The bright yellow lightning tore through the clouds stained with twilight. The Thunderbird flapped its wings and hovered at a middling height, its gaze sweeping over the lush, verdant valley below.
The signal for positioning pointed directly to this place—
So now it's time to make a choice—A. Hide on the spot, bide your time, and see if any impatient fool takes the bait, B. Knowing that the front is likely a trap, willingly walk into it and adapt on the fly, C. Call the police.
After a brief consideration, William decisively chose—D. Call in the army to invade and flatten it.
He didn't have the patience, nor was he foolish enough to put himself in unknown danger... as for calling the police, that was a completely token option.
"Roar—"
The fire dragon's roar emanated from the air beneath William's feet, and the latter transformed into human form, standing steadily on Norbert's back. In the air, over a dozen faint purple cracks slowly emerged. Hundreds of werewolves clad in heavy armor rushed out on specially crafted broomsticks, the full moon's brilliance shimmering on their silver-gray fur—
It's not that William didn't want more people, but there simply weren't that many wizards in this world, and as for werewolves, even less so.
To gather these hundreds, his men had scoured across Europe and Russia to assemble this many werewolves, who were discriminated against to the point they couldn't live normally. Thus, the main force of William's army was not these furry fellows, but those that appeared behind them, constructed from magic runes and stone—
One after another resounding thud was heard, as the originally deep green forest was crushed, replaced by massive blue magic patterned stone statues wielding door plate (giant swords), their dense numbers completely replacing their position, with the dust raised almost turning the surrounding ring-shaped mountains into flat land, as for the other half—
"Roar—"
With such a huge commotion outside, the residents inside surely wouldn't be unaware. Just as the statues were summoned by William and landed, deep in the valley, a pitch-black thick fog rose, spiraling upward until it reached the same height as Norbert and stopped, gradually taking shape—
On the pitch-black skeleton, a crimson mist rose, forming the shape of a fire dragon, which flapped its wings and stopped not far from in front of William.
"Just like I said, I've come to find you, Lanlock."
William, stepping on a protrusion on Norbert's head, leaned forward slightly, "And where's your partner? Last time, we were only halfway through reminiscing—"
In the next moment, atop the skeletal dragon, a humanoid shadow composed of black and red mist slowly materialized. But compared to a normal person, that shadow was a bit too short. Goblin Lanklock's face held no expression, its gaze calmly swept over the stone statues below before finally resting on William—
"Do you think you're assured of victory?"
"...Obviously?"
"It seems you don't know why we're here."
At this time, a dry, calm voice sounded from William's side. He turned his head to see a man in a black robe standing on a piece of air, quietly hovering there—Victor Rookwood. The man no longer wore a hood to conceal his identity, and that familiar and detestable face made William, for a moment, feel melancholic.
Though, in terms of time span, over a century had passed, for him personally, it felt like less than seven years since bidding farewell to these two, as if their last meeting had just been... last time.
"Care to elaborate?"
William shrugged and initiated the obligatory villain dialogue before the showdown, lightly spinning the magic wand in his fingertips but showing no intention to command the army below to attack.
"All thanks to you!"
Lanklock picked up where Victor left off, the goblin's voice laden with deep-seated resentment, the anger almost seeming to burst from those sunken sockets.
"Oh, me?"
William raised an eyebrow, his questioning tone full of confusion, "What does your deaths have to do with—wait, didn't I kill you all?" Mid-sentence, William suddenly felt something was off and instinctively corrected himself.
"Yes, we all died at your hands—"
Lanklock tugged the corners of its mouth, revealing a sardonic smile on its indistinct, wrinkled face. And as its voice fell, in the next moment, a dazzling, dark red special effect shot skyward from within the valley. William looked down only to see countless armored goblins, wizards, trolls, and evil wolves emerging from underground—
Soon, the overwhelming red-black army completely dominated William's view.
The condition of these beings was not much different from the person and goblin before him, their faces pale, surrounded by red-turned-black mist, the scene resembling a zombie siege no less.
"'We' all died by your hand—"
Lanklock, with hatred, repeated again through gritted teeth, then tilted its head, "The bitter fruit you sowed, how does it look now?"
"Ah..."
William opened his mouth, withdrawing his gaze from those below who looked as if they'd crawled from hell, and regarded the person and goblin before him with a gentle tone, "Sorry, I never considered those to be bitter fruits—killed is killed, you all deserved it, even now it's the same."
With William's final syllable, the glaring red light pierced the air like Zeus's lightning spear, directly piercing Lanklock's heart—
Of course, the target was the skeletal dragon, not the mist-formed goblin atop it.
"Roar—"
This strike completely shattered the tense atmosphere in the valley below. Goblins, shrieking, rode atop trolls, fearlessly charging towards the statues, and as the deep blue magic patterns activated, those outwardly "simple" giants also began to move. They raised their giant swords, and with every swing came a wail—
The battle on both sides plunged into a fever pitch upon contact. Both sides seemed to be immortals, thus naturally devoid of any chance of demoralization. But as the fight progressed, the goblins and trolls' fearless charges, coupled with the slight numerical disparity, saw the statues William summoned depleting at a visibly fast rate.
"..."
"Don't wait—"
Seeing that the situation seemed amiss, William nodded slightly at those behind him, the next moment, the bright moonlight bathed the entire battlefield.