Declan materialized right on top of the West Gate battlements.

The situation over here was an absolute disaster. The heavy automated turrets that Bram had installed earlier were smoking heavily. Their barrels were melted from overuse and completely out of ammunition.

The transparent red defensive shield was completely shattered. This left a massive gaping hole in the city’s perimeter. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Hundreds of low-level players, the refugees and factory workers who had just picked up weapons yesterday, were huddled on the wall. They were desperately thrusting rusty iron spears and cheap wooden swords at the endless tide of Void beasts trying to climb over the black iron.

They were losing badly.

Several players had already been dragged down into the dark matter horde by glitching scythe-claws. Their avatars dissolved into blue pixels as they screamed while their real-world bodies flatlined in their dive pods.

Declan did not pull out his +40 Eclipse Severance halberd. He did not have time to jump down there and play a melee game of whack-a-mole with a million enemies.

He needed to clear the board instantly. He needed to test his new toy.

He stepped up to the very edge of the wall and looked down at the massive screaming sea of monsters below. He raised his right hand and pointed his index finger straight up at the dark corrupted sky.

He funneled a massive chunk of his Ascendant-tier mana pool directly into the newly acquired skill file.

"Orbital Kinetic Strike," Declan commanded.

He did not have to chant. He did not have to stand still and wave a magic staff for ten seconds to build up the spell. His mutated Sovereign Neural Interface completely bypassed the game’s casting requirements.

The sky above the West Gate violently tore open. There was no warning. There was no glowing magic circle to signal the attack.

A massive towering pillar of pure white kinetic energy shot down from the heavens. It was as wide as an entire city block. It slammed directly into the absolute center of the Abyssal horde pressing against the wall.

The sound was like a nuclear bomb detonating inside a metal garbage can.

The sheer physics-breaking force of the orbital drop completely vaporized the mud, the rocks, and every single monster caught in the massive blast radius. The resulting shockwave blew the remaining Void beasts hundreds of feet into the air. Their digital bodies shattered into useless blue dust before they even hit the ground.

In less than three seconds, the entire western front was completely wiped clean. A massive and perfectly smooth crater that looked like a meteor impact site was all that remained of the invasion force.

The terrified low-level players on the wall dropped their rusty spears. They stared at the Warlord standing casually at the edge of the battlement. His black coat fluttered in the wind of the explosion.

Declan did not look at them. He did not ask if they were okay. He just checked his minimap again.

"Void Blink."

He teleported directly to the South Gate. The situation there was just as bad, with monsters spilling over the walls.

Declan did not even use a spell this time. He was feeling a little lazy. He just tapped his foot against the stone pavement and summoned his Shadow Legion.

One hundred immortal and pitch-black clones dropped from the sky like a bad nightmare. They crashed directly into the southern monster army. The clones swung their dark matter halberds with perfect and ruthless synchronization. They completely ignored the monsters’ attacks as they deleted coordinate planes by the dozens.

Declan just leaned against a stone pillar on the wall and watched his army physically delete the server’s invasion force. He was a teleporting Warlord casually strolling through the apocalypse like he was managing an excel spreadsheet.

Within ten minutes, the North, West, and South gates were completely secure. The endless screeching of the monsters had died down entirely. The system notifications in his vision finally slowed to a manageable and readable pace.

But the game was not over. The system was not done trying to kill him.

Declan looked toward the East Gate. The atmosphere over there was completely different. The sky was not just dark. It was entirely pitch black. All the ambient light in the city seemed to be getting forcefully sucked toward that one location.

He did not use Void Blink. He wanted to save his stamina for whatever was causing that visual glitch. He just jogged across the city rooftops and easily leaped over fifty-foot gaps with his massive and unhindered Agility stats.

He landed softly on the heavy iron platform of the East Gate.

Commander Richter and Nova were already there. They were not fighting. They were not shooting their guns or casting spells. They were just standing at the very edge of the wall and staring up at the sky in absolute crushing despair.

Declan walked up behind them. "What are we looking at?"

Richter did not turn around. The veteran corporate commander just pointed a shaking armored finger upward.

Hovering directly over the city and slowly descending through the dark clouds was a machine that defied all server logic.

It was easily the size of a commercial skyscraper. It was made entirely of shifting server blocks, heavy artillery cannons, and incredibly thick red energy shields. It had no face, no arms, and no legs. It was just a massive glowing red optical lens that stared down coldly at the Iron Bastion.

[System Purge Entity]

↳ Name: The Apex Eradicator

↳ Level: 100

Declan’s eyes narrowed. "Level 100," he noted flatly.

"We are dead," Nova whispered. The elite and icy hacker was trembling uncontrollably. Her pristine silver cybernetic suit was covered in dust and mud. "That thing doesn’t have a standard health bar. It is an administrative wipe tool. It doesn’t fight. It just drops on a sector and deletes everything inside the zone limits."

Richter finally turned around. His battle-scarred face was completely pale and drained of all his usual corporate arrogance. He reached into his tactical pouch and pulled out two small glowing silver USB drives.

He shoved them forcefully toward Declan.

"Take these," Richter demanded. His voice was tight with genuine panic. "They are emergency corporate log-out drives. They cost millions. They bypass the server lock entirely. They will safely disconnect your physical body without frying your brain."

Declan looked at the glowing drives, but he did not reach for them.

"Take Nova and get out of here," Richter begged while pushing the drives closer. "She is my best cyber-warfare asset. I cannot let her die here. Use your teleport skills. Get her to a secure off-grid bunker. The shield is going to fall, and that thing is going to turn this entire city into a flat parking lot."

Declan just stared at the Level 70 Vanguard. Then he slowly reached out and took the silver drives from Richter’s shaking hand.

Richter let out a massive sigh of relief. He thought the Warlord was finally being reasonable.

Declan closed his fist.

With a sharp and sickening crunch, he crushed the highly expensive and extremely rare log-out drives into fine silver powder. He opened his hand and let the digital dust fall from his dense fingers onto the stone wall.

"What are you doing?!" Richter screamed. His eyes were wide with horror.

"I don’t run from my own property," Declan said coldly. His dark and purple-swirling eyes locked onto the massive red lens in the sky.

Nova stared at him. She looked at the crushed drives on the floor and then she looked at the Warlord’s completely unfazed expression. The terrifying confidence radiating from his posture was absolute. He was not acting like a player trapped in a death game anymore.

"You can stay here and panic," Declan stated. He rolled his shoulders as he casually pulled the massive +40 Eclipse Severance halberd from his inventory. "I am going to go execute it myself."