The Summon Eternal Death-Host replaced the Undying Legion. The numbers had jumped from 100 to 500 elite undead per cast, and they were summoned at his level plus ten.
The unit types had increased and improved too—Ghost-Strike Inquisitors replaced the Dead-Eye Marksmen, Night-Stalker Assassins replaced the Shadow-Stalkers, and the new Dread-Bastion Juggernauts had a skill called Soul Feedback that reflected 100% of all damage taken back to the attacker as True Damage.
<100% reflection as True Damage. That means anything that hits them dies instantly. Well, not that it matters much—I'm basically a god fighting toddlers. After all, I'm going up against level 350 people at best, and I'm sitting pretty at level 557. It's like bringing a nuclear missile to a water balloon fight.>
There were also two new unit types: Grave-Warden Clerics that could revive fallen undead and create zones of health drain, and Bone-Reaver Berserkers that gained stacking attack speed with each kill. Plus, Phantom Hexblades—magic warriors that could teleport behind targets for guaranteed critical hits.
But that wasn't all.
Another skill was Summon Primal Chimera-Colossi, which replaced the Apex Menagerie. Instead of 10 beasts, it summoned 50, at his level plus twelve.
The available forms had expanded to include five new creatures: Hydra-Serpents, Behemoth-Apes, Terror-Condors, Spine-Back Rhinos, and Acid-Spitting Myriapods. Reidar, of course, had no idea what these creatures were, but he assumed they must have been some kinds of monsters. If from Earth or elsewhere, Reidar didn't know, but he was leaning more on the first option.
The Shadow Specter-Kings replaced the Shadow Sovereigns, jumping from 5 to 20 summoned creatures at Reidar's level plus twenty, and the description made Reidar pause. These creatures no longer held humanoid shapes—they appeared as shifting holes that bled through the floor, whatever that meant.
<My level plus twenty. That puts them at 577.>
That was going to be insanely useful whenever he had to fight against monsters several levels higher than his. That also made Reidar understand why people were reluctant to share summoning skills on the vendor market at high levels.
The reason was that they likely summoned creatures many levels higher than the caster, and the stronger the skill was, the stronger the creature was.
There was more.
The Spectral Army replaced the Spectral Quadraginta, scaling from 40 to 1,000 mana constructs at his level plus five, with six unit types that included Arch-Mages and High-Healers. The massive jump in numbers had to have to do with the massive jump in tier for both the skills and the summoned creatures.
And then there was the last and most puzzling skill of them all. Summon Elemental Demon-Lords.
Reidar read through the skill description twice because the first time he didn't believe it. The Archon Rift-Lords—his elementals, the ones he had been summoning since they were Rift-Sprites—had evolved into demons.
The skill allowed him to summon 160 Elemental Demon-Lords, at his level plus twenty-five. TWENTY FUCKING FIVE. That put them at level 582.
<Demons.>
The word sat in his mind. He knew what demons were in the context of religion—malevolent entities, fallen angels, servants of evil. But this was different because the system was telling him these were real creatures.
The Rift Sprites had always been something, some kind of elemental entity that came from the Rift, but he had never questioned what they actually were.
For sure, they were different from other elementals Reidar had seen, which looked more like living embodiments of those elements, but the rift sprites were not like that.
When Reidar saw them the first time, he would have said he summoned imps, based on the description that authors gave about the monsters, and actually, Reidar hadn't been far from the truth.
Imps, in some cases, most actually, were considered lesser demons. So, the Archon Rift-Lords must have been some kind of medium-level or high-level demons, and now that they were summoned as a result of a tier 55 skill, Demon Lords were called.
<The Rift-Sprites were demons all along. Or at least some kind of proto-demons that evolved into their true form.>
Reidar didn't know what that meant in a biological sense. Were demons a species? A classification? Did they exist somewhere in the Allied Worlds' records as a catalogued race, or were they something else entirely—something the system created from raw mana?
<Are they monsters?>
He didn't have answers, but the implications were intriguing. If demons were real, if they were living beings that could be summoned and commanded, then the religious texts that talked about them weren't entirely wrong. They were just incomplete.
<I'll think about the issue later. Right now, I have an outpost to hit.>
But first, there was something he needed to check. The Generous Soul perk allowed him to share skills below 50% proficiency at the cost of Health in addition to Mana. Since his main summoning skills had just evolved into new tier 55 versions, their proficiency was back at 0%.
<That means if I use Skill Sharing with these new skills, it'll cost me Health.>
Reidar checked the numbers. His Health was 54,230, which was high, but sharing skills with thousands of summons at 0% proficiency would drain him fast. The Health cost per share wasn't massive for a single target, but when multiplied across hundreds or thousands of summons, it added up.
<I might not need to do it, though.>
He looked at the summoning numbers again. The Eternal Death-Host summoned 500 undead per cast. With Boundless Legion doubling the count and Legion Commander adding ten percent, that was 1,100 per cast, and with Grave Calling adding 41 extra undead, the total pushed to 1,141.
The Spectral Army summoned 1,000 base mana creatures. Doubled by Boundless Legion, that was 2,000, plus ten percent from the Legion Commander, making it 2,200.
The Elemental Demon Lords summoned 160 creatures. Doubled to 320, plus ten percent made it 352.
The Primal Chimera-Colossi summoned 50 base. Doubled to 100, plus ten percent made it 110.
The Shadow Specter-Kings summoned up to 20, and since the skill type was toggle rather than batch, Boundless Legion wouldn't apply, but Reidar still got 20 creatures at his level plus 20.
And the Abyssal Horrors were variable summons—one per cast, with a one-second cooldown. Reidar could summon as many as his mana allowed, one per second.
Even without using Skill Sharing, the numbers from his base skills alone were staggering. The combined army from a single round of summoning would number in the thousands, and every creature was at tier 55, summoned at levels ranging from his own to twenty-five levels above him.
Reidar didn't need to share his skills with the summons. The numbers were already enough.
He also had the Death Knight skill—the one Garran had sold him. That was a variable summon that created a single Death Knight at his own level, but Grave Calling would turn it into a batch summon by adding 41 extra Death Knights, each as powerful as a single summoning skill. And since the Death Knight could summon 500 Skeletal Warriors on its own, having 42 of them meant 21,000 additional skeletal warriors flooding the battlefield.
Then Boundless Legion would kick in again, doubling the Death Knights to 84 and the skeletal warriors accordingly.
The numbers were absurd.
<I don't need Skill Sharing for this fight. Not even close.>
Reidar took a breath and prepared to summon his new army.