They had stepped through the shimring gates expecting to find organised civilisations, robust defences, and established high-tier forces to negotiate with.
They had prepared scripts for diplomacy and grand displays of power to facilitate a rger. Instead, they ended up standing amidst the smoking ruins of broken worlds, surrounded by scattered, terrified masters and traumatised humans who looked at them with hollow eyes.
All their carefully laid plans were rendered void and invalid at this point. Even after the various expedition teams from the Fox Guild, the Aspire Academy, and the Lockheart Impact managed to find one another in these desolate landscapes, they ended up facing a massive dilemma.
How should they handle this current devastating situation? There wasn’t much left to build upon. The remaining masters were nurous when counted across the globe, but they were heavily and terribly wounded—physically broken by the Scarlet Bears and ntally shattered by the collapse of their worlds.
The situation was too strange for any of them to have a clue about what to do. In their own world, William had been the vanguard, stopping the rot before it turned the planet into a graveyard.
In such confusion, the faction leaders decided to seek guidance. The first and closest to ask for help were the Blue Purgators who had accompanied them. Yet, like the guild masters themselves, those warriors were experienced in combat, not in the mass-scale psychological and structural reconstruction of dying worlds.
The answers they received from the Purgators were almost identical across every world: they suggested sending ssengers back to the dium World to seek their own leader’s guidance.
However, the guild leaders—Sara, Anjie, Lara, and the others—realised that if they were going to seek a higher authority, it only made sense to ask for help from William, not soone else. He was the architect of this entire era; only he would have the vision to see past the rubble.
William was in the middle of laying down a formation when the ssengers arrived with the news. As he listened to the reports, Bernard stood by his side, visibly shaken.
The Purgators’ young commander was astonished to hear the tales of terror that the masters described. Even though these reports ca from different gates leading to distinct realms, they all shared the sa horrifying scenes of ruin.
While Bernard was visibly shocked by the cruelty of the apocalypse, William was lost in a much deeper, darker place in his own thoughts. Hearing the stories from his guild masters pushed his mories back to his past life with the force of a tidal wave. He stood perfectly still, his hand hovering over a needle he planned to dig deep into the world, and he couldn’t help but inwardly sigh.
The terror he had lived firsthand back in his past life was still lingering in the deepest recesses of his spirit. The confusion of the initial collapse, the horror of watching friends torn apart, the absolute, crushing lack of hope—all of these mories and more exploded inside his mind at the sa ti.
For a mont, he wasn’t a legendary guild master in a dium World; he was a broken young man again. He recalled his master, Anna—how she had stepped up with such fierce resolve and helped him crawl away from that hell.
"It seems I’ll play your role in this life," William softly whispered to the empty air, a shadow of a lancholic smile touching his lips.
Before Bernard could ask what he ant, William turned toward the ssengers sent by his faction leaders. His eyes had lost their distant look, replaced by a cold, sharpened iron resolve.
"From now on, we’ll work to stabilise and rebuild the worlds on the other side of these gates," he said, his voice carrying an authority that brooked no argunt. He moved his eyes around the gathered masters, projecting a calm that acted as a balm to their frantic spirits.
"Let all remaining humans and masters gather in certain designated safe locations. We will provide the blueprints and the protection. We’ll help them build new cities from the ground up and link them together through portals.
We’ll also exterminate every last remaining Scarlet Bear in their worlds, look for more survivors in the devastated zones, and slowly rebuild their worlds to their forr strength and pri."
When he had first sent his guild masters through the gates, he was seeking a quick expansion of power and the establishnt of branches. He hadn’t expected the situation to be this dire across the board.
Seeing that these worlds were on the brink of total extinction, he decided to pivot. He would provide the security and the stability they lacked, becoming their saviour before becoming their sovereign.
"How about the original plans of your guild?" Bernard asked, his mind racing. He was fast enough to read through the massive shift in William’s overall strategy.
"From now onward," William said calmly, "all the worlds we help to rebuild are considered integral parts of my guild. They are no longer independent entities; they are Fox Guild territories. Tell the Academy and the Impact to establish permanent branches in these new cities.
Tell the faction leaders to pick capable local masters—using the screening thods I taught them—to lead the reconstruction under our banner. It might take a few years, or even longer, for these worlds to stand back on their feet, but it’s worth it."
His determination was clear to Bernard. Even if the situation enforced a major detour from his initial plans, William didn’t totally deviate from his goals.
He was simply taking a strategic step back, choosing to spend more resources, ti, and support from his side now, knowing that the loyalty and strength he would reap later would be ten tis greater. He was building a multi-world foundation that would be unshakable.
As the masters hurried back through the gates to deliver the new orders, William returned to his work on the dium World. The more ti he spent here, and the more he heard of the suffering in the lower realms, the higher the importance of taking total control over this world.
User Comments
0 comments from readers