BIOLOGICAL SUPERCOMPUTER SYSTEM C.1086: Levium (3)

Erik was on the roof. There was a look of utter focus, tinted by hatred in his eyes. The young man was looking at the surrounding enemies as if he were a predator looking at a dangling piece of meat. The Chimaeric Demon was next to him, in a fighting position.

Erik could sense its murderous thoughts thanks to the Instability brain crystal power. He could understand it because most of his murderous thoughts were directed at Uncle Benjamin.

Both for him and his clones, but even for Levium, there were no more words to spend, no more reasoning to make. The only thing that could be done now was spill blood, and everyone was determined to spill it.

However, as much as Erik wanted to smash his fist into Uncle Benjamin's face, he was in a very precarious situation. There was only a Chimaeric Demon with him, while the enemies he was going to face were too many.

Five hundred were on the roof, but many more were coming towards him from the streets, and there was no doubt they all had multiple brain crystal powers, if not from Doran's research, at least from Etrium's brain crystal equipment.

Levium stood at the head of the blackguard forces, floating in the air like a god, showing his might to all those present to witness his power.

<So cringe...>

Levium's posture was confident, his eyes glinting behind his mask, and his ego reaching the sky.

"Last chance, Erik," he said. "Surrender now, and we can end this peacefully."

But Erik just laughed. "You know that will not happen, Levium. This fight is going to end in one way, and that is with you in a pool of your own blood."

Uncle Benjamin sighed. "Then you leave me no choice. Attack!"

At his command, the blackguards and the fighters from the countries who joined him surged forward.

An initial batch of attacks came to the young man and his clone.

The air was filled with all kinds of attacks; most of them were elemental ones, which was surprising considering how rare and powerful they were.

<The blackguards must have worked really hard to get all those brain crystal powers.>

Fire and water attacks filled the space surrounding Erik. These elements crashed into each other, creating clouds of steam. This made it hard to see the battlefield.

Ice chunks flew, shining because of the lights made by the fire projectiles and the bolt of lightning that flashed in the surroundings.

These were the most complicated powers Erik had to face, but he created ice pillars that attracted them.

These weren't the only ones, though, because the water and ice attacks the enemy made achieved the same result, but it created a more messy situation since the bolts zigzagged through the different attacks, creating lightning cages that crisscrossed the battlefield.

Sharp wind blades whistled by, carrying enormous pieces of stone that could crush anything. The enemies aimed their attacks at Erik's ice pillars. These pillars were Erik's main defense against the dangerous lightning bolts. The attacks kept hitting the pillars, causing them to crack and break. Erik had to make new ones to replace those that were destroyed.

At the same time, he had to dodge the various attacks that rained on him. The Chimaeric Demon had to do the same, but for him, it wasn't as easy.

The enemy also tried to blind Erik. In truth, that results in the other blackguards ending up unable to see.

They did this by using bright light beams. The result was that all these attacks looked like nature was fighting against Erik, who found himself amid a dangerous storm of deadly projectiles.

Erik dodged the attacks. Fireballs flew past, almost burning his ears. Sharp pieces of ice zoomed by, glinting in the chaotic light.

He bent and twisted his body in amazing ways to avoid getting hit. Thanks to his instability brain crystal power, Erik could sense where the attacks were coming from and dodge them, but it was already taxing his mind.

As he moved, he kept looking around, trying to find weak spots in the constant wave of attacks.

But that wasn't the only thing Erik did. Of course, he also channeled mana through his Force Bastion Neural links.

However, contrary to the usual, he pushed a huge amount of mana into it. This time, he wasn't sure he would be able to avoid all the attacks, so he maximized his defenses.

The Chimaeric Demon didn't have that ability, and that made his creator worry. Not only because it was one of his clones, and he would be sad if he died, but even because he needed him if he wanted to survive this encounter.

Though, since it couldn't really avoid everything, the clone rushed toward the enemy. This way, the blackguards and their allies would have to be careful in what they did, unless they wanted to kill their comrades while trying to kill the Chimaeric Demon.

Once there, the clone started a bloody dance, one that decimated the soldiers barring their way. There was no way these guys could fight against him in melee, and the same was true for Erik.

In fact, the young man did the same while keeping the pillars up and using the Frostwind Fire Tempest brain crystal power to create wind blades.

He cut around 40 blackguards with one single attack, but as soon as they died, 100 more

joined the fray.

[LEVEL UP.]

Erik felt a surge of energy within his body.

<Great, let's keep going.>

In the meantime, the building trembled under the weight of the scaling enemy.

The building shook under the weight of so many enemies coming to the roof. Soon the number of people made a weight the building wasn't made to handle.

The concrete floor cracked, with small lines spreading out like a spider's web under the enemy's feet. The metal beams inside the walls bent.

The structure was going to collapse.

As the battle continued, the building became more unstable. The constant movement and the attacks made things worse.

The entire building shook. Erik felt the shaking under his feet. Erik moved through the crowd of enemies. He dodged their weapons, but it was a complicated matter. There were simply too many people on that roof.

A sword came close to his face, but he bent backwards just in time. He spun away from a spear, only to see an enemy with an axe right in front of him swinging it down.

Erik tried his best to dodge the attacks, but he couldn't avoid them all. An enemy's sword got past his defenses and struck his chest. But the blade just bounced off his armor with a loud

clang.

<Fuck, this isn't good.>

Erik's armor protected him well. Enemies hit him with maces and daggers - but none could hurt him. The problem was that some might do it sooner or later, and if he was unable to avoid the strike, he might end up with a nasty wound he would be forced to heal with his self- healing brain crystal power, increasing his mana usage.

As his mana quickly depleted, the Force Bastion resistance started decreasing.

<Shit...>

Erik focused on attacking though, because if the enemy was so crazy to use ranged attacks on

him, they would kill their own soldiers. By doing that, the number of attacks significantly

reduced.

Then a streak of lightning arced from his fingertips, killing another batch of soldiers.

[LEVEL UP.]

But while Erik could get his mana back this way, the Chimaeric Demon couldn't. There were already many wounds on its body, but the carnage he wrought was incredible.

The clone killed at least 100 people alone, and melee at that. The problem was that the number of soldiers was not just 500 anymore.

It was at that point that the building trembled, much more than it did before. The constant barrage of attacks and the weight of thousands of fighters couldn't be sustained anymore. "It's collapsing!" Erik said under the groaning of stressed metal and concrete.

The roof broke with a loud noise. The building fell apart. Floors crashed down, sending debris and dust everywhere. Erik and the others fell with it, trying to avoid the falling pieces of

concrete and metal.

The fall wasn't a problem. That height would not be lethal, and even if he got injured, he still

had the self-healing brain crystal power to fix him.

However, he realized he was going to end up on the ground, and he couldn't allow that.

The buildings would act as arenas, and like all of them, there was a limit to combatants they

could house.

If the blackguards got on the rooftop with him, they would have to pay attention to how many soldiers went on it and how many attacks they could make before the building collapsed again, or the same result would repeat.

"This way!" Erik said to his clone, gesturing towards the adjacent rooftop. The Chimaeric Demon nodded. Both of them used the falling debris, like stepping stones, and by jumping, they reached the building.