"It's the destiny of any powerful figure, right?" William was shameless enough to brag about it like this. He was quite exhausted, feeling like he'd need a week of sleep to regain his composure again.
[I hope to see you one day stand on the pinnacle stage] Stark didn't get any ill meaning behind William's words, [Now… You can go back and rest for a little bit. The things you laid on the ground will be enough to fend off the monsters for few hours]
"Don't lower your guard yet, old man," William didn't feel the same as Stark, as most if not all of the masters in the city, "the real challenge will start anytime soon."
[What do you mean… Don't tell me these monsters aren't the real scary ones out there!!!] Stark was a seasoned master, and he saw lots in this world already.
So he could get what William meant. The latter managed to stop the monsters by the landmines and grenades, but that didn't mean the monster tide would stop here.
Once such an obstacle would rise, then the scariest forces of the monsters would appear soon enough to handle the situation. William knew the time of peace they got was short, really short to rest or something.
"Let's focus on the far more important things then," William's eyes narrowed, looking at the city and the ground around it, "I see you cleared the monster carcass… But we need to replenish the damaged arrays, repair the ruined walls, and try to add more layers of defence even inside the city."
[Do you believe we will lose the battle at the walls?!!]
"I'm just thinking of the worst case scenario," William rolled his eyes. Stark seemed to grow excited from all the great times that happened at the early three days of this war to even forget how terribly bad their initial situation was.
They decided to fight this war with a very slim chance of success. And William was still placing such a realistic assessment in front of him, "the last thing we both want to see is for our brave masters to get hunted down and killed while retreating towards the portals, right?"
[...]
William's words seemed a bit harsh and cold, like a cold bucket of water was poured on his head or something. He wanted to refute what William said but couldn't.
The harsh and straightforward words of William pulled Stark out of his delusions and dreams, returning back to the stressful times before this entire war happened.
And as the latter was feeling so, the entire situation of the war started to change fast.
As William expected, lots of new monsters appeared from the distance. Just from watching them walk through the fire and explosions without getting affected made William know they were the strongest monsters in this monster tide, the most difficult obstacle they had to get over if they wanted to win this entire thing.
But when these monsters came closer, William couldn't help but suck in a cold air of breath. "The Ice Hellhounds? What a damn breed of monsters they brought with them…" William couldn't help but shake off his head when he saw these monsters. He knew how scary these monsters were in the outer world. And even if they got lots of limitations by being here, this wasn't enough to make him feel any hope.
"Start activating the toxin, recall everyone inside the city right away!" William didn't stand idle and instantly said to Lara. Then he turned around and started running fast towards the city.
The Ice Hellhounds were a weird mix between ice and lava elements. The two were supposed to be severely antagonising to each other. But on rare occasions, masters and monsters would develop the two, ending up with a truly scary mixture.
They could deal with fire, water, wind, ice, and even earth-based attacks. They had strong defences, lots of immunity against normal spirit elements, and a very scary level of strength.
They weren't just fast, but they had such abnormal ability to track anyone anywhere they were. It wasn't that easy to get rid of them, not even with using normal arrays.
To take any down, one had to use a much higher level of attacks, use a combination of elements together, or to do like William intended to do here, turning them against each other.
If leopards would get affected by stacking much toxin together, turtles would take longer time to get affected and would suffer of this toxin for lesser amount of time, then these Hellhounds would take much denser amount of spirit power, long time to get affected, and would end up affected for a short period of time.
William was glad now he asked Lara to mass produce this toxin. Like this, he was sure lots of toxins would spread, and the chances of affecting these Hellhounds were great.
But he also knew this wasn't going to solve the problem entirely. Their numbers were in tens of thousands, and they wouldn't get affected long enough to tear each other down.
The best outcome he dreamt about was for these Hellhounds to take tons of other monsters in this tide and wound many of the hounds. The best he wanted to see was for these Hellhounds to interrupt the advance of the entire army. And like this, many masters would find a chance to retreat.
William never placed the idea of taking down these monsters at all in his mind. It was just something crazy to think about, considering how low the masters on his side were, considering how everyone was exhausted and tired from all these hectic fighting.
If he gave the order now for the masters to retreat, lots if not most of them would fall under the hands of the terrifying Hellhounds. So, he had first to keep these monsters busy, killing each other, before he'd tell Lara and Stark to lead everyone away.
*Rumble!*
Just as he started to retreat as well, the entire world rumbled.
