Reincarnation Of The Strongest Spirit Master-Chapter 1536: A Way to Uncover Traitors

"If you want to test the validity of my words, then when you go back up there, go and meet with the leaders of these forces," William replied, his voice calm and collected.

"Asking a few discreet questions won't cause any harm. Still, I'd recommend you do all this stealthily. Know that the moment you ask, a leader will naturally explain things to his most trusted people, and who knows what type of rat lies in wait in those inner circles?"

The meaning behind his words was crystal clear. He was warning them that the information was power, but it was also a double-edged weapon.

The moment they began acting on this knowledge, the neutral forces and the Fox's spies would realise someone had sniffed their dirty game. They would act instantly to foil the plans, likely by killing the very people William wanted to save.

"I'll follow a different path of verification then," the leader said, glaring at his elders in a warning manner to keep them silent. He turned back to William.

"I'll fulfil the first condition myself. I'll find that rare herb, concoct the potion exactly the way you described, and deliver it. We'll see. If this works, if there is, in fact, a dying son for a beloved father who happens to be the leader of the Gale-Wind, then we'll continue walking down your path. We will follow your plan to the end. But if it proves wrong..."

"It won't," William said, firmly shaking his head. He didn't need to defend his truth; the history he had already lived was his witness. "And let's not waste each other's time with what ifs. We still have lots of other stuff to discuss regarding the internal structure of the coalition."

"Other forces to lure in?!" one elder exclaimed in genuine shock, throwing his hands up. "Aren't those dozen enough? We are talking about hundreds of thousands of masters already!"

"In fact, they aren't," William said, a grim look crossing his face. He recalled his time with Anna; in the end, she had managed to rope in ten times this many forces, and she still ended up losing most of them to the treacherous forces scattered among the upper realm.

"This is just the beginning," William concluded, his eyes returning to the map. "But after you get all of them, taking down the bad weeds will be an easy step for all of you, right?"

"It'll be easy indeed," the leader said, his eyes tracing the borders William had drawn on the map. He fell silent for a moment, the weight of the proposed purge hanging heavy in the air.

"But are you positive we need to hit these neutral forces based on just doubts? To attack established guilds and merchant houses without a direct provocation... It's a path that could turn the entire Upper Realm against us."

"Tsk!" William's tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth in annoyance. It grated on his nerves to see such hesitation from the very men who claimed to want the Fox's head. "I told you already, they aren't innocent! They are traitors! They are the rot in the floorboards that lets the termites in!"

He looked around the table, seeing the flickering doubt and the moral scratching of their consciences. They were still thinking like honourable warriors against forces that had long since abandoned honour.

"Fine!" William snapped, his voice cutting through their unspoken reservations. "If you need a sign from the heavens, there is a certain way to tell if a force is a traitor or not before you commit to their total destruction."

"Which is?" The leader asked impatiently.

William inwardly cursed their soft bones. This specific brand of mercy was exactly what had led to his master's downfall in his past life. Anna had been too kind, too willing to give the benefit of the doubt, and it had cost her everything. William was determined not to fall victim to the same mistake again.

"By attacking the dark forces surrounding them," William said, shrugging his shoulders as if the answer were the most obvious thing in the world. "If you attack the entirety of the dark master forces surrounding one of these rats, hit them hard enough to push them toward the brink of extinction, then two certain things will happen. Watch closely."

He leaned over the table, his finger hovering over a cluster of dots. "One: when their world starts burning, those dark masters won't flee into the wilderness. They will flee toward the most secure spot they know, the central rat force that has been funding and protecting them for centuries. They will run to their masters for shelter."

"And second," William continued, his eyes narrowing into slits, "at some point, that neutral force won't be able to stand idle. They will see their primary source of off-the-books muscle being annihilated.

They will panic. They will move their own experts to attack you, attempting to save what's left of the dark forces around them. The moment they draw a blade to protect a dark master, their mask is gone forever."

"Hmm, that sounds too perfect to be true..." one of the elders muttered, stroking his beard. "What forces them to uncover their mask? For a guild as large as the Grand Gold, letting a few small dark forces die is a small price to pay to keep their reputation clean. They could just let them burn and walk away."

"Wrong," William interrupted, his voice sharp enough to draw blood. "To these rats, these dark forces aren't just neighbours; they are their strongest line of defence and their most versatile weapons.

If a force lets all the dark forces around them get exterminated, they find themselves standing alone, stripped of their shadow-guards. And since they know they are traitors, they are inherently paranoid.

They won't think you've come just for the dark masters; they will assume you've finally found them out. A criminal is a coward at heart, and he always thinks he's been caught, regardless of the actual situation.

Just force them into that tight spot of doubt, and they'll grow panicked and jump to the wrong conclusions. They will strike first to protect themselves, and in doing so, they provide all the proof you need."