When the man left the campsite, he started to head back towards the city, where the rest of his group was still fighting with the people of Hidden Valley.
He soon reached the city and instead of joining his group with their own fight, he instead went directly to the main fight where the true leaders were. When he got there, he quickly joined the fight, trying his best to quickly eliminate the enemies.
As he was fighting, he quickly made his way towards the true leader of their side of the fight, who was at the eighth stage of the foundational realm. He was a short man with a long beard who seemed to be ordinary in every aspect, but he was actually the strongest person on the battlefield. Every movement of his seemed simple, but seemed to contain a hidden power that gave him the power to destroy his enemies.
As he approached the leader, the leader was just finishing his fight. He was fighting against a person who was at the seventh stage of the foundational realm. Being that he was a whole stage above this person, he could easily overpower them and ended up winning against them within a couple minutes.
At this point, every person had won their individual fight, and the people of Hidden Valley were all fleeing the city, just hoping to preserve their own life.
As the scraggly bearded man approached his leader, he suddenly said, "I have found something that may interest you,"
**************
Back in the forest camp, Will was sitting inside a tent with his wings stretched out. Since he would have to go soon, he decided to inspect his wings.
As he stretched and folded his wings, he decided to see the limits of their size and how compact they could get, along with the ways he could potentially use them.
He started off with taking a rock that he found and banging it against the feathers of his wings, seeing how strong they were.
Despite his expectations, his wings were solid as a rock, yet he could move them freely as if they were made of liquid. It seemed that the only thing that could make his wings move was the command of his own body. Other than that, his wings were completely resistant to everything and wouldn't budge if he didn't want them to. Using this information, he decided that if necessary, he could use his wings to defend himself from an attack or to quickly block it so he could counterattack.
After this, he decided to see just how sharp the ends of the feathers were. Considering how hard his wings were, he figured that the pointed ends of the rock feathers should be reasonably sharp and able to do some cutting if necessary.
He tested this by leaving the tent and going up to a tree. The person guarding was confused, but he was simply told to guard Will, not to question him, so he just continued to stand there. As will approached the tree, one of his wings suddenly and quickly extended, making a slashing motion. This movement was so quick that it absolutely stunned and even slightly unnerved the person standing guard.
With a *CRACK* the tree came tumbling downward, with a clean and precise cut made at the base of it. Standing next to the fallen tree, was Will, stunned beyond belief. He knew that based on the hardness of his wings that he would be able to use them for combat, but he never expected them to be so ridiculously effective at destruction. The cut on the tree looked as if it had been cut through by a saw, with not even a splinter out of place, as if the top of the tree had never been there in the first place.
However, as shocked as Will was, he couldn't possibly be more shocked than the man left there to stand guard. He hadn't been told the truth of Will's wings, so he had no idea that Will could use the wings for anything, much less cutting down an entire tree without the slightest resistance.
Now he knew why his leader had taken Will here without asking who he was. It was simply absurd to think that someone like Will came from a small city like Hidden Valley. Being that he was only at the first stage of the foundational realm, someone like this was surely a genius who had simply not had time to cultivate yet and had no background. If he had come from anywhere at all, he would not only be at the first stage of the foundational realm. Anyone with those wings would have their background carefully raise them and not ever let them go on their own until they had reached a sufficient strength to defend themselves.
Based on these reasons, it was simply impossible for Will to be an enemy meant to infiltrate them and the only reasonable explanation was that he was traveling on his own with no background looking for a place to cultivate.
As stunned as he was, the man was simply here to stay guard so it was not his place to say anything.
Will was also astonished at the sheer speed at which his wing moved when he performed the slash. The entire process only took about one tenth of a second to complete as before anyone could even react, the tree was already falling.
This level of power was equivalent to someone at the spirit realm using their inner breath infused into a weapon to slash at the tree. Inner breath was gained when one reached the spirit realm and at the fourth stage of the spirit realm, they could imbue objects with their breath to make them more powerful.
*****************
About an hour later, Will had finally finished testing out his wings and found out that they were sharp enough and hard enough to cut through stone. They could also move so fast that no one under the eighth stage of the foundational realm could even see them move. The slowest and clumsiest part about them was actually the flying part of them itself. Even though they could fly smoothly and without fault, it was nowhere near as effective as the speed they could exert when he was on the ground, or the power that they could show when he slashed out with them.
However, at this moment, Will suddenly felt a sense of danger that he had never felt before. It felt as if his whole body from the tips of his toes to the ends of his wings was tingling with a sense of urgency. He knew not what this feeling was from, but he knew that if he ignored it, he would die for sure.
Faced with not knowing what the feeling of crisis was coming from, he made the split second decision to wrap his wings around himself to protect himself. This was another thing that he figured out he could do with his wings. They had enough flexibility to wrap completely around him and envelop him like a cocoon, a pocket of safety.
However, he was a split second too late. At this moment, while his wings were closing, as fast as they were, he finally saw what was causing this sense of danger. There was a black and scarlet arrow coated in a deathly yellow goop, which he assumed to be poison, flying at him faster than his wings could close. The arrow was flying straight towards his heart. It would hit him no matter what he did, so he made a split second decision.
A second later, a minor clank was heard as Will's wing hit the shaft of the arrow, followed by the sound of metal piercing flesh. The arrow had been knocked off course by his wing and hit him in the abdomen. As the arrow impaled in his flesh, he could feel his consciousness slipping from him. Right before he fell unconscious, he managed to see the guard left here by the man earlier laying dead on the ground with a blank expression of fear, with an arrow sticking directly into his heart. It could be seen that he had been taken out silently seconds before Will got shot. He was already dead.
A few seconds after this happened, a thin man jumped down from the branches of a nearby tree. He held a massive longbow in his hand. Slung over his shoulder was a massive quiver filled with arrows. He wore a deep hood over his face and a pitch black mask, the same as the people from Hidden Valley city.
Being satisfied with his trap against Scorching Sun kingdom, he turned around an left. His entire city had been destroyed by these people, so he decided to kill a few more of them before he left.