Reincarnation Of The Strongest Spirit Master-Chapter 1427: The Mystic Arts!

Even if the dream of a united world drew closer, William’s focus remained on the three broken men before him. The unification was a matter of logistics; the truth was a matter of survival.

"But first, I need something from you," William said suddenly. His voice was jarringly casual, cutting through the heavy silence of the plaza. He didn’t even bother to raise his head from the scroll he was meticulously studying.

"Tell me the entire story of the monsters that hired you to come here. I want the names, the dates, the locations—tell me everything."

William was acutely aware that this was the pivot point of history. If he could unveil the mystery of this shadowy alliance, the path to total continental unification would be clear.

However, he refused to underestimate this foe. This was the same entity that had successfully orchestrated the total downfall of civilisation in his past life. For years, he had operated under a fundamental misconception.

He had believed the primary source of the world’s rot was the Dark Masters. He had spent his existence hunting them, extricating their forces from the world like one would cut out a cancer.

But now, a terrifying new reality had set in. The Dark Masters were merely the hands; the monsters were the mind. The realisation that the true culprits behind the apocalypse of his past were the monsters changed every calculation in his head. To win this time, he needed to understand the nature of the beast he was actually fighting.

"Well... you won’t believe us even if we told you," one of the three survivors rasped. His voice was thin, reeking of exhaustion and the metallic tang of blood. The other two remained deathly silent, their eyes glazed with the look of men who had already accepted their execution.

"Try me," William replied. His expression remained a mask of indifference, showing neither anger nor doubt. "Tell me everything and let me be the judge of what is believable."

"You don’t get it," the man sighed, a wet, hacking sound. "It’s not that I doubt your brilliant mind, kid. But there is an entire world out there—a side of existence you don’t know of. A hidden layer of this world where the struggle between masters and monsters is entirely different. It involves a force that is alien to the known spirit power we use..."

"You mean the Mystic Arts?"

William stopped what he was doing. He finally looked up from the scroll, his gaze locking onto the Dark Master’s eyes with the intensity of a predator. The effect was immediate.

An immense shock—a look of pure, unadulterated terror—washed over the man’s face. It was a reaction far more profound than the fear he had shown when William was slaughtering his comrades or dismantling the fortress’s legendary defences.

"Oh, so they are monsters who are acquainted with the Mystic Arts," William said, his voice dropping into a tone of quiet realisation, as if he were discussing something as mundane as the weather.

"I heard of their presence once. A counter-force, much like how the Dark Masters stand against the normal masters of the world. A shadow reality."

"You... how the hell do you know that?!!!" the second Dark Master blurted out, his voice cracking. All three were now staring at William as if he were a ghost, a legendary monster that had stepped out of the myths of the Upper Realm.

"It’s simple," William said with a dismissive shrug, his attention already drifting back to the blueprints in his hand. "I’m a Cardinal—a powerhouse on the human side of that very power struggle. I’ve walked those paths before."

He turned the scroll over, his brow furrowing as he noticed a specific set of symbols etched into the margins of the fortress’s architectural plans.

"Interesting... these fortress designs incorporate the lost formations from the Lookman’s era," William noted, his voice tinged with a hint of genuine academic curiosity. Then, his eyes sharpened as he looked back at the captives.

"If you had access to such ancient and devastating power, then why the hell didn’t you use these to stop me? Were you too incompetent to activate them, or did your monster masters not trust you with the keys?"

William’s expression underwent a sudden, jarring transformation. He pivoted away from the earth-shattering revelation regarding the Mystic Arts with the ease of a man turning a page in a book, his focus snapping back to the ancient blueprints clutched in his hand.

His brow furrowed, and a shadow of genuine, simmering rage crossed his features—not the rage of a victim, but the indignant fury of a master craftsman seeing a masterpiece desecrated.

"You even know about the origin of this fortress?!!!"

The words were forced out of one of the Dark Masters after several minutes of suffocating silence. His voice was a thin, trembling reed. He stared at William, his mind finally fracturing under the weight of the boy’s impossible knowledge.

"You cannot be from this world... No, even if you were a genius from the Upper Realm, you couldn’t possibly be a normal master! You are too young, far too young to be one of those secluded, ancient monsters who hoard this kind of history. Just who... what are you?!!!"

"Does that make a difference?" William sighed, the sound heavy with a weary, old-world boredom. He flicked the edges of the scroll, the parchment snapping like a whip in the quiet plaza.

"Identity is a luxury for the living. Tell me first: why the hell did you use normal, mundane formations in the construction of this fortress? Why didn’t you utilise the lost formations clearly outlined in these designs? Why leave such a glaring hole in your defences?"

"..."

The three captives exchanged glances of pure, unadulterated disbelief. They were drowning in a sea of revelations that could upend the power balance of the heavens—information about Mystic Art communities and hidden power struggles that remained unknown to even the most formidable powerhouses of the Upper Realm—and yet, this boy was fixated on an architectural technicality.

He was treating the omission of ancient formations as a personal insult to his intelligence.