Reincarnation Of The Strongest Spirit Master-Chapter 1394: The Portal’s Problem!

"The portal... It’s physically fine," the man stammered, keeping his head bowed low. "We’ve checked the foundation stones. We even replaced all the primary power arrays and the supporting spirit-ink inscriptions. Everything on our end is pristine, sir. But it still won’t catch the signal. It’s as if the destination has simply... vanished."

"Weird..." William didn’t explode in rage as the man expected. Instead, he became unnervingly still. He stood in the centre of the plaza, his mind racing through a thousand possibilities. "Did you try to contact other towns? Are the neighbouring hubs reporting the same failure?"

"In fact... all the towns we’ve reached via long-range spirit-sense are reporting the same issue," the man said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "It has been like this for three days, sir."

"Three days?!!" Becky blurted out, her teasing mood vanishing instantly. She stepped forward, her face pale. "Do you mean to tell me you haven’t received a single order from Lara’s city for three whole days and you just stood around here doing nothing?!"

"Well..." The man found some courage, though he still avoided William’s gaze. "We did everything we could, as I said. We replaced the components. We tried to force a manual connection. But it’s not a problem on this side of the gate. We convened an emergency meeting with the local commanders and the regional armies. We’ve reached a consensus."

"There is something happening in Lara’s city," William finished for him. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

The master took an involuntary step back, flinching. He mistook the cold, sharp focus in William’s aura for a sign of impending violence. The air around William had begun to drop in temperature, a manifestation of his rising spiritual pressure as he realised the gravity of the situation.

"That’s right, sir," the master whispered. "But Lara’s city is nearly a month’s journey from here on foot. Without the portals, we are effectively cut off. We don’t know if the city is under siege, if the arrays were sabotaged from the inside, or if..."

"Stay put," William interrupted, his tone turning into shards of ice. "Send a call immediately. All armies are to cease forward movement. Establish heavy defensive measures around every town we currently hold. Do not expand the perimeter another inch until you receive further orders from the city. If I find out any commander has left their post, I’ll deal with them personally."

"Yes, sir! Immediately, sir!" The man bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the cobblestones before he turned and bolted away, looking like a man who had just escaped the hangman’s noose.

Becky turned to William, her mind flooded with a thousand questions, but she focused on the most vital one. The playful teasing from their walk was dead and buried.

"What do you have in mind, William?" she asked, her voice steady despite the fear gnawing at her. "The portals don’t just stop working for three days unless the central anchor is gone. Do you have any clue what could have happened? Who could have reached the city?"

"The portals are a two-way passage, a bridge linking two distinct points in space," William said, his voice dropping into a low, analytical hum. He ignored the crowded centre of the plaza and began walking toward a spacious, deserted courtyard on the edge of the town.

Becky trailed close behind, her eyes darting between the anxious townsfolk and William’s focused profile. "If no one is tampering with the anchors on this end, then the fracture originates at the city. The connection isn’t being blocked; it’s being severed at the source."

"You mean the enemy sneaked a saboteur into the city? Someone to destroy the main arrays?" Becky asked, her heart hammering against her ribs.

"That’s the only logical explanation we have," William replied. He suddenly came to a halt in the centre of the dusty courtyard. He scanned the perimeter once, nodding to himself. "This will do."

"What do you mean?" Becky looked around at the unremarkable stone walls and the patches of dry weeds. "What’s special about this place?"

"Nothing... yet," William’s eyes flashed with a dangerous, predatory light. He reached into one of his spatial rings and pulled out a shimmering, crystalline orb—a ball of compressed spiritual energy that hummed with a violet hue.

"Get ready, Becky. We might be about to step directly into a hornet’s nest. We could arrive in a city that is already crawling with enemies."

"You don’t mean we’re going to walk there?"

"No," William knelt on the ground, his fingers moving with a blurred, surgical precision. He began digging shallow, geometric holes into the earth, placing the crystalline orb in the centre and surrounding it with high-grade ores and spirit-stones.

"Three days have passed, and the portals are still dark. Why do you think that is? In a city like Lara’s, filled with master architects and engineers, why haven’t they repaired the link yet?"

Becky fell silent. The realisation hit her with the weight of a physical blow, leaving her motionless for several long minutes as she watched William weave a complex web of silver spirit-ink across the dirt.

If the portals weren’t fixed, it wasn’t because the machinery was broken—it was because the people who were supposed to fix them were either dead or fighting for their lives.

"You’re building a new portal!" she finally whispered, her voice trembling. "But... how? We don’t have the coordinates or a permanent anchor!"

"The plan was originally to set this portal behind enemy lines after we secured the valley," William explained without looking up. His hands never shook. "Lara gave me the master key and the portable foundation before we left. I never thought I’d be using it to break into our own home."

"But... if the enemy is in control of the city’s portal hub, won’t they just see this one coming?"

"They’ll be watching the established gates, tampering with the working portals they know about. They won’t be looking for the foundations of a dormant, inactive link," William shrugged, though his expression remained grim.