novelraw Chapter 466: When a Giant Finally Looks Down (6)
Chapter 466: When a Giant Finally Looks Down (6)
Reidar pulled the bird higher and higher, opening the distance, but the creature adapted. It tore pieces from collapsed buildings, ripped support beams from ruins, and hurled them skyward with arm strength that turned construction debris into anti-aircraft weapons.
The sky around Reidar became a field of incoming projectiles, and the condor wove between them while Reidar held on with one hand and unleashed spells with the other.
Two thousand undead converged on the progenitor, who stopped throwing rubble and turned to face the incoming tide, and what followed was not a battle but a demonstration of the gap between level 650 and everything below it.
But two thousand bodies took time to kill, even for a level 650 monster. And while the Progenitor killed, Reidar flew.
He also smiled at that point because, finally, he was far enough from the monster.
Reidar had been waiting for this situation, for this kind of moment. The moment someone or something strong enough to threaten him showed up while his forces were stretched thin and his back was against the wall.
At least apparently. The truth was that Reidar was pretty sure that Jorik would have made a move on him, but that was going to happen only if he led Jorik to believe there was a chance to get rid of him.
Jorik had timed his move well. He had waited for Reidar to fight the Behemoth, counted the losses, watched the army thin out, and then played his trump card at the worst possible moment.
Of course, the entire situation had hinged on luck—Reidar had gotten lucky that the Behemoth appeared when it did. There was no guarantee that that would happen.
It could have been another monster of equal level emerging from one of the portals, or it could have been nothing whatsoever. The timing wasn't something Reidar could control; he could only hope for it.
Regardless, Jorik did exactly what Reidar expected, which is what he would have done himself.
But Reidar had been smarter because he had predicted that. When Lyra'xis asked Reidar if he could take care of the behemoth, he even lied. That had been a performance.
Not about everything—the Behemoth was dangerous, the portals were a real threat, and the battle had cost him thousands of summons.
The truth was that Reidar had known since the moment his skills evolved into tier 55 that he had a way to kill anything.
The Skill Sharing trait, combined with the Generous Soul perk and the recursive nature of his Elemental Demon-Lord summoning skill, created a chain that could scale past any level.
The Elemental Demon Lords were summoned at the caster's level plus twenty-five. Reidar was level 557, so his Demon-Lords appeared at level 582.
However, the demon lords were creatures with their mana pools and abilities that could benefit from his trait.
If Reidar shared the Summon Elemental Demon-Lords skill with his Demon-Lords, they would become casters. And the creatures they summoned would appear at THEIR level plus twenty-five, which was level 607.
If those level 607 Demon Lords were given the same skill, the next batch would appear at level 632. Then 657. Then 682. Then 707. The chain was unstoppable.
Each generation of demon lords was twenty-five levels stronger than the last, and each one could summon the next generation.
Reidar didn't use his trait on purpose. What he wanted to do was to make everyone think that the summons that were already here resulted from his trait, while in truth, they had only been summoned by the native skills of his summons.
But there was no way for anyone to know that, especially if Reidar made them believe so.
That was the gamble. Reidar had anticipated that Jorik would try something when the battle was at its hardest. When Reidar was facing a strong foe and when his summons were at their minimum.
The man was smart, ruthless, and patient, and he would wait for the right moment to launch an attack. So Reidar gave him that moment by making it look like he could do nothing against the Behemoth but lose summons, like the army was collapsing, like Reidar was out of options.
If Jorik hadn't shown up, Reidar would have used the trait to kill the Behemoth. However, that would have required him to track down Jorik and the progenitor, which could have been dangerous.
Luckily, Jorik showed up, because that was what Jorik did—he exploited weakness, and Reidar had intentionally created one for him to exploit.
Reidar reached out through the Overmind Consciousness and connected to the remaining Elemental Demon Lords that hovered two kilometers to the east, far from the Progenitor and far from the Behemoth.
These were Demon-Lords assigned to clean up portal monsters. They were now available because the portals had been closed as the battle progressed.
There were forty-three of them. All at level 582. Reidar already shared his skills with them. The mana cost had been low—ten per target per skill, multiplied across forty-three targets, came to 430 mana. He still had plenty to spare, but he couldn't risk the enemy getting a hold of what was going on, and Reidar left them at the side of the battle.
The forty-three Demon Lords who received the skill acted on Reidar's instructions and used their skills.
Rifts tore open in the surrounding air, and 6880 portals appeared. From each rift stepped a new Elemental Demon-Lords.
"Nice!"
But these were different.
—[Elemental Demon Lord—Level 607]—
"It really worked…"
Well, it had to work. There was no reason the Elemental Demon Lords could be 25 levels higher than him but not above the Demon Lords who summoned them.
Each of the forty-three Demon Lords summoned their batch, and the numbers added up fast.
But Reidar wasn't finished. There was still much to do, but he needed to wait for the new demon lords to arrive. They were still a long way away. Even though the progenitor was still on Reidar's tail and Jorik was already savoring the taste of victory, they did not make him wait long.
At some point, though, the fresh batches of level 607 demons arrived, and then, Reidar shared his skills again.
[Skill Sharing activated.]