Chapter 52: [52]: Syndicate’s Greed, The Backline Massacre
The sudden, massive shift in the server’s economy did not go unnoticed.
While normal players were thrilled to save 10% on their auction house taxes, the people who ran the dark side of the game were furious. The ’Argent Syndicate’ was an elite, highly organized coalition of players who specialized entirely in market manipulation, price-fixing, and real-money trading. They treated Aethelgard like a stock market, and Levi’s tax haven had just completely crashed their profit margins.
Levi was sitting on his black glass throne the next morning when a harsh, blaring alarm suddenly echoed through the Ruined Keep.
The system threw a massive red warning prompt across his vision.
[Warning: Domain under attack!]
[A Guild War Siege has been initiated against the Harvester’s Exchange by the ’Argent Syndicate’.]
"Well, that didn’t take long," Levi sighed.
He stood up, grabbed his Gold-tier Sovereign’s Deathknell scythe, and walked out of the throne room. The players who had been trading in the courtyard were already panicking and using their teleport scrolls to flee the zone.
Levi walked up the stone stairs to the battlements overlooking the front gate.
Standing right outside his keep was a heavily armed strike team of fifty players. They weren’t low-level scrubs in coarse tunics. They were all wearing polished Silver-tier armor, holding glowing magical weapons, and standing in perfect tactical formations.
At the very front of the army stood their leader. It was a guy named Cassian. He was a Level 21 Mage, wearing a highly expensive, cash-shop cosmetic silk robe that practically screamed ’I use my mom’s credit card’.
Cassian looked up at Levi standing on the wall.
"Listen closely, domain owner!" Cassian yelled, pointing his glowing staff at the battlements. "You are completely ruining the market ecosystem! We aren’t going to let some random solo player undercut our profits. You have two options. You transfer ownership of this keep to the Argent Syndicate right now, or we will set up a spawn-camp blockade and violently siege this door until your durability breaks and you lose everything."
Levi just stared down at him.
He didn’t feel intimidated. He actually felt a massive sense of relief.
For the past few days, Levi had been fighting open-world mobs and dungeon bosses that were five, ten, and even eleven levels higher than him. He had been dealing with 30%, 50%, and 55% Level Suppression penalties. He had literally been fighting with mathematical weights strapped to his ankles.
But Levi was Level 21. Cassian was Level 21. The players behind him were Levels 19 to 21.
There was exactly zero Level Suppression penalty here.
"You guys are fundamentally misunderstanding the ecosystem," Levi called down, his voice completely flat and serious. "You think you’re wolves. You’re just crops."
Cassian’s face twisted in pure rage. "Arrogant trash! Tanks, breach the gates! Mages, pre-cast your stuns!"
Levi didn’t wait for them to hit the doors. He didn’t even bother casting Hollow’s Ward.
He simply stepped off the fifty-foot stone wall and plummeted toward the ground.
"Phantom Step!"
Levi dumped 20 Mana in mid-air. His body dissolved into a blur of pitch-black shadow. He completely bypassed the heavy frontline of heavily armored tanks standing at the gate. He teleported forward and instantly reappeared dead in the center of the Syndicate’s backline.
He was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with twenty squishy Mages and Rogues.
Cassian spun around, his eyes going wide. "He’s behind us!"
"Hollow’s Guillotine!" Levi shouted.
He burned 100 Mana. The Sovereign’s Deathknell erupted in a blinding, terrifyingly dark aura mixed with gold light. Levi twisted his hips and swung the massive scythe in a brutal, ten-meter-wide cone.
The math was finally entirely uncapped.
Levi’s Total Attack was 532. The skill had a 3.5 damage multiplier.
532 times 3.5 equaled exactly 1,862 raw damage.
The Mages and Rogues were wearing light leather and silk armor. Their Defense was maybe 20 at best.
1,862 raw damage minus 20 Defense resulted in an apocalyptic 1,842 Final Damage.
Because they were Level 20 casters, their absolute maximum health pools hovered around 800 HP.
The massive wave of dark-gold energy carved through the backline like a chainsaw hitting wet tissue paper.
[-1842] [-1842] [-1842] [-1842] [-1842]
Ten players were instantly atomized. There was no knockback. There was no chance to pop a health potion. The sheer force of the 1,842 damage completely overkilled their health bars twice over. Ten avatars violently shattered into millions of blue polygons simultaneously, filling the air with a deafening glass-breaking sound.
The entire right side of the Syndicate’s formation just ceased to exist.
"What the actual hell is that damage?!" a surviving Rogue shrieked, dropping his daggers and desperately trying to run away.
Levi didn’t let him. He checked the health bar of a nearby Mage who had barely survived the edge of the cone by popping a weak barrier spell. The Mage’s health was blinking bright red, sitting at roughly 100 HP. Well below the 20% threshold.
"Soul Harvest."
Levi spent 50 Mana. The massive, spectral black guillotine materialized in the sky and slammed down, decapitating the Mage instantly.
[Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
Levi’s Phantom Step icon flashed green. He burned another 20 Mana and instantly teleported three meters to the left, appearing directly behind the fleeing Rogue.
He swung a basic physical attack. 532 Attack minus the Rogue’s 30 Defense meant exactly 502 damage.
[-502]
The Rogue face-planted into the dirt, his health bar dropping into the red.
"Soul Harvest."
Another 50 Mana vanished. The spectral scythe dropped. The Rogue shattered into pixels.
[Target Executed. Cooldowns reset.]
The remaining Syndicate members completely broke. All of their organized tactical training evaporated. The tanks at the front dropped their shields and started sprinting away from the keep. The healers were screaming in panic, running in random directions.
Cassian, the Level 21 Guild Master, was completely pale. He realized his entire fifty-man strike team was being dismantled in seconds by a single player.
"Die, you hacker!" Cassian screamed.
He raised his expensive glowing staff and began frantically casting a heavy Lightning spell. Sparks of electricity violently gathered at the tip of the wood, aiming directly at Levi’s chest.
Levi didn’t even blink. He let the cast bar reach 99%.
"Phantom Step."
Levi teleported, completely dodging the massive bolt of lightning that tore through the empty air where he just stood. He reappeared directly behind Cassian’s back.
Cassian gasped and tried to turn around, but Levi was already swinging.
He drove the heavy, jagged blade of the Gold-tier scythe directly through the back of Cassian’s expensive silk robe.
Math check: 532 Attack minus 50 Defense.
[-482]
Cassian gagged as nearly 500 damage chunked his health bar. He stumbled forward, dropping his glowing staff into the dirt. Levi casually pulled the scythe out and delivered a quick, lazy slash to the back of Cassian’s knees.
[-482]
Cassian collapsed onto the ground. His health bar was flashing a desperate, critical red. He had maybe 50 HP left.
Cassian looked up at Levi, his eyes filled with absolute terror. "Wait... we can make a deal. I’ll give you a cut of our AH profits. We have thousands of gold!"
Levi looked down at him with entirely dead eyes. "I already have thousands of gold. And I don’t negotiate with crops."
"Soul Harvest."
Levi dumped his last 50 Mana. The pitch-black spectral guillotine materialized right above Cassian’s head and slammed down. The Syndicate leader was instantly decapitated, his avatar shattering into a massive cloud of blue polygons.
The siege was officially over.
It took exactly three minutes.
The remaining twenty or so Syndicate members who hadn’t been atomized were already dots on the horizon, sprinting for their lives back toward Valerius Citadel. They didn’t even look back to see if their Guild Master survived.
Levi let out a slow breath and rested the Sovereign’s Deathknell on the dirt. He toggled off his Siphon Aura to let his mana pool recover.
He looked at the massive field of dropped loot scattered across the dirt in front of his keep. Because the Syndicate members were all highly geared market flippers, they dropped an absolute fortune of unequipped Silver-tier rings, amulets, and crafting materials.
"It’s like they wanted to give me a grand opening gift," Levi laughed softly.
He started walking across the dirt, scooping up the loot. His 532 Attack was officially a weapon of mass destruction against normal players. If the big guilds wanted to keep throwing bodies at his front door, he was perfectly happy to keep collecting the delivery fees.