novelraw Chapter 455 455: Seven Wounds in the Sky (4)
Chapter 455 455: Seven Wounds in the Sky (4)
Jorik was not a fool, and he knew his limits. At level 440, he was one of the strongest humans on Earth, strong enough to fight most things the apocalypse had thrown at humanity and win. But Reidar was in a different category entirely, and that had been the case even before the man had gone through the portal.
The gap between them wasn't just levels—it was the army. The trait. The perks. The skills that allowed Reidar to turn a single summoning skill into something that could flatten a city.
But Jorik was not planning to fight Reidar directly. That was not what he did, and it had never been what he did.
Jorik fought with plans, with positioning, and with knowledge of how people thought and what they feared. Direct combat was for people like Aaron or Silas. He was different.
He fought on the frontline with Lena when he had to, but even in that case, he mostly stayed behind and supported others from a distance.
He looked at the portals again. The portals had been open for about twenty minutes, and the monsters pouring through them were keeping Reidar's forces occupied on seven fronts at once.
However, something weird happened. Jorik was looking around, and at some point he saw a portal flicker.
His eyes narrowed, and he watched as the flickering intensified until the portal's surface cracked like glass hit by a rock.
Then the portal collapsed.
The rift folded inward on itself in a fraction of a second, and the monsters that had been halfway through were cut apart as the edges closed.
The light that had been coming from the portal vanished, and in its place was nothing but a crater in the street where the magic circle had been. The surrounding ground was scorched black, and cracks spread outward from the center like a spiderweb. Wisps of residual mana flickered in the air the crater, pale and unstable, slowly dissipating into the surrounding streets.
Jorik's jaw tightened. Destroying a portal was not simple. Not in itself, but because of the monsters. The fact that Reidar did it meant the monsters were not posing a problem. After all, they would have needed to look around to find the circle, and doing that when one's life was at stake, in the middle of a chaotic and brutal battle, was not easy.
Then, less than two minutes later, a second portal collapsed in the same way.
That shocked Jorik even more. Everything hit him hard enough that he took a step back from the edge of the rooftop. His breath caught for a moment, and he felt a flicker of something unfamiliar—doubt, maybe, or the faint edge of fear.
At this rate, Reidar's forces would close all seven portals within the hour, which would end the distraction and free up tens of thousands of summons to resume hunting the church.
However, Jorik's expression shifted to a grin.
Closing a portal was one thing. Destroying the magic circle that held it open was another. The magic circles into it were not just physical objects; they were filled with mana, and quite a lot at that. Plus, each portal needed a lot of it to work. The magic circle also attracted mana to fuel the portal, but if the portal ceased to be, that mana wasn't consumed.
The energy that hadn't been consumed yet didn't just vanish. It had nowhere to go. The connection was severed, but the mana was still there, pooled in the same spot where the circle had been, and without the circle to contain it, the energy would dissipate into the surrounding area over the next several hours.
The effect would be like dumping a barrel of blood into a shark tank.
Every monster within a fifty-kilometer radius would feel that mana concentration. Creatures that had been avoiding Kingsgate because of the World-Carver Behemoth's presence, creatures that had been content to roam the forests and the ruins outside the city, would now be drawn toward the mana like moths toward a light.
The portals had been bringing monsters from another world. The residual mana would bring monsters from this one.
Jorik's grin widened.
"What is it?" Colt asked from behind him.
"He closed two of the portals," Jorik said.
Colt's face went pale. "He closed—how? They should have—"
"It doesn't matter how," Jorik said. "What matters is what happens next."
He turned to face them, and the grin was still there—the kind of grin that didn't reach his eyes but sat on his face like something borrowed from someone else. It was cold and calculated, the expression of someone who had just watched a plan fall perfectly into place despite the problems.
"With two circles gone, we have two massive concentrations of mana now spreading through the city. Every monster within range is going to feel it, so even if there will be fewer portal monsters, this city is still going to be flooded."
Colt's expression shifted from fear to understanding. "The monsters outside the walls …"
"Will come," Jorik said. "The ones the Aegis couldn't kill, all of them, they are all going to converge on the city."
Marlene looked at the two collapsed portals' locations. "If the level 400 creatures breach the walls in force while Reidar is still dealing with the remaining five portals and the monsters already inside the city …"
"Then even he might not be able to hold everything together," Jorik said. "Fifty thousand summons sounds like a lot, but spread them across seven portal zones, add a monster incursion from outside the walls…" He paused. "Reidar will survive, but he would still have failed. Plus…"