemy said, before laughing. The sound was grating, like tal on stone. "Did you think all the wrongdoings and misdeeds you have committed so far went unnoticed? Boy, you have been ddling with stuff way above your head for a long ti. You’ve disrupted the balance. And those who are in control of the fate of many worlds decided to intervene."
"He is an ant; he doesn’t deserve to know anything," another voice ca, cold and dismissive. "We should kill him fast, before starting the final plans to take down this world. The monster outbreaks are getting ready, and we can start moving after we kill him. This world is scheduled for harvest."
"..."
William wanted to say lots of stuff, to scream questions and demands, yet he held his tongue. He felt like his enemies were being kind enough to spill everything in their overconfidence.
He never thought all this was part of the hidden powers that had ended his world last ti. And as the pieces fell into place, he realised with a sinking heart that he was the core problem of all this.
By trying to save the world, he had drawn the gaze of the predators earlier than expected.
"The mutated monsters," he slowly muttered, his face looking unsightly as a dark realisation dawned on him. "Those bastards felt a chance in ending the world when those monsters appeared! They aren’t an accident; they are a catalyst."
"Oh, that boy is smart, hahaha!" a new voice ca, sounding genuinely amused by William’s deduction. "You guessed it right! The sudden appearance of those mutated beasts changed the plans entirely! They were the signal we were waiting for. So we ca into the picture to help speed things along, and our mission is almost done. Once you are dead, there will be no one left to shepherd this flock of sheep."
"Let’s get done with him. I grew tired of this realm’s poor spirit power," another voice said in impatience, the tone dripping with condescension. "I’ll kill him! I’m tired of no loot from this mission! We must ask for more than what we agreed on from those beasts! Give a second, I’ll kill him..."
"Let save you the trouble," in the middle of those arrogant words, William’s figure suddenly blurred. He flashed across the stone plaza with a speed that defied the heavy atmospheric pressure of the summit. "Let relieve your bodies of your heads first."
"Kill him!" The order landed like a thunderclap.
Many figures flashed at the sa ti, descending from their thrones and heading toward William like a swarm of dark hornets.
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