Chapter 464 - 464: When a Giant Finally Looks Down (4)
<Level 650.>
The Progenitor had been level 250 the last time anyone had a reliable reading. That was almost a year ago, before the portals, before the influx of other planet monsters that had flooded Earth because of this very same man's actions.
The church's own portals had created the perfect hunting ground, and the Progenitor had fed on it. But it wasn't the level in itself that surprised him.
<He's completely feral. >
The thing that had once been the Progenitor didn't speak. It didn't acknowledge Jorik. It didn't even look at Reidar with anything resembling intent. Not only that, but it just stood there, its four eyes scanning the battlefield with the focus of a predator cataloguing threats.
The problem was what Reidar was looking at.
<This is what happens when a human goes fully feral. >
The Progenitor had been human once. A person with thoughts, memories, maybe even a family. Now it was a shell. This was basically a biological weapon driven by nothing but the endless hunger for mana, which had stripped away everything that had made it human. It left only the base instinct to consume and grow stronger, exactly like what happened on the Ignis world.
For Reidar, this was a warning.
<If I fail, this is what happens to everyone on Earth. >
Every human who pushed too far. Every person who absorbed too much mana without the system's protection or the Ignis magic circles protecting them.
They would all end up like this—feral, mindless, and dangerous.
Reidar had seen many people on their way to mutation and ferality. Mara herself had been pretty far advanced in her mutations, even more than Silas, of course, especially because she reached a far greater level than he did on the Ignis world.
But the progenitor was the first one Reidar had seen with full mutations, and maybe these weren't even the last he was going to have in the future.
The Progenitor was different. The final evolution of what happened when someone fully surrendered to the mana with no system to regulate it.
<And Jorik is using it like a tool. >
That was almost worse. Jorik had created this thing, or at least enabled it, and now he was wielding it like a weapon. He only cared that it killed what he pointed it at. How he was controlling it, if he did that to begin with, was another mystery.
Jorik stepped to the side, putting distance between himself and the creature.
"You thought you were the only one with a weapon, Reidar?" Jorik said. "You summon your creatures. I summon mine." He gestured toward the Progenitor. "The difference is that mine doesn't need mana to keep it going. It just needs something to kill."
The Progenitor moved. There was no windup, no crouch, no sign of what was coming. One moment it stood where Jorik had brought it, and the next it was thirty meters closer, its fist already in motion toward the nearest Shadow Specter-King.
The Specter King didn't have an opportunity to activate a single skill. The Progenitor's fist went through its shadowy form, and the summon exploded into black mist that scattered across the scorched ground.
[Summon defeated.]
The second Specter-King tried to wrap tendrils of shadow around the creature's arm, but the Progenitor ripped free and tore the summon in half.
The third materialized behind it and drove spectral blades into the creature's back—the blades shattered on contact, unable to penetrate the chitin-like plates that covered its skin.
[Summon defeated.]
[Summon defeated.]
Three Shadow Specter Kings were dead in less than four seconds.
<SHIT! It's faster than anything I've ever seen at this size. >
Reidar was already moving, though; he wasn't going to let the progenitor kill him.
<Let's go!>
He ordered the Terror Condors to bring him away.
The wind hit his face as the condor climbed, and Reidar looked down at the battlefield below.
As for the progenitor, he wasn't looking at the summons. It was looking at him. Those four burning eyes tracked the condor despite the great speed it reached, and that made Reidar's stomach drop, because in every fight he had been in since becoming a summoner, the enemy had targeted his army.
The Behemoth had gone after the creatures that bothered it. The Ignis on the homeworld had fought whatever was closest.
The Progenitor didn't care about the army. It wanted the summoner. It didn't matter if the creature was still smart enough to realize that if it died, even its army would die, or if it was just acting on instinct. The outcome was the same.
The Progenitor ignored the demon lords descending from above and the death knights charging from the flanks, since none of them were the target. Reidar was the target.
The creature then resumed its flying, and the Progenitor rose into the air with a speed that defied its size, closing the distance between itself and the condor in less than two seconds.
"FUCK!"
Reidar pulled the bird into a sharp turn, and the condor banked to the left as the progenitor's clawed hand swept through the space where they had been a moment before.
The miss was close enough that Reidar felt the displaced air hit his face.
<This fucker is fast!>
The Progenitor kept chasing, and Reidar had the condor climbing at full speed; the bird's wings were beating hard enough to trail ash and shadow across the sky.
Though it didn't deter the Progenitor, and his next attack fell short by about ten meters, the creature didn't seem bothered by that.
Reidar pushed the condor higher while issuing commands through the Overmind consciousness, and every elemental demon lord in range converged on the progenitor's position.
Within seconds, the creature was hit from three directions by waves of fire, ice, and lightning that would have reduced a level 500 monster to ash.
However, the Progenitor turned to face the incoming barrage. The fire washed over its body and left scorch marks that healed in less than a second.
The ice shattered against its chest without leaving frost. The lightning churned across its skin, and the creature didn't even flinch.
Then it moved through the attacks and killed two Inferno Tyrants in a single motion, its arms sweeping through their bodies as if they were made of smoke rather than solidified elemental mana.
[Summon defeated.]
[Summon defeated.]