The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family-Chapter 353: The Outpost (4)

In theory, those standing in front of Reidar should not have posed a threat, and yet, if these people were here, it meant they had something in mind. It didn't help that they were all around level 340.

These were the church's Elites—not merely individuals who happened to be strong or capable fighters among the many church members as in the past, but rather the real deal, the absolute best of the best of the organization, the true cream of the crop that represented the pinnacle of what the church offered in terms of combat prowess and tactical expertise.

Mara and Jorik made a full change of troops here because they started to see Reidar as a threat too big to ignore.

<It's do or don't here for them. I am the target. >

However, Reidar was significantly stronger than them on average—approximately 50 levels higher, to be precise. How could they possibly hope to defeat him, especially when they knew that he had the ability to summon thousands upon thousands of monsters to fight on his behalf?

Certainly, they might have had the ability to do something similar. Not on an individual basis, of course, but perhaps through their collective efforts. Maybe not; most likely, they could summon creatures themselves, but the question remained: would their combined forces be truly enough to overcome the overwhelming power gap?

Reidar tried to make a rough estimate and was counting what appeared to be somewhere near 5000 troops before him, though there was absolutely no way for him to arrive at an accurate count or precise number given the massive number of people that were gathered in front of him at this moment.

But then, Reidar thought about the magic circle absorption area. "Shit."

"Are you really going to do that?" He paused. "Are you really going to use them?"

"Use them?" Jorik asked. "They are doing this on their own accord. This was their choice."

"What are you talking about, Reidar?" Lena asked.

Reidar paused.

"This was a trap all along, Lena." She looked at him.

"What are you talking about? A trap? This? They can't do shit against us, Reidar!"

"No," he said. "Haven't you noticed how thin the mana here is?"

"Well, I did. Yes, but…"

"It's a mana circle," Reidar said. "They are opening a portal here, Lena, and they are going to fuel it with… Themselves."

Jorik grinned.

"You really are smart, Reidar. You figured out so much with so few clues."

"So, we can't kill them?" Jake asked.

"No." Reidar shook his head. "If we do, the magic circle will just get fueled."

"Then let's leave!" Jake said.

At that moment, Jorik's lips curled upward into a knowing grin. "You think I will allow it?"

It was at that moment that the church attacked.

Six hundred armored knights in the front row slammed their towering shields into the ground at the same time.

[Divine Bulwark]

[Grace of the Martyr]

[Velocity Surge]

The air in the courtyard shimmered as a hundred more spells activated at once, cast by the rest of the troop.

The mana density spiked violently and then thinned, getting sucked by the magic circle. Reidar had to do something, because this time, the magic circle was not going to be powered up by thousands of level 100 monsters as in the valley outside of Creamont, but by level 340 mutated humans.

This meant that either the portal was going to be bigger, or fewer sacrifices had to be made to power it up. Most likely both.

Reidar saw the buffs latch onto the soldiers. Their armor glowed with a golden hue, and their movements, which should have been easy to see, blurred.

"They're stacking buffs!" Lena said, dropping into a crouch as two rogues materialized from the shadows near the wall.

"I see it," Reidar said.

But that wasn't the only thing they did. Quite the contrary, in fact. As Reidar started summoning more and more Vorathid Sky-Hunters, which were his currently highest-tiered summons available, the church was doing the same thing with other creatures of their own, matching his summons, at least in numbers. At that point, Reidar also summoned his other creatures.

The ground around the church members distorted. Creatures made of white marble and gold filigree clawed their way out of the dirt.

[Luminous Sentinels]

The Apex Menagerie, the Undying Legion, the Shadow Sovereigns, the Quadraginta, and The Archon Rift-Lords were all summoned into the fray. However, the problem Reidar faced was that every one of his summoning skills was at less than 50% proficiency, which meant that he was unable to share them with his companions or summons.

What Reidar was capable of doing right now was to leverage his summons to increase his mana regeneration rate through his perks, and by doing so, he would be able to summon even more creatures to bolster his forces on the battlefield, but that was going to need time, and with the number of enemies here, most of his summons would also be prevented from acting.

The vast majority of the additional summons he would bring forth would consist primarily of Vorathid Sky-Hunters, but these particular creatures had their set of inherent limitations and restrictions.

They were unable to cast any skills or abilities whatsoever that weren't the ones they natively had. They were bugs, after all, and furthermore, they weren't as intelligent or tactically capable as the Rift-Lords or the Quadraginta were.

All of that meant two things. The first was that Reidar, Jake, and Lena could not flee. If not for the church trying to stop them from doing so, it was at least because of the portal.

It had to have a very large radius because it was going to be constructed from the mana gathered by level 340 church zealots. After all, the one in the valley almost collapsed a mountain.

The second problem was that Jake, Lena, and Reidar could not kill the church members. Otherwise, their mana would just get absorbed.

"SHIT!"