Chapter 72: [72]: The Fall of Valerius, The Black Comet
Riding a mount at 541 Speed completely broke the Starfall physics engine.
Levi didn’t even look like a player anymore. He was just a glitching, black comet streaking across the map. The background textures of the Ashen Peaks simply failed to load in. Trees, rocks, and magma rivers were reduced to long, blurry streaks of color. The wind noise inside the NerveDive helmet was a constant, deafening roar of static.
He covered the massive distance between his Domain and Valerius Citadel in a matter of minutes.
As the capital city finally rendered on the horizon, Levi pulled back hard on the reins. The Behemoth of the Hollow skidded across the dirt, its steel hooves carving deep trenches into the ground before finally coming to a stop.
Levi looked at the city. It was an absolute disaster zone.
Valerius Citadel, the heavily militarized hub of the mid-game, was burning. The massive iron outer walls had been completely blown wide open. Thick black smoke billowed into the sky from the military district.
The NPC army that was supposed to protect the city had been entirely decimated. Broken trebuchets and the bodies of Level 30 guards littered the fields outside the gates.
Levi rode through the shattered front entrance.
The main plaza was swarming with the invasion force. They were Level 40-50 Abyssal mobs. They looked like towering, bipedal wolves clad in jagged dark-iron plate armor, carrying massive spiked maces.
The surviving players—the ones who were too slow to log out before the system locked them in—were hiding. Levi looked up and saw dozens of Level 15 and 20 players cowering on the second-story balconies of the surrounding stone inns, completely terrified. They were just watching the mobs tear the city apart, too scared to even cast a minor spell.
"Cowards," Levi muttered, shaking his head.
He didn’t bother trying to sneak around. He dismissed the Behemoth. The massive dark horse dissolved into shadows, dropping Levi right into the center of the main plaza.
He drew the Gold-tier Sovereign’s Deathknell. The dark aura of his class flared around the blade, instantly drawing the attention of a massive pack of Abyssal Vanguard Demons.
[Vanguard Demon]
[Level: 40]
[HP: 30,000 | ATK: 1,300 | DEF: 600]
Ten of them turned their glowing red eyes toward him. They snarled, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth, and charged.
Levi just stood there and ran the math.
He was Level 30. The Demons were Level 40. That was exactly a ten-level gap.
The ten-level difference imposed a flat 50% Level Suppression penalty. It cut his damage perfectly in half.
’Let’s break down the armor,’ Levi thought, his eyes tracking the charging pack. ’Demon Defense is 600. My Gold scythe ignores 20% of that. Twenty percent of 600 is 120. That drops their effective Defense down to 480.’
He checked his new, permanent Total Attack. 1,020.
1,020 Attack minus 480 Defense meant his raw damage per swing was 540. Now, apply the 50% suppression penalty. Half of 540 was exactly 270.
’Two hundred and seventy Final Damage per basic strike,’ Levi calculated.
He quickly checked his core skill. [Hollow’s Guillotine] carried a massive 3.5 multiplier. 1,020 Attack times 3.5 equaled 3,570 raw damage. Minus the 480 effective Defense left 3,090. Apply the 50% penalty, and his final skill damage was exactly 1,545.
"Fifteen hundred damage through a fifty percent suppression wall," Levi grinned. "I am absolutely broken."
The first Vanguard Demon swung its massive spiked mace directly at Levi’s head.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
Levi burned 50 Mana. His body dissolved into a tunnel of dark light. He completely bypassed the mace swing and teleported dead center into the pack of ten demons.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He dumped 100 Mana. The scythe erupted in a blinding, dark-gold aura. He ripped the heavy blade in a massive ten-meter cone that smashed directly into all ten monsters simultaneously.
[-1,545] [-1,545] [-1,545] [-1,545] [-1,545]
The heavy red numbers exploded into the smoky air. The demons roared in pain, completely staggered by the sheer kinetic force of the Gold-tier nuke. The broken shield debuff popped up over their heads, shredding 20% of their remaining armor.
With their defense shredded down to 384, Levi’s basic strikes hit even harder.
He dashed forward, his 341 Speed turning his avatar into a glitching black shadow. He unleashed an absolute blender of basic physical attacks. He hacked into the thick iron armor of the demons, landing four strikes a second.
[-318] [-318] [-318] [-318]
Up on the balconies, the hiding players were completely speechless. One of them actually pulled out the game’s recording tool.
"Look at his damage!" a mage whispered loudly. "He’s fighting Level 40s! How is he hitting for over a thousand?!"
Levi completely ignored the audience. He battered the first demon’s health down to 6,000 HP. Exactly 20%.
"Soul Harvest."
Levi spent 50 Mana. The pitch-black spectral guillotine materialized and slammed down, cleanly decapitating the Vanguard Demon.
[Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
His Hollow’s Traverse instantly refunded the 50 Mana cost. His mana bar barely even moved.
He chained it perfectly. He blinked to the next demon, carving through its health bar with blindingly fast basic attacks, and executed it.
Blink. Slash. Execute.
Two demons tried to flank him, swinging their maces simultaneously. Levi didn’t bother dodging. He just let the maces hit his Obsidian Carapace armor.
The system ran the math. 1,300 Attack minus his 283 Defense meant 1,017 incoming damage. But his Diamond-tier [Heart of the Chained] necklace instantly cut that number perfectly in half.
[-508] [-508]
His health bar dropped, but the 10% Lifesteal from his Gold-tier scythe fed massive chunks of health back into his pool with every swing. He instantly out-healed the damage before the demons could even pull their weapons back.
He was a walking, teleporting meat grinder.
In less than forty seconds, all ten Level 40 Vanguard Demons were completely wiped from the plaza. They shattered into a massive cloud of blue polygons, dropping piles of silver coins and high-level gear onto the cobblestones.
Levi didn’t even stop to pick up the loot.
He looked across the burning plaza. A group of low-level NPC civilians were cornered against a burning merchant stall by three more Vanguard Demons. The demons raised their maces to execute the NPCs.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
Levi blinked thirty meters across the plaza, appearing directly between the NPCs and the demons. He caught the massive spiked mace with the haft of his scythe, completely parrying the blow, and kicked the demon in the chest to create space.
"Run," Levi told the NPCs without looking back.
The civilians scrambled away in terror. Levi dumped 100 Mana into another Guillotine, instantly shredding the demons’ armor, and went to work.
He cleared the entire plaza by himself. He blinked from pack to pack, executing everything that dropped below 20% health. His mana pool of 2,060 barely dipped below 1,500 thanks to the constant refunds from his executions.
When the last demon shattered into pixels, the main square of Valerius Citadel was completely quiet.
The hiding players on the balconies slowly started cheering.
"He cleared the plaza!" a warrior yelled. "The safe zone is holding!"
Levi flicked the digital blood off his scythe. He wasn’t here to save the casuals. He was here to stop the server from wiping. He looked down the main avenue leading toward the center of the city. The black smoke was thickest there.
"General Malakor is at the Citadel Core," Levi muttered, toggling off his Siphon Aura to let his mana cap out.
He cracked his neck, the sound loud in the quiet plaza, and started walking down the burning street. The invasion vanguard was dead. Now it was time to kill the commander.