A loud echoing chime rang across the entire global server.

Declan looked up at the sky. The massive digital timer hovering faintly in the dark clouds suddenly flashed a bright and glaring yellow.

[Server Notification]

↳ Sector 6 and Sector 7 Merge in exactly 24 Hours.

[Warning]

↳ Boundary instability detected. Extreme spatial anomalies present at sector borders.

The air inside the Iron Bastion felt perfectly fine but outside the energy dome, the horizon was physically tearing apart. The distant skyline of Sector 7 ruined buildings was glitching and shifting violently back and forth between broken skyscrapers and empty static voids.

"The walls are coming down," Declan muttered.

He turned away from the balcony railing. He walked back into his luxurious penthouse. He didn’t bother putting on his heavy +20 Desolation Armor Set. The passive true damage reflection was overkill for a simple scouting trip.

He just wore his pitch black Predator’s Coat and his +10 Spiked Striders. His base Abyssal Sovereign stats were more than enough to handle whatever was out there.

"Nova. Morgan," Declan commanded over the party chat. "Meet me in the courtyard. We are going for a drive."

Five minutes later, Declan walked out of the central keep.

Sitting in the middle of the stone plaza was his absolute favorite piece of looted corporate technology. The +30 Abyssal Behemoth Rover.

The massive pitch black hover tank looked like a stealth bomber fused with a main battle tank. The twin barreled plasma cannon mounted on the roof hummed with dark purple energy. The four anti gravity thrusters glowed with a cold blue light to keep the heavy machine hovering two feet off the ground.

Nova and Morgan were already standing next to it.

Morgan the elite assassin had fully repaired her skin tight tactical suit. She looked sharp and professional and completely relaxed.

Nova on the other hand looked like she wanted to be anywhere else. The icy blue haired hacker was clutching her silver data pad tightly to her chest.

"Are you driving?" Nova asked as she eyed the Warlord nervously.

"It’s my car," Declan said smoothly. The heavy side doors of the Rover hissed open. "Get in."

Nova groaned quietly but climbed into the back seat. She immediately strapped herself into the heavy leather harness. She had experienced Declan’s driving once before. She knew the machine ignored all terrain friction. This meant he drove it at Mach 1 directly through physical obstacles.

Declan slid into the driver’s seat. Morgan sat in the passenger side as she casually checked the edge of her combat knife.

Declan placed his hands flat on the glowing purple control panel on the dashboard. His Abyssal Neural Interface instantly synced with the vehicle code. He didn’t need a steering wheel because he drove with his mind.

"Open the main gate," Declan ordered the system.

The heavy black iron doors of the city ground open.

The Abyssal Rover shot forward like a railgun slug.

They blasted out of the Iron Bastion and instantly hit a speed that pressed Nova back into her seat. The vehicle made no sound other than the low and terrifying hum of displaced gravity.

The ruined wastelands of Sector 7 blurred past the reinforced windows. The toxic rain simply bounced off the dark matter hull.

"Where are we going?" Morgan asked as she watched a group of Level 20 Flesh Stalkers get instantly vaporized. The Rover passively deleted them upon impact.

"The border," Declan replied. His pitch black eyes stared straight ahead. "The system says the merge is in twenty four hours. I want to see exactly what is waiting on the other side."

They crossed twenty miles of apocalyptic ruins in less than three minutes.

The environment began to change rapidly. The dark and muddy slums of Sector 7 abruptly ended.

"Stop the car," Nova said with a tight voice. "The spatial code here is completely fractured. If we drive into that, the game engine might literally tear us in half."

Declan mentally pulled back on the throttle. The massive hover tank decelerated instantly and came to a perfectly smooth stop without a single jolt of inertia.

They stepped out of the Rover.

Declan looked at the edge of the world.

It was a literal wall of gray hissing television static. The boundary stretched endlessly upward into the sky and vanished into the horizon on both sides. It was the hard coded server wall separating Sector 7 from Sector 6.

But because of the impending merge, the wall was flickering.

Through the massive gaps in the static, Declan could see the other side.

Sector 6 didn’t look like a ruined slum. It didn’t look like a gothic wasteland. It was a highly advanced and fully militarized tech zone.

He saw towering metallic bunkers made of pristine white steel. He saw massive glowing red forcefields projecting over sprawling military compounds.

"Scan it," Declan ordered.

Nova stepped forward. Her blue eyes glowed as she tapped rapidly on her holographic wrist interface. She sent a highly encrypted data ping through the flickering static wall.

A moment later, a massive blue screen projected into the air in front of them.

"It’s not the Praetorian Guard," Nova said. Her voice turned cold and serious. "Commander Richter’s forces are based in the northern quadrant of Sector 6. This is the eastern border."

"So who is it?" Morgan asked as her hand rested on her dagger.

Nova enhanced the visual feed. The image cleared up to show a massive staging ground right on the other side of the static wall.

There were hundreds of heavy and heavily armored combat mechs. They were painted in a dull military green with heavy yellow hazard stripes. Thousands of players wearing bulky exoskeleton power armor were lined up in perfect formation. They were loading massive rotary cannons and checking heavy artillery batteries.

They were an army actively preparing for an invasion.

"Titan Heavy Industries," Nova read the guild tag floating over the massive encampment. "Level 70 to 80 mechanized infantry. They are a massive corporate conglomerate specializing in heavy siege warfare."

Declan shoved his hands into his coat pockets. He stared through the static at the massive army waiting on the other side.

"They are lined up right at the border," Morgan noted like a true assassin. "They have their engines running. The second that 24 hour timer hits zero and the wall drops, they are going to blitz straight into Sector 7."

"They want the Iron Bastion," Nova added. "Your city is the only safe zone in this sector. They want your real estate."

Declan let out a low and dark chuckle. The sound carried a heavy and terrifying resonance over the quiet wasteland.

"They want my city?" Declan smiled. His pitch black eyes swirled with violent purple energy. "I really hate waiting in lines. Let’s go introduce ourselves."

He raised his right hand into the air.