William stood outside Anastasia’s cell and listened quietly to the sounds coming from within, and even though the cries and broken sobs from inside the room were filled with years of grief and helplessness.
A faint but deeply emotional smile still rested on his face because he understood that what was happening beyond that door was far more important than anything he could say or do in that moment.
He had wanted to go inside the moment he heard Tamasya break down, because there was a part of him that wished to pull her into his arms and let her cry until all the weight she had carried for years finally left her heart, but he stopped himself because he knew that this was not his moment to interfere, and that some wounds could only begin to heal in the presence of the people who had shared the pain that caused them.
Tamasya had lost too much in her life, and so must have Anastasia, and the bond they shared had survived years of separation, suffering, and silence, which meant that the tears William heard now were not tears of weakness but the release of years of grief that had remained trapped inside both of them, and he understood that no comfort from him could mean as much in this moment as the simple fact that they had finally found each other again.
William slowly turned away from the cell and looked toward the open cavern where fifty men were kneeling before him in complete silence.
Ronin and Barash knelt closest to him, and both of them were already dressed in a black uniform with light black armour attached for combat purposes.
With a casual wave of his hand, several sets of holy knight armor appeared before the kneeling men, and the metallic gleam of the equipment reflected the lava light in the cavern as each slave stepped forward and took one set for himself.
These men were not ordinary followers who had been chosen out of convenience, because William had spent weeks selecting each one of them with care after watching them closely and judging not only their strength but also their temperament, discipline, adaptability, and willingness to survive.
The first stage of William’s plan was already set in motion.
Anastasia and Tamasya were safe for the moment, and he had exactly two days before the pope would attempt to use the Founder’s Festival as a grand spectacle to display his authority before the empire.
In two days, he would take Tamasya and Anasthasia for a public execution.
Those two days were enough for William to lay the foundation for something much bigger than a rescue, because while he could not destroy an empire overnight with the limited number of men at his disposal, he could create chaos, a lot of chaos.
William had no intention of simply escaping after saving Anastasia, because too much blood had already been spilled for him to settle for a temporary victory, and the church had committed too many sins over too many years for him to allow it to continue standing after all that had happened.
He still had to be ahead of Winston, in front of the whole Aris, just like he did with his elder brother Nevin.
His goal was not merely to rescue those he cared about but to slowly and methodically dismantle the empire that had taken his big brother, Nevin, from his parents and him, and for that purpose, he needed an elite force capable of moving unseen, infiltrating key locations, and carrying out orders without hesitation.
William had already decided that Barash and Ronin would stand at its head, because both of them possessed not only strength but also enough experience and intelligence to lead men through chaos without losing sight of the larger purpose behind their actions.
"Bestow them light, darkness, fire, blood, and ice affinities."
[Understood.]
"Bestow the spells Radiant Flash Step, Nightfall Suppression, Luminous Embrace, Eclipse Veil, Glacial Bind, Blizzard, Crimson Dominion Art, and Sinclair Serpent Blade Art."
[Understood.]
Some of the techniques he had just granted them were heaven-ranked arts, treasures that entire factions would go to war over, yet William did not feel even a trace of regret as he watched these men receive power that others would have called excessive.
As long as these spells were used for his cause.
Two weeks ago, he had first begun filtering these men out shortly after the destruction of the Clayman Cult, because that was the moment he fully accepted that he would eventually need an organized force that could act independently in service of his goals.
The technique he gave them was a modified and lesser version of the Primordial Godflow Scripture.
William named it the Heavenly Resonance Scripture.
The Heavenly Resonance Scripture was not as pure or complete as the original mother scripture that William himself cultivated, but it was still far superior to almost every cultivation technique available in the world.
The greatest change was that to cultivate different energies, different subparts and circulations were used depending on the energy. Someone cultivating multiple energies will have to exert greater comprehension and mental load
The limitation that prevented users from relying on supplements and external resources was removed, which looked like an advantage on the surface.
Although this meant that the foundation built through this technique would never match the purity and strength of the original scripture, it also meant that they could advance much faster.
William had first bestowed this scripture upon Maris, Emily, Barash, Benson, Amorphous, Ronin, Grimlock, and, eventually, these fifty men, because each of them had already proven useful to his cause and had shown the capacity to adapt to rapid growth without losing themselves completely.
Even so, William had once hesitated to empower them too much, because no matter how practical he tried to be, there had always been a part of him that disliked the fact that these people were still partially demonic in the physical sense.
That discomfort had lessened only after William discovered that there might be a way to undo the corruption placed on them and eventually restore their original selves.
Because until then, he had viewed his growing army as both an asset and a burden, useful in the present but morally difficult to ignore.
That was until he found out that there was a way to erase the effects of demonic brain seeding.
He could even change Amorphous’s race, though his case was more complicated since he had originally been born a demon.
The possibility had once seemed absurd.
But now, William knew there was a path.