"..."
Berry, Ro, and Sara were ready to fight against Lara's proposal, using the excuse that she wasn't part of an academy to join the contest. They planned to join the side of their old academy and join the contest under the name of the new academy.
But what she said made the three realise debating about this was a futile matter.
"Besides you lost a few of your members as I can tell," she didn't stop there, moving her eyes around the less than two hundred team members before adding, "and with me and my guards, everything shall be fine, right?"
"You do know there is an age limit for anyone taking part there, right?" Berry was still acting a bit hostile against Lara. and other girls also glared back at the latter. Yet Lara didn't show any concern or pressure from their attitude.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"I made sure to select guards to match this condition," Lara evilly grinned, as if she was telling them one way or another, they were going to welcome her on board, "even if you said no, I'll find my way to the capital and wait for William to return."
"This…" everyone exchanged silent glances as they got what she wanted to say. She was telling them she was going to join their team, either by their approval right now or not.
"Fine, but you won't be a formal part of our roster until boss returns," Ibra didn't want William to explode at him later on, especially when what Lara said made quite sense. Besides, he was smart enough to smell gunpowder between her and the other girls in the team.
"Thanks," Lara didn't care about what the girls thought about, and showed a sweet smile on her face, "let's go. I already prepared a portal to move all of us towards the capital."
William's team moved alongside Lara and her guards going to the kingdom's capital. At the same time, William was still training inside his room. Usually when he trained, he'd summon a shadow of his fox with four tails without realising it.
This started when he was absorbing spirit power from the statue of the old fox transformer. But now when he was training, things started to slowly change.
Two more shadows overlapped with the fox, as if they were forcing themselves over it. There was a shadow of a fierce looking giant dog, and a gigantic snake.
The dog overlapped with the fox, alternating its shape with it. The two got the same body size and had many things similar. But this dog had two curved horns, rudimentary protrusions at the side, a sign of developing wings later on.
It had just one tail, but it looked like a whip. As for the snake, it curled its long body in circles, hiding itself inside the body of the fox, only raising its head from the back of the fox, showing its deadly fangs.
William was absorbed in training, didn't realise what was going on with his body like usual. He didn't notice the changes that started to develop to the fox, as if it got suppressed by these two new spirits.
The two spirits were brutal, and they seemed to fight the fox without fighting each other. The fox was the dominant spirit, and that turned it to be their common enemy.
During this, and after an entire week, the Cardinal council finally made its decision. Leo and his legion failed to find anything remarkable back at the devastated Blue Hills zone. And that was something that many already expected.
The sheer size of damage the entire area suffered was enough to wipe out any remaining evidence of the main culprit behind it. So, when Leo returned empty handed, the Cardinals didn't take it on him.
As he returned back, he received the final call of the council. The first thing he did was to go towards William's room. Per habit when he dealt with his legion members, he didn't knock and simply opened the door. When he did that, he was welcomed with a scene he never expected.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmHe saw what William didn't, saw the three spirits interfering and overlapping with each other. The first thing he felt was immense shock and unexplained fear. The surprise was explained as it wasn't normal for anyone to have more than one spirit, not to mention showing their spirits during training like how it was with William.
But fear came from the depths of his spirit. It felt like his spirit trembled, fearing the three fierce spirits enveloping William in between. And just before he'd move a muscle, the snake and the dog turned towards him as if they sniffed his presence.
The fox spirit had its eyes closed, just like these two. But when the dog and the snake turned to Leo, they opened their eyes slowly, and glared at him as if they were ferocious beasts looking at a lamp.
This moment felt like an entire lifetime for Leo. he couldn't feel nor control his body. And one second was enough to make his body get soaked in profuse cold sweat, as if he just jumped into a frozen lake just now.
And then he fell victim to the scary effects of these two formidable spirits.
*Tick!*
William was absorbed in his training when he heard such a muffle sound. It was like something got broken, and the next instant he got out from his training world.
"Leo?!" William was astonished when he saw Leo. The latter's presence wasn't the main reason behind such shock, but the look on his face, that weird sticky layer of sweat that covered his body, in addition to the weird status of his eyes, "are you alright?"
William felt something was wrong the moment he spotted Leo. The latter had his eyes widely opened, while the blackness in them vanished. His eyes weren't even white, they were covered with a thin layer of green fog.
Leo didn't respond to William's calling. Even when the latter approached Leo and shook his body, no response came.