It seemed they came well prepared, and that made the initial number of high masters increase by many folds.
Zin and others watched before what Stark and others did. So, they didn't need to ask about anything, knew what William and Stark just spoke about.
"Good luck then," William knew by these high-end masters, stopping the advancing hounds was going to be easier.
The hounds already slowed down to an extent of crossing just one hundred metres every half an hour. That appeared as if the hounds were moving in a slow-motion speed or something.
William turned his attention next towards the earth and water-based masters. The elite master teams sprung outside the city walls and started to push the hounds back, clearing a grand area of two kilometres around the city.
In the next hour, the masters Lara sent for returned with tons of barrels filled with the toxin. In addition to that, the masters of earth and water elements were standing in wait.
William didn't hesitate anymore, giving the green light for the entire process to start. Masters were already aware of what they should do, and soon enough a deep groove appeared, circling the entire city.
Lara got an experience from before when she made a trench around the Spar Arena. So she led others in digging and filling the groove with water, arrays, and various deadly traps. William provided grenades as well, leading to transforming this zone into a truly death trap.
Doing this takes a few hours. During which, the hounds received tons of attacks, with few dead and little wounded. This came as a shocking surprise to all the newly joined masters.
Even if they watched from afar how strong these hounds were, they mistook everything to the exhaustion of the masters defending the city for long hours. And yet when they experienced this first handed, they couldn't believe how sturdy and hard to deal with these hounds were.
They all knew if not for the weird slowdown effect these hounds suffered from, then dealing with them was going to be a pain. The cloud of toxin was still floating in the air, surrounding the entire zone around the city for tens of kilometres now. Not a single monster coming here didn't suffer from this toxin.
But after the passage of all these hours, the toxin concentration faded slowly. The turtles and leopards still suffered from the toxin, but the newly arrived hounds showed weaker effects of this toxin.
In the past hour, all the high-end masters fighting outside the city felt immense pressure. Casualties started to appear and rise up fast, making everyone worried about the fate of this battle.
Even Lara who looked as if she finished the battle and won it already, started to show worried signs over her face.
"It's time to spread the toxin," William didn't feel anything at all. He knew the toxin used got limited time to protect them. And that was why he asked Lara to never stop making the new toxin in the first place.
His words jolted her awake. She spread her orders and then many masters emptied the toxin substance in the one and half kilometres wide trench.
The moment the toxin entered water; it created a series of bubbles that made anyone looking at it feel danger. It seemed as if the entire water there was boiling, and that kept happening for the next half an hour.
During which, the masters outside couldn't handle the pressure anymore, and started to slowly retreat. As they did their task brilliantly well, and the trench was already in place, they started to retreat.
"I'll entrust this battle for you from now on," out of the blue, and as everyone was waiting for the masters outside to cross the trench and return to the city walls, William suddenly turned to Lara and said such weird words.
"What do you mean by that?!" She was standing alongside Sara, Berry, and Lang. Other vices were now leading the guild members to either finalise the preparations of the death trap, or hastily make repair to the damaged parts of the wall and the surrounding defences.
"Don't tell me…" Sara gave William a weird look, while Berry and Lang exchanged gazes together. This weirdly enough was quite familiar to these three of his team.
"I have something to do," William didn't explain further, "just make sure to hold the monsters for as long as you can. That trap is enough to make the toxin show its deadly effects. Once they are down, try to pull them out of the trench, dissect and collect their materials. Give my guild's share to Berry to keep. After this battle concludes, start repairing the city and make new forces settle…"
William started to say lots of words and orders without giving any explanation at all. From his words alone, anyone hearing them could tell he planned to be away for a long time.
"But…" Berry was about to ask to come, but William cut that path on her, turned into his fox spirit form, jumped off the walls alongside Charley, "don't take that long! We got to visit that academy before going to the contest…"
She shouted from the top of the walls, while her shouts went astray in the middle of the hectic shouts coming from everywhere.
"Do you know where he is going?!" Lara was stupefied by such a twist in events, turned to the three vices of the Fox guild and asked in confusion.
"It's his habit," Lang sighed.
"Every time we face a grand enemy he loves to adventure alone," Sara added, while shaking off his head.
"But every single time he did that, he'd do something heaven defying in the end. What are you up to this time, William?" Berry tried to follow William in the middle of all the lots of masters at the one kilometre distance outside the city walls, while feeling powerless in front of his weird habit.