"Declan, you can’t cross that line," Nova warned as she took a step back. "The server merge hasn’t happened yet. That static is a hard coded physical wall. The system literally will not allow an avatar to exist inside it. You’ll hit an invisible barrier."

"The system tells normal players what to do," Declan replied smoothly. "I am an administrator."

The air in front of his right hand violently distorted. The game engine shrieked as it was forced to render his Sovereign tier weapon. The heavy dark matter shaft of the +40 Eclipse Severance dropped perfectly into his grip.

The razor thin blade held the spinning black hole in its center and hummed with pure destructive static.

"Watch this," Declan smirked. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

He didn’t wind up for a massive strike. He didn’t use the Gravity Well trait. He simply raised the halberd and dragged the blade in a straight vertical line directly down the center of the static wall.

The Spacetime Laceration trait activated.

There was no sound of clashing metal. There was no explosion. There was only the distinct wet sound of thick canvas tearing perfectly in half.

The blade entirely ignored the server’s spatial geometry. It didn’t break the wall. It literally deleted the coordinate plane the wall was occupying!

A massive jagged black tear ripped through the gray static. The game code physically parted to reveal a perfect ten foot wide doorway directly into Sector 6.

Nova’s jaw dropped. "You just cut a hole in an unreleased expansion zone!"

"Stay here," Declan ordered. He rested the heavy halberd on his shoulder. "I’ll be right back."

Declan stepped through the tear in reality.

On the other side, the staging ground of Titan Heavy Industries was loud and busy. The heavy diesel engines of their massive green combat mechs roared loudly. Guild officers were screaming orders over megaphones to make sure every single player was perfectly positioned for the invasion tomorrow.

The Guild Master was a massive man wearing a ridiculously bulky suit of power armor that made him look like a walking tank. He was standing on the hood of a transport truck.

His system tag read.

[Atlas, Level 75, Siege Commander]

"Check your thermal regulators!" Atlas roared. "When that timer hits zero, we roll forward and we don’t stop until we reach that purple dome! We take Sector 7 by force!"

"Excuse me," a cold and unnaturally heavy voice came across the staging ground.

Atlas stopped yelling. The thousands of heavily armed players stopped loading their weapons.

They all turned to look at the static boundary wall.

Standing perfectly still and completely alone was a guy in a pitch black trench coat. He was entirely unbothered by the army of mechanized infantry staring at him. He was casually holding a halberd that looked like a piece of the night sky.

"You guys are parked in my driveway," Declan said smoothly.

Atlas stared at him in absolute bewilderment. He looked at the jagged black tear in the server wall behind Declan.

"How did you cross the border?!" Atlas demanded as his voice cracked with shock. "The system says 24 hours! That’s impossible!"

"I don’t really care what the system says," Declan replied. He took a slow step forward. "My name is Player V. I own Sector 7. And I charge a very strict toll for loitering near my property."

The elite players of Titan Heavy Industries quickly recovered from their shock. They realized who they were looking at.

"It’s the anomaly!" an officer yelled and pointed a heavy plasma rifle at Declan. "It’s the Warlord! He walked right into our camp!"

Atlas burst into loud arrogant laughter. The heavy metal plates of his power armor clanked together.

"You arrogant fool!" Atlas sneered. "You think because you survived the Praetorian Guard you can walk into our sector alone? We are heavy siege specialists! We have enough firepower sitting right here to level a mountain range! Light him up!"

Atlas didn’t hesitate. He dropped his arm and signaled the attack.

Fifty heavy combat mechs spun their rotary plasma cannons directly at Declan. Thousands of players raised their rifles.

"Fire!"

A blinding storm of green plasma and heavy artillery shells erupted from the Titan convoy. The sheer volume of fire was enough to completely vaporize a city block in seconds. The projectiles screamed through the air and aimed squarely at Declan’s chest.

Declan didn’t dodge. He didn’t use Void Blink.

He just raised his left arm.

"Black Aegis," Declan muttered.

The +20 mutated titanium riot shield materialized instantly on his forearm. He planted his Spiked Striders into the metal plating of the floor and braced himself.

The massive artillery barrage slammed into the matte black surface of the shield!

CLANG! BOOM!

The sound was absolutely deafening. A massive cloud of smoke and fire instantly swallowed Declan completely.

"Keep firing! Melt him down to base code!" Atlas roared and laughed maniacally.

The Titan guild poured millions of points of damage into the smoke cloud for ten solid seconds. They didn’t stop until their weapons clicked empty and hissed with overheating steam.

The smoke slowly cleared.

Declan had not moved a single inch.

His boots were firmly planted. His pitch black Predator’s Coat wasn’t even singed. The Black Aegis shield on his arm didn’t have a single scratch on it.

"My turn," Declan smiled coldly.

The Kinetic Repulsion trait triggered.

The +20 Black Aegis hadn’t just blocked the damage. It had absorbed every single ounce of physical momentum from the heavy artillery shells. And now it fired it directly back out.

A massive concussive shockwave of pure invisible kinetic force exploded outward from the shield.

It hit the front line of the Titan convoy like a localized hurricane!

The massive green combat mechs weighing dozens of tons each were literally lifted off the ground and launched backward. They crashed violently into the infantry behind them and crushed hundreds of players instantly.

Armor shattered. Bones snapped. The heavy transport truck Atlas was standing on flipped over entirely. It sent the Guild Master crashing face first into the dirt.

"AGH!" Atlas screamed as his health bar plummeted into the red zone.

Before the Guild Master could even stand up, the air in front of him distorted violently.

Declan used Void Blink. He materialized right on top of the ruined truck and stood directly over Atlas.

Declan didn’t swing the halberd. He didn’t need to. He just pressed the heavy blunt side of the dark matter weapon against Atlas’s chest plate.

"Event Horizon Annihilation," Declan whispered.

The tiny black hole in the halberd expanded. A localized gravitational singularity ripped open right on top of the Guild Master.

The pulling force was absolute. The massive bulky power armor crumpled inward like cheap tin foil. Atlas shrieked in terror as the sheer physics breaking weight of the black hole compressed his avatar and his weapons and his entire inventory into a tiny bloody cube of digital trash!

[Player Atlas Defeated]

↳ Origin Points +85,000

The singularity collapsed and left behind absolute silence.

The surviving members of Titan Heavy Industries stared at the tiny crushed cube that used to be their Level 75 Commander. Pure unfiltered terror completely broke their morale.

Declan rested the halberd on his shoulder. He looked at the trembling army.

"I’m going to say this once," Declan’s voice rumbled with heavy Abyssal authority. "Turn your mechs around. Walk back to whatever city you came from. If I see a single one of you near my border tomorrow..."

Declan pointed the halberd at them.

"I will delete Sector 6 entirely."

The Titan players didn’t hesitate. They dropped their weapons and scrambled to their feet and ran for their lives. They abandoned their ruined camp.

Declan smirked. He picked up the heavy loot drives dropped by Atlas and turned around and casually walked back through the spatial tear into Sector 7. The jagged black rift snapped shut behind him and left the border perfectly secure.

"Merge handled," Declan said to a stunned Nova and Morgan. "Let’s go home."