The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family Chapter 405: The Last Stop (10)

As Reidar crouched near the ballroom entrance, he gave the ntal order.

prompting the Spectral Quadraginta to enter first, followed by the Shadow Sovereigns, while the mages imdiately began casting.

Although Mara's head snapped toward them with a hiss, Reidar was already giving orders to the group because what he needed most was to stay hidden, a feat the Shadow Sovereigns could make possible through their Wall of Night skill.

Almost as soon as they entered the room, the Shadow Sovereigns summoned black walls that erupted from the floor to separate the summons within a maze of shadows, rising all the way to the ceiling to block sight lines and divide the space into narrow corridors.

As more walls appeared in rapid succession, the Shadow Sovereigns kept summoning them to create a shifting maze of darkness that changed every few seconds; new walls ford where old ones dissolved while passages opened and closed, transforming the entire room into a constantly moving labyrinth.

Since the goal wasn't just to block Mara's line of sight but to physically deny her the open space she needed to move, the Shadow Sovereigns changed the configuration of the walls based on Reidar's ntal inputs and, at the sa ti, created a corridor that allowed him to go toward the magic circle while remaining hidden from the woman.

Reidar looked at Mara through his summons' eyes. She started teleporting as soon as she saw the intruders.

In one mont she stood in the circle's center, and in the next she appeared behind a group of spectral swordsn, where her claws tore through the first one before it could react.

Reidar thought as the mana creature dissolved into mist.

The other swordsn turned, but before they could, Mara was already gone.

She reappeared on a balcony, where an archer loosed an arrow, though the shaft passed through empty air. Mara teleported again, this ti to ground level, where she drove her claws through a spearman's chest.

The Shadow Sovereigns responded by shifting the walls faster, with new barriers appearing every two seconds as entire sections of the ballroom reconfigured themselves. However, Mara adapted; she stopped trying to navigate the maze normally and started using her teleport to jump between the few open spaces that remained, treating the walls as temporary obstacles rather than real barriers.

A spectral spearman thrust at her back. She spun, caught the spear shaft with one hand, and yanked the warrior forward into her other set of claws. The spearman dissolved.

Reidar was halfway to the portal now. He could see the magic circle's glow through gaps in the shadow walls. The portal was almost complete, but then a tremor shook the palace.

Then another.

Through the summons outside, Reidar saw what was going on. The level 600 titans had reached the palace walls and were slamming their massive limbs into the stone, tearing through the Verdant Sovereign's reinforced roots.

His Archon Rift-Lords were opening fire, raining Frost Novas and lightning on the approaching horde, but the sheer volu of monsters was overwhelming because of numbers and power.

Thousands of Feral Ignis were swarming the base of the palace like ants, climbing over each other to reach the windows and breaches. The Undying Legion was holding the main entrance, but they were not going to last for long.

Reidar thought.

The timing was becoming a nightmare. If the portal opened when the creatures were too close, hundreds, if not thousands of them, would be sucked into the gateway along with him. He had to keep them out, kill Mara, and cross the threshold in a window of perhaps a few seconds.

In the ballroom, Mara seed to draw strength from the chaos. She realized she was being cornered by the shifting shadow walls and activated a spell of her own. A wave of mana erupted from her body, turning into a sort of localized explosion that shattered the nearest shadow walls and sent the Spectral Swordsn flying backward.

Reidar looked at her in disbelief.

Then she did sothing that made his skin crawl; she looked toward the darkness where Reidar was hiding. She didn't see him because of the wall, but she knew he was there.

She began to gather a massive amount of energy in her palms.

"Use Grasping Shadows! Now!" Reidar said.

The floor of the ballroom turned into a pool of writhing, liquid darkness. Hundreds of shadow hands reached up, trying to grab Mara's ankles and legs.

Mara hissed, her black eyes darting around as she struggled to avoid so many hands. She began to teleport rapidly, but every ti she reappeared, the ground beneath her beca shadow again.

Outside, the palace groaned. A portion of the ceiling in the foyer collapsed as a titan's fist punched through the roof.

Then another impossibly loud noise resounded.