Reincarnation Of The Strongest Spirit Master-Chapter 1397: A Shocking Realisation!

To them, this situation was a riddle with no answer, a curse that defied the laws of medicine and magic.

But they all shared a singular, unshakable belief. They believed that this mystery, which had brought their city to the brink of annihilation, would be solved by only one man.

William was the legend who made the impossible mundane. If the wounds wouldn't heal, he would find the reason. If the enemy was unending, he would find the source.

Everyone watching believed—with a fervour that bordered on religious—that their Guild Master would pull a miracle from the air and flip the table on fate itself.

William was unaware of the sheer weight of their faith. He didn't realise that his very presence was the only thing keeping the city's remaining defenders from collapsing into terminal despair. He was too busy staring into the abyss of Lara's wound.

"I recognise this…" William's voice was deep, and for the first time in Anjie's memory, it sounded shaken. "But… how? How is this possible in this era?!"

He placed both hands over Lara's cold body. He didn't just check her pulse; he projected his spirit power into her, using it as a surgical probe to scan the cellular level of the injury. He saw the way the foreign energy was dancing within the wound, actively eating away at the body's natural regenerative fibres.

"We tried that scan, too," a voice rasped from the side.

Fang appeared from the shadow of a nearby building. The old master looked even worse than Lara. He was hunched over, his once-imposing frame withered. Two deep, wet punctures marred his belly, and his clothes were so saturated with blood they clung to him like a second, grisly skin.

"Fang! You need help," William said, his eyes widening. It was a testament to the old master's sheer, stubborn will that he was even standing. By all rights, he should have bled out hours ago.

"No time to care about old bones like mine," Fang said, his voice a dry wheeze that still carried a spark of fire. He looked at William with a desperate, searching intensity.

"If you know what this is, boy… can you solve it? Look around you. All of our wounded are the same. They don't stop bleeding. They don't heal. No matter what we do, they just slowly drain away until there's nothing left."

William let out a soft, heavy sigh. He wanted to scream. He wanted to find the person responsible and tear them apart with his bare hands. But he contained the fury, burying it deep beneath a layer of icy focus.

He returned to Lara's body, his fingers grazing the edge of the wound as he double-checked the horrifying signature of the energy he had detected.

"Come here," William said, his voice dropping into a register of command that brooked no argument. He didn't look up from Lara's wound, but his focus was now locked on Fang. "I need to check your injuries. Now."

"I told you, I don't need your pity, boy!" Fang barked, his stubbornness flaring even as his knees buckled. He misunderstood William's intent, viewing the help as a waste of precious time.

"Take care of the younger ones! They have decades of potential ahead of them. They shouldn't fall in this wretched, lowly world! Let the old bones serve as the shield for once!"

William felt a sharp pang of respect for the old warrior's selflessness, but he had no time for sentiment. In a blur of movement that Fang was too weak to track, William dashed forward. He didn't offer a hand; he shoved the old man back against a stone pillar, pinning him with a firm, immovable grip. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"I need to verify a theory before I act," William said, his tone as cold as a mountain peak. The sheer weight of his authority silenced Fang's protest. "Sit still. Let me examine the wound."

Fang slumped, the fight finally draining out of him. He didn't understand the dilemma playing out behind William's eyes. This wasn't just about medicine; it was a confrontation with a ghost from a past life.

William had never seen this phenomenon in the flesh before, but he had heard of it. His master, a woman who rarely showed fear, had spoken of it in hushed, haunted tones, her face turning ashen white at the mere memory.

She had told him of a dark alchemist—a man who had betrayed the core tenets of his craft. While most alchemists spent their lives perfecting elixirs to bridge the gap between humans and the heavens, this bastard had devoted his genius to the Fox. He had created the ultimate antithesis of cultivation: a liquid corrosive toxin that acted as a predator to spirit power itself.

Most poisons targeted the blood or the organs, but this substance was designed to hunt. Once it entered a master's body through even the smallest scratch, it began to feast.

It didn't just weaken the host; it devoured their spiritual essence, corroding the very foundations of their power until the master died of spiritual starvation and depletion. In his master's time, this single alchemist had slaughtered more of her elite subordinates than the Fox's main armies combined.

But my master was supposed to have killed him early in her journey, William thought, his mind racing through the fragmented timelines of his past life. Why is he here? Why is his work surfacing in this era? Did my presence shift the gears of fate that drastically?

He couldn't waste time on the "why." He had to confirm the "what."

Following the instructions his master had once given him, William infused a thread of his own spirit power into Fang's belly wound. He held his breath.

The moment his energy touched the ragged edge of the puncture, he felt a sickening sensation. It wasn't a clash of powers; it was a disappearance. His spirit power was sizzled away, vanished into nothingness as if it had been dropped into an acid bath. It was being eaten.