That meant such an encounter would be repeated from time to time. And he had to be more prepared to face and handle such annoying monsters.
"It complained about that name… Which means he is famous in the outside world by another name…" William got lost in thought, while moving after Sith and his team.
He wasn't in the mood to care about what they were talking about right now. And so, he failed to notice the weird gazes they all gave him during the first half an hour.
William tried to go through all the crazy and scary monsters he was aware of but failed to spot anything similar to that dude he just met. He was quite familiar with the Nightmare monsters and met a few of them in the outside world.
And that made him more puzzled actually. If this monster could grow up and reach the outer world under a different name and identity, why would few still use the same name out there?
"That son of b*tch mentioned something about merging his clones together… That means it can acquire all the techniques and elements its clones got. If so… Then facing this bastard again is going to be an impossible endeavour if I didn't reach the dark gold grade before meeting it…"
His thoughts suddenly drifted away from this monster's true identity and focused on himself. "Wait a minute… That damn beast can merge its clones and use different techniques and elements… Does that mean I also can do that? In reverse?!"
He didn't have any clones to begin with. But weirdly enough, the words of that Nightmare monster stirred up quite an idea in his mind.
"I don't have clones, but I got tails…" his eyes shone brighter when he reached this point in his thoughts, "I always tried to activate my spirit with two tails. I was wrong! I should have tried just activating my spirit while limiting it to just one tail…"
William's thoughts started to grow wild from this point onward. He never thought about limiting his spirit before, and only tried to stir it up regularly, just like any spirit master would do in such a situation.
But to activate the full version of his spirit, he had to wait till reaching silver grade. And right now, and after meeting this Nightmare monster, he realised he wasn't that OP or even that safe in this world as he thought before.
He might have feared the high-grade spirit masters like Berry's family and the academy headmaster. He never thought a monster would drive such fear inside of him, one that didn't belong to the dark gold grade.
"I have to give it a try once I get the chance," he decided to try it out, not right now but when he got away from Sith's team company. He wanted many monsters around to test his new power on as well. And so, he had to wait until he'd part ways with Sith's team, and then try out his new theory over monsters in the forest.
But he was just quite impatient right now to leave this safe path, say goodbye to Sith and his team, and return back to the hell of the forest and test out his theory.
After a long time of struggling back and forth and wrestling with logic and desire, he was half step away from testing out his theory.
Then he looked up at Sith and his remaining team. "Shall I use them to guard me while I try it out? Are they trustworthy?"
William thought about stopping the team right now and started testing his theory out. However, when he recalled how their morale was low at this moment, and they weren't yet that safe and far away from the place of the last battle, he dropped such an idea right now.
He was the one that kept telling them to move forward and run as far and fast away from that beast. If he just spoke out all of sudden, telling them that they don't need to fret or panic, then no one would believe him.
After all, he had no logical explanation for this. And he also didn't totally trust they'd keep what they'd see here to themselves, as he didn't trust that beast's words.
What if it said all this to just trick him? What if that beast wanted him to lower his guard, instead of retreating as it said, it'd try to find a way to pass through the ocean of fire and come at him again?
"No, I should treat such a matter with more caution," William decided to leash his desire, wait up until they'd cross more than fifteen kilometres distance, part ways with Sith's team, before he'd start testing his theory out.
"Are you ok?" One of Sith's team noticed how William returned to look normal again after showing different disturbing expressions over his face during their past march.
"I'm good," William didn't know this, but he became a hot topic among the team during the past few hours' walk.
William showed signs of losing his mind after their loss, and that deeply touched their hearts. They previously dealt with him as they should deal with any foreigner they got a temporary alliance with.
But the unexpected behaviour William showed, and the weird and deep frown look that appeared over his face frequently since they started their march, made everyone feel genuine worry over him.
They felt much closer to him than before, as if he was part of their team or something.
"We discussed a matter among us…" Sith moved his eyes in a hesitant way among his friends, "how about this… We have an inside rule to only accept silver grade spirit masters in our team. And as you can see, we lack members at the moment."
"Your point is?" William was still burdened by his earlier thoughts. And so, such words and the hidden offer in what Sith said came as a surprise for him.