The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family-Chapter 394: City Like a Corpse (11)

The palace groaned, and behind him, the Ignis roared. The ceiling above the main fight, already stressed by age, gave way. A massive section of carved stone and reinforcing beams crashed down onto the Feral Ignis and the remaining Dread-Shields.

Dust billowed out. Reidar dove through the secondary doorway as debris ricocheted around the main chamber. He rolled, came up in a crouch, and didn't look back. The collapse was his exit.

He ran through a smaller storage room, kicking aside rotten shelves. He could hear the roar of falling stone continuing behind him. The entire basement level was coming down because of the explosions.

Then Reidar found a spiral staircase, narrower than the main one he took to reach the basement, and climbed it up.

A massive blade arm punched through the rubble of the collapsed floor. Molten rock melted through the debris.

Zhen-Gora pulled himself out of the pit. His lab coat was gone, burned away by the explosions. His rocky armor was cracked and bleeding because of the debris, but he was alive.

And he was furious.

He burst into the main hall, where the grand chamber was already failing—cracks spider-webbed across the ceiling, and sections of the roof were caving in, allowing sunlight to stream through gaps from the ash-choked sky.

Reidar didn't stop. He ran for the entrance while behind him, the feral Ignis went through the basement door, or what remained of it, smashing everything apart.

The creature was wounded, but it didn't stop. In his mind was only the will to consume and to kill the man who entered his territory.

The entrance doors were ahead, hanging open, and Reidar shot through the doorway just as the main hall's ceiling gave way with a thunderous crash.

He stumbled into the ash-covered plaza outside, rolling to absorb the impact, then scrambling to his feet. The palace was imploding behind him, centuries of alien architecture collapsing into a pile of rubble.

Dust plumed from every window and door, but nothing moved yet. Reidar had no illusion that the Ignis was still alive, and in fact, he was right.

A section of rubble near the entrance bulged, and stones shifted as a gray, stone-fisted hand thrust up through the debris.

Then ahead. The Feral Ignis hauled itself out of the ruin. It was scorched, covered in dust, and missing chunks of its stony hide, but it was very much alive.

Zhen-Gora burst through the debris, blade-arms cleaving through falling blocks of stone to free himself.

Reidar looked at the creature. He needed more firepower if he wanted to kill it.

"Fine," Reidar said. "You want a war? I'll give you a war."

[Skill Activated: Summon Archon Rift-Lords]

Portals opened in the surrounding air, and the Rift-Lords began to emerge. While the base skill summoned eighty, Reidar's perks kicked in, with Legion Commander adding ten percent and Boundless Legion doubling the total, causing over a hundred and sixty Archon Rift-Lords to fill the chamber.

Reidar smiled. This brought back memories.

When he had first started his journey, the Rift-Sprites had been his ace. He had used his trait, Skill Sharing, to let them summon more of themselves, creating a cascade of reinforcements.

The Archons were the evolved form of the Rift-Sprites. They were stronger, smarter, and far more dangerous, but they were still Rift-Sprites in essence.

[Trait Activated: Skill Sharing]

[Skill Shared: Summon Archon Rift-Lords]

Reidar pushed the knowledge of the spell into the minds of his 176 summons.

The Archons did not receive the benefits of Reidar's perks—they couldn't use Boundless Legion or Legion Commander—but they didn't need it thanks to his trait.

The 176 Archon Rift-Lords raised their hands; 176 separate summoning spells were cast simultaneously.

The air shattered. Fourteen thousand and eighty new rifts opened in the sky above the palace. It looked like the heavens were breaking apart.

From the rifts, an army descended, and the sheer density of mana caused the wind to pick up, swirling around the army in a gale as Reidar looked at the notifications scrolling past his vision.

[Battalion Coordination Active]

[Stats Increased by +40%]

Every 10 Archon Rift-Lords present granted a +5% stat boost to the entire group, capping at +40%. With thousands of them present, the cap was reached instantly.

"Fire," Reidar said.

Water Archons fired Tidal Surges, Ice Archons launched Frost Lances, and Lightning Archons called down Thunder Strikes from above, hitting the Ignis from every direction and staggering it under the barrage.

The creature screeched and lashed out with its blade arms, killing thirty Archons, but the rest kept attacking.

[Your Summon (Archon Rift-Lord) has been destroyed.]

[Your Summon (Archon Rift-Lord) has been destroyed.]

[Your Summon (Archon Rift-Lord) has been destroyed.]

[Elemental Supremacy Active]

Groups of three or more Archons of the same element focused their fire, triggering the 35% damage increase.

Hundreds of Fire Archon Rift-Lords cast Inferno Blast. A small sun-sized ball of fire engulfed Zhen-Gora.

Hundreds of Ice Archon Rift-Lords followed up with Frost Lance. The sudden temperature shift from extreme heat to extreme cold caused the monster's rocky armor to fracture even more.

[Rift Resonance Active]

The Archons began to combine their attacks.

Wind Archon Rift-Lords and Stone Archon Rift-Lords linked their powers.

[Combo Skill: Sandstorm Shredder]

Massive boulders launched by Boulder Crush were caught in the Razor Cyclone of the Wind Archons, turning the rocks into a high-velocity shrapnel storm that stripped layers of stone from Zhen-Gora's body.

Light Archon Rift-Lords and Shadow Archon Rift-Lords merged their beams.

[Combo Skill: Twilight Erasure]

Beams of light twisted around projectiles of Void Bolt. The combined energy struck the Ignis, bypassing his physical defenses and eating away at his very existence.

Zhen-Gora screamed, but the sound was drowned out by the roar of magic and explosions of various kinds.

He tried to fight back, swinging his blade arms and releasing waves of fire that killed hundreds of dozens of Archons, but it didn't work. What Reidar was doing was brutal. It was excessive.

But it was necessary.

This was no longer the same Ignis who had written the journal; this was a feral beast, a monster with no trace of the person it had once been.

Zhen-Gora Thenn, the scientist who had tried to save his people, the man who had fought against the inevitability of his race's situation, was being destroyed piece by piece.

When the light faded, only a crater remained where the scientist had stood.

[Level 502 Feral Ignis defeated.]

[You have gained 9,929,560.00 C.L.A.S.P. Points.]

[You have earned 5,858,440.40 Survival Points.]

[LEVEL UP! You have reached Level 481.]

[You have gained 0.5 attribute points to distribute.]

[LEVEL UP! You have reached Level 482.]

[You have gained 0.5 attribute points to distribute.]

[LEVEL UP! You have reached Level 483.]

[You have gained 0.5 attribute points to distribute.]

[LEVEL UP! You have reached Level 484.]

[You have gained 0.5 attribute points to distribute.]

Reidar dismissed the notifications, though he didn't feel the rush of victory he might have expected. The creature he had just killed had been a person once, and that knowledge made him feel bad. It was different compared to when he killed the other Ignis because he didn't have proof they had been people once.

For him they were only monsters, but now the situation was different because through the journal, Reidar had seen a glimpse of what went on in the Ignis's mind before his fall.

Plus, there was another problem.

The noise of the battle had been loud enough to wake the dead. Every monster in the city, every pack of Ignis, and every high-level predator in a ten-mile radius was going to converge on the palace right now.

He couldn't stay.

Reidar looked at his army of Archons.

"Dismiss," Reidar said.

The fourteen thousand rifts closed. The army vanished, leaving the courtyard empty, save for the glowing embers of the smoldering remains of both the Ignis and the building.

Reidar reached into his mana one last time.

[Skill Activated: Summon Apex Menagerie]

A murder of giant ravens materialized, and Reidar climbed onto the back of the largest one.

"Get us out of here. Fast."