"Shit, we have pissed her!!" Desmond gritted his teeth as he saw Kathrine dodge his last offensive spell. He only had a healing spell left with him now.
Meanwhile, Kathrine was burning with frustration; she did not want to lose at this point after coming so close to capturing the tower. Unfortunately, she needed four more people to hold the tower for five minutes for a valid capture.
She jumped, dived, and flipped in the air at impossible angles, dodging the spells being thrown at her.
Her target was the cadet who had launched a sneak attack on Kara. She believed that once this cadet and Desmond were taken out, then there would be only William to take care of.
If she managed to engage William and buy time for one of the groups to sneak into the tower, then there was a chance for success for the red team.
The cadet on the tree was an elf, and he seemed to have already pissed his pants after he saw Kathrine blazing towards him with a crazy intent.
In a matter of a few seconds, the bracelet on the elf’s hand was destroyed, and he was eliminated, leaving Desmond alone without any spells to defend or attack.
His fate was the same, and he too got eliminated in an instant.
Kathrine stood on the empty ground in silence, panting heavily, taking a few seconds to steady herself.
"Nice show. Where did you learn acrobatics from?"
Kathrine identified the voice in an instant; she turned around only to see William’s figure in the distance.
"Acr-acro...what??"
She saw William standing calmly against the bark of a tree, smiling at her.
Seeing this, Katherine got nervous. The confidence she had felt a few minutes ago was nowhere to be seen.
Yet her hands clenched around her weapon, ready to move and engage William in a battle.
William sensed this instantly and calmly said before smiling, "That won’t be needed."
Kathrine couldn’t understand what he was trying to say, but in the next instant, a sound blared, leaving her shocked. A horn sounded across the whole field, indicating the end of the mock battle.
"What??" she voiced in surprise.
The horn sound meant that the drill was over, which could only end when one side had won.
Kathrine looked at the unclaimed blue team’s tower in front of her. It was a hard pill to swallow, but the red team had been defeated sooner than she had anticipated. They did not even get the chance to have a proper fight.
While she was looking at the Blue tower, William approached from behind and walked to stand beside her.
"Good game," he said before leaving.
"Good Ga—what???" Kathrine asked in a flustered and pissed tone, but William’s figure had already disappeared.
Meanwhile, in the control room where the professors and army veterans had been witnessing the mock battle from the start, another conversation was brewing.
"I have said it from the start, Miss Bloodrose; William Kaiser is just tipping the balance in every aspect. He needs separate training with the special forces; keeping him here is just hindering his growth," Colonel Draven looked at Bloodrose and spoke.
He had been trying to keep this point, but Bloodrose always denied it.
He was a colonel, and Bloodrose was a major-ranked officer; technically, she should not have resisted his orders, but since Bloodrose came from the Abyssal extermination division, which was a special forces division, she could not be ordered by a normal army’s colonel.
"I am just following the orders, Sir Draven. William’s strength might be extraordinarily unmatched with the rest of the students, but he is also the Archon and representative of the first-year batch of the World Academy.
His safety is the utmost priority for the higher-ups; if something happens to him, the credibility of the academy will be questioned."
Colonel Drawen sighed, "You guys are just wasting his potential; that guy can be turned into a killing machine."
"Look at how he single-handedly eliminated half of the red team with his bow; he strategizes well; he has almost all the traits to qualify for the special forces."
Bloodrose did not choose to add anything from her own side; she decided to respect seniority and chose to stay quiet.
Draven, noticing her silence, just stood up and turned to leave. "When the performance report reaches General Marcus in fifteen days, I am sure he will do the same thing I am suggesting right now; after all, it’s not just about William, it is about the rest of the kids, too. They are being overshadowed by William, and their own growth is getting affected," Draven said and just left the control room with his juniors, leaving Bloodrose and the homeroom professor of class A alone.
The professor at her side was an old dragon-kin lady professor. She corrected her glasses and looked at Bloodrose. "Are you still pissed at that boy for his speech?"
"Tsk, why would I be pissed at an immature brat who has a venomous tongue?" Bloodrose gave her a weird, denying look.
"You know, because he exposed a truth you had been denying in your heart for a very long time."
***
William entered his barracks after having a relaxing bath.
For the past few days, the military training and cultivation had been difficult to manage for him.
The time for his cultivation in the domain of infinity was getting affected due to the whole coordination drill.
The other slower students stretched the duration of these mock battles, due to which he did not get free time for his cultivation. That is why, for today’s battle, he had specially arranged a full-fledged offense strategy while dividing the enemy team to finish them off quickly.
After Kara and Katherine had arrived at the blue team’s tower to take out the archers, William had sent Desmond and others to buy a few minutes, during which he had personally finished off half of the Red team with his bow.
William crashed on the bed and closed his eyes to relax for a few minutes when he felt Maris’s voice calling him out.
"What happened, Maris??" William asked with brows furrowed.
On the other side, Maris explained the whole situation about the upcoming attack that Aurelius wanted to wage on the Clayman cult.
William sat up in surprise, his eyes widened as he sensed an opportunity in front of him.
It seemed like he had found a cover under which he could complete the unknown quest.
But there was another problem. There were still fifteen days for the current semester to get over, after which the students would be allowed to return for a vacation.
William needed to stop the emperor till then, so that he could participate more actively in the conflict.
William told Maris to wait and contacted Grimlock, who was his highest-ranked spy in the Clayman’s cult to date.
Recently, Grimlock had gotten a promotion due to his insights on the Veil project.
The way he had done that was with the help of William.
Grimlock had revealed that the blood of the Veil creature was not itself the reason for the strange behavior of the substance, but it was all happening due to a strange energy infused in it that originated in the realm behind the veil, which was different from mana, spiritual energy, or even demonic energy.
Just this revelation that System had casually thrown at William was a lot to digest for the higher-ups of the cults; they had promoted Grimlock to the position of a junior elder now.
The cult knew that if a new type of energy were involved, the way to approach the topic of the veil would be completely changed, and due to this phenomenal development, Grimlock had earned the trust and favor of the elders of the cult.
"My lord," Grimlock’s voice rang from the other side.
William pressed his lips as he thought of a plan.