After about three hours of flying, Will finally reached the area that the person in the small village talked about. As he flew over, he saw a small little city buried in a valley. He could see walls around the city that prevented attacks from enemies.
These walls were magnificent, but they were a far cry from the walls of the kingdom he used to live in. Based on this, he figured that the area he was in was far inferior to the place he used to live in.
As he approached the city, he noticed that it seemed to be in a state of panic. People were scrambling around and yelling things to each other. As he was observing the situation, he suddenly heard an explosion in the center of the city. Flames rose from what seemed to be a magnificent building that was in the center of the city.
This building was tall and seemed to be made of a black jade, sparkling like the night sky. In it, you could see that there were people all scrambling around to put out the fire caused by the explosion.
Will could see that what caused the explosion was a group of people in red, all of them bearing the symbol of a scarlet flame.
As the group of people in red attacked the black building, they were setting off explosions everywhere as they set the central building alight. These people were also spread throughout the city setting things on fire.
However, at this moment, Will was fairly disappointed as the strongest people he could see were at the sixth or seventh stage of the foundational realm.
Being so weak, he could tell that this place was unsuitable for him to cultivate in, so he decided to enter the city and ask where the nearest kingdom was so that he could go there to find a new place to cultivate in.
As he approached the city, he once again landed on the ground. As he started approaching the city, the sounds of fighting got louder and the smell of fire permeated the air.
As Will approached the wall, he noticed that there were multiple holes in the wall and that people were scrambling to put out fires everywhere you could see.
All the warriors in the city wore black robes with deep hoods that obscured their faces along with pitch black masks. It seemed that identity protection was fairly important to them.
As Will approached the wall, he saw a large gate, which he entered. Being a time of fighting, there were very few people anywhere near the gate since they all needed to put out the fires and stop the intruders. All of the intruders had already gotten into the city, so the was no longer any need to defend it since it would only waste manpower.
Since Will could just walk in, the first thing he did when he walked in was to ask someone what was happening. He found out from the person that hidden valley was being attacked by the scorching sun kingdom, a kingdom which focused on the path of fire, and were here to avenge the assassination attempt of their princess, who was ambushed by an assassin from this city.
Being a kingdom, the people from the Scorching Sun kingdom were much stronger than the people from hidden valley and easily suppressed them. Since this was the case, Will could clearly see that Hidden Valley would quickly be destroyed, so he decided to find someone from Scorching Sun kingdom and ask if he could join them.
As he decided to do this, he quickly ran towards one of the fires in the city, quickly approaching and seeing the people clothed in red. As he approached the group, he saw that they were fighting a group of black robed people, but they were clearly winning.
Since they were winning, Will decided to wait until they had won, then ask what he needed to ask.
***************
About 15 minutes later, the last of the group robed in black had died, leaving the people from the Scorching Sun kingdom victorious.
"Excuse me friends?" Will yelled out to them.
"Eh?" one of the men looked over in confusion. This man was tall, and seemed to be the person in charge of the group. His face was covered in a scraggly beard. Will also noticed that he was at the seventh stage of the foundational realm, one of the top people in this fight.
"Who are you?" he asked suspiciously. This was a time of war, so no person could be trusted. However, when he noticed that this person was only at the first stage of the foundational realm, he eased up a bit.
"I am but a humble traveler, looking for a suitable place to cultivate. I was traveling and got lost in a storm, and have been on my own ever since. I was wondering if I could go with you to your great kingdom to seek shelter," Will responded with a smile.
The man was originally going to reject Will's request, but he suddenly felt more intrigued about his eyes, hair, and wings, all of which were a scarlet Ruby color. Since he was the strongest in his group, his senses were stronger than the others, so he also noticed that the wings on Will's back were slightly odd. Although they seemed to be aesthetic, he could see that when Will shifted slightly, they moved elegantly and fluidly, as if they wished to fly among the stars.
At this moment, another person in the group spoke up, saying, "And why should we trust you, let alone take you?"
Will didn't get a chance to even respond before the man in charge simply said, "Come with me," which baffled Will. Why was he just taking him without asking him? Wasn't he a bit too trusting of Will?
Despite bring suspicious of him, Will still followed him. However, the man who had spoken just moments ago was baffled. Why had their leader taken a random kid with him without asking who he was?
However, as confused as he was, he couldn't speak out against it since it was a decision made by the leader.
As Will was following the man, he decided to ask, "Why did you take me? Don't you want to know who I am?"
"If you want to, you can tell me, but whether you asked or not, I would have taken you since I'm interested in your wings. They should be real wings, right?" The man asked.
"How did you know?" Will asked in shock. He really didn't expect anyone to think that his wings were real, much less say it with such certainty.
"Because not only do they move elegantly, but they also seem to be made of rock, yet they move and flow like water. I don't know why you have them, but I know that they are real. The real question is where did you come from and why are you here?" the man asked as he thoughtful stroked his scraggly beard.
Hearing this, Will didn't say anything more. It was useless to fight against this as it would quickly be revealed anyway, and he still needed to go with them. Thinking about this, he decided to ask, "And were are we going?"
"Outside the city to where I have a camp set up. I'll have someone watch over you while I go help the others finish off the city."
After a couple minutes, the man and Will reached outside the city limits and to a hidden camp, concealed past the outer limit of the patrolled areas around the city.
Soon after, the man put Will inside one of the tents, which had nothing but a thin mattress pad in it. All of the tents were set up like this as they had to travel while carrying all of these supplies. As an added security measure, he put the person directly below him in charge of watching Will.
After seeing that Will was safe and everything was fine, he quickly sprinted back to the city to join the fight, which, surprisingly, took only a couple seconds. This was due to the fact that he was at the seventh stage of the foundational realm.