It didn't look like a main street in such a prestigious fort, but like a graveyard, and a huge one as well.
However, that wasn't what inspired William with this idea, Remy was.
"You… Who are you?! What are you doing?!!!" As William appeared again, the remaining group of the Refos group turned to look at him. To William's surprise, and despite that the heart of this grand war started just with this bunch of people, their remaining number was much bigger than what he thought!
There were hundreds of merchants, with thousands of guards initially in their group. William expected to only see a dozen or so out of all of them standing here. But now? He saw hundreds of them standing there. And putting aside the many wounds everyone suffered, the fact that they survived in such numbers told William a lot about how capable and strong the guards these merchants brought with them.
Merchants… They were never fooling around!
*Roar!* William wasn't going to spill his secret in front of all of these people. And so, and without any waiting for anything, he roared, flashed forward, grabbed Remy by the shoulder, and dashed alongside her, bringing her with him towards his territory.
"Let me go! I'm not free to touch!" she screamed out of her panic the moment she realised what was going on here. But she realised what happened a bit too late.
For her, the moment she got what was going on, she was standing already inside the territory.
*Roar!* William roared, silencing her from saying any more nonsense. Then he moved away, setting her free, and stood just tens of metres away.
As Remy got shocked and petrified by such a roar, she stood in her place for a few seconds that felt like an entire lifetime to her. And then as William didn't move, she started to gather up her courage, looking around.
There were signs of a deadly battle that happened here. Lots of bodies were scattered all over the place, with craters, and many were filled with deep red blood stains.
She didn't need to ask to know what happened here. She was there when all of this madness happened.
It went without saying that these bodies and signs of brutal battle were a miniature thing of what happened out there. Remy got shocked and terrified when she imagined what happened here… A total massacre and one-sided wipe out!
"Master, you finally came back!" Amidst her shock and fear, she jumped in the air out of fright when Thomas spoke.
"You…" she raised a shaky finger in the face of Thomas, startling the latter and making him stop, "you said master… Master… Who is your master?!!!"
"He is!" Thomas was taken aback for a moment there, before pointing towards William's direction. Remy couldn't control herself, turned slowly to see that the scary fox monster from before turned into the same innocent and peaceful looking face of William.
The grand body William had before in his spirit mode got changed into the weak looking body of the eleven years old William.
"Follow me, we got something to talk about," William said, moving past her. And at this brief moment, she didn't see him as the weak bronze grade kid anymore. In her eyes, a grand shadow of a deadly fox appeared and overlapped over William's silhouette.
Without even thinking about anything, she followed him while Thomas gave the two a weird look.
William kept walking, silently without saying anything. He knew bringing Remy in here and let her know his secret was a risky move, but it was a must to do one if he wanted to get the deal he thought about.
"As you can tell, I've already cleared all the traps here," William took her deep enough in the middle of his territory, walking for two kilometres before stopping. He wasn't that far from the first building, "and that means…"
"You won the bet, I can already tell that," She said, while trying to control the storm inside her mind.
She knew going by logic, a gold grade spirit master like her shouldn't be afraid of William. But she saw it with her own eyes, she saw how he easily played with gold spirit masters, even those much stronger and more experienced in battles than her. Not to mention that scary attacks he dealt to the dark gold spirit masters, leaving many with ugly looking wounds and even missing limbs!
"I believe you don't need me to remind you…" William then turned, looking straight at Remy's eyes. And the latter didn't see William's face at all. All she saw was just two scary huge elliptical and red eyes, the eyes of that fox.
"I… I won't dare… I won't tell anyone."
"Cool," William smiled, as if this matter was trivial to begin with, "there are only two people in the world knowing about this. If the news spreads, then I'll know who did it."
"No, no, I swear to the heavens, I won't tell anyone anything."
"I stopped trusting oaths a long time ago," William sighed, recalling how he got tricked before by the oath Ellina once took, "I'm just stating facts. If I was afraid of others to know in the first place, I wouldn't have gotten out."
William was telling the truth. Of course, if this secret was kept hidden for a longer time, he'd end up living his life in more peace. But he knew sooner or later, his little secret would be unveiled.
"Anyway, I didn't bring you in just for that," William returned to look at the grand territory he got. And for a moment there, he felt pride in what he achieved in this place, "I'm here to ask you to do something for me."
"Anything…" she paused as William just tilted his head and glared at her in a way that made her feel instantly panicked.
"Anything you say?" he fiendishly asked, while gazing her up and down.