Reidar kept repositioning. Every time the Behemoth adjusted its path, he moved his forces to stay between it and the city.

The demon lords were now focusing their attacks on the creature’s face and eyes, trying to keep it irritated enough to pay attention to them.

The ground forces attacked the feet and ankles, creating a source of annoyance that the creature couldn’t easily shake off because the summons were too many and too spread out.

The Death Knights were the most effective part of the strategy, not because their attacks did meaningful damage, but because their Desecrated Ground skill created zones of corrupted terrain into which the Behemoth’s feet sank.

The corrupted ground didn’t slow the creature that much, but it changed the texture of the earth beneath its feet in a way that made each step land differently and feel as if it were walking in sludge. That small difference, multiplied across dozens of corrupted zones, was enough to change the creature’s walking direction by a few degrees.

A few degrees, over hundreds of meters, added up.

<It’s turning. Slowly, but it’s turning. >

Meanwhile, back in the city, Reidar’s remaining forces continued their work on the portals.

Through the Overmind Consciousness, he watched as a group of Inferno Tyrants found another portal’s magic circle beneath a collapsed market stall and melted the runic array into slag with concentrated fire.

The portal collapsed. Monsters caught in the threshold were cut apart, and the flow of creatures from that rift stopped.

The situation was repeating itself over and over, but that situation happening again also meant that the mana in the surroundings was increasing more and more.

That was going to attract monsters from even farther corners of the country, if not the world.

Of course, the biggest problem was the portal monsters, since they were the highest level out of the bunch; the monsters that came with earlier portals were weaker, and the native monsters were even worse than them.

But at that point, the number of creatures there would reach levels that even Reidar might not be able to keep in check.

Still, despite knowing this, Reidar found a moment to rejoice in his accomplishment.

<Six of seven portals had been destroyed. >

Reidar redirected the forces that had been working on the northern portal toward the central plaza. At the same time, he pulled a group of Spectral Army soldiers away from the portal cleanup and sent them to reinforce the Aegis, where the forest monsters were hitting the hardest.

However, Reidar had to focus on his battle. The Behemoth took another step.

The creature slightly altered its path, but not enough; plus, the more monsters died, the more that thing reset its target.

Whatever Reidar was doing was a fragile thing. If the amount of mana in the surroundings kept increasing, and the beast decided his summons were not enough of an incentive to stay away, it would walk through his entire army and barely notice the experience.

The Behemoth’s arm came down again. Two thousand skeletal warriors and three death knights were destroyed.

The spectral horses dissolved, and the armored undead commanders hit the ground hard enough to leave craters before their bodies faded into black mist.

The remaining Death Knights re-summoned their battalions and resumed the attack.

The numbers dropped and rose in a rhythm that would have made a fantastic workout montage if the Death Knights hadn’t been squished like bugs beneath a cosmic boot, turning everything into a jumble of death and gore.

The creature’s eyes moved across the swarm of summons, and for a moment, Reidar thought it was looking for him. He was high above the battlefield, riding his Terror Condor, watching the fight from a distance that should have been safe.

The Behemoth’s gaze passed over him like he was a particularly uninteresting speck of dust. It didn’t even pause. Reidar might as well have been holding a sign that said “FINAL BOSS HERE” in flaming letters, and the Behemoth would’ve still swiped left.

Apparently, when you’re the size of a small mountain, somebody on a giant bird registers somewhere between “irrelevant” and “not even worth stepping on.”

<Good. Stay that way. Preferably forever. Or at least until I’m done pretending I have everything under control. >

However, Reidar still had to do something, or the quest would fail, and he had no intention of passing on that huge amount of C.L.A.S.P. points.

<Hell no!>

It was at that moment that he cast his many debuffs on the creature.

Reidar raised his hand, and through the Overmind Consciousness, he sent the command to every summoned creature capable of casting debuffs.

The Shadow Specter-Kings took the initiative. Twenty shifting holes in reality appeared in the air around the Behemoth, their star-flecked forms rippling as they unleashed Terror Incarnate. Reidar wasn’t sure how effective fear would be against something that big, but the aura washed over the creature, attempting to distort its perception.

The Elemental Demon-Lords followed. Void Demon-Lords created Entropy Fields around the Behemoth’s legs, accelerating decay in the air itself, while Arcane Demon-Lords cast Spell Devourer, trying to drain any magical energy the creature might be using to sustain its massive form.

Lightning Demon Lords released Chain Annihilation, bolts of electricity jumping across the Behemoth’s hide, growing stronger with each arc. The damage was negligible against something that large, but the electrical interference disrupted its nervous system—or whatever passed for one in a World Carver.

Ice Demon-Lords targeted the creature’s joints with Crystalline Decay, attempting to freeze and crack the tissue where its limbs connected to its body. Fire Demon Lords followed up with Soul-Searing Heat, radiating intense heat that burned not just flesh but the creature’s essence itself.

The death knights on the ground maintained their desecrated ground; the corrupted zones spread further as more knights joined the formation. The Behemoth’s feet sank deeper into the tainted earth with each step.

Vorathid Abyssal-Horrors dived from above, painting the creature with the Hive Mind Mark. The mark spread across the Behemoth’s back like a glowing network of veins, increasing the damage it would take from all of Reidar’s insects by fifty percent.

The Primal Chimera-Colossi added their contributions. Acid-Spitting Myriapods released Corrosive Deluge across the creature’s legs, the acid eating through its outer hide and reducing its natural armor. Hydra-serpents breathed streams of poison, shadow, and arcane energy, each element adding another layer of debilitation.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep