Chapter 107: The Abyssal Overdrive, A 150% Multiplier
Tiny streams of green hexadecimal code flashed across her pupils as she checked his data.
"Vitals optimal," Isolde breathed out. She actually sounded relieved. The flat, broadcasting tone was completely gone for a second. "Your health pool is currently sitting at one hundred percent capacity."
Levi let out a tired laugh, resting the heavy haft of his Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse against the stone floor. "I told you I had it. The Lifesteal on this weapon is a complete joke."
Before he could pull himself up to his feet, the system interface erupted into a blinding cascade of golden notifications right in his face.
[System Notification: Trial Completed Successfully.]
[Evaluation: Flawless Execution.]
[You have unlocked the Class Ultimate.]
A massive, glowing black-and-gold skill book materialized in the air in front of him. It didn’t wait for him to grab it. The book shattered into heavy, dark particles that rushed straight into his chest.
[System Notification: You have learned Abyssal Overdrive.]
Levi opened his skill menu instantly. He needed to see the math. He tapped the new, aggressively glowing icon at the bottom of his list.
[Abyssal Overdrive]
[Rarity: Unique Active]
[Effect: Consumes 50% of Current HP and 1,000 Mana. Surges the user with the true power of the Hollow King. Grants +150% Final Damage, +100% Speed, and outright ignores all Level Suppression penalties for 60 seconds. Cooldown: 24 Hours.]
Levi just stared at the text. He didn’t blink for a solid ten seconds.
"This is it," Levi whispered.
This wasn’t just a buff. It was a game-breaking multiplier. Most damage buffs in Starfall applied to a player’s Base Attack. But Abyssal Overdrive applied to Final Damage. That meant it calculated after enemy defense and after all other modifiers. If he was going to hit a boss for 10,000 damage, popping this skill would instantly turn it into 25,000 damage.
And it completely ignored Level Suppression.
He could walk up to a monster thirty levels higher than him and hit it for absolutely full, unmitigated value. It was functionally an assassination button for entities that weren’t supposed to be killed.
"The cost is steep," Levi muttered, doing the math.
Consuming 50% of his current HP meant if he popped this skill at full health, the system would instantly delete 13,090 health points from his 26,180 Max HP pool. Throw in the massive 1,000 Mana cost, and it was the most expensive button in the entire game.
But Levi just smirked.
"Fifty percent health doesn’t mean anything when I have twenty-five percent Lifesteal," Levi said, pushing himself up off the stone floor. "If I pop the skill, my damage spikes so high that a single swing of this scythe will instantly heal me right back to full."
Isolde stood up next to him. She processed his new data parameters. "Your offensive burst capabilities have increased beyond standard measurement metrics. We are fully capable of resuming the ascent."
"Yeah, we are," Levi said.
He didn’t bother resting any longer. He checked his quick-belt. He had plenty of Greater Mana Potions left, and his health was fully topped off. The real climb was about to begin.
Floors 51 to 80 weren’t puzzle rooms or boss arenas. According to his past-life memory, they were a relentless, unbroken gauntlet of high-density mob floors. The developers basically designed this stretch of the tower to drain raid parties of their potions and patience before they reached the top.
Levi and Isolde pushed past the unlit brazier and took the stairs leading up to Floor 51.
The moment they stepped off the landing, the room lit up with hostile red aggro markers. The floor was completely packed with towering, armored guardians.
[Spire Guardian]
[Level: 55 | Elite]
[HP: 50,000 | ATK: 3,500 | DEF: 1,000]
"Level fifty-five," Levi noted, spinning his scythe.
He was Level 54. That was exactly a one-level gap. The Level Suppression penalty was a laughable 5%.
"Isolde, drop the snares," Levi commanded. "Group them up."
"Artillery protocols engaged," Isolde stated.
She slammed her wooden staff into the ground. Massive, glowing red circular fields expanded across the floor. Dozens of Spire Guardians rushed forward, their heavy iron boots getting instantly bogged down as their speed stats were forcefully yanked down to 100. They stumbled and bunched together perfectly in the center of the room.
Levi didn’t even need to use his new ultimate skill.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He ripped the Platinum blade in a massive ten-meter cone.
His permanent Total Attack was sitting at 6,732. The math was practically a formality at this point.
6,732 multiplied by the 3.5 skill modifier gave him 23,562 raw damage.
The Guardians had 1,000 Defense. His scythe ignored 30%, dropping it to 700.
23,562 minus 700 effective Defense left 22,862.
Apply the tiny 5% penalty.
[-21,718] [-21,718] [-21,718] [-21,718]
The massive red numbers flooded his UI. The 50,000 HP pools of the Guardians were instantly ripped completely in half.
Levi blurred into the pack. His 1,736 Speed made him a glitching dark shadow. He hacked through the clustered mobs with basic physical strikes. His raw attacks hit for roughly 6,000 damage a pop. The 25% Lifesteal triggered constantly, feeding thousands of health points back into his pool, making him totally immune to any stray spear thrusts from the panicked mobs.
Isolde added her 5,000 True Damage blasts from the backline, perfectly syncing her shots with Levi’s armor shred.
They cleared Floor 51 in less than three minutes.
They ran up the stairs to Floor 52. Same layout. Same mobs. Same slaughter.
The climb turned into a hyper-efficient, brutal machine. Levi didn’t stop to rest. He didn’t even loot the bodies; he just let the auto-pickup system vacuum the silver coins and crafting materials into his bags as he ran over the dissolving polygons.
Floor 60. Floor 70. Floor 80.
The XP drops from the Level 55 Elites were massive. Even without a huge underdog multiplier, killing hundreds of them stacked up an insane amount of raw experience.
As Levi carved through the final Spire Guardian on Floor 80, the monster shattered into pixels.
[System Notification: Slain Spire Guardians. Gained 105,000,000 XP.]
The golden pillar of progression light crashed down through the ceiling of the Spire. It washed over Levi, instantly clearing away the physical fatigue burning in his arms and fully restoring his mana pool.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 55.]
Levi let out a heavy breath, wiping a smudge of digital ash off his forehead. He opened his status menu.
The 105 million XP added to his previous 14.5 million gave him exactly 119.5 million XP. The Level 55 threshold required 150 million. The math processed, paying the cost and leaving him with 10,000,000 XP carrying over into his next bar. He now needed 160,000,000 XP to hit Level 56.
He had 5 new free stat points. He dumped them straight into Strength to keep his basic attack damage scaling upward.
His Strength bumped from 2,555 to 2,560.
He ran the offensive math in his head. 2,560 multiplied by two gave him an unarmed base attack of 5,120. Add the 500 Attack from his Platinum scythe, bringing it to 5,620.
Finally, apply the 20% Herald class passive.
His permanent, unbuffed Total Attack shot up to exactly 6,744.
"Six thousand, seven hundred and forty-four attack," Levi smirked, closing the interface.
He picked up his scythe and looked at the staircase leading to Floor 81. The walls weren’t made of dark stone anymore. The stairs seemed to lead completely outside the tower itself. He could hear a violent, howling wind echoing down the corridor.
"Get ready," Levi told Isolde. "The environment is about to get extremely annoying."
Floors 81 to 99 were affectionately known on the old game forums as the Vertical Gauntlet.
Levi and Isolde stepped out of the dark interior corridor and onto a spiraling staircase that wrapped completely around the outside exterior of the Midnight Spire. There were no walls here. Just thousands of jagged black glass steps winding upward into the dark, swirling clouds.
The moment they stepped outside, the ambient weather system slammed into them.
A highly toxic, freezing black wind howled across the cliffside. The wind physics were completely brutal. It felt like being pushed by a physical wall. Heavy chunks of digital debris and freezing rain whipped through the air, dealing tiny bits of ambient chip damage.
Levi’s Siphon Aura easily out-healed the 5 damage per second environmental hit, but Isolde was instantly struggling.
***
Updated Stat Sheet:
Name: Levi | Level: 55
Class: [Herald of the Hollow (Unique)] | Talent: [Supreme Harvester (Unique)]
HP: 26180/26180 | Mana: 5160/5160
STR: 2560 | AGI: 1716 | VIT: 1304 | INT: 511 | LUK: 175
Attack: 6744 | Defense: 1354 | Speed: 1736
Core Skills: [Hollow’s Guillotine], [Abyssal Overdrive], [Siphon Aura], [Soul Harvest], [Platinum Ward of the Abyss].
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