Supreme Summoner Overlord: Rise of the Endless Legion

Chapter 453: Seven Wounds in the Sky (2)

Lyra'xis's soldiers formed defensive lines around the settlement and at key intersections throughout the city, creating choke points that funneled the escaping monsters into kill zones.

Not that they wanted to go elsewhere. After all, there was only one thing on the minds of these monsters, and that was to consume. That meant that they were eager to meet the Aegis Phalanx.

The Aegis soldiers were excellent—organized and disciplined—but they were fighting creatures that out-leveled them, and without Reidar's summons absorbing the bulk of the assault, the lines would have broken within minutes.

Most of what they did was to provide support, summon more creatures so that they could distract the monsters from other things, and use suppressive fire with whatever skill or weapon they had available.

This didn't do a lot of damage but allowed Reidar's summons to complete their job. As Reidar studied the situation, he had many thoughts going through his mind.

Reidar didn't know whether this order came from Jorik or the Progenitor. He leaned on believing it was the first rather than the second, but while he could somehow understand the progenitor pulling a move like this, since he was the one who started this giant mess, he could not understand how Jorik could be so ruthless and totally uncaring of the damage he would have produced by opening portals in the middle of the city.

Kids lived here, old people. It wasn't just men and women. Jorik had been someone who fought with Lena to protect people back in Havenwood, and yet he pulled out this move as if that time meant nothing.

There was something else, though. The portals weren't random, at least based on what Reidar was seeing. Each one had been placed at a location that would cause the most damage, such as near survivor gathering points, near Aegis Phalanx's positions, and near supply routes.

Sure, the city was already overrun with monsters, but it was not impossible for the survivors to escape them by taking advantage of the buildings.

However, the sheer number of monsters here now would make even that impossible.

Reidar knew Jorik well enough to understand that he wouldn't simply open these portals and leave. That wasn't his style, and it certainly wasn't the Progenitor's. Whatever they had planned, this chaos was only the opening act.

Reidar's mind raced through the possibilities. An assassination attempt on Lyra'xis? A strike on the Aegis Phalanx's command structure? Or maybe something even more catastrophic, like a final portal that would dwarf all the others combined?

He had eyes everywhere now. His summons were his surveillance network, and between the Night-Stalker Assassins positioned at every exit point and the aerial scouts circling the city, nothing would move without him knowing about it.

If Jorik so much as breathed in the wrong direction, Reidar would be there.

Reidar directed additional Night-Stalker Assassins to spread through the city's exit routes. Every gate, every breach in the walls, and every tunnel and sewer entrance that could serve as an escape path was covered.

He then turned his attention to the portals themselves.

Through the eyes of a Demon-Lord hovering near the eastern portal, Reidar studied the rift's structure. The portal's energy flowed from a focal point at its base, which was a spot on the ground where the mana was densest.

He sent the order.

The Demon-Lords descended and converged on the magic circle point.

Waves of scorching flame erupted from the Inferno Tyrants, rolling forward like a tsunami of fire that turned the surrounding air into what could only be described as "the world's worst sauna."

Spears of ice materialized and shot downward from the Frost-Blight Sovereigns. Lightning arced from the Storm-Wraith Archons, branching and connecting in blinding white-blue networks that illuminated the entire area.

The combined elemental forces struck the magic circle at the same time, creating a shockwave so massive that calling it cataclysmic wasn't enough. Honestly, there weren't words for it—mostly because anyone close enough to witness it was now a fine mist.

The street surrounding the area exploded outward; cobblestones and earth burst upward in a massive shockwave. The ground buckled and collapsed, forming a crater that widened with each spell that landed.

As the debris settled and the dust began to clear, the true target was revealed: a magic circle that had been hidden beneath the street.

How it was possible for that thing to work, Reidar didn't know. The circle was composed of carved stones inscribed with symbols that Reidar recognized as the runes, or whatever they were, that the church used to create world-opening magic circles.

They were exactly the same.

Three Inferno Tyrants concentrated their fire on the circle; their flames converged into a single point of overwhelming heat. The stones began to glow white-hot, and cracks spiderwebbed across their surface. As soon as the stones fractured, the magic circle itself shattered with a sound like breaking glass, and the portal above them flickered violently, its edges beginning to fray and dissolve.

The rift pulsed once and then started collapsing inward, making a sound that was akin to tearing metal. The monsters that had been halfway through the portal were cut in half; if they were lucky, some were cut at the legs only, while others got missing limbs. All of those fell to the ground in pieces as the light faded.

Reidar directed his forces toward the next portal.

This fight was surely going to be long, but the church had made a mistake. They had planned for a city with no one strong enough to fight back.

They had underestimated the power he had and overestimated the one from the portal monsters.

They hadn't planned for Reidar Miller and an army of almost 50,000 creatures that treated their monsters the same way their monsters treated the survivors, as something to walk over on the way to the real target.

And the real target was still inside Kingsgate.

Reidar flew toward the western portal, the largest and most dangerous of the remaining six, while below him, his army surged through the streets of a city that he had no intention of letting fall.