The wind rustled the surrounding leaves, carrying the smell of wood from the forest behind. Reidar dismissed the ravens, watching them dissolve into blue mist before peering through the heavy foliage at the sprawling city in the distance.

"We're here," Jake said.

"Ashwick," Lena said. She crouched behind a massive oak, pushing a branch aside to check the area. "Silas is down there."

Reidar nodded. The Archdeacon was close, at least based on what they knew, but of course, things could be different.

"He's probably at a higher level now."

The group was stronger than they had been in Creamont. Reidar was at Level 358. Lena was 346. Jake was 337. They were titans compared to the average survivor, but Silas wasn't exactly the average survivor, and neither were the church members.

"What are we going to do?" Jake asked. "It's clear we are not strong enough to defeat him."

"We don't need to fight him today," Reidar said. "We just need to see what we're dealing with. Today we are going to scout. We must get an idea of what is going on inside the base and how strong these guys are, and then we find a way to kill them."

Charging in would just be suicide. In Ashford and Redwater Crossing, Reidar had far better information about the place compared to Ashwick, and that was the reason he took far more risk than he was willing to do now. Reidar didn't know much about the place this time.

Ashwick was massive. It wasn't just a settlement; it was a sprawling military complex that had swallowed the ruins of a pre-apocalypse city.

The original buildings—office blocks, apartments, shops—were still there, but they had been gutted and repurposed in a far clearer way compared to the other church settlements they went through.

Windows were boarded up with steel plates, not wood, and Reidar was sure that was not cheap metal either. Roofs were converted into watchtowers bristling with ballistas loaded with giant arrows. The streets were cleared of debris to allow for rapid troop movement.

In the center, a massive cathedral dominated the skyline, its spires twisted with the violet sigils of the Church. Around it were barracks and armories, plus some other kinds of buildings that formed a tight defensive grid.

But the real problem was the people.

—[Church Zealot Frank Huber—Level 250]—

…

—[Church Elite Sentinel Anna Merz—Level 285]—

…

—[Church Inquisitor Charles Bauer—Level 310]—

…

—[Church Paladin Mary Steiner—Level 330]—

…

The city was crawling with Church members. Patrols moved with disciplined rigor, which was a far cry from how survivors behaved in the rest of the world, at least based on what Reidar saw.

These guys weren't survivors anymore; they weren't even mutants; they were just an army, the strongest one on the planet, taking the Aegis Phalanx aside, but they were starting to rival them.

Surrounding the entire city was the wall. It stood fifty feet high, constructed from dark, matte stone that seemed to drink the light.

"Mana-dampening stone," Reidar said. "The survivors weren't lying."

Reidar considered how the Aegis Phalanx could miss such a large settlement, but he realized something else must have been at play.

Regardless, the answer came down to a logical combination of concealment and strategic diversion.

The settlement's walls were constructed with mana-dampening stone, which generated a range that likely created a blind spot for the Phalanx's sensors, scouts, and whatever.

The Church concealed their activities through intermediary forces—similar to their use of the War Hounds in Creamont or Aaron and Mara in Havenwood—while simultaneously creating portals that released high-level monsters throughout the region, with these threats growing increasingly powerful as more creatures from the other side accidentally wandered through the openings.

These high-level monsters acted as a distraction, forcing the Phalanx to deplete their resources on immediate containment rather than scouting a remote, bowl-shaped valley that naturally concealed the enemy.

Reidar sighed and observed the place more.

The wall was a solid square, broken only by four massive gates located at the cardinal points: East, West, North, and South.

Each gate was at least 5 stories tall, reinforced with some kind of other-world metal, and guarded by squads of high-level elites.

Reidar watched the patrols from the safety of the tree line. The number of high-level guards was absurd. In Creamont, a Level 200 was a boss. Here, they were foot soldiers.

"Look at the North Gate," Lena said. "They're rotating the guard right now. I count approximately twenty Elites stationed there, along with two Paladins overseeing the operation."

"Level 330 Paladins," Jake said. "That's… a lot of heavy hitters."

Reidar frowned. The sheer number of Level 300+ enemies was a problem. Individually, his team could handle them. Reidar could probably take on three or four Paladins at once without even the need to use his summons.

But twenty? Hundreds? Plus the support of even more Zealots? Besides, he was reaching a point where using his low-tier summons was not going to be effective anymore.

<Damn mutants…>

The average church member increased in levels almost as fast as he did, but the levels only partially offset the tier difference.

<I will need to ask a vendor as soon as I can.>

For humans, tiers depended on the level. So, someone at level 358 like Reidar was essentially at tier 35, almost tier 36. But why was it different for the summons?

<Perhaps tier isn't determined by level at all. It's possible that people associate higher levels with higher tiers simply because the system gradually unlocks our inherent capabilities, which would mean that we humans are naturally high-tier creatures. The question is, am I right?>

There was no way to know unless Reidar asked someone else.

"Can't you do something with your summons?" Lena asked.

"If we get bogged down, they'll swarm us. We can't just rely on higher levels. We'll run out of stamina before they run out of bodies."

"Most likely not," Reidar said. "Batch summoning skills are not as effective as they were before because of the tiers, and against numbers, the power of a single summon decreases."

He paused. "You have seen it yourself," Reidar said.

"How many boss monsters did we fight that I killed with the sheer number of summons I threw at them?"

Jake looked at Reidar. "So? How do we do this?"

Reidar paused.

"We find out what the walls can actually do," Reidar said. "If the dampening field is absolute, we have to go through the sewers like we planned. But if there's a gap… we might have options. It's not just that, but we also need to figure out where the walls' effects start. And we need to know if the field affects existing summons differently than new ones—whether I can move summons close to the wall if they're already manifested outside the range and stuff like that."

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