Supreme Summoner Overlord: Rise of the Endless Legion-Chapter 449: Reunion (1)

The command room shook again as a second tremor went through the building, and dust fell from the ceiling.

Lyra'xis was already pulling overlays from the walls and gave orders to the officers, while Reidar turned toward the door without waiting for permission.

"Where are you going?" Lyra'xis said.

"My family," Reidar said. "You said they're in the building across the settlement. I'm going there before this gets worse."

Lyra'xis didn't argue because there was nothing to argue about; the portals were opening; the city was about to be flooded with monsters, and Reidar's army was already deployed across Kingsgate to fight the church. Arguing with a level 557 summoner about his priorities during a crisis was a waste of time that Lyra'xis didn't have.

"Go," she said. "I will coordinate the defense from here."

Reidar nodded, then looked at Lyra'xis. "I'll redirect part of my forces to the portal once I know what we're dealing with." He paused. "Keep the barriers up and get every survivor behind them. Make them help from a distance, if they can. I'll be back."

He left the building only to see that the settlement was in chaos. Fear was overriding every rational thought, and people ran in directions that made no sense because running felt better than standing still.

Survivors flooded the streets between the prefabricated shelters and the repurposed industrial buildings, many of them carrying children or dragging sacks of belongings they didn't need but couldn't bring themselves to leave behind.

A man shoved past a woman holding an infant, knocking her into a wall, and kept going without looking back. Three teenagers sprinted down a side alley with faces painted in terror.

The sources of panic for these people were two. The portals that had opened across Kingsgate, which were visible even from the settlement, and Reidar's summons. But the portals were far away, inside the city proper, not inside the settlement.

The more immediate source of fear was Reidar's own army.

His summons were still moving through the streets of Kingsgate, hunting down church members, and the survivors in the settlement had been hearing reports about them for the past hour.

Undead soldiers, giant insects, and flying demons. To the people who had spent months hiding behind barriers and praying for safety, the appearance of 50,000 monsters inside their city was not the result of a rescue operation. It was the apocalypse happening again.

Reidar didn't blame them. He didn't have time to blame them anyway.

He whistled, and one of his Terror Condors dropped from the sky, its white feathers trailing shadow and ash as it landed in the clearing and sent the nearest survivors scrambling for cover.

Reidar climbed onto its back and directed the bird toward the building Lyra'xis had pointed to—his old company's building.

<I didn't think I would come back here like this…>

The building looked the same from above. Four stories of reinforced concrete with windows replaced by wooden shutters and a ground floor clearly converted to communal space. Reidar could tell that because he saw the heavy machinery he had saved so much to buy had been placed outside as a sort of barrier.

It had been his company's headquarters once. He'd worked here for years before the apocalypse. The structure was familiar in a way that made his chest feel tight, like the world had rewound to before everything had gone wrong, except it hadn't. The apocalypse was real. The portals were real. The monsters were real.

Plus, his family was somewhere inside.

The flight lasted less than thirty seconds. The Terror Condor covered the distance in few wingbeats, and Reidar could see the building from the air as they approached.

People were gathered around the entrance, some trying to get inside and others spilling out with bundles in their arms, unsure whether to hide or run. Aegis Phalanx soldiers stood near the doors, trying to maintain order, but they were outnumbered by the crowd, and the crowd wasn't listening.

Reidar's condor landed in the open space in front of the building. Dust and small debris scattered outward from where the creature's claws struck stone.

People stared at the white bird and the man on its back, and Reidar saw the fear in their eyes spread. Some backed away, others froze, and a few turned and ran without looking where they were going.

He dismounted and left the condor behind. Reidar walked toward the entrance of the building.

His heart was beating hard, faster than it had during any of the fights he had had in the past. His hands felt cold, and there was a tightness in his chest that made it difficult to breathe.

He was finally going to meet his family again. After a year of not knowing if they were alive, after all the fighting and the blood and the impossibility of getting here, after ending up on another planet.

The fear that they might be different, or that he might be different, and that they would not accept him made him feel as if he were in a marsh.

The Aegis soldiers at the door saw his nametag and froze. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

—[Reidar Miller—Level 557]—

One of them stepped aside without a word. The other opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and moved out of the way.

Reidar stepped inside.

The ground floor was a wide-open space that had been divided into sections with curtains and makeshift partitions.

Families had set up living areas in every available corner—bedrolls on the floor, cooking equipment against the walls, and belongings stacked in piles. The air smelled like sweat, cooked grain, and the scent of unwashed bodies and stale air that drifted in every survivor settlement.

He looked around. After all this time fighting, he learned how to handle it, but what he was facing right now wasn't combat.

<Where are they?>

He reached out through the Overmind Consciousness to the summons he had sent to search for his family earlier, and one of the Night-Stalker Assassins responded with a location: third floor, eastern side.

<My office…>

Reidar crossed the ground floor, weaving between the partitions and the families who pressed themselves against the walls as he passed. He took the stairs two at a time.

Second floor. Third floor.