10,000x Reward Multiplier: Hell-level Kingdom Building

Thanks to [Air Cannon Barrage], he now had a wind affinity, and with the [Magic Infusion] effect of the battle mage path, he laced his greatsword with wind magic, which made it several-fold lighter, thus increasing its attack speed as the blade cleaved through the dark fog and toward the torso of the calamity, who was still in its giant form with a terrifying bird mask.

Before it struck.

The Night Laugher’s huge hands moved with unnatural pace, as a brief magic circle appeared and disappeared, before a strong gust of wind pushed both the blade and Floki backward.

Floki’s body banged painfully on the ground, not far from his laughing villagers, and he let out a small yelp of anguish.

Little Noah, whose mouth was covered with his own blood, struggled to reach for Floki’s leg, which was near him.

His little hands were vibrating as a result of the supernatural laughter that had taken over his mind.

But as Floki looked into his eyes, he could see his eyeballs slowly returning. They were no longer the blank white that the other villagers currently had. But this change was not stable, as his eyes struggled to revert to normal, as if his willpower was fighting back the laughter, yet almost instantly his willpower was defeated.

His hands, that were reaching for Floki, retracted, now holding his stomach as he fell on the ground and laughed out of control.

Seeing such a little boy experiencing such a painful psychological trauma triggered something within him as he stood up from the ground despite the pain.

"I-ll not let you take any of them from me."

He muttered to himself as he staggered forward, then walked faster before entering a full sprint.

He closed the distance.

But this time, he did a small feint.

He acted as though he was going to use the same cleaving technique as before. But then he sent his greatsword back to his inventory and used [Air Strike], a stronger form of [Air Bullets] but much weaker than [Air Cannon Barrage] and also consuming less mana.

A magic circle immediately flashed in his outstretched hands, and the next second, a powerful gust of wind exploded outward.

It cleared the dark fog in the area for a short moment.

The Night Laugher, still in its giant form, was pushed backward. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

It quickly transformed into dozens of small crows, preventing it from sustaining any serious damage.

The small crows scattered into the dark fog, and then quickly began converging toward him. The calamity had finally taken him as a serious threat that needed to be devoured.

Floki gritted his teeth.

He could not allow it.

He had no choice.

He was saving this for later.

But the current situation would not allow it.

"[Air Cannon Barrage]"

He activated the final form of his spell and stretched both his hands into the night sky.

Following his loud chant, dozens of big magic circles appeared in midair.

They were white and glowing, contrasting with the thick dark fog.

They did not disappear like [Air Bullet] and [Air Strike] but remained and expanded, growing to a size with about six feet radius.

Dozens of crows were still converging toward him at the moment, but Floki paid more attention to his spell.

He willed the Air Cannons to blast out of the floating circles.

As a battle-mage, he could not only activate spells and let them shoot in random directions, he could control them.

Despite how much willpower it took and the massive workload on the brain, he still went along with it.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

All the magic circles fired air cannons at once, each of them blasting in the direction of the crows.

The magic circles continued to fire air cannons at the rate of one per two seconds. This was currently due to his rank and mana reserve. The stronger he got, the stronger the firing rate, but the current one was not bad at all.

With his managed precision under distress, he shot down half of the crows swarming him, and they dispersed alongside the wind cannons.

The Night Laugher seemed to realize that its crow form would not save it, so it switched to the form it took at the beginning.

A smoky black mass with two glowing red eyes and curved lips indicating laughter. But no laughter came out of its lips.

Its signature laughter was currently being carried out by the villagers, whose condition got worse by the second. Their laughter was still louder, but their cracked voices could now be heard. Some of them were even coughing painfully at the moment.

In its new form, the Night Laugher could not be damaged at all, even by the wind cannons that were now concentrated in its direction.

It didn’t even bother to move.

The cannons passed as though it were merely an illusion.

Only the explosiveness of the dark fog clearing made it possible to know that the spell was actually working, and Floki was not just imagining things.

Thirty seconds passed, and the [Air Cannon Barrage] spell ended. The magic circles stopped firing air cannons and vanished.

Floki was left mentally depleted at that moment.

He had lost only a couple of stamina points in the process, but the mana loss was more exhausting.

He felt dizzy and weak.

But now was not the time to feel those.

Floki willed his shop open swiftly and bought several mana-recovering potions.

The Night Laugher was seemingly deriving pleasure from Floki current useless state and the laughter curse it had inflicted on the villagers, and as a result, the calamity did not attack, giving him the opportunity to purchase as fast as he could and gulp down six bottles.

[You’ve consumed low-grade mana recovering potion. You’ve obtained 100 mana.]

...

[You’ve consumed low-grade mana recovering potion. You’ve obtained 100 mana.]

His mana reserve filled up immediately.

The dizziness reduced slightly but was still there, just manageable.

Before he could attack again, the Night Laugher turned into a form it hadn’t taken before.

It became a gigantic black bird, almost eight feet tall when standing, with a massive bat-like wingspan that flapped swiftly as it took into the sky.

[Calamity has increased the effectiveness of mass laughter. All your followers would die in the next 30 minutes or less.]

[ You’re not exempted from this effect ]

But the last warning was unimportant.

Floki had already began to laugh like a mad person.