Chapter 105: [105] : Providence Download, The Cost of Posturing

CLANG!

The sound of the impact was absolutely deafening.

It sounded exactly like a massive church bell being struck.

The sheer kinetic shockwave blew outward in a perfect circle, instantly shattering the glass windows of the ruined apartment buildings on both sides of the street.

The fifty members of the Praetorian Guard cheered loudly, raising their spears.

They fully expected to see the arrogant Warlord’s avatar instantly vaporized into blue pixels.

They expected to see his body scattered across the wet pavement.

But the dust cleared. The rain washed the smoke away.

Declan had not moved a single inch.

His +10 Spiked Striders were planted firmly on the wet asphalt. His back was perfectly straight.

The +20 Black Aegis shield strapped to his left arm didn’t even have a microscopic dent in it!

The matte-black surface was completely pristine.

Darius was frozen in place.

His massive crimson gauntlet was pressed completely flat against the dark metal of the shield.

The Level 50 Juggernaut’s eyes were wide with pure, unfiltered shock.

His jaw was hanging open inside his helmet.

"How?" Darius gasped, his voice trembling.

"That was fifteen thousand damage! That punches through bank vaults! That breaks city walls!"

"Nice hit," Declan said smoothly. His dark eyes locked onto the giant. "My turn."

Declan didn’t swing a weapon. He didn’t cast a high-level magic spell. He didn’t even punch the guy.

He just let the broken mechanics of his mutated gear do the work.

[Trait Triggered: Kinetic Repulsion]

The Black Aegis shield had completely absorbed the physical momentum of the ultimate skill.

It didn’t just negate the massive damage numbers. It stored the raw physics of the attack.

Declan gave his left wrist a lazy, casual flick forward.

The stored kinetic energy exploded outward from the shield’s surface in a concentrated, horrifying blast of pure physical force.

BOOM!

The shockwave hit Darius at point-blank range. The massive Juggernaut was literally lifted off his feet!

The heavy crimson armor caved inward with a sickening crunch of warping metal and snapping bone.

Darius was launched backward like he had been fired out of a military railgun!

He flew completely over the heads of his own terrified squad.

He smashed directly into the thick brick wall of an abandoned apartment building across the street.

He didn’t stop there.

The sheer repulsive force carried him completely through the first wall, through the interior hallway, and straight through the back wall of the building!

He finally came to a dead stop in an alleyway on the next block over.

He was completely buried under a massive pile of rubble, twisted rebar, and concrete dust.

His health bar instantly dropped into the deep, flashing red zone. He was completely unconscious.

The street went dead silent.

The heavy rain hitting the asphalt was the only sound left in the world.

The fifty members of the Praetorian Guard stood absolutely frozen in place.

Their glowing spears were lowered. Their heavy iron tower shields suddenly looked completely useless.

They stared at the massive, jagged hole in the brick building, and then they slowly, carefully turned their heads to look at the guy in the black coat.

Declan casually lowered his shield. He looked at the terrified mercenaries.

"Your boss just broke a lot of public infrastructure," Declan stated coldly, brushing a speck of dust off his shoulder.

"And I really hate property damage in my sector."

A heavy, oppressive aura rolled off Declan’s body.

His Abyssal Sovereign stats bled directly into the physical space around him, making the air feel incredibly thick and hard to breathe.

The gravity around the street seemed to multiply.

"I’m going to make this very simple," Declan said.

His dark eyes swept over the shaking players.

"You just tried to assassinate the administrative owner of Sector 7. That is a capital offense. It means I can delete all of you without a penalty."

He tapped his digital interface.

A glowing gold menu popped up in the air between him and the heavily armed squad.

"I am charging you a fine," Declan announced smoothly.

"One point five million Origin Points. That is exactly thirty thousand points per person."

"You have exactly ten seconds to wire the funds to the Iron Bastion treasury, or I pull out my halberd and we see how your shields hold up."

"Thirty thousand?!" one of the spearmen in the back row choked out in pure horror.

"We don’t have that kind of money! We just spent everything in our guild bank on the tracking scrolls to find you!"

"Then you get deleted," Declan replied effortlessly.

He raised his right hand. The air distorted violently.

The heavy, dark matter shaft of the +40 Eclipse Severance halberd materialized directly into his grip.

The tiny black hole spinning in the center of the razor-thin blade hummed hungrily, sucking the toxic rain right out of the air.

The guards took one look at the physics-breaking, reality-tearing weapon and completely panicked.

"Pay him!" the lieutenant screamed, dropping his shield and frantically tapping his own interface.

"Dump the personal banks! Dump the emergency funds! Transfer the points now!"

System chimes flooded Declan’s ears in rapid, beautiful succession.

[Transfer complete: +30,000 Origin Points]

[Transfer complete: +30,000 Origin Points]

[Transfer complete: +30,000 Origin Points]

[Transfer complete: +30,000 Origin Points]

Within five seconds, the entire sum of 1.5 million points hit his treasury account.

The elite hit squad had completely drained their life savings, their gear funds, and their survival rations just to buy their lives from the Warlord.

"Smart choice," Declan smiled.

He willed the massive halberd away, dismissing it back into his digital inventory.

"Now drop your weapons, leave the armor, and get out of my city before I change my mind."

The fifty heavily armed players didn’t hesitate for a single second.

They threw their glowing spears and heavy iron shields onto the wet asphalt.

They unbuckled their chest plates and sprinted away down the avenue, entirely abandoning their unconscious leader in the rubble.

Declan didn’t care about them. They were just walking wallets, and he had just emptied them.

He walked slowly across the street, stepping over the dropped weapons and the broken bricks.

He navigated through the shattered building and found Darius lying in the dark alleyway.

The Juggernaut’s crimson armor was completely ruined. The chest plate was folded inward. He was out cold, his breathing shallow and ragged.

Declan didn’t pull out a weapon to finish him off. He didn’t want the kill experience.

He was already level capped until he fully merged his physical vessel. What he wanted was the code.

He opened his inventory and pulled out a small, glowing silver tool he had looted from the Deep-Web Admin Node earlier.

It looked like a heavy, rectangular data drive with a sharp, terrifying needle on the end of it.

[Item: Forced Extraction Tool]

Declan knelt down next to the massive, unconscious player.

He grabbed the back of Darius’s neck, located the glowing neural port at the base of his spine, and jammed the silver needle directly into it.

The tool beeped loudly.

[Initiating File Extraction. Target: Passive Core.]

A bright blue stream of raw, concentrated data flowed out of the Juggernaut’s neck and directly into the silver drive.

Darius violently twitched in his sleep as his unique class file was literally ripped from his character profile!

Declan pulled the tool out. He looked at the glowing data drive in his hand.

He had just stolen the best tank passive in the game, and he was going to make it his own.