William got more puzzled by this. In his eyes, Ibra was just using his brute spirit power in a crude way, depending more on his glaive to kill, without augmenting it with any sort of technique whatsoever.
Even if Ibra didn't get any master to instruct him, William couldn't help but wonder why this dude didn't pay regular visits to the library, get to know and learn common techniques from there at least!
Or didn't he even attend classes and learnt any basic and common technique from there?
This wasn't the time to worry about such things. William kept moving using his unique technique, while leaving behind more wounds at the bodies of these leopards.
"Aim for their limbs, cut or wound them there to limit their ability to run!" William noticed how fast these leopards were. On a few occasions, his targets got out unscathed thanks to their fast reaction and swift moves.
At the same time, they started to use their earth element, forming shields of dirt to stop the attacks of William, Ibra, and others.
To Ibra this was futile. All the dirt walls that rose up to him got crushed by his glaive or even his body. He was unstoppable! But for others, they slightly struggled to break these things.
"Keep moving forward!" After getting out from the attack range of these leopards, William noticed that the other two teams were midway in their paths, still fighting and entangled with monsters.
They got slightly delayed in their start than him and Ibra, and that made them not cross the monsters by now as it was supposed to happen.
"They won't make it!" Ibra reached the same conclusion. The two managed to get out from the main bulk of monsters, leaving the other two teams to face these leopards.
"Tsk! We have to change our tactic then," William knew the two groups wouldn't make it out from there in time, "listen up everyone, head directly towards the other group the moment I give you the order!"
William addressed the members of the two teams at such a critical moment, shouting with all his might towards all.
"This…" Ibra felt William was asking them to throw away their lives if they followed his orders.
"Follow me!" However, William didn't flinch or even explain anything. In return, he simply dashed forward, running back towards the monsters, "keep following me, and don't try to act cool or something."
William had more than sixty percent of his spirit power. However, he knew he'd end up exhausting more than what consumed so far in the last two fights with these leopards.
As he went back, the leopards weren't that focused to deal with him this time. They finally got the chance to fight spirit masters in the old and usual way they used to.
The monsters were slowly getting the upper hand thanks to their numbers and the division in the spirit masters' strength and numbers. The two sides were getting pressured, slowly retreating, while suffering many injuries.
But that all changed the moment William returned.
He didn't aim to just move fast like before. And dreaming about attracting the attention of these monsters again was hopeless.
"What will I do now?" Ibra followed from behind, while asking as he couldn't see how this problem would be solved without losing many of the team.
"Kill!" William simply gave such an answer. Before Ibra would ask further about what he meant with this simple and vague answer, he saw William changing his fighting style.
Instead of just flashing forward in a zigzag route, William aimed at five leopards which were the closest to him, and kept flashing back and forth, surrounding them, starting to hit them with everything he got.
All the knives he could control were used alongside his sword. The knives didn't move freely this time, followed him while taking the shape of a great sword, crescent moon shape, or even a full circle in the air.
Any place he visited was left with a long trail of blood, severed limbs, and ferocious roars that were filled with immense and unimaginable pain.
William was now moving to not just evade the attacks of monsters, nor to attract their attention, but to deeply wound and finally kill them.
One leopard, three leopards, seven leopards… William kept handling the monsters in this style. He isolated a group of three up to five of them, kept flashing in between and around them, hacking their bodies for many times until they all fell dead.
Ibra's scalp went numb when he recognised such a way of fighting. It was the last attack William issued at him before he lost his consciousness. And that brought back the old and terrible stingy pain with that annoying numbness from William's attacks.
"Tsk! What a bastard!" Ibra cursed when he realised how deep the impact William left on him. He didn't like such a thought, and all the rage swelling inside got released over the monsters around.
As William kept dealing with the monsters, he made sure to move not towards any of the two groups outside, but deeper into the centre of all the leopards.
The leopards were fierce monsters, but they got few points that limited such a threatening presence of them.
They got huge bodies, and as they grouped together like this, they got little room to show off their unique speed. At the same time, their offensive and defensive earth element couldn't show off its might thanks to the limited space they got.
So, William knew by delving deeper into the heart of these leopards was quite risky, yet it was also the safest route out there for him.
As for Ibra, that dude was like a killing machine! Everywhere he went, bodies of leopards kept falling right and left, getting thrown in the air, ending up either dead or heavily wounded.
"Now!" When William arrived in the middle, he didn't advance anymore. Instead, he gave the signal for the two groups to step in, move towards each other's locations, come towards his spot.