"You do know where we are geographically, right?" William asked, his voice low and dangerous. When the two girls exchanged bewildered looks, he turned sharply to the three bound dark masters.
"State our location," he commanded.
"We are in the Rotas Kingdom," the oldest dark master replied quickly, his voice trembling. "It is a sovereign territory at the extre northern edge of this continent, bordering the Great Frost Barrens."
The grin on William's face turned predatory—almost evil. "Perfect. That is absolutely perfect."
He reached back into the rings and pulled out four more portal cores, lining them up on a nearby stone bench. "Why go back? We've already done the hard work of clearing this place. Let's summon the army here instead. We are going to turn this fortress into the primary northern base for the Fox Guild!"
The announcent took everyone by surprise. William wasn't thinking about a retreat or a return to the status quo; he saw a strategic masterstroke.
By occupying this impregnable, already-constructed fortress in the far north, he was placing a dagger directly at the back of every kingdom on the continent.
Lara, thinking as a city-builder, imdiately saw the potential. With enough portals, they could funnel resources, labourers, and rchants here.
They could transform this jagged military outpost into a thriving trade hub or even a sovereign city-state. The fortress itself was an architectural marvel, nearly impossible to take by storm; it was the perfect "seed" for an empire.
Becky, however, saw the tactical brilliance. Taking the enemy by surprise and attacking their rear was a commander's ultimate dream.
Once news spread that the Fox Guild had established a stronghold in the Rotas Kingdom, the armies currently pressing against their southern borders would be forced into a panicked retreat.
The entire coalition of enemy kingdoms would collapse as every king scrambled to bring his forces ho to defend his own palace from a rear-guard slaughter.
She watched as William began to scout the terrain, looking for a suitable deploynt zone. Rembering the vulnerability of the portals during the siege of Lara's city, he decided to place the new gates outside the primary fortress walls.
He chose a deep, natural groove in the earth—a scar left by one of his monsters' devastating attacks—to serve as the portal hub.
This way, if an enemy ever managed to breach the gates in the future, the fortress would remain a separate, defensible bastion.
"This is the spot!" William shouted.
He slamd the first core into the centre of the groove and flooded it with his imnse spirit power. The air tore open with a familiar hum, and a shimring curtain of silver energy stabilised into a massive gateway.
"Phew! I thought you weren't going to make it back anyti soon!"
The mont the portal stabilised, a blur of vibrant red hair ca flying through the opening. Before William could even react, a warm, familiar weight slamd into him, arms wrapping around his neck in a fierce hug.
It was Berry. Even though she had grown into a sophisticated and powerful young lady, she remained as sensitive and fiercely caring as the girl he had first t. She buried her face in his shoulder, her relief palpable enough to touch.
Following closely behind Berry, a stream of familiar faces began to pour through the shimring silver rift of the portal. One by one, William's inner circle erged into the crisp, northern air: his trusted commanders, the core team of the Fox Guild, and finally, the sturdy figure of Fang.
Each of them bore the marks of recent struggle—notched armour and weary eyes—but their spirits were visibly buoyed by the sight of William standing whole and victorious on the other side.
"I assu the fight ended back at the city," William said, his voice steady as he greeted the arriving group. He watched as the soldiers began to fan out, securing the imdiate periter around the portal groove.
"The mont the portals at our end vanished, the heart went out of them," Fang replied, stepping forward with a wide, triumphant grin. He wiped a sar of soot from his forehead before letting out a boisterous laugh.
"The enemies had no way out and nowhere to run. Once they realised their lifeline was severed, they started surrendering in droves. We ended up having more prisoners than we ever knew what to do with! It's a logistical nightmare, but a welco one. Most of our high-level masters have already returned to the various frontlines, stabilising the situation on all fronts. The tide has officially turned, William."
"That's good," William noted, his mind already leaping ten steps ahead. With the ho front secured and Fang's veterans back in play, they could finally transition from a desperate defence to a crushing retaliation.
"And now, we need to capitalise on that montum. We are going to turn this place into a massive guild base—the primary hub for our operations in the North."
"This…" Fang's words trailed off as he and the others finally turned their gaze away from William to take in their surroundings.
For a long mont, silence reigned. The newcors stared at the colossal fortress looming over the plaza, its black stone walls reaching toward the clouds like the fingers of a buried god.
The sheer scale and complexity of the architecture, interlaced with glowing formation lines they had never seen before, left many of them breathless.
"Don't tell you know how to build sothing like this," Fang said, pointing at the fortress with a look of undisguised greed and envy. "If you do, William, you need to teach imdiately! With walls like these, we could hold off the entire world."
"We found it this way when we arrived," William replied, offering a half-truth. He had considered giving the old man a glimpse of the architectural secrets, but he quickly discarded the thought.
The resources required to build and, more importantly, to operate a fortress of this magnitude were not of this world. They required exotic materials from the Upper Realm—primordial cores and stabilised essences that were simply unavailable here.
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