I Regressed With a 10,000x God-Tier Multiplier-Chapter 3: Cryo-Vanguard Snipers

The roars from the surface grew louder. They vibrated through the thick stone walls of the underground stairwell.

The Great Integration did not grant a grace period. Dimensional rifts tore open across the continent.

Mutated beasts and abyssal scavengers immediately flooded the material plane.

Lucifer vaulted up the final steps. He kicked the splintered remains of the main hall doors out of his path.

Elara followed closely behind him. Her heavy silver sabatons clanked rhythmically against the stone.

Her posture was flawlessly lethal despite missing a weapon. She moved like a predator perfectly acclimated to violence.

They stepped out into the massive open-air courtyard of the Obsidian Citadel. The night sky above was no longer bruised purple. It violently twisted with dark red storm clouds.

The heavy iron portcullis at the front of the estate held for now. Three massive monstrous shapes repeatedly slammed their full body weight against the rusted iron bars.

They were Iron-Hide Boars. Each beast was the size of a draft horse. Thick metallic bristles covered them to act like natural plate armor. Their tusks dripped with acidic saliva. The saliva hissed against the stone ground.

"They will breach the gate in two minutes," Elara stated analytically. Her starlight eyes locked onto the bending iron. "I can engage them in close quarters. My physical strength is sufficient to crush their skulls even unarmed."

"No," Lucifer raised a hand to stop her forward momentum. "You just regenerated your core. You are not throwing yourself at frontline fodder. We build an army first."

Lucifer sprinted across the courtyard toward the ruined central fountain. A rusted iron lockbox lay buried beneath a loose flagstone right at the base of the dried water basin.

He dropped to his knees and jammed his fingers into the dirt. He ripped the heavy box free. He smashed the brittle lock with a nearby rock and threw the lid open.

Two items wrapped in velvet lay inside. The first was a thick parchment scroll sealed with blue wax. The second was a tarnished silver amulet shaped like a hawk’s wing.

Lucifer grabbed the scroll first. It was the Barony Defense Pact. This standard low-tier magical contract was the only thing that kept him alive through the first week of his previous life.

Activating it exchanged a portion of his localized mana to summon a temporary squad of ten Militia Archers. They were essentially peasant ghosts with longbows.

They were weak, inaccurate, and fragile. They were just enough to provide suppressing fire.

He broke the blue wax seal and unfurled the parchment.

"Soulbound Arcanum," Lucifer commanded. He poured his newly multiplied mana directly into the paper. "Fulfill the Pact."

The interface flared to life instantly.

[Item Activated: Barony Defense Pact (Tier-F)]

[Ding! Divine Talent: ’Apex Multiplier’ triggered on specific category ’Pact Summoning!’]

[Multiplying unit tier, quantity limit, and equipment quality 10,000x!]

The parchment in Lucifer ’s hands did not just burn. It vaporized into a cloud of absolute freezing white mist.

The temperature in the courtyard plummeted instantly. Frost rapidly crystallized across the cobblestones and crawled up the stone walls of the keep. The ambient air turned into a biting sub-zero gale.

Elara stepped forward. Her wings shielded Lucifer from the sheer atmospheric pressure of the magic.

A massive glowing azure magic circle easily fifty meters across exploded onto the ground in the center of the courtyard. Complex runic geometry spun violently within the circle.

Perfectly synchronized figures silently began to rise from the freezing light.

They were not peasant militia. One hundred towering figures manifested and stepped out of the light in flawless military formation. They were tall, slender, and distinctly Elven. Their skin was pale blue. Their eyes burned with a solid icy luminescence. They were clad head-to-toe in heavily articulated Cryo-Crystal armor that shifted and adapted to their movements.

They carried massive sleek magical sniper rifles in their hands. The weapons were forged from dark blue ice and pulsed with internal arcane batteries.

[Summon Complete: 100 Cryo-Vanguard Snipers (Tier-A Elite)]

[Status: Bound to Host. Permanent Duration.]

The leader of the Vanguard stepped forward. He was a tall Elf with three jagged ice-spikes protruding from his pauldron. He slammed a fist to his chest. The crystal armor chimed like a frozen bell.

"The Vanguard stands ready, Sovereign. Paint the targets."

Lucifer grinned. Frigid air plumed from his lips. He pointed directly at the main gates where the three Iron-Hide Boars currently tore the hinges loose.

"Exterminate them."

The Elven Commander did not shout an order. He simply raised his left hand. All one hundred Snipers instantly dropped to one knee and leveled their massive ice-rifles in absolute unison.

The mechanical whine of one hundred arcane batteries charging simultaneously filled the courtyard.

"Fire."

A blinding volley of solid hyper-compressed azure beams lanced across the courtyard. The sound resembled a glacier cracking in half.

The beams struck the Iron-Hide Boars with devastating kinetic force. The monsters did not even have time to scream. The sheer temperature of the blasts instantly flash-froze them.

The metallic armor, flesh, and bone converted into brittle solid ice in a microsecond.

The kinetic follow-through of the beams then shattered the frozen boars into thousands of harmless bloody ice cubes.

Elara watched the display of overwhelming firepower. Her eyes slightly widened. "That is not standard mortal magic."

"Nothing about us is standard anymore," Lucifer said. He turned his attention back to the rusted lockbox. He picked up the second item. It was the tarnished silver amulet. It was the Silver Speed Totem. This ancestral heirloom originally boosted the wearer’s agility by a modest ten percent.

He gripped the amulet tightly.

[Ding! Divine Talent: ’Apex Multiplier’ triggered on specific category ’Artifact Enhancement!’]

[Multiplying enchantment density, material durability, and law-bending properties 10,000x!]

The tarnished silver instantly liquefied in his palm. It did not burn. It felt like holding a concentrated tornado. The metal spun and reshaped itself. It expanded into a beautifully intricate weightless platinum emblem depicting a four-winged raptor in flight. The air around Lucifer ’s hand actually warped and blurred like a heat haze.

[Artifact Upgraded: Zephyr’s Grace Emblem (Mythic Tier)]

[Passive Effect: Agility multiplied. User ignores atmospheric friction and spatial drag. Movement speed exceeds mortal perception.]

Lucifer fastened the emblem to the collar of his tunic. His entire physical perspective shifted the moment the platinum touched his chest.

The world around him seemed to violently slow down. He could see the individual snowflakes falling from the residual magic of the Cryo-Vanguards. They hung suspended in the air.

"Let us test the parameters," Lucifer whispered.

A newly spawned Abyssal Crawler managed to scale the crumbling eastern wall at the far end of the courtyard. It was a multi-limbed insectoid with scythe-arms. It shrieked and locked its multi-faceted eyes on Elara to prepare to launch itself.

Lucifer simply willed himself forward.

There was no build-up or acceleration phase. He stood by the fountain one microsecond. He simply occupied the space directly in front of the Crawler sixty yards away the next microsecond.

The atmospheric displacement of his movement caught up a split second later. It generated a sharp sonic crack that blew the dust off the nearby battlements.

The Crawler froze in confusion. Its small brain was unable to process how the prey had teleported.

Lucifer did not have a sword. He used the momentum instead. He drove a bare reinforced fist directly upward into the insectoid’s mandibles.

The physical force was backed by fifteen points of Vigor and the kinetic energy of breaking the sound barrier. It entirely obliterated the monster’s skull. Green ichor exploded outward. Lucifer had already stepped backward. He moved faster than the blood could splatter on his clothes.

He stood near the eastern wall and looked back at Elara and his Vanguard. He was not breathing heavily. His muscles were not torn.

The Zephyr’s Grace Emblem completely negated the physical toll of extreme velocity. He could kite entire armies. He could move through completely saturated battlefields. He could dismantle command structures before the enemy even registered he had drawn a blade.

Elara walked slowly across the courtyard. She stepped over the shattered ice of the boars. She stopped beside Lucifer and looked down at the pulverized remains of the Crawler.

"You possess the speed of a divine messenger, the healing arts of a high cleric, and the command of an elite legion," Elara observed. Her tone lacked mockery. Profound respect replaced it entirely. "Yet you wear the rags of a ruined noble. Who are you truly, Lucifer Obsidian?"

"I am the man who is going to rewrite the end of the world," Lucifer answered. He turned his gaze to the crumbling pathetic state of his family’s keep.

The perimeter was temporarily secure, but the walls were failing. "But first we need a castle that actually matches the army."