Others Summon, I Forge Beast Armor

The Hundred-Eye Crow had one hundred eyes that let it see everything, making it a beast with impeccable perception. It could see Luke’s attacks before he even made them.

Also, each eye contained the soul of one monster it had slain in the past, allowing the crow to summon up to a hundred monsters at will.

Anyone who saw a creature with a hundred eyes would obviously know the eyes were about perception. Luke did too, but he didn’t see that second ability coming.

And because the Hundred-Eye Crow came from an old era, the monsters trapped inside its eyes were nothing like anything that existed today!

Luke thought this was going to be a fair fight between him and the crow, but the crow threw a mythological creature at him!

”What... is that?”

〖You have slain ???〗

〖You have slain ???〗

〖Flame + 35.0〗

A pterodactyl with antlers and chicken feathers.

A dog with goat horns and a lion’s tail.

A frog with kangaroo legs and angelic wings.

Luke had to overcome his shock and slay these abominations!

They might be mythological, but that didn’t stop them from being weaker, because they had to be first weaker than the Greater-grade Hundred-Eye Crow for it to defeat them and collect their souls.

A stallion with muscular nine arms attacked Luke with all nine arms. Luke met the punches with the Hell Ape Gauntlet, and the impact shattered the arm. The shattering corrupted the rest of the stallion until it vanished into dust.

A wolf with deer antlers and crocodile scales tried to one him up after that, but Luke swept his spear across its neck before it could bite, and the beast dissolved into Flame.

A buffalo with bat wings and a snake’s neck swooped low enough to uproot broken gravestones with its wings.

Luke only stepped aside after the futile attack and answered with a magma-coated punch that burst its skull apart.

The creatures just kept coming, yet none lasted long.

Some charged, some flew, some spat poison, while most relied on strength. Luke had a response to any approach. And whenever too many gathered together, gravity dragged them into one place before he wiped them out with a combo skill from his gauntlet.

”One eye, one monster...” Luke glanced at the crow. ”How many has this thing killed?”

The Hundred-Eye Crow was in the dark clouds, watching Luke fight its summons. Every second, one of its eyes would break, and a new indescribable monster would join the fight.

Luke clenched his teeth as he realized the crow wasn’t even trying to fight him itself, but was making its past do the fighting.

”If it can really summon a hundred of them, dragging this out is suicide,” he said as he decided to attack the crow as early as possible.

With Purgatory Charge, Luke cracked the ground and leapt into the air, his gauntlet ready to strike. But the Hundred-Eye Crow flew higher into the sky to escape him.

Luke landed on a pillar and launched himself again with Blitz Charge, then a third, fourth, and fifth time, but the crow knew what it was doing, staying just beyond his reach.

Luke even twisted gravity around it, but the Greater beast adjusted before the force could catch it.

”What a coward.”

Luke glided back to earth with his sabatons.

”Without armor, one punch is enough to turn you into bird soup. Just wait...”

The Hundred-Eye Crow stayed in the clouds and kept summoning more monsters, satisfied with keeping Luke away because it had no intention of coming down.

The Crow was sure seventy or eighty summons should be enough before it intervened.

It predicted 70 or 80 monsters for Luke out of caution because any human who had reached the end of a Sigma manifestation had to be stronger than most.

But the Hundred-Eye Crow judged the wrong guy.

Luke was more of a beast than it was. He was relentless, stubborn, unyielding, and fearless.

He didn’t give up when he fell back to the earth. He recuperated and came back stronger.

〖Congratulations!〗

〖You have forged: Lightning Dragon Wing Guards!〗

〖Effect: Grants the wearer increased offenses by 100,000%, lightning affinity, and the wrath of the Lightning Dragon.〗

〖+100 XP!〗

The system chimed in his head, but Luke couldn’t hear them over the sound of the wing guards fusing to his back and his bones.

They were wings, yet not wings because there were no feathers.

He hovered now, levitated not by his sabatons, but by planet-sized wing guards, flapping gently.

The Hundred-Eye Crow’s eyes widened in that look of fear as the hunter returned to the sky, ominous, monstrous, and larger than life.

The Crow turned to flee, knowing it couldn’t fight something so formidable. But with flight now, Luke was even faster.

CRRAAAACKKK!

Luke formed a javelin of lightning and threw it at the fleeing Crow. It struck the owl, but to his surprise, it didn’t kill it.

Enraged, the Crow retaliated by summoning its strongest summons, like a whale with six fins swimming through the air and an elephant with octopus tentacles for tusks.

Armed with the Lightning Dragon’s wrath, Luke summoned thunderbolts from the sky, atomizing both behemoths before they could even touch him.

Meanwhile, Scarlett and her phoenix had slain the High Deacon.

She looked up at Luke and saw him flying with featherless wings, a sight that made her gulp.

How many more surprises did he have in store?

”C’mon, Nymeria,” she said. ”Let’s help him.”

With flight too, she and the Empyrean Phoenix rocketed into the heavens, joining Luke against the Hundred-Eye Crow like two mortals challenging a god.

”Focus on the Crow! Nymeria and I have the summons!” Scarlett called out as her Phoenix swept in with fire.

That was the right tactic.

The Empyrean Phoenix was better at clearing large groups of enemies, while Luke needed one target.

Freed from crowd control, Luke focused on the Hundred-Eye Crow.

”Nano Spikes!” Nine bolts of lightning came out from the sky like teeth and chewed on the crow.

Before it could recover, Luke followed with Purgatory Charge, crashing into it and landing punch after punch with the Hell Ape Gauntlet.

Yet, no matter how many times Luke struck the crow, it refused to die.

Soon, he realized why.

The crow wasn’t surviving on its own life. It was surviving on the concentrated master core that had revived it in the first place.

Because of the core’s energy, it would take a lot to kill the beast that contained it.

But Luke’s focus wasn’t on how many times the beast could be hit before it could die, but on what he could do to break through it at once.

A stronger output?

How could he achieve that?

Maybe by combining two skills?

Summoners could only combine the abilities of their summon, but since it’s still the same beast, the result is more or less not flamboyant.

But Luke forged beast armor. This meant the Hell Ape Gauntlet, the Bluespine Centaur Chestplate, the Seven-Tusk Elephant Sabatons... they were all active at once, just like any summon.

So, nothing was stopping him from combining their abilities as well.

But since they are not of the same beast, wasn’t that less of a combination and more of a fusion?

What kind of effects would that yield?

Luke didn’t know, but he felt it was worth a try.

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A/N: Thanks for reading!