The first clashes resulted in tens of deaths on the monster side. But then things started to shift fast when more monsters moved out to help, with more thorns appearing all over the place.
"Retreat for a few hundred metres, drag as many monsters as possible with you towards the centre!" William suddenly shouted, while he started to move to the side.
Hearing his orders came as a saving straw for those at the forefront.
As he shouted, they started to run fast behind, while attacking the monsters around to lure away as many as possible.
Just with this simple shuffle in the lineup, around three hundred monsters ran after Berry and Peter's teams. And that just came at the time when the other three teams finished what they were doing, killing most of the monsters they were struggling against so far.
"We are in, what now?" Peter shouted the moment he exceeded three hundred metres. Hundreds of monsters were scarily chasing them, and their current situation didn't look that great.
"Keep moving deeper," William shouted, "move for five hundred more metres, then close the circle and kill! All of the teams, even John's, attack and kill!"
William shouted while his voice kept getting away from the team. Everyone knew he was pulling away from them. And many of the new ones wrongly got what he was doing here.
But under the leadership of his trusted vice leaders, everyone started to do as William said. It happened just as William hinted in his words. As Berry and Peter lured the hundreds of monsters away, the entire team members here started to surround them, and began a real massacre.
"What about other monsters… Forget it!" Just before Sara would continue her alarming shout, she saw what was happening out there.
As she shouted and said such weird comment, everyone got attracted to what was going on back there.
"Holy sh*t! Is that the true might of our leader?!!"
"I heard he is just at bronze grade… But damn! Even I, a gold grade spirit master, wouldn't be able to do one tenth of what he is doing!"
"He is truly worthy to be the direct disciple of the legendary Master Fox! Let's go, let's show him we aren't weak as well!"
Just as everyone turned to see what was happening back at the main salamander monster big army, they got their scalp numb and eyes popping out from their sockets of what was William doing.
As they saw it, their leader, the one who the new members mistook for taking safety before anything, sent them over to do the hard task while he leant towards pulling safe distance away, was now fighting like mad demon against the entire army of salamanders.
William was just using tactics against these monsters, and also assessing his new team as well. In his eyes, they weren't half bad, but they lacked lots of understanding and solid teamwork. That was expected, as they had just assembled, and this was their first battle.
So, as he ordered them to lure away part of the monsters and kill them, he took the trouble of stopping the main monster army.
He got what Sara got, but he realised this from the start. He knew the moment they'd lure such big numbers of monsters away; other monsters wouldn't stand idle and would draw closer and attack his team.
The moment he gave the order to Berry and Peter to draw back, he started to move to the side. And when they lured away the monsters, encircled them, and started the killing, he started his task as well.
He let free of his twenty knives, attacking all the silver grade salamanders around without showing mercy. As for the gold grade ones, he drank a few drops of an elixir bottle, and started using his technique in full power.
He wasn't in the fox spirit body mode, and so his overall strength wasn't even close from what he wielded back then. However, it was more than enough to take down the gold monsters, as he got his gold grade sword.
And that wasn't all! He always tended to use his flashy technique to move around, paying lots of time, effort, attention, and spirit power to evade the deadly attacks coming from any gold grade foe before.
But now? He got his new necklace. And just by pushing his spirit power into it, a shield appeared over his body. He found out that by controlling the amount of his spirit power ingested in it, he could control the area of its coverage. He limited it to just a ten-meter radius around himself, spending one percent of his spirit power like this per minute.
Yet that didn't matter to him at all. Putting aside the defensive problem that he solved by this necklace; he always had a spirit power consumption problem.
It was always a headache for him to keep his spirit power replenished while balancing the use of his techniques before. But now? He got elixirs on his side. It wasn't a permanent solution in the long run, but it was just the perfect solution in this battle.
As he got all his worries and limitations removed, William finally showed a glimpse of his true power to all of his team members. In their eyes, he was like a deadly asura, fighting without any care to anything, killing without even looking back.
William really had nothing to worry about. Even if he stood still, and let the monsters attack freely, he was out of danger. But he felt it was right to do it this way, to leave a deep impression inside all of his new team members' spirits.
And that was truly what happened! Seeing their bronze grade leader show such outstanding performance, everyone started to change their viewpoint about him.
His old team members just inwardly sigh, feeling like they missed the presence of their mighty leader by their side since they parted ways together. As for the new ones, they felt lucky to get selected and join such a scary team.