"If my second technique won’t do it, then I’ll use my first technique then." William’s second technique was suitable to cause considerable damage to a wide area. But thanks to his weak spirit grade, the effects weren’t satisfying.

So he shifted gears and used his Holy Sword technique, the strongest killing move against a single foe.

In less than ten minutes, he managed to slay the two worms while the other fifty-something masters were struggling to kill any of the other two.

"I’ll let them kill the two worms to gain more experience." After killing the two he picked, he didn’t join the ongoing fights and left the other masters, led by Fang, to handle the other two worms.

He took ten minutes to kill two worms, while the masters led by Fang needed close to one hour to kill the worms. Thanks to the longer duration, the spirit master side lost fourteen more masters. Yet the remaining thirty-nine were now far experienced in handling the worms, more confident in themselves.

"I need to apologise," once the fight ended, Fang left his masters behind to collect the cores and other materials while he went to William, "we should have been more than enough to handle these worms. But if not for your help, we would have been killed."

"It’s alright," William wasn’t feeling the same way as Fang, "this isn’t the lower realm. Deaths can happen way more easily than in the world we came from. Also, the surviving masters now have rich experience in handling the worms."

"That’s given," Fang nodded in confirmation, "still, we lost close to two-thirds of our initial numbers. And all of them were very experienced masters..."

William could tell what Fang was thinking about, so he simply raised a hand to stop the old man from continuing his words.

"You can’t be responsible for their lives, they came here knowing the risks," William paused, "let’s build on top of what we gained from this battle. The worms will keep coming. They are pack-minded monsters.

If four arrived, more would flood our way in the upcoming days. Go back and arrange your lines, add more masters under each of the survivors’ leadership. Let them relay what they learnt from this fight to others, let’s expand our forces based on experience gained to minimise our losses and raise more capable masters in the process."

William’s intentions were clear; he wanted to start building his master force based on experience and capabilities in the upper realm. Fang wasn’t surprised by such plans; William had already warned them before coming here about that.

Many would keep living in the past glory, but William was clear about this point. He announced it back in the lower realm; he would restructure the Fox Guild force based on the contribution each master gave in the upper realm once ascended.

William didn’t stay in his place; he knew more worms were coming, and they weren’t the only predators in the region.

He left Fang to do the task he entrusted him with and started to take a wide tour around the base. He didn’t leave the perimeter of the protected zone, yet he could spot lots of shadow monsters still pouring from different directions, heading towards the still-burning mine.

Seeing the mine was still gushing out a copious amount of spirit power to keep attracting all these shadow monsters, getting reignited after it had been burnt down once, told William that the mine wasn’t simple at all.

For a moment, he started to regret setting that mine to fire. And yet he had no other choice.

"Resources here are so rich that they defied everything I know about resources in the upper realm. I should keep that in mind," he muttered after finishing his first tour. There wasn’t a single sign of any threat or a monster coming closer to the safe zone.

So he returned to where Fang was.

"I decided to assign more masters than we agreed upon," once William returned from his long tour, and Fang explained the scene in front of William.

The initial plan was for the thirty-nine masters to lead one hundred masters each. With Fang, they would form a four thousand master force, enough to handle the defences in a large area.

But what welcomed William was at least ten thousand masters, making him suspect Fang had interrupted many masters from their training.

"I picked most of the masters protecting the base," Fang noticed the weird look over William’s face, so he explained, "from the first battle, and it became clear the value of experience at handling these monsters. So I saw it was better not to leave many masters at any defending spot, and gather all the reserve masters to gain good experience before sending them back."

"It’s a risky plan," William paused, before his eyes shone in brighter light, "but no pain, no gain, right? Make sure to spread these teams in different directions, with your group remaining in the centre. We’ll reinforce any side if needed."

William’s words were clear. He and Fang would work as the main support for any group. As for the teams he formed, they would disperse, each handling a strategic spot. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The wait didn’t last long. Just one hour after the thirty-nine teams dispersed, the next wave of worms landed.

And this time, they didn’t come just from one direction; five different directions were hit.

"You go towards that direction," William instantly marked the five different directions based on the tremors, "I’ll handle the rest. Come to help once you are done with your spot."

William knew this was going to be like how the upper realm he knew would be. The worms wouldn’t stop attacking the base unless they managed to kill the worm king, a worm that he expected to be in the green grade at least.

Till then, they had to shoulder the growing pressure, kill all the worms that appeared at the base.

William left one spot to Fang, knowing that at best, they would take half an hour to get rid of the worms. His conviction got deeper when he spotted seven worms in the first direction he appeared in.