The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family-Chapter 440: Crossing the portal

Reidar started pushing troops through faster. The Dread-Bastion Juggernauts went next, followed by the Ghost-Strike Inquisitors and the Bone-Reaver Berserkers.

The teleportation circle cycled with a rhythm that Reidar could feel through the stone floor—hum, flash, reset, hum, flash, reset—and with each cycle, dozens of undead warriors vanished from the outpost and appeared in Kingsgate.

The basement on the other side was filling up, and the bodies of the Church guards had been shoved against the wall to make room. As soon as the first dozen thousand undead crossed, Reidar gave the order.

<Fan out. Hit every Church location I marked and kill every Church member. Do not harm survivors unless you are sure they are church members, and do not destroy the buildings unless you have to.>

The undead poured out of the basement and into the streets of Kingsgate.

Reidar saw through his summons' eyes what was happening. The Night-Stalker Assassins split into teams and moved toward the Church safe houses. The Juggernauts and Berserkers headed for the warehouses where the infected food was stored. The Ghost-Strike Inquisitors took to the rooftops to locate targets from above. But there were many more summons that had to cross yet.

Reidar at some point sent batches of thousands of Vorathid Abyssal Horrors to the other side. Making them shrink their size made it possible for him to send more creatures than he previously did, which meant increasing the speed at which his summons reached Kingsgate.

The problem, though, was that hiding an army of this size was impossible. The moment the first undead soldiers stepped out of the basement and into the streets, people would see them. The Aegis Phalanx would detect them. And the Church—if they had anyone watching the streets, which they surely had—would know something was happening. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

<If the Church figures out what's going on and distributes the food before my troops reach the warehouses, I'll have to kill civilians. And I don't want to do that.>

Time was everything, but Reidar also had to make sure that no one but the church attacked him.

Though, based on the level he saw the Aegis Phalanx and the survivors were, it was unlikely they would be able to do anything against him.

The worst thing would be if the survivors decided to flee to get as far away as possible from his summons, although there was no point since they were not going to attack them.

The only case in which that would happen was if the church members hid amidst the survivors, and in that case Reidar would not be able to do much.

<I bet they are already doing it…> Regardless, he kept sending troops out. He couldn't allow it to stop, given the current situation.

The Spectral Army went next—thousand mana constructs that poured through the circle in waves, their translucent forms flickering as they crossed the threshold. Then the Primal Chimera-Colossi, though the larger creatures had to shrink themselves to fit on the teleportation circle, which slowed the process.

The Death Knights went through individually, and each one summoned its battalion of Skeletal Warriors on Kingsgate's side to avoid clogging the portal with thousands of skeletons that could just be summoned on the other end.

The Elemental Demon-Lords were the drama queens of the operation. Each one stepped onto the teleportation circle like it was a public toilet seat they'd been forced to sit on, radiating waves of offended dignity.

One Fire Demon Lord actually paused mid-crossing to shoot Reidar a look that screamed, Really? THIS is the portal you're using? As if the interdimensional portals they'd arrived through when he summoned them had come with complimentary champagne and a five-star rating.

Regardless, in the end, all Demon Lords crossed the portal—all at level 582—appearing in the basement of a Church-controlled building in the middle of Kingsgate.

When the last of his summons had crossed, Reidar stepped onto the circle himself.

The blue light enveloped him, and for a fraction of a second, he felt the pull of the teleportation magic—a feeling like being compressed from all sides simultaneously—and then it was over.

He appeared in the basement. He finally reached Kingsgate after all this time.

The first thing he noticed was the smell. Blood mixed with the scent left behind by the effects of the various spells his summons used to make that carnage. The second thing he noticed was the carnage itself.

The basement was large, maybe thirty meters across, with a low ceiling supported by stone columns. The teleportation circle occupied the center of the floor, and the rest of the space was filled with crates, barrels, and shelving units that had been pushed against the walls to make room for the troops.

The Church guards from earlier were still piled in the corner, but they weren't alone anymore. At least a dozen more Church members had come down to investigate the noise, and the summons had dealt with them the same way they dealt with everything—with speed and violence.

Some had weapons drawn but unused. Others had died before they could actually do anything meaningful, including calling for help.

The blood pooled between the stone tiles and ran toward the drain in the center of the room, mixing with the melted ice left by the Frost-Blight Sovereigns.

A few dozen summons remained in the basement—mostly Spectral Army constructs and a handful of Death Knights that were waiting for further orders. The rest had already left through the staircase that led to the upper floors.

<I'm in Kingsgate.>

Reidar looked around the basement one more time, noting the crates stacked against the far wall. He walked over and opened one. Inside, sealed in the same packaging he had seen at the outpost, were dried rations embedded with the translucent eggs of the parasitic creatures.

<They were about to move these. > The distribution was not started yet, but it was closer than Reidar's comfort level with potential mass poisoning—which, admittedly, was a very specific kind of discomfort that didn't come with a support group.

He closed the crate and turned away.