The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family

The cavern trembled from the impact. Dust burst out in thick, suffocating waves as the ground shattered under her massive body. Cracks spread like spiderwebs across the floor, stretching for meters. Her legs jerked a couple times before going still, while thick, dark fluid oozed beneath her, forming a dark pool that crept outward.

For a second, the battlefield fell silent.

The notification blazed across Reidar's vision.

[Queen Vorathid Ant defeated.]

[You have gained 10,238 C.L.A.S.P. Points.]

[You have gained 3,071 Survival Points.]

Reidar didn't celebrate since it wasn't enough to fill him with enough C.L.A.S.P. points to level up. He understood months earlier that to really get stronger, he had to reap numbers rather than lone strong monsters.

The level disparity between creatures was an important factor, as it was impossible for a level 80 warrior to kill a level 92 bulking queen of monsters.

But numbers could drown her.

But in a sense it also meant that Reidar was in a good position, because he could fight level 90 creatures without too many problems, and while he still had to concentrate a lot of fire on a single entity, if he found the right skills and the right summons, he could do much more.

The contubernium was strong, but it allowed him to summon Tier-2 creatures, which were far weaker than the Vorathid Ant queen.

The spectral knights were better, but they were not ranged fighters; they were melee ones, suited to kill scores of the monsters in close quarters, but not from a distance, where the real game was played. Unfortunately, they could not go against a monster 10 or more levels higher since they would just be wiped out.

Regardless, Reidar didn't pause. His mind registered the numbers with cold satisfaction, but his attention stayed locked on the battlefield.

The Queen's death severed something fundamental. The hive mind. That psychic or pheromonal web that had coordinated thousands of individuals into a single terrible organism. It shattered, and Reidar saw how the coordination between the monsters collapsed.

The Vorathid ants devolved into chaos. A far greater chaos they created earlier.

Workers scattered in all directions, bumping into each other, mandibles snapping at anything that moved.

Soldiers turned on workers. Ants attacked their own siblings with the same fury they'd shown their enemies.

The organized army became a mindless mob in seconds; all strategy and coordination ceased with their queen's death.

Reidar raised his wand high.

"ALL FORCES!" His voice carried across the cavern with absolute authority. "ERADICATE THE HORDE!"

Across the cavern, the spectral knights wheeled as one, shields locking into new formations. The bone militias reformed their lines. The primal packs surged forward with renewed hunger, tearing into the disorganized swarms. The Rift-Sprite Contuberniums shifted targets to the weak monsters.

Lena appeared at Reidar's side, her blades dripping ichor. She caught the man's eye and smiled, all teeth and satisfaction.

"It's so good to be carried…"

Reidar looked at her. "Don't get used to this. You need to buy something good in the next town to pull your weight around. You are strong, but against armies of monsters you can't do anything."

She scowled. "Jeez… you are so boring."

He looked at her with an amused smile.

"What happened to the taciturn woman I met three weeks ago? The one who barely spared me a glance and who could kill with her eyes?"

She gave him a dirty look.

"Are you making fun of me? What's so bad about being a serious person?"

He smiled. "Nothing if you keep acting like yourself. This attitude of yours is freaking me out a little."

"Well, it's not like you can blame me. I'm leveling up like crazy. The amount of attribute points I'm getting these weeks is so high that not even two months of grinding like a madwoman with Torren, Lysa, and that fucker Jorik could have compared."

Reidar nodded. In fact, he understood. Having the chance to unleash his full power without holding back was as liberating as it was rewarding. The problem was that finding monsters of such a high level was not going to be easy.

Monsters were a lot, but because of how fast Reidar got stronger, even the monsters couldn't keep up. Although something was weird. Reidar turned to Lena.

"Say, haven't you noticed something weird?"

"Weird?" She asked.

"Yes… The queen did her best to recreate her army in these past weeks, but don't you think the monsters were too strong for having had less than three weeks of time to power up? Besides, those who survived were several levels higher. The workers reached level 60, while the soldiers breached past level 74, and all of this in such a short amount of time?"

She nodded. "Now that you point this out, it is indeed really strange, but If I have to be honest, I started feeling something weird since we went to Havenwood."

"What do you mean?" Reidar asked.

The sound of monsters dying echoed around the cave. The slaughter was still in full swing, and Reidar actually had to do nothing.

"You understood how my trait works, right?"

"I guess so?"

"Well, let me tell it to you again. Predator's Echo lets me tune into the raw instincts of beasts, and humans, too, of course. Not thoughts, but urges. Hunger. Fear. Rage. I feel them like echoes in my mind, which helps me find packs or nests. There is not much that can escape me if I decide to find it. It might take some time to do it, but…"

"Don't stray from the point, Lena, please."

She nodded.

"Right."

Reidar nodded, his gaze sweeping the cavern where his summons hacked through the disorganized horde.

She leaned against a stalagmite. "But since we found Havenwood empty? Something changed. The monsters... they're restless. Not just hungry, their drive to devour and grow stronger is at levels far higher than it was before. Workers here should've topped at level 59, not 65. It's like the whole damn world is in a fervor to evolve faster."

Reidar clenched his wand tighter. The queen's corpse twitched once more, spilling more ichor, but the ants' frenzy only deepened the slaughter.

"So?"

"So, something must have happened during that day, something we missed and that might have been related to the Progenitor."

"Or something else," Reidar said as the slaughter entered its last phase.