Chapter 98: [98] : Consuming the Embers, The Divine Spark

The golden blood rained down heavily on the Iron Bastion.

Down in the massive stone courtyard, thousands of players were completely losing their minds. They were practically stepping on each other to get a better view of the sky.

They had just watched a Level 90 alien invader guy who had literally shown up with a personalized sun and demanded they all become his slaves have his arm casually chopped off by their Warlord.

"He cut right through the shield!" a warrior yelled, grabbing his own head in disbelief. "Did you see that? The boss put up three walls and Player V just swiped right through them!"

Sloane was standing by her mahogany desk near the main gates. She had one hand resting on her heavy crossbow and the other shielding her eyes from the glare of the golden blood hitting the city’s energy dome.

"I am never asking him for a raise," Sloane muttered, shaking her head. "I am just going to be happy with my seven percent cut and stay very, very quiet."

Kendra was standing next to her, gripping her +10 Sniper Bow. She let out a long breath she didn’t realize she was holding. "I thought we were dead. I really thought that alien was going to melt the city. Declan just treated him like a tutorial mob."

High above them, the fight was rapidly turning into an execution.

Korr, the Saint of Embers, was completely broken. The sheer psychological shock of losing a limb to a player thirty levels below him had shattered his arrogant worldview.

This wasn’t a fight. This was a buggy, glitching nightmare, and he was on the wrong end of the code.

"You are a virus!" Korr screamed. His volcanic glass helmet was cracked, and the orange fire inside was flickering weakly. He backed away from Declan, stepping wildly on the empty air. "Apex Paradigm will scrub this server clean! You will not leave this planet alive!"

Declan didn’t say a word. He just took a slow, menacing step forward. The tiny black hole in his halberd pulsed with a dark, rhythmic thrum.

Korr didn’t try to cast another spell. He didn’t try to pull out a weapon with his remaining hand. He looked at the guy in the black coat, looked at his own severed shoulder, and made the only logical choice available to him.

He ran.

The Level 90 alien turned his back on Declan. He focused all of his remaining mana into his boots. A massive burst of roaring fire erupted from his feet, launching him forward like a massive rocket.

He was heading straight for the jagged, white-hot dimensional rift he had used to enter Earth’s atmosphere. If he could just get back through the portal, he would be back in the Outer Sectors. He would be safe in the core servers where anomalies like Player V couldn’t reach him.

"He’s running!" Sloane yelled from the ground, pointing up at the sky.

Declan watched the alien shoot away at supersonic speed. The fiery trail illuminated the dark clouds.

"No, you don’t," Declan muttered. "You don’t get to drop a sun on my house and just leave."

He didn’t bother throwing his halberd. He didn’t cast a ranged spell.

He tapped into the massive stamina pool provided by his Abyssal Sovereign stats.

’Void Blink.’

The sky went completely pitch black for a fraction of a millisecond. Declan didn’t just teleport fifteen meters. He chained the skill perfectly. He cast it ten times in a single second, completely ignoring the stamina drain.

He blurred across the sky like a skipping shadow, rapidly closing the massive gap between him and the fleeing alien.

Korr was only fifty feet away from the glowing white rift. He reached his remaining hand out toward the portal, desperate to cross the threshold.

"Almost there," the alien gasped.

Instantly, the air directly behind Korr violently popped.

Declan materialized right on the alien’s back. He didn’t swing the heavy +40 Eclipse Severance. He just let it vanish back into his digital inventory. He needed his hands free for this.

Before Korr could even register the shift in air pressure, Declan reached out and grabbed the back of the alien’s helmet. He bypassed the metal entirely and dug his dense, heavily synced fingers directly into the roaring flames that served as the monster’s hair.

The fire flared up, trying to aggressively burn the intruder. It didn’t work. The +10 Predator’s Coat and Declan’s sixty percent real-world physical density completely ignored the heat.

"Where are you going?" Declan whispered coldly.

Declan planted his boots in mid-air, anchored his momentum, and violently yanked backward with every ounce of his massive base Strength.

The sheer kinetic force of the pull instantly killed Korr’s forward momentum. The Level 90 boss was whipped backward so hard his neck made a sickening cracking sound.

"Argh!" Korr choked as he was pulled away from the escape portal.

Declan didn’t let go. He spun the massive, nine-foot-tall alien around in the air like a ragdoll.

Korr thrashed wildly. He brought his remaining left fist around in a desperate, blind haymaker aimed right at Declan’s face.

Declan didn’t dodge. He just raised his left forearm. He didn’t even summon the +20 Black Aegis riot shield.

The heavy, armored fist of the alien smashed directly into Declan’s bare arm.

Thud.

It sounded like a baseball bat hitting a solid block of titanium. Declan didn’t even flinch. His arm didn’t move an inch. The damage didn’t even register on his health bar.

Korr stared at Declan’s arm in absolute horror. "What are you?!" the alien sobbed. "You do not have a physical hit box! You are not a player!"

"I’m the Warlord," Declan replied smoothly.

He pulled his right fist back. His pitch-black eyes flared with swirling, dark purple energy. The veins on his neck and arms bulged, glowing with raw, corrupted mana.

He didn’t use a skill book. He didn’t use a weapon trait. He just used the raw, unadulterated physical power of an Ascendant-tier player fully synced into reality.

"And Earth is my farm."

Declan drove his fist directly into the center of Korr’s chest.

He hit the thick volcanic glass armor plate that covered the alien’s heart. The heavy, magical defense was designed to withstand direct hits from siege cannons and high-level explosive magic.

Declan’s fist punched right through it.

CRACK!

The armor shattered into a million tiny, jagged pieces. Declan’s hand buried itself deep into the alien’s chest cavity. He felt the sickening squish of digital organs and snapping bone.

Korr’s eyes rolled back into his head. A horrible, gurgling sound escaped his throat.

Declan reached deep inside the monster. His fingers closed around something hot, pulsing, and solid. It felt like a miniature, vibrating star.

He gripped it tightly and violently ripped his arm back out.

A massive shower of golden blood followed his hand, spraying wildly into the cold air.

Declan floated perfectly still. He held his bloody right hand up. Sitting perfectly in his palm was a glowing, incredibly bright orb of raw, golden energy. It pulsed with a heavy, divine rhythm.

[Item Retrieved: Divine Spark]

[Target: Korr, Saint of Embers. HP: 0 / ???]

The alien boss didn’t fall. The moment the Divine Spark was ripped from his chest, Korr’s massive body instantly froze. The bright orange fire inside his helmet died out completely.

The dark volcanic armor lost its color, turning a dull, ashy gray.

A second later, the massive Level 90 Entity shattered. He didn’t turn into normal blue pixels. He turned into millions of flakes of gray ash that simply blew away in the cold wind, erased completely from the server.

A massive, golden system chime hammered into Declan’s head. It was so loud it made his vision blur.

[Outer Sector Invader Defeated!]

[Experience Points Gained: 50,000,000]

[Level Cap Ignored. Processing Data...]

Declan ignored the massive influx of experience points. He didn’t care about his level right now. His eyes were completely locked onto the glowing golden orb resting in his bloody hand.

The Divine Spark.

This was the ultimate drop. This was the item that powered a Level 90 Entity.

Declan’s dark, predatory smile returned. The megacorps wanted to shut his power off. They wanted to send their little drone armies to kill him in the real world.

He was about to make sure they never even thought about stepping into his city again.