William's body slowly reformed from the puddle of blood, and the, hopefully permanently, docile Elements returned to their previous state. The only problem was William still felt that he couldn't use his Magic for at least a few hours.
That aside, the Chaos Element had successfully upgraded to S-Rank, and William chose not to blame it for how it acted during the upgrade. Even if he was angry, there was nothing William could do to an Element within his own body.
Elements had their own nature, after all. William couldn't change that, no matter how hard he tried. He would just have to be more careful in the future.
Next time, the Chaos Element goes first.
William's sight returned, allowing him to peer at the destruction caused by his consecutive upgrades. The Barrier Array had been destroyed by the Heavenly Tribulation near the very end, so most of the damage was concentrated in a large radius, turning the area into a deep pit with William at the center.
Just outside the pit, William could see burnt grass and cracked earth, semi-melted ice amid thick tree roots, and lots of blood.
"It's a good thing I did this away from the City." William muttered to himself. He probably would have destroyed an entire City block if he had remained in the Hotel. Carl probably wouldn't have escaped either.
"William, right? Congratulations on reaching the Core Formation Realm." someone said from a few meters behind.
William turned to see a blonde youth wielding a staff covered in white gemstones in his right hand. It was Supreme Left, though his body looked illusory, as if William could walk right through the man.
Supreme Left smiled, "Surprised to see me? The one that died was only a clone."
When Tenebris tried to assassinate Supreme Left, he had only killed the man's clone. Since then, Supreme Left had carefully Cultivated a second clone, but its strength was currently less than ten percent that of the other clone.
If he wanted to recreate his old clone, he would need more than just a few weeks.
William nodded, though he already knew Supreme Left was still alive since the time he was spotted in the Hillvire Empire. "Don't you have better things to do than chase after someone hundreds of times younger than you? I thought you were the most important person on the Continent."
"I can do many things at the same time, that doesn't concern you." Supreme Left replied. He raised his hand to lightly tap his face in thought, then beckoned William forward with his finger.
The Yu Family Leader wanted to smile and laugh at his apparent victory, but something felt wrong. Instead of attacking their target, Supreme Left could feel his Mana wrapping around William as if they were best friends.
His eyes widened as he took a step back in shock. Supreme Left had a terrifying guess at what was happening, and it made him want to give up on capturing William immediately.
When someone raised the Affinity of an Element, the environmental Mana would show more favor to them, giving them much greater control over that Element. It was even more obvious when one was in the S-Rank, since it would allow one to open their Domain or even steal the Mana from their opponents' Spells.
The latter was happening now, but there was only one problem. Supreme Left was an S-Rank Fire Mage as well, which meant that William's Fire Affinity had either just broken through to the Mythical SS-Rank, or he had been there for a while!
He had heard about the disappearance of another World Core in the Southern Plains, but Supreme Left thought it was Retribution again. If he knew that William had upgraded his Fire Affinity to be above his own, he probably wouldn't have picked a fight with the boy.
After all, Supreme Left only had one Element, Fire. There was no point using Fire Magic against someone immune to it.
With this in mind, Supreme Left chose to stop fighting and retreat for now. William was immune to both his Arrays and his Fire Magic, capturing him wasn't possible in a short amount of time. He waved the staff again, creating a small portal that would take the clone back to his residence.
From within the flames, William wished he could use Magic. He could have easily turned the Domain around and targeted Supreme Left, but the Chaos upgrade had blocked his use of the Elements temporarily.
The only thing he could do was wait for Supreme Left's next move from within the flames. When he saw the blonde youth create a portal, however, William became angry. He had expected more of a fight from the seemingly most powerful man on the Continent, even if it was a clone.
With his time-slowing bonus effect, William's thoughts moved at high speed, allowing him to easily react to Supreme Left's move. He stepped forward and flashed to Supreme Left's position in between him and the portal, simultaneously slicing forward with the Sword of Shifting Sands.
"Where do you think you're going?" William called out as the sword created a long cut on Supreme Left's body, fresh blood dripping to the ground as the man touched his chest in surprise. He hadn't expected the sword to cut right through the protections on his clothing.
The Protective Amulets on his body hadn't even triggered, but he quickly realized why. At the same time that William launched the sword strike, the boy had completely disabled the Arrays on all of his equipment at the same time!
Read further adventures at m vl_em|p_yr
This... is well past the strength of a young man! The clone became fearful of William, who seemingly had the ability to end his pitiful life that had been born a few days ago.
The clone tried to rush past William into the portal, but for some reason his body wouldn't move. It was only when Supreme Left tried to look down that he noticed he was falling. Or rather, his head was falling to the ground, while the rest of his body remained perfectly still.
"Looks like I had a choice." William said simply as he cleaned the fresh blood off the Sword of Shifting Sands.