Before arriving here, the two of them had to watch out where they were stepping, or else they might end up hitting someone by mistake. And now? There were at least tens of metres between them and the nearest walking pedestrian in the street.
William raised his head, and as long as his eyes could reach, he found no more than ten people walking. They seemed running not walking, as if they were in a hurry, or fearing something to catch them.
"I can't believe I'm walking towards the same place I always had nightmares from when I was a little kid," Thomas suddenly said, while he and William finally arrived at a grand place that was lined with a thick and tall metallic fence.
"Are they using this place to scare the kids before they go to sleep or what?" William didn't know what to say in response to that, and Thomas only sighed.
"You are aware of the history of this place, right?" Thomas paused, and William shook his head, "I mean the one related to Alfonso, my previous master."
"Ah, he told me he sent people to try and demolish the place… Why?" William got a bad hunch, but he wasn't sure of his guess.
"My father, uncle… My entire family were the ones who worked here," Thomas seemed to be lost in thoughts, "and by this time, I was six years old, enough to come and help as well."
"Ouch!" William's guess wasn't as bad as this reality. Thomas took a deep breath, seemingly not caring about William's comment or reaction.
"I saw bits and pieces of what happened… But I can't truly grasp what happened here… It's like a floating memory of the past, one that I can't recall until I'm sleeping. It's as if my mind didn't want to recall any of this unless it's a situation designed for me to forget everything after…"
William couldn't help but inwardly sigh. Losing family members wasn't a rare occasion in this world. In fact, it was the normal thing. But losing family members thanks to the traps of an already dead, long dead man was something unbelievable.
"The best way to conquer one's demons is by facing them," William took out his sword, pointed towards the gate that was closed, "let's go inside. And in there, I promise to keep you safe."
William didn't intend to do this in the first place. But asking someone who saw such terror in his early age to do it, face the same horrors again, was simply too much.
Deep inside, he planned to let Thomas deal with his demons in the right way. But he'd also keep watching from the side and would intervene if this youth's death was fixed and certain.
This place was indeed huge! William wanted to own a piece of land with a single building on top of it. But this place was at least as massive as the Refos merchant group, or even bigger.
It looked more spacious, with the land extending deep behind the iron fence, like it'd reach the end of the fort and beyond.
William noticed that he could see bits and pieces of the land inside, but not that clear to see everything in detail. He could see shadows of six different buildings, scattered inside, with kilometres in between.
It was a huge place, one that he could truly build more buildings there, and still would look spacious.
William took out the key, the token he got from Alfonso, and extended it forward when he arrived at the gate. Just walking from the edge of this territory towards the gate at the middle took him ten minutes. And that was enough evidence on how huge this place truly was!
William was ecstatic like never before. He didn't see an empty place, filled with wildly grown plants and trees, old looking grey buildings with lots of black spots as if they suffered from deadly fire, but a place filled with life, bustling with activity.
This place was going to change, totally transform, to be filled with many spirit masters, living and training, with at least one pocket world attached to it as the main training ground.
*Clang!*
The moment he pointed his token towards the gate, the two huge halves of this gate slowly opened with clanging sounds. It seemed as if rust extended and ate the knuckles of the gate.
How long did this building stand for? Two hundred years? Three hundred years? And it was left unattended all this time, left for the time to leave all the scars and marks upon.
William was quite satisfied that even after all this time, this place was still standing erect, not falling, not having any gaps or cracks even at the buildings inside.
*Fwoosh!*
Just when he opened the gate, a gust of cold and wet wind came out from the inside, as if he just deflated a balloon or something.
"This…"
"It's the Fox Breath…" William was puzzled and didn't get what it was. But when Thomas muttered these words in a shaky tone, William got what made him puzzled.
There, in the middle of this wind, he heard a low-pitched roar, one that was so low to be easily missed, yet it could be felt with his spirit.
"A Fox Breath… Interesting…" William just came out from testing his new spirit body. And there he experienced a weirdly similar Fox Breath as well.
Seeing that just by opening the gate he could point another similarity between him, and that old spirit master made William want to dominate this place even more. His desire to go in there, explore and uncover all the secrets, know what happened with that ancient spirit master and why the two of them looked connected, grew intense.
"Let's go," After the early gush of wind, nothing else happened. And then he started to walk towards the inside with steady steps.
Thomas looked around, and the breath that just came out from the territory attracted many eyes already. He couldn't help but sigh, turn towards the back of his new master, and walked after him inside.
