"Thanks," William didn't get what this dude was talking about, nor did he care about any reward for now. Then he returned to focus on what was going on around.
The spirit masters didn't lose their focus as the dark spirit masters expected. Instead of getting panicked and running in amock and chaos like was expected, they found a firm ground in the middle of all that and started to even orchestrate a counterattack.
The dark spirit masters might look courageous and strong, but William knew better than anyone what kind of cowards they were.
They were like bullies, loved to gang up over weaklings, and would fear and coward away from any direct confrontations with equally strong foes, or even enemies who weren't that far off from their powers.
They would give their enemies the impression of being overly confident and strong. But deep down their hearts and spirits, they'd tremble in fear and doubt, thinking about retreat all the time instead of pushing forward for victory.
When William managed to foil their plans for the second time, even using his arrows to hinder the advancing monsters here, the dark spirit masters all around started to place him on top of their hit list here.
They hated this thin looking kid from the depths of their hearts. William single handedly ruined their plans, and they wanted to see him dead more than anything else.
But the first thing they started to do was to retreat slightly to the back while doing the same as the spirit masters here; reorganising their dissarrayed forces and gathering them up in large groups.
"Don't give them any time to regroup! Keep attacking! Keep killing them!"
"Who the hell is this kid?!!"
And just when they started to retreat, William's shout came to jolt the spirit masters awake and alarm them on the moves of the dark spirit masters.
With a simple shout, William helped to shift the tide of the entire battle against the dark spirit masters again. The spirit masters around started to fiercely hit the retreating enemies, turning the entire battle around, turning it into a totally opposite image of what happened at the start.
The battle started by the dark spirit masters were the ones chasing and killing the normal spirit masters. But now they were the ones who were running and killing the dark spirit masters.
That was a simple flip in the entire situation of this big battle. And the spirit masters didn't let go of such a chance. They held tons of hatred towards the dark spirit ones. And many even lost a few of their friends during the last fervent run, or before at other old battles.
As they got a chance, they never stopped until the monsters started to appear at last. Thanks to William's few arrows, the monsters came in pretty late, not in their designed and preplanned big formation.
They came scattered in many groups, even many came running alone from the depth of the forest. William watched the spirit masters on his side use big battle formations, either defend and stop the incoming monsters, or attack and kill them fiercely and swiftly.
"Time to reap a few rewards," William sat his gaze upon a certain goal. And that wasn't to get more cores. Monsters were anywhere around the forest, easy to find and kill. But dark spirit masters weren't.
William was still having a headache about the ten mysterious scrolls he got before. He didn't even hesitate or think twice, moving at once towards the bodies of either the dead or bound dark spirit masters, starting a spree of collecting their rings.
"Hey you!"
"Stop it! Are you a thief?"
"He is a thief! He belongs to the dark spirit masters!"
Many shouted, even pointing the accusation towards William for being a member of the dark spirit masters. But that didn't even stop William at all, not even made him slow down or say a single word to justify his actions.
He calmly kept moving around, collecting all the rings he could get, using the current chaos happening here, acting as if he was doing something normal, as if these rings were his rightful claim and trophy.
Everyone's attention was already focused over the monsters and dark spirit masters leading them. And so, these few shouts got lost in the middle of all this mess.
Even those who were close by and noticed his weird actions, they didn't move a muscle or even say anything. William's image was already imprinted in their minds with weird things. Not to mention it was common to grab loot from enemies.
"Not enough!" and when he collected many rings, he didn't feel any satisfaction. He knew the thing he was looking for, the way to unseal the scrolls, wasn't going to be easily found in any ring belonging to the normal member of the dark spirit masters' little army here.
He shifted his eyes around, looking at all the dark spirit masters around. Many got killed during the past minutes, especially when they were running to regroup. And William just fixed his eyes over these, dashed towards them without any hesitation.
Few of these bodies were already in the area under the normal spirit masters' control, but most weren't. William started first with those around the spirit masters on his side, then started to dash towards those lying in the middle of the heat.
William knew the moment he'd step into that mess; it'd be hard to keep himself safe. He was still a bronze grade spirit master. And if not for the lot of spirit masters here to answer his rally shout fast, he'd have run away in the end.
So, he didn't just dash forward blindly, and instead kept looking and examining the place around, selecting the best places for his upcoming move.
"There!" and a few minutes later, he spotted a weakness in the middle of the monsters and dark spirit masters lines. He didn't hesitate as he knew such a vacant spot would be filled soon enough.