Chapter 106: Far bigger threats (5)
Reidar’s mind reeled. Level 83. The number seared into his thoughts like a hot iron. It wasn’t just higher—it was a whole other world of power, a gap so vast it might as well have been carved by the gods themselves. He’d fought tough enemies before, but this? This was something else entirely.
Every instinct screamed at him to summon everything he had, to unleash a tide of bone and bestial fury, but he held back. A move made in panic would be his last, and he didn’t know if the creatures he had already summoned would be enough. Though Reidar never left his mount.
Even if it was almost forty levels lower than this man, Silas, it was still a large beast, and because of that, it was fast. If he chose to run, staying on the mount was the best thing to do.
Though nothing stopped him from giving the Rift-sprite contubernium more and more summoning skills. He did the same with the Guardian shade and finally tested if this worked with the spectral knights. It did, but he didn’t know if they could actually use it based on the mana they had.
Silas’s attention remained on him; his grip on Lena’s chest was still there, pinning her as easily as a man might hold down a struggling cat.
"As I was saying," Silas echoed, "I’m not here for a fight. I was told you were a man of considerable power, Reidar Miller. My sources were not wrong," he said while looking at Reidar’s summoned creatures, "I came to offer you a place with us. A chance to help."
The calm offer, made over the body of a friend, if he could call Lysa that, he’d just murdered, was so disturbing it broke through Reidar’s shock.
"Help?" Reidar couldn’t understand. "Is that what you call what you did to Lysa? An offer of help?"
Silas glanced down at the struggling woman beneath him, who he knew was a friend of the one he had killed earlier. Then it went back to Reidar. It was an expression one of mild inconvenience.
"That was an unfortunate accident. The woman attacked me on sight. I merely acted in self-defense. She was... fragile." He said it with the same detachment one might use to describe a broken teacup.
Reidar didn’t believe a word of it. A level 83 dude acting in self-defense against a level 50 fighter was a sick joke.
"And Havenwood? The swarms of monsters you’ve been herding to their walls for weeks. There is no use in hiding it. You are the only one who would have been able to scare the monsters so thoroughly and lead them to Havenwood. Was that also an ’unfortunate accident’?"
"That," Silas said with a flicker of something messianic entering his eyes, "was a necessity. A tasteless but vital step to save them."
"Save them from what? A peaceful death in their sleep at old age?"
"From this!" Silas’s voice hardened, losing its placid edge for a moment. He gestured vaguely at the world around them, at the very air, at the creatures behind Reidar, and at the one he was currently riding.
"This System. This cage. It’s a prison, Reidar, constructed by invisible wardens to make us docile, to keep us tame. It gives out levels and abilities like rewards for a conditioned beast, making sure we never grip our real strength. They say it’s a blessing, a protection. It is a chain."
"It’s Easy to be so eloquent by quoting Caleb’s words."
The words were almost identical to Caleb’s sermon, but hearing them from this creature, this man, gave them a terrifying weight.
"Where do you think the kid heard those words?"
"I guess it was you," Reidar said. "My people." He paused. "You might know them, Aaron Abstuln and Mara Icro."
"So they really are with you. Where are they now?"
Silas smiled. "They are here."
Aaron and Mara came out of their hiding and went behind Silas, but far enough to not get easily killed by Lena if she miraculously escaped.
"The Progenitor saw the truth," Silas said, his voice turned conspiratorial, powerful. "He was the first to break the chains, to cast off the shackles of the System and reclaim the power that is our birthright. And he gave me that same gift. He unbound me from the system."
"Is this why your level is so high?"
"Yours is high as well..." Silas said.
"Yes, but I did it without cheating my way out of the system."
Even if his trait, Skill Sharing, was essentially a cheat, it was still something within the Last Will Framework, something within the system. He didn’t know what traits were. The system said they were innate soul abilities but didn’t dwell further on it.
Regardless, this man talking about the progenitor made the words take on an entirely different meaning. Since Silas didn’t have the system, as testified by the clear mutations Keth’Moran warned him about, it was clear this progenitor really existed.
<The Progenitor...> The name echoed in Reidar’s mind. It wasn’t just a title, not a religious phantom. It was a person. A real, tangible being who had somehow escaped the only protection humans had against mana. He escaped the Guardian System itself.
"I have no interest in getting rid of the System," Reidar said, his voice firm. He met Silas’s unblinking eyes. "Not if it means turning into a monster."
Silas actually laughed. "A monster?" He looked down at his own free hand. "Is that what you see? I see a man evolving, adapting to the true nature of this world, a world flooded with the very mana the System tries to ration. Is this monstrous?" He looked up, his gaze piercing. "Or is it simply how we were meant to be? Am I a monster?"
"You don’t look very human to me," Reidar said.
Silas brushed off the comment. "Just imagine what you could do, Reidar. With your talent, you could reach my level, no, even higher. We could save humanity for real, free them from their gilded cage." He leaned in a little.
"Why would someone with your power side with the weak? With the heretics in Havenwood, happy to stay in their pen? Why turn your back on the only real shot humanity’s got at surviving by siding with us?"
A bitter smile appeared on Reidar’s face. "First, I don’t think the Church of Unbinding’s way is the only one to save humanity," he said.
"And second..." He took a breath, the truth of his own heart. "I have absolutely no intention of saving humanity. I’m not a hero; I don’t get paid to do this. I have one simple goal, and I won’t tell you about it, obviously."
Silas’s calm mask slipped for just a second. He looked surprised, maybe even confused. He’d been ready for arguments, for fear, for some grand moral stand. But indifference? He hadn’t seen that coming.
It wasn’t that Reidar didn’t really want to save humanity. If he wanted to make sure his family could live, he was bound to at least help those trying to do that, but there was a large difference between actively trying to be the hero of the story and just lending a hand.
Silas’s faint smile returned, but it was different now. It was colder. The negotiation was over.
"A pity," he sighed.
His gaze dropped to Lena, and his hand, the one not pinning her, began to glow with energy. He was going to execute her, right there.
Reidar didn’t shout. He didn’t lunge, and that was because he also shared his summoning skills with Lena. She was going to summon a lot of monsters right where Silas stood. Getting out of that unscathed seemed hard.
The air beside Reidar shimmered, tearing open as ten figures of ethereal light and spectral steel stepped through from nothingness. The Spectral Knights immediately rushed toward the mutated man.
At the same time, ten skeletons, a Guardian shade, and three beasts appeared around Silas. He was forced to leave his hold on Lena.
The woman scrambled backward, gasping for air, her eyes wide as she stared at the creatures who had just saved her life. However, she didn’t stay idle for long. Instead, she attacked.
Silas was forced back a step while he tried to get rid of the pests attacking him.
At that moment, Torren and Jorik arrived.