"It looks like my creatures dealt with the Elite Abyss Lurker..."
Reidar was reading the notifications.
[Level 63 Elite abyss lurker defeated.] Fresh chapters posted on 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⟡𝕗𝗂𝗋𝖾⟡𝕟𝕖𝕥
[You have gained 20,462.4 C.L.A.S.P. Points.]
[You have earned 6138.72 Survival Points.]
[QUEST COMPLETE: The Sunken Turbine]
[Quest Reward: 30,000 C.L.A.S.P. Points, 12,000 Survival Points, [Skill Book: Summon Murk-Fin School], Title: "Abyssal Caller".]
[You have unlocked a new title: Abyssal Caller.]
Description: Title awarded to those who have delved into the sunless depths and commanded the creatures that dwell within.
Passive Effect: +15% damage bonus to all summoned aquatic creatures.
Additional Effect: Grants the ability to breathe underwater and negates pressure effects from deep water.
Rarity: Rare (Less than 10% of System users have unlocked this achievement)
[LEVEL UP! You have reached Level 51.]
[You have gained 0.5 attribute points to distribute.]
Though Reidar got a massive amount of Clasp points, and that was because the monster he killed was 13 levels higher than him. People would expect that such a great disparity in levels would yield several level-ups, but it reality didn’t work like that.
Life made everything in its power to throw you down and kill you. While the amount Reidar earned was rather good, it was also true that it wasn’t enough to level up twice. He did it once just because of the pumped-up rewards from Martin’s quest.
If the quest was complete, it meant that the parts he came to retrieve got secured, or at least the monsters in the surroundings were dead. At the same time, given the orders he gave to his summons, they were already starting to retrieve the parts.
Reidar channeled the last of his mana into his wand. The tip ignited. He hurled the Fireball toward the shore, where the last of the Murk-Fin Ambushers thrashed in the shallows.
The sphere arced through the air and detonated in a roar of flame. Boiling steam erupted as super-heated water met fire, but it didn’t last for long.
Regardless, the blast engulfed the creature, charring its hide and putting an end to the quite frankly useless attack they subjected Reidar to.
[Your Fireball strikes Murk-Fin Ambushers for 428 fire damage.]
[Murk-Fin Ambushers defeated.]
Reidar lowered his arm, breath steady despite the strain. The lake fell silent, save for the lap of waves against bodies of the monsters he and the others had just killed.
Aaron slumped against a boulder, struggling to breathe due to the effort; his blade was notched and bloodied, no doubt he had killed his share of monsters. Mara knelt nearby, wiping sweat from her brow with her shirt.
Her staff rested on her knees. She wasn’t going to put it in her inventory. They went through hundreds of beasts. They didn’t even know how they could be alive, and yet they were. They had to thank Reidar for this.
Reidar had seized the ink fog’s blindness to turn the tide. As the black cloud swallowed the shore and blinded everyone, he summoned waves of Bone Militia and Primal Packs from through his Guardian Shade and the creatures he summoned.
The skeletal horde swarmed the area, while the various primal packs did the rest with the same brutality one would expect from a beast, especially some as large as them.
When the ink cleared and they could see again, the fight was already over, with Reidar just taking care of the last monster. Mara and Aaron understood he did something, but they didn’t know what, and that was the scary thing, because not knowing what Reidar was capable of was the real problem.
Aaron pushed to his feet, not without difficulty, and approached the summoner with wide eyes.
"How?" That was all he could ask. Mara shared a similar confused look.
Reidar shrugged, wiping his wand on his cloak. "I got lucky. The fog hid my spells. Threw a few area attacks here and there and kept the pressure on until I killed all the monsters."
Aaron frowned. "Area attacks? Against hundreds? You were up here with us the whole time."
"Timing also had a huge part in it," Reidar said, meeting his gaze. "Your strikes cleared the front; mine mopped up the rest."
Mara joined them. She studied Reidar, noting the ease in his stance. "You are full of surprises, eh?"
Reidar didn’t reply. He didn’t trust the two, and now that the quest was complete, with Martin having gotten the Settlement Token Creator, there was nothing that would keep him here, even if his sense of duty tried to gnaw at him again.
He originally would have had to join Martin’s troops to find the cause of the mass migration, but with the Settlement’s barrier doing so wasn’t needed anymore, and it would be on the settlement itself to find a way to hunt in this area.
Besides, there was no way he was going to help Martin for free. He did it just because the rewards were good. Damn, Reidar just got a title that allowed him to breathe underwater; just this alone was worth the hassle.
Aaron and Mara shared a look. The guy who showed up at Havenwood’s gate was clearly holding back. He was way stronger than he’d let on.
"What do we do now?" Mara asked.
"As I said, my summons are already bringing everything here; after that it will be Martin’s prob—"
Lena burst from the treeline then, with Jorik and Torren behind her.
The woman’s eyes were locked on Reidar but then narrowed to slits, burning with a fury that promised bloodshed. She gripped her blades tighter, jaw clenched as if she already tasted the fight.
Torren shifted beside her. He was tense, but his gaze dropped to the ground. Reidar recognized disappointment in those eyes and couldn’t understand why. He shook his head, fingers flexing on his Zweihänder’s hilt, as if he was ready to fight.
Jorik, instead, hung back a step, his grey beard framing a mouth turned down at the corners. Sadness pooled in his eyes as he glanced between Lena and Reidar.
However, there was something else in Lena’s look. Something he couldn’t understand at all.