Boundless Family Upgrades For The Deadbeat Lord

A metallic crash rolled across the district, the Ursar twisted, and Tristan became a dark streak crossing above its back.

Raymond blinked. He had missed half of it.

Boris lowered his viewing tube. ”Can you follow them?”

”Barely.” Raymond shook his head with a grim expression.

”Good. I thought my eyes were getting worse.” Boris also nodded.

Another impact interrupted them.

The Blackstone Ursar swung one forepaw.

Raymond didn’t actually see the paw move.

He saw Jonathan vanish from beside the creature and then saw an entire wall thirty meters away explode outward when something struck it. A heartbeat later Jonathan climbed from the wreckage, apparently still alive.

”Holy shit.”

That was all Raymond managed.

Seven Silver Knights converged on the beast from different directions. To Raymond, the fight became a sequence of consequences rather than actions.

A flash of steel near the Ursar’s hind leg. A burst of stone from the road. A Silver Knight suddenly appearing on a rooftop that had been empty an instant earlier.

The Ursar turning. The building behind it losing an entire corner. Tristan striking the beast’s face, although Raymond saw only the spray of blood that appeared afterward.

Their speed was far beyond what Raymond’s 8-Star Bronze perception could properly process. He possessed the physical capability of a powerful Bronze Knight now, but the distance between Bronze and Silver was suddenly obvious. He couldn’t imagine what Gold actually meant if thirteen men of that level were required to fight one creature.

The Ursar roared and slammed both forepaws into the street.

The ground jumped.

Raymond nearly lost his footing despite being hundreds of meters away.

A wave ran through the paving stones around the beast, splitting the road in several directions.

One crack tore beneath an abandoned house and lifted the front wall enough for the entire structure to collapse sideways.

Another reached a barricade reinforced with stone-filled wagons and overturned both of them. Three Bronze Knights positioned well outside the fight were knocked from their feet simply by the shock.

Raymond’s expression hardened. ”Earth affinity.”

Boris looked toward him. ”Apparently.”

”Wonderful. Because being the size of a fucking house wasn’t enough.”

The Ursar charged Garret next. The Silver Knight raised his shield, but Raymond shouted despite knowing there was no chance his voice would reach him in time.

The beast struck. Garret was launched backward through the remains of a market stall, continued across the street, and smashed into the wall of a stone warehouse hard enough to create a crater in the masonry. The building survived, barely. Garret emerged several seconds later with half hisshield missing.

Jonathan and three others used the opening. Their attacks landed around the Ursar’s foreleg in rapid succession, concentrating repeatedly on the same joint.

Dark blood sprayed across the street. One strike pierced deeply enough to make the beast stumble.

Then the golden light beneath its armor brightened.

Raymond felt the pressure even from where he stood.

The Ursar’s injured foreleg slammed down.

The earth beneath Jonathan erupted.

A ridge of stone burst upward through the road and threw two Silver Knights into the air. Another jagged formation tore through the side of a house and punched through the second floor. Tristan somehow avoided it, runningseveral steps along a wall before disappearing from Raymond’s sight again.

Boris stared through the viewing tube. ”They’re hurting it, but not fast enough.”

Raymond knew.

Worse, the battle was destroying the very terrain his strategy depended on.

The Ursar didn’t care about narrow streets. If a road restricted it, the beast went through a building. If a barricade blocked it, the barricade ceased to exist.

Each missed attack tore apart walls, cracked streets, or collapsed nearby structures. Raymond could manage the movement of hundreds of weaker beasts because buildings and barricades gave him boundaries.

A Gold Rank creature was changing those boundaries every thirty seconds.

One of the runners reached the roof. ”My Lord! Jonathan reports two Silver Knights are injured. One has a broken arm. The other can still fight but his chest armor is damaged.”

Raymond looked across the district.

Thirteen Silver Knights. Some already exhausted from fighting for hours and two are injured.

The Ursar still standing. And they still had smaller beasts scattered across the outer town.

His remaining reserve appeared immediately in his mind.

Fifteen Bronze Tickets. Five Silver Tickets.

He had saved them precisely for something like this.

But using them openly would create another problem. Enough people already believed Raymond was a Divine Emissary because of the miracles surrounding the farm, water, and specialists. If five fully armed Silver Knights materialized in front of hundreds of witnesses, there would be no stopping whatever religious insanity followed.

Raymond looked toward Boris. ”Keep watching the fight. I’m going downstairs.”

Boris tore his eyes away from the battlefield. ”Why?”

”I need five minutes.” Raymond shouted.

”Raymond.” It was rare for Boris to use his name without a title.

Raymond looked at him.

”If you’re thinking about going near that thing again after what happened with the Stonehide Bull, I’ll personally have Jonathan tie you to a chair.”

”I’m not going near it. I learned that lesson very thoroughly.” Raymond reassured him with a smile.

Boris studied him for a moment before turning back toward the battlefield. ”Five minutes.”

Raymond descended the rear staircase and moved through the emptied building into a narrow service yard hidden between the merchant house and an abandoned bakery. Nobody remained there. The evacuation had cleared the entire block, and the noise of the battle was distant enough that nobodywould casually wander in.

He opened the System.

[ Inventory ]

[ ×15 Bronze Summoning Tickets ]

[ ×5 Silver Summoning Tickets ]

Raymond stared at the second line. ”System.”

[ Awaiting Command. ]

Raymond said with a serious face. ”Select all five Silver Summoning Tickets.”

[ ×5 Silver Summoning Tickets Selected ]

[ Remaining After Use: ×15 Bronze / ×0Silver ]

Raymond didn’t hesitate. ”Use them.”

The five tickets vanished from his inventory and a softly white light flashed and instantly the empty service yard simply wasn’t empty anymore.

Five armored men stood before Raymond where there had been nobody a heartbeat earlier. Each carried the equipment of a Silver Rank Knight, and the pressure radiating from them was immediately familiar.

They lowered themselves onto one knee.

”We greet the Lord.”