The Hammer of War, Chapter 55

Name: Amir Azad
Title: War-Summoner
War Points: 10,000

STR – 47
DEX – 40
VIT – 161

—

Dungeon Quest Completed! Regular Boss Defeated! - 10,000 War Points Rewarded!
Choose your reward!

Weapon
Artifact
Unit

I blinked at the prompt.

Well. That hadn’t happened last time.

It wasn’t an easy choice, not at first. A new weapon was tempting. Always was. A bigger gun meant fewer problems, and the System had no shortage of ridiculous firepower sitting on its shelves. An artifact had its appeal too. Some shiny little tool that bent the rules of the world would’ve been nice—teleportation, instant healing, maybe a little pocket watch that stopped time whenever I felt like taking a nap. But then Alexandra’s words echoed in the back of my head like a disappointed teacher watching her student fail the easiest question on the exam.

I was a summoner.

So maybe I should, you know, summon things.

As much as it killed me to admit she had a point, she was right. I’d spent half my time acting like a one-man army when the entire System seemed bent on reminding me that I was supposed to have an army. If I leaned into that, if I stopped pretending I was the action movie star and actually commanded the units I’d collected, I’d be stronger for it.

So, even though the idea of a shiny new artifact made my inner magpie squirm, and the thought of a gun that could probably level half a neighborhood made me grin, I went with the option that made the most sense.

Unit.

Reward Rerolling….

Reward Upgrade! 

Wait, what? Why? What did I do? Did the System just decide I deserved a bonus?

New Unit Unlocked! [Custodian Guard]

[Custodian Guard] – Renowned as the Golden Legion, the Brotherhood of Demigods, the Golden Brotherhood, and a host of other titles, such as The Custodian Guard, The Guardians, the Emperor’s Saints, the Watchers of The Throne, The Thousand Companions, The Ten Thousand, but most commonly known as Custodians, are the guardians of the Imperial Palace and the Golden Throne, as well as the personal bodyguard to the Emperor. P.S. If you somehow got this unit early, then you’re in for a treat.

Damn.

This guy had to be ridiculously strong. And he was mine.

I couldn’t help but grin. The Custodian Guard would be a fine addition to the roster. One more piece in the army I kept telling myself I was going to actually use instead of just letting them gather dust in the back of my [Inventory].

With that settled, I didn’t even bother celebrating. I restarted the dungeon. I wasn’t done with this place until it was boring—until I could clear it half-asleep with my hands tied behind my back.

If Alexandra wanted me to stop acting like a solo act and actually lean into my strength as a summoner, then fine. I also wanted to be strong enough to be able to do things without my army. I’d do both. And with a Custodian Guard on my side, things were about to get a whole lot easier.

The dungeon reset blinked me and my surviving units back to the starting position. Same cracked desert. Same ugly sky. Same headache waiting to happen.

This time I didn’t waste a second. I summoned the Custodian Guard.

He appeared beside me in a flash of light, golden armor catching the alien sky like a beacon. The man was enormous—easily over ten feet tall, maybe more. Every plate of his armor looked like it had been crafted by someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder and unlimited resources. In his hands rested a spear with a gun attached to it, because apparently one weapon wasn’t enough for him.

“Oh yeah,” I muttered, grinning like an idiot. Out in the distance the daemonettes reappeared, screaming and twitching their way across the dunes. I pointed. “Kill them all again.”

We charged.

The Custodian moved like a predator in slow motion, deliberate but impossibly fast when it counted. Where his spear struck, daemonettes ceased to exist. My army surged with him, and I realized quickly that this run wasn’t going to be like the last one.

The Nobz had grown again. Not just a little bigger—full-blown gym-bro bigger. Each one looked like it had been eating tanks for breakfast. The Gargantuan Squiggoth had bulked up too, its back covered in extra layers of armor plating and new automated turrets that spat fire with casual indifference. It stomped forward like it had been waiting all day for this.

Half an hour later, the Custodian and I stood over the defeated form of the dungeon boss. Its body twitched once, then collapsed into nothing. Easier than last time. Much easier. Not a landslide, but close enough that I could taste it. The Custodian fought like an army in one man.

Dungeon Quest Completed! Regular Boss Defeated! - 10,000 War Points Rewarded!
Choose your reward!

Weapon
Stat Bonus
Unit

I frowned. Another unit was tempting. The idea of rolling the dice again and maybe landing something even crazier than the Custodian was appealing. But I wasn’t stupid. For all the power my army had, I still needed to grow myself. Units couldn’t save me if some supernatural freak decided to teleport behind me and rip my spine out.

“Oh well,” I said aloud. “Stat Bonus it is.”

+10 to all Stats!

My eyes widened, holy shit. 

STR – 57
DEX – 50
VIT – 171

War Points: 20,000

The change hit me instantly. I felt stronger, faster, more durable than I had been just moments ago. Muscles tightened, my balance sharpened, and the world seemed to slow just enough to remind me how far I’d come. I couldn’t help but grin. I had wondered the fuck I was supposed to raise my STR and DEX stats for some time now. I’d even contemplated just buying stats from the System Market itself, but ultimately decided against that because it was economically unfeasible. Now, however, it seemed like all I had to do was grind the shit out of this dungeon. Ten points to all my stats was no joke.

Having 20,000 War Points wasn’t too bad, either. 

I restarted the dungeon again, third run in a row. By now I had the routine down cold. Same barren desert, same ugly sky, same wave of screeching daemonettes. The only difference was that it was easier than before. Noticeably easier.

The Custodian Guard was a walking buzzsaw, cutting down daemonettes like they were made of soggy paper. He didn’t shout, didn’t posture, didn’t even look like he was trying. One swing of that spear-gun hybrid and three bodies hit the ground at once. Meanwhile, the Nobz and the Squiggoth were getting even stronger with every run. The Nobz had started to look like professional strongmen who lived off protein powder and bad decisions, while the Squiggoth now had more armor plates and enough automated turrets on its back to qualify as a small fortress.

The boss fell eventually, same as last time. Still dangerous, still huge, but less of a nightmare now that the Custodian was on the field.

Dungeon Quest Completed! Regular Boss Defeated! - 10,000 War Points Rewarded!
Choose your reward!

Artifact
Weapon
Stat Points

The choice was simple. I’d already made up my mind about how I was handling this. If Stat Points were on the table, I was taking them. End of story. Units were great, but raw stats were more expensive, harder to get, and couldn’t be taken away from me. Artifacts and weapons were tempting, but they were tools. Stats were permanent.

So I chose Stat Points.

+10 to all Stats!

STR –67
DEX – 60
VIT – 181

War Points: 30,000

Hell yeah.

At this point I was strong enough to snap a pebble between my fingers like it was chalk. And if I could do that to a pebble, I could do the same thing to human bones. Or most bones, honestly. Back when I only had 47 STR, I turned Helena’s head into pulp with nothing more than my fists. She was a High-Class Devil, tougher than a human by every metric, and even she hadn’t lasted long. With 67 STR, I could repeat that performance without breaking a sweat.

I grinned, rolled my shoulders, and kicked off the fourth run. By now, the whole thing felt like a strange routine—wake up in a cursed desert, summon the army, fight through screeching daemons, kill the boss, cash out. Rinse and repeat.

Even with plenty of my fodder units dying and going on cooldown, the real heavy hitters were still standing. I had all three Carnifexes, the two Nobz, the Squiggoth, a lone Drukhari Incubus, and the Custodian Guard. That lineup was more than enough to handle another full clear, and they didn’t disappoint. The boss went down hard, but not nearly as hard as the first time. Between my stat increases and the Custodian Guard getting a proper workout, it was starting to look like practice rather than a deathmatch.

Dungeon Quest Completed! Regular Boss Defeated! - 10,000 War Points Rewarded!
Choose your reward!

Artifact
Weapon
Ability

That last one made me pause. An ability? That was new.

Up until now, I’d been running entirely on my [Blank] aura. Useful, sure, but it was basically my entire kit–at least, in terms of attack. Everything else was just weapons or units, nothing innate. It wasn’t my fault—I hadn’t been given anything else to work with. But here it was, the System practically dangling a new toy in my face. I didn’t even hesitate. Ability selected.

War Points: 40,000

New Ability Unlocked! [The Wings of Sanguinius] 

[The Wings of Sanguinius] – Summon a pair of angelic wings with nigh-indestructible feathers that can be used for both offense and defense. The wings can be summoned through any armor and clothing, and can be hidden just as quickly. When active, the wings grant the ability of unrestricted flight, even in a vacuum, with speeds of up to 900 meters per second. 

I blinked. Then I blinked again.

Great. I could fly now. Not a bad upgrade. Actually, a fantastic upgrade. No more worrying about ladders, traffic jams, or the general human problem of not having wings. And the feathers doubled as weapons and shields, which meant I wasn’t just a guy with wings—I was a guy who could turn said wings into a blender mid-fight. The ultimate wingman.

I decided I liked this development.

And because I wasn’t done farming, I reset the dungeon again. And again. And again. Four more runs in total, each one faster than the last. By the end of it, the Custodian Guard wasn’t even breaking a sweat, the Squiggoth looked like a rolling fortress on legs, and the Nobz were starting to resemble green-skinned siege engines.

The rewards stacked up nicely, too. A new +20 to all Stats, two new Units consisting of one Baneblade Tank, and a squad of five Carcharodons Space Marines

And, of course, another 40,000 War Points, bringing my total up to 80,000.

STR –87
DEX – 80
VIT – 201

War Points: 80,000

New VIT threshold reached!

New Passive Unlocked! [Iron Bones]

[Iron Bones] – Your bones are nearly impervious to physical damage. 

Huh, nice. Unexpected, but definitely welcome. 

By then, I was quite ready to take on the Khornate Dungeon… just as soon as my dead units finished their cooldown so I could use them again, which would be about… two days away, damn. With no choice, I sent all my units back into my [Inventory] and collapsed the Dungeon. I reappeared back in the real world, where no time had passed since my absence. Alexandra, however, noticed immediately. “Ah, welcome back. Didn’t think it would be that quick.”