"These won't help," William paused, taking in a deep breath before adding, "this is the price that he has to suffer… It seems fate really is on the side of those Transformers."
"What the hell… Did you make me tap into?" In the next few minutes, the shining sun star started to slowly fade away. But it still left a deep burning mark over the man's forehead. He kept panting and sweating profusely for the next ten minutes, before finally becoming able to say these words.
"I didn't know they were supported by fate," William sighed, said in an apologising tone, "I'll compensate you."
"No need," the old man waved his hand again. He rested for a little bit before adding, "it's not their fate that stopped me, but a fate of something scary that made me suffer all this."
"Something else's fate? Who?" William felt puzzled and curious about this. He just asked this old man to take a peek on these Transformers' secrets. It never crossed his mind, even for one second, that these Transformers were related to something scarier.
"I couldn't get much of it, but some sort of a meeting and an alliance happened between them and that scary one," the old man sighed, "all I can tell you is that they were speaking about a common enemy of theirs. If my guesses are right, then you are the one they were speaking about… What did you do exactly? What kind of trouble did you bring on yourself?!"
"Nothing," William shrugged, while his mind wasn't that calm as how his face looked. His mind raced and linked all the dots together.
A scary figure, an enemy of his, went to meet up with those Transformers. The only other grand enemy of his that was scary enough to drive such backlash from fate was none other than that damn fox. But the fox was in the outer world, and that made him just think back about what he learnt about this enemy five years ago.
"So… That Nightmare monster didn't die or run away as I suspected… He is still sticking around, sniffing about my news, and trying to bring me trouble as I'm trying to do the same to it… Interesting foe indeed…"
William guessed everything without the need to know much of what happened. Just thinking about his two most troublesome enemies, the ones he struggled for five years to find, getting together and uniting their forces to face him, made him feel how ironic this was.
He was looking for them, and it seemed they were the ones who were taking the initiative to come out of their deep holes to meet him. But at this point, he was mistaken. As they didn't intend to meet him head on. They planned something entirely different, something he didn't get yet.
As he looked at the old man, he ditched the idea of asking him to prey over that Nightmare monster. Just spying over something that was related to him was enough to bring this old man such a backlash. And William knew how grand the price this fellow here paid for this.
It was like his master. Every time she went to peek over the fox's secrets, she ended up losing part of her senses, her control over her body, and above all, part of her spirit power. That was the reason she wasn't considered a scary master in battles. She was in fact pretty weak.
But thanks to her spirit, she could get tons of knowledge about anything she wanted, aside from those scary figures who had a grand role to play in the destiny of the entire world.
The universe didn't care about good or bad, it only cared about the flow of things and fate. From William's experience, he could easily tell that for any grand event in the world to happen, two opposing forces must be present, good and evil.
As for the final winner in between the two, the universe wouldn't be bothered by this. It was like a silent spectator, with its top priority for things to keep running forward according to the grand plan.
So the universe would protect the evil ones the same it'd protect the good ones. "Anything else?" William put aside the issue of delving into the Nightmare secrets for now. But he was sure this old man got more than what he just said.
He spent close to an hour using his spirit and technique. That meant he must have seen other things before getting the backlash.
"I saw where they are, and they are still in the Scorching Lands fort," the old man paused, taking a minute in an attempt to organise his thoughts, "their place is deep underground, with a single entrance that's surrounded by nine grand hills. To enter there, you have to find the ruins of a destroyed hill, and there you'll find a tunnel."
"Oh, is that so?" William recognised what the old man said. And the latter smiled for the first time since suffering from the backlash.
"I'm glad what I saw made sense to you," he paused for a second, "ah, I also saw flashes of other places, where smaller statues are. I believe these are places where the new statues are getting born and raised up. However…"
"They aren't in the fort, right?" William already thought about this point. If the Transformers held a deep grudge against him to not leave the fort, they'd not be this foolish and stubborn to let their breeding places stick around.
"I'm sorry, but I didn't see any familiar place except…" the old man paused again, while his eyes shimmered in dark gold light, "I recognised one place though. I'm not sure, but it felt like it's around the capital of the Novistcic kingdom, near a place that's filled with trenches and deep holes… But it weirdly seemed flat, like it wasn't real… Weird!"
"Trenches and deep holes… With a flat surface? What puzzle is that?"