The first point William noticed was the slow movement that danger had. On top of that, the way it ran wasn’t similar to any monster he knew of. If anything, it felt more humane than monstrous.

What made William more puzzled was his inability to see through what was coming. All he spotted was a dark cloud of black fog that surrounded something in a diameter of ten metres and a height of three. It felt less than any monster he faced, and it didn’t match any monster he ever knew or heard of.

And yet, he didn’t lower his guard. He held his sword up high and was ready to use any of his two techniques. He was even ready to take out his flying weapons and deploy his monstrous pets if needed.

But something entirely different appeared, something far scarier than monsters; a Hybrid between a human and a monster, one of the rarest forms of life in the upper realm. One of the most dangerous beings in this world.

"Damn me!" Once William saw through the thick veil of fog surrounding that thing, and he cursed out loud, "How come something like that exists here?"

He didn’t waste his breath on questions. The moment he recognised his foe, the moment he realised the grave danger he was in, William instantly shifted gears and took everything out.

And he used his two techniques right from the start.

The Hybrid monsters were an aberration in nature. Even with all his vast knowledge, William had no explanation for why such deadly monsters would appear in the world.

They weren’t just humanoid monsters; they were monsters that evolved from their early days to look like humans. The humanoid monsters had to reach the peak of power in the world first before evolving into humans. Yet these Hybrid monsters looked like humans from the early years of their lives.

They had both the perks of humans and monsters, had the intelligence of humans, and the long life of monsters. They also had the cons of both, had weak bodies like humans, and suffered from a long time of cultivation like monsters.

But the perks outweighed the cons greatly.

Even if their bodies were weak, every single Hybrid was a force of nature that couldn’t be underestimated. William recalled his master’s words about these.

"If you ever faced one, you need to pray and run," she said, "a small army is needed to kill a single Hybrid. And the weakest of them are usually at Silver grade or higher."

William knew, going by logic, he could stand his ground against such monsters with all the means he had. But against the Hybrids, he had zero chance at doing that.

A Silver-grade Hybrid was as strong as a Gold-grade monster, and at the peak level on top of that.

Yet William didn’t ever think about running away. He knew that with the current speed the Hybrid showed, he had zero chance at outpacing it.

So he had to fight.

He had to be super lucky to survive this fight.

Once he attacked, he went all out. William summoned his one hundred monstrous pets, took out twenty flying weapons, the most he could control at his current spirit grade.

The first attack to hit the Hybrid was the flying weapons. Yet all that resulted in was a deflection; nothing caused real damage or even managed to penetrate the outer protective fog.

Yet the weapons did manage to weaken that fog. And under his control, they reattacked, further weakening the fog.

Then his monstrous pets attacked.

Back in the lower realm, these pets were weapons of mass destruction. Nothing stood in their way; nothing survived their attacks.

But here, right now, they looked way weaker than what he expected. They looked a bit stronger than his flying weapons, but not strong enough to cause any real damage to the for or the Hybrid within.

Then his two techniques arrived, one after another, causing the fog to dissipate and the final form of the scary foe to appear in his vision.

It was like a robust man, with half upper body covered in weird slippery tentacles. To William’s surprise, he looked way younger than he had imagined. And that was the first good news he had ever received since recognising his foe’s nature.

The younger a Hybrid looked, the weaker it was, the clumsier it was. Hybrids trained like monsters, so they needed a very long time to evolve and build up their strengths. A threatening Hybrid would live for at least ten thousand years, and it would look like middle-aged men and women.

The deadlier Hybrids would look like old men.

Seeing this Hybrid looking this young made William consider his options. As he suspected, once the two techniques hit the real body of his enemy, the Hybrid was pushed fiercely backwards, thrown in the air like a loose kitten.

And then he spotted many wounds appearing over its body. They were small, but they existed.

That was the second piece of good news to him.

"Again!" Seeing this result, William gave the order for his one hundred monstrous pets to attack, alongside a barrage of relentless flying weapons. He didn’t stop there; he took out a bow and sent many explosive arrows towards that Hybrid.

The battle he feared a lot turned out to be a one-sided slaughter. He could even envision that Hybrid to fall dead, and he was digging out its core and ingesting it.

Yet in the next few minutes, William learnt he celebrated too soon. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

At one wave of his brutal attacks, the Hybrid’s body was sent flying once more. This time, it went flying for enough distance to bring its body outside the array’s effective range.

And then William ceased in his tracks.

He didn’t dare to even launch a single attack outside his array. If not for this array concealing the fierce and explosive spirit power in the area around, William would have been dealing with the annoying shadow monsters once again.