Chapter 60: [60]: The Vanguard’s Harvest, 85% Suppression
Levi stood dead in front of the three Vanguard Elites.
He didn’t pull out his Diamond-tier [Tear of the Chained] potion. He was saving that exclusively for the World Boss. For these guards, he was going to rely entirely on raw math, perfect mechanics, and an absurd amount of patience.
He ran the numbers in his head.
He was Level 23. The Vanguard Elites were Level 40. That was a seventeen-level gap.
In Aethelgard, that meant he was getting slapped with an 85% Level Suppression penalty. It was a suffocating, almost insurmountable mathematical wall.
’Alright, let’s break down the armor first,’ Levi thought. ’Their Defense is 800. My Gold scythe ignores 20% of that. Twenty percent of 800 is 160. That drops their effective Defense down to 640.’
He checked his own unbuffed Total Attack. It was sitting at 544.
544 Attack trying to punch through 640 effective Defense.
"Yeah, my base damage is completely negated," Levi said, shaking his head.
The three massive demons charged him, swinging their magma-hammers in unison.
Levi used his 161 Speed to effortlessly glide backward, letting the massive hammers smash into the iron platform. He stepped right back into the pocket and swung his scythe in a fast, casual basic attack aimed at the closest demon’s kneecap.
The blade connected with the blackened steel armor.
[-1]
A tiny, pathetic red number floated into the air.
Up on the crater rim, the thousands of watching players absolutely lost their minds. The proximity chat erupted into a chorus of mocking laughter and insults.
"One damage! He hit it for one damage!" a rogue howled, clutching his stomach.
"Nice deeps, bro!" another player yelled. "Only forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine more swings to go! You got this!"
"What an absolute clown," Ovidia scoffed from her rock.
Levi completely ignored them. He knew his raw damage wasn’t going to work. He didn’t care about the 1 damage. He just needed to apply his debuffs.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!" Levi shouted.
He dumped 100 Mana. The Sovereign’s Deathknell erupted in a blinding, dark-gold aura. He ripped the blade in a massive, ten-meter cone that smashed directly into all three Vanguard Elites.
The skill had a massive 3.5 damage multiplier, but against the 85% suppression penalty and their 640 Defense, the skill damage was still completely swallowed by the math. It hit for exactly 1 damage.
But the damage didn’t matter. The Gold-tier skill’s debuff triggered instantly. A broken shield icon popped up over all three of the demons’ heads. The skill shredded another 20% of their remaining defense.
Their Defense dropped from 640 down to 512.
Levi swung another basic physical attack. Because their defense was now lower than his 544 Attack, he finally broke the threshold.
544 minus 512 equaled 32 raw damage. Apply the 85% suppression penalty, and he was dealing 15% of his actual damage.
[-4]
"Four damage," Levi smirked. "Much better."
He hit the demon two more times in rapid succession.
[-4] [-4]
The jagged edge of the Gold-tier scythe caught on the demon’s armor. The weapon’s passive finally triggered. The tiny, bleeding teardrop icon appeared over the Vanguard Elite’s head.
[-5] [-5] [-5]
"And there is the real damage," Levi said.
The bleed dealt 5 true damage every single second. It completely ignored the 800 Defense. It completely ignored the 85% suppression penalty. It was guaranteed, unavoidable damage.
All Levi had to do now was stay alive.
He checked the defensive math, and it was horrific. The Elites had 1,500 Attack. Levi’s Defense was 113.
1,500 minus 113 meant if one of those magma-hammers hit him cleanly, he was taking 1,387 damage. His Max HP was 2,060. He could survive exactly one hit. The second hit would instantly kill him.
"Okay. Zero mistakes," Levi muttered.
He didn’t bother casting [Hollow’s Ward]. His 755 HP dark-matter shield would shatter in a single hit anyway, and he needed his 560 Mana pool strictly for Phantom Step and casting Guillotine to keep the defense debuff active.
The fight devolved into an agonizing, hyper-focused marathon of absolute precision.
The three Vanguard Elites were massive, but their attack animations were highly telegraphed. They swung heavy, wide arcs and brought their hammers down in crushing overhead slams.
Levi turned into a ghost. His 161 Speed allowed him to literally run circles around the giant demons. When the first Elite swung horizontally, Levi ducked perfectly, feeling the heat of the hammer scorch the air above him. When the second Elite crashed its weapon down, Levi pivoted on his heel, letting the hammer smash the iron floor inches from his boots.
He wove his basic attacks constantly. He didn’t care about the 4 damage he was dealing. He just needed to refresh the bleed timer on all three targets.
Slash. Dodge. Slash. Duck.
[-5] [-5] [-5]
The players on the crater rim slowly stopped laughing.
Ten minutes passed. Then twenty minutes.
The proximity chat went completely dead silent. The thousands of players just stared down at the platform. They were watching a single player flawlessly dodge the attack patterns of three Level 40 Elite monsters simultaneously. It was a mechanical display of skill that shouldn’t have been humanly possible in VR.
"He hasn’t taken a single hit," Gideon whispered in shock, leaning over the cliff edge. "It’s been twenty minutes. How much stamina does this guy have?"
Inside the helmet, Levi was completely soaked in sweat. His virtual lungs were burning, and his real-world shoulders ached furiously. Every single dodge had to be pixel-perfect. If his foot slipped on the iron platform, he died.
Whenever his mana dipped, he chugged a top-tier potion from his belt while backpedaling, instantly restoring his fuel so he could keep Guillotine active.
Thirty agonizing minutes dragged by.
The constant 5 DMG/sec bleed slowly, painfully chewed through the massive 50,000 HP pools.
Levi watched the health bars carefully. 15,000. 12,000. 10,500.
Finally, the health bar of the first Vanguard Elite hit exactly 10,000 HP.
That was exactly 20% of its maximum health.
"Soul Harvest!" Levi barked.
He dumped 50 Mana. The massive, pitch-black spectral guillotine materialized in the smoky sky and slammed straight down. It completely ignored the 85% suppression penalty and cleanly decapitated the massive demon.
The Level 40 Vanguard Elite shattered into millions of glowing blue polygons.
[System Notification: Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
Levi didn’t stop. He instantly burned 20 Mana for Phantom Step, teleporting three meters to the left to dodge a hammer swing from the second demon. The second demon’s health had also just ticked down to 10,000.
"Soul Harvest!"
Another 50 Mana vanished. The spectral scythe dropped again. The second demon shattered.
[Target Executed. Cooldowns reset.]
He blinked one last time, reappearing directly behind the third Vanguard Elite.
"Soul Harvest."
The third spectral guillotine slammed down. The final demon was instantly deleted from the server.
The entire iron platform fell completely silent. Up on the crater rim, nobody said a word. Five thousand players were completely paralyzed by what they had just witnessed.
Levi dropped to one knee on the hot iron, toggling off his Siphon Aura. He was completely gassed.
Before the polygons even settled, three incredibly dense, blindingly bright crimson auras ripped out of the empty space. They shot across the platform and slammed into Levi’s chest in rapid succession.
[Supreme Harvester triggered.]
[Vanguard Elite’s primary stat is STR (250). Plundered 2% of core stat. Gained +5 STR permanently!]
[Vanguard Elite’s primary stat is VIT (250). Plundered 2% of core stat. Gained +5 VIT permanently!]
[Vanguard Elite’s primary stat is AGI (250). Plundered 2% of core stat. Gained +5 AGI permanently!]
Because he had killed three identical elites with slightly different stat rolls, the game rewarded him across the board.
"Plus fifteen to my main stats," Levi wheezed, a massive smile breaking across his tired face. "Totally worth the carpal tunnel."
The massive XP drop from killing three Level 40 Elites hit his progression bar, but he didn’t level up. The gap from Level 23 to 24 required an absurd 3,000,000 XP, but he made a massive dent in it.
He didn’t have time to sort through the loot boxes.
The giant red holographic timer floating in the smoky sky above him clicked its final seconds.
[00:00:03]
[00:00:02]
[00:00:01]
[00:00:00]
The timer shattered into red static.
The entire Searing Crater violently dropped in temperature. The bubbling magma rivers instantly froze into solid black rock. A deafening, mechanical sound echoed from deep underground, like thousands of massive iron chains being dragged across stone.
The center of the iron platform violently exploded outward.
Levi was thrown backward by the shockwave, landing hard on his boots.
Pulling himself from the molten earth, dragging glowing, rune-covered chains behind him, was a fifty-foot-tall obsidian titan.
Valdor The Chained had arrived.
Updated Stat Sheet:
- Name: Levi | Level: 23
- Class: [Herald of the Hollow (SSS)] | Talent : [Supreme Harvester (SSS)]
- HP: 2060/2060 | Mana: 560/560
- STR: 172 | AGI: 156 | VIT: 98 | INT: 51 | LUK: 25
- Attack: 580 | Defense: 128 | Speed: 176
- Core Skills: [Hollow’s Guillotine], [Phantom Step], [Siphon Aura], [Soul Harvest], [Hollow’s Ward].