The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family-Chapter 354: The Outpost (5)

A Paladin then lunged at Jake. The speed was wrong for having belonged to a Level 340 tank. He shouldn't have been able to close a twenty-meter gap in less than a second, but this one did. Jake raised his daggers, augmented his attributes with his trait, and caught the strike.

The impact created a shockwave. Jake slid back a foot. He looked surprised.

"He's heavy!" Jake said, shoving the Paladin back. "He hits like a Level 370! Even more!"

It was obvious. This guy was being buffed by hundreds of people.

Jorik grinned while Reidar and the others grimaced, because it meant that the church members, with all the buffs they were taking, were far stronger than they should've been.

Reidar looked around. The casters in the back line weren't attacking; they were acting as batteries, funneling their entire mana pools into the frontline fighters to inflate their attributes.

"Stop them, but don't kill anyone!" he said. The swarm dived. But the Church was ready for that too.

"Kill them!" one of the officers shouted. The Luminous sentinels, the church's summons, formed a phalanx around the casters.

The Sky-Hunters crashed into the Sentinels. Claws met stone. Sparks flew, and the screech of tearing metal echoed off the wooden walls surrounding the small outpost.

The Sentinels were slow, but they were durable and seemed to have been strengthened by the same spell that was powering up the frontline fighters.

They grabbed the Sky-Hunters, pinning their wings, while the Church archers fired arrows tipped with explosive mana into the insects.

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has taken 4,500 Light Damage.]

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has been destroyed.]

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has taken 3,800 Light Damage.]

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has been destroyed.]

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has taken 4,200 Light Damage.]

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has been destroyed.]

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has taken 4,900 Light Damage.]

[Your Summon (Vorathid Sky-Hunter) has been destroyed.]

Reidar frowned.

"Jake, push the left flank!" Reidar said. "Don't kill them!"

Reidar stepped forward, leveling his baton at the Paladin engaging Jake. He cast [Event Horizon Javelin], and a spear of condensed gravity shot across the battlefield. The Paladin saw it coming and raised his shield.

The Javelin hit the shield. The golden barrier flared, but it held just long enough for the Paladin to roll aside. The Javelin slammed into the barracks wall behind him, imploding a section of the timber.

<It looks like they still are reluctant to kill themselves. >

But how long was that going to last? The more time passed, and the more mana the circle absorbed. Besides, it wasn't just the mana from the church that was going to fuel it, but also from the summons.

"I need to destroy the circle." Reidar brought more Vorathid Sky-Foragers onto the battlefield.

The Sky-Foragers wove through the melee, spitting acid at the knights and jamming their stingers into the joints of the Sentinels. The chaos worked. The formation of the Church began to fracture as the soldiers were forced to swat at the smaller targets.

Jake did his best to fight, killing nothing.

"Reidar!"

He turned to look at him.

"What do we do?" Jake shoulder-checked a knight, sending the man flying into a crate of supplies still resting around the area.

Lena used the Sky-Hunters as stepping stones, vaulting over the Sentinel line. She landed behind a priest who was channeling a speed buff and made him unconscious.

"If it keeps going like this, Mara will open the portal regardless!"

"I know!" Reidar said.

But Reidar also knew that if they didn't get the hell out of there on time, they would be swept by the portal.

"We need to leave!"

"Do you have suggestions, Lena?" He asked. "We don't have much time, and if you haven't noticed, we are in no position to leave right now!"

Jake parried a sword strike and countered with a kick to the knee.

All he could say was just to keep resisting. Jorik still did nothing until that point. The church had not gained a single advantage, but none of them died. Only the summons died, and that was still fueling the magic circle.

"Reidar!"

Lena had just finished stopping another church member and was wiping blood from her face once her voice reached him. "Decide!"

Reidar looked at the melee scuffle going on in front of him. The Church was still pushing hard.

The complicating factor in this situation was the scale of opposition they were facing—there were literally thousands of church members scattered throughout the area and surrounding terrain, and although their attribute buffs were weakening as an increasing number of their fellow soldiers were being incapacitated and rendered unconscious, the remaining combatants still posed a very real threat.

Time was against them. Reidar, Jake, and Lena had to destroy the circle, but someone had to keep the church at bay. But who?

Jake? Lena? They were strong, but not at that point.

So, the job fell on him.

<But if I leave now, Jake and Lena might have problems. >

Yet if he stayed, Mara would finish the magic circle. Lena understood how bad their predicament was and what needed to happen next.

The only path to survival in this situation was to destroy the magic circle before it could be completed, but Reidar was the only one among them who had the strength to do so, and the consequence of him leaving the frontline would be that it would leave both Jake and Lena in a vulnerable position, forced to face the remaining church forces without his support.

"Go!" Lena said. She dodged a hammer swing and stabbed the attacker in the thigh. "We can handle this trash! Get her!"

Reidar hesitated for a second. "Are you sure?"

"They're losing their buffs!" Jake said, swinging his daggers. "They're just Level 340s now! Go get the witch!"

"Cover them," Reidar commanded his summons.

The Vorathid Sky-Hunters formed a perimeter around his friends, acting as shields and harassers.

"Don't die," Reidar said.

"Just kill her," Lena said, not looking back.