Chapter 107: [107] : Joint Defense Protocol, The Void Breach

The rain poured down on the ruined street of Sector 7.

Commander Richter stood perfectly still. The massive blue railgun was locked dead center on Declan’s forehead. The weapon whined and practically begged to unleash its hyper-kinetic payload.

Down in the mud, Darius let out a pathetic gurgling cheer.

"Commander!" Darius yelled and clutched his ruined chest plate. "Shoot him! He stole my core file! He hacked the system! Just delete him!"

Richter didn’t look down at his subordinate. He kept his glowing blue tactical visor entirely focused on the guy in the black trench coat.

Richter wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t get to Level 70 and become the commander of the Praetorian Guard by shooting first and asking questions later. He was a corporate mercenary. He operated on calculated risks and data analysis.

And the data he was looking at right now made absolutely no sense!

"Visor," Richter commanded quietly over his private comms. "Run a full biometric and threat-level scan on the target."

The blue lights on his helmet flared. A grid of laser optics swept over Declan from head to toe.

Richter’s internal HUD instantly flooded with warning prompts.

[Target Scan Complete.]

[Name: Hidden Alias (Player V)]

[Level: 70]

[Class: Abyssal Sovereign (Ascendant Tier)]

[Warning: Target possesses anomalous physical density. Target is emitting a localized gravitational field. Target possesses an active energy barrier scaling beyond measurable limits.]

[Threat Level: Catastrophic. Engagement highly discouraged.]

Richter’s breath caught in his throat.

Level 70. Ascendant Tier!

The guy wasn’t just a hacker with some neat tricks. He was a peer. He was standing at the absolute peak of the server’s power scaling. And he had an energy shield that the system couldn’t even put a number on.

If Richter pulled the trigger, the railgun slug would probably just bounce off that invisible barrier. And then the Warlord would pull out whatever weapon he used to casually chop a Level 50 Juggernaut’s armor into scrap metal.

Richter was pragmatic to his very core. Fighting a prolonged deathmatch in a rainy alleyway against an unkillable glitch was terrible for business.

The whine of the railgun slowly pitched down.

Richter lowered the massive weapon and rested the barrel against the wet asphalt.

"Stand down," Richter ordered his gunship crew over the radio.

Darius stared at his boss in absolute disbelief. The jaws of everyone would have dropped if they saw this!

"Commander?! What are you doing?!" Darius screamed from the dirt. "He took my passive! I’m useless without it! Kill him!"

Richter finally looked down at the large crying man.

"You are useless," Richter agreed coldly.

He didn’t hesitate. Richter pulled a heavy high-caliber hand cannon from the holster on his thigh. He didn’t even aim down the sights. He just pointed it at Darius’s head and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

The armor-piercing round shattered Darius’s visor. The Juggernaut’s health bar instantly zeroed out.

Darius’s body went limp and immediately dissolved into a massive shower of bright blue digital pixels. He left his ruined crimson armor behind in the mud.

Declan raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t expected that.

"Corporate restructuring?" Declan asked lazily.

"Pruning dead weight," Richter replied and holstered the hand cannon. He stepped over the dissolving pixels and walked a few feet closer to Declan. He kept his hands away from his weapons.

"Darius was an idiot," Richter said smoothly. "He let his ego get in the way of his orders. His mission was to scout the borders, not pick a fight with the guy who dropped a space station on a World Boss."

"Word travels fast," Declan noted.

"I saw the satellite feed before the blackout," Richter stated. "You claimed Sector 4. You built a fortress. You have power. I respect power."

Richter tapped a button on his wrist console. The glowing blue visor on his helmet retracted. It revealed a sharp battle-scarred face with cold gray eyes.

"We have a mutual problem, Player V. And shooting each other isn’t going to solve it."

"I don’t have any problems," Declan smiled.

"You have a border problem," Richter corrected him. He pulled up a holographic map from his gauntlet and projected it into the space between them.

The map showed the current layout of the real world. Sector 4 and Sector 6 were highlighted.

"The server merge is accelerating," Richter explained and pointed at the glowing red line separating the two districts. "The physical boundaries are dropping. When Sector 6 and 7 fully fuse, the game’s engine is going to try and equalize the monster populations."

Richter zoomed in on the commercial district right between their two territories.

"My scouts didn’t come here to rob you. They were tracking this."

A massive pulsing black hole appeared on the map. It was huge. It covered almost five city blocks!

"A Class-A Abyssal Void breach is opening right in the middle of the commercial zone," Richter said grimly. "It’s a permanent spawn point. It is going to spew out Level 60 and 70 Void beasts directly into our backyards every single hour."

Declan looked at the map. He crossed his arms.

"Your Praetorian Guard has fifty thousand players. Send an army to camp the spawn point. Farm it."

"I can’t," Richter shook his head. "My guild is tied up securing the military bases in Sector 6. If I pull my heavy hitters to babysit a portal, we lose our strongholds. If we ignore it, the Abyssal Tide floods both of our cities."

Richter looked Declan dead in the eye.

"I am proposing a temporary truce. A Joint Defense Protocol."

"I’m listening," Declan said and his tone remained neutral.

"We formally link our guild registries for this specific hazard zone," Richter explained. "My long-range artillery units provide cover fire from the Sector 6 borders. Your people handle the close-quarters cleanup and lock down the physical streets. We split the aggro. We share the burden."

Declan stared at the map. He wasn’t looking at the danger. He was looking at the massive endless supply of high-level monsters pouring out of a single convenient hole.

That wasn’t a threat. That was a fully automated Origin Point farm!

Suddenly, a golden system prompt chimed in Declan’s vision.

[System Event Triggered: Joint Defense Protocol]

[Would you like to formally ally with the Praetorian Guard (Sector 6) to contain the Abyssal Void Breach?]

[Daily Quest Unlocked: Void Extermination.]

↳ Objective: Slay 1,000 Abyssal Entities within the commercial district breach zone every 24 hours.

↳ Reward: 100,000 Origin Points per day. High-tier material drops guaranteed.

Declan read the prompt. One hundred thousand points a day just for killing things he was going to kill anyway! Plus whatever loot the monsters dropped. It was literally free money.

And he didn’t even have to do the work himself. He had an immortal Shadow Legion for exactly this kind of chore.

A slow predatory smile spread across Declan’s face.

"I like your style, Richter," Declan said. He tapped the Accept button on his interface.

The system chimed happily.

[Alliance Confirmed.]

"We have a deal," Declan stated. "My forces will lock down the streets. You keep your artillery firing. But if one of your stray shells hits my city dome, the truce is over, and I come for your headquarters."

"Understood," Richter nodded. He looked genuinely relieved. He tapped his gauntlet and closed the map. "I’ll authorize the system link. Good doing business with you, Warlord."

Richter turned around. He tapped a button on his belt and a heavy cable dropped from the hovering stealth gunship above. He grabbed it and the winch rapidly pulled him up into the dark cargo bay.

The gunship banked sharply and flew off into the rainy night. It headed back toward Sector 6.

Declan stood alone in the alleyway.

He had just secured a daily payout of a hundred grand and completely neutralized a massive corporate army with a single conversation.

"Being a boss," Declan muttered as he dusted off his coat. "Is incredibly profitable."

He turned around and started walking back toward the glowing purple dome of the Iron Bastion. He needed to update Sloane on her new supply chain.

Seems like he trusted Richter easily.