The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family-Chapter 385: A City Like a Corpse (2)

Reidar entered the city, and the tension in his shoulders spiked.

He was level 480 now, strong enough to face an average Ignis in a straight fight and even manage them in groups, but that didn't mean he was safe.

The last city had taught him a painful lesson: Never venture in without information.

A level 589 creature had made its nest in what appeared to be an old transit hub, and Reidar had nearly stumbled into its territory. Luckily, he'd caught sight of it before getting too close, changed course, and steered clear. It had been a moment of carelessness—that monster could have killed him in an instant. He wouldn't let his guard down like that again.

For all Reidar knew, this city might have stronger monsters than the other places he had visited. He couldn't assume anything, and he wasn't going to.

Every dark corner could hide something, and although his new gear felt reassuring, it wouldn't stop a monster a hundred levels higher.

Which made him unconsciously keep his breathing even and his grip tight on the Ignis Cinder-Core Wand. The goal wasn't to fight. The goal was to find Mara and get out without attracting the wrong kind of attention.

So, Reidar turned his focus on the surroundings.

The streets were wide. Ash drifted in thick piles against broken walls. The buildings here were intact enough that he could see their original shapes. Most were squat structures with flat roofs and narrow windows.

Reidar glanced at the sky.

<There seems to be no movement… For once, things are going well…>

Everywhere was still except for the wind, but of course it was a deception.

Reidar closed his eyes for a moment and focused inward to connect to the Vorathid Sky-Hunters through Overmind Consciousness.

The city sprawled out in his mind. Thousands of tiny perspectives overlapped, stitching together a map of streets, buildings, and movement. The Sky-Hunters had been working for hours. They'd covered most of the accessible zones.

Ignis were all around the place.

The visual feed from the Sky-Hunters confirmed the city was littered with them. He saw packs of them, ranging from Level 470 to 490, gathering in the squares and larger warehouses.

Once again, the levels spiked; maybe it was because he was actually getting closer to the capital city, where Reidar assumed the most powerful Ignis lived. Kings, queens, presidents… whatever they had.

Or maybe it could have simply been because the other monsters here were stronger, which forced these guys to grow as strong as they could.

Reidar could fight one of those at level 490. Maybe two if he had time to set things up. But groups like these were impossible.

He was the one who flooded the enemy, not the opposite. If that strategy wasn't viable, then he was as good as everybody else.

Besides, the noise of a battle would draw other groups from the surrounding blocks, or worse, other and stronger monsters.

So, he adjusted his route. The Sky-Hunters flagged three major Ignis groups, but of course, there were dozens more.

One was at a barracks-like structure in the southern area of the city. Another was at a transit station near the city's center. Of course, Reidar couldn't be certain that was a transit station.

The third was at the remains of what looked like some kind of partially collapsed skyscraper. The rubble made it difficult to count their numbers, but the Sky-Hunters had spotted at least 400.

<Stay clear of the main groups,> he ordered. <Keep to the side streets. We're not here to fight. >

Reidar marked all three zones as no-go areas and plotted a path that stayed along the edges, using the quieter streets. His wolves would help because they were agile, and if something spotted him, he could run.

He kept moving until the wolves slipped between two gutted buildings that might have been shops once.

The feed from the Sky-Hunters updated constantly, showing him that two Ignis entered a building to his left while another exited a tunnel three blocks ahead, which forced Reidar to shift his route again, angling toward a wide boulevard that looked clear.

Then he saw an Ignis group of around a dozen members pass less than fifty meters away. He lowered his breathing and stayed clear from them.

<Shit… this place has been overrun… The number of Ignis here is astronomical. >

At that point, Reidar ordered his wolf to move at a low speed to minimize the sound of its paws on the ground.

Every few minutes, he checked the status of the Sky-Hunters to make sure no new predators had entered the area.

Then, Reidar saw a Level 610 monster moving through a nearby park, and he ordered his mount to stop behind a collapsed wall until the creature moved into another area.

The surrounding buildings started to change at some point. They were larger, more intact, and crowned with strange apparatus that hadn't been present in the other cities.

The architecture shifted from utilitarian blocks to structures with more detail. It was to the point that carvings lined some of the doorways, though most were scorched or broken.

Windows were also bigger, and roofs had angles and slopes instead of flat surfaces.

Reidar's wolves padded through an intersection, and he glanced up at the building on his right. It was tall—maybe ten stories—and the top was crowned with something massive, which looked like a dome.

<No, not a dome.> It was a structure made of metal and glass, mounted on a platform that rotated. <A telescope?>

He stared at it. The thing was huge—the lens alone was wider than some monsters he'd fought—and while the platform it sat on was scorched black, the telescope itself looked intact.

The telescope's primary mirror was angled upward at the sky, not toward space.

<Most likely to see if monsters were going toward the city.>

He checked the other buildings, noticing more machines. One had dishes on the roof—satellite arrays, maybe—while another had something that looked like a giant antenna. A third building was squat and wide, with no windows and a reinforced door.