Chapter 101: The Three-Headed Gatekeeper
He didn’t rush in. He stood on the edge of the bridge and ran the combat math.
He was Level 53. The Cerberus was Level 60. That was exactly a seven-level gap.
It was still an annoying wall, but compared to the 100% suppression he faced earlier, 35% felt like a blessing.
’Alright, let’s break the armor down,’ Levi calculated rapidly. ’Boss Defense is 2,500. My Platinum scythe ignores 30% of enemy defense. Thirty percent of 2,500 is 750. That drops the dog’s effective Defense down to exactly 1,750.’
He checked his permanent Total Attack. It was sitting at a massive 5,532.
’Two thousand, four hundred and fifty-eight Final Damage per basic strike,’ Levi grinned.
He looked at the defensive side of the equation. The Cerberus had 5,500 Attack. Levi’s current Defense was 1,354.
5,500 minus 1,354 meant a raw hit would deal 4,146 incoming damage. But Levi’s Diamond-tier [Heart of the Chained] necklace instantly cut that number in half with its 50% Damage Reduction.
4,146 cut in half was exactly 2,073 damage per hit.
"I take two grand per hit," Levi told Isolde loudly over the wind. "I can comfortably tank that. Stay behind my shield and bring the rain."
"Artillery protocols engaged," Isolde replied, raising her wooden staff.
The Cerberus of the Void didn’t wait. The massive three-headed dog roared, a sound that shook the narrow bridge, and charged. It moved shockingly fast, the void flames trailing behind it.
"Platinum Ward of the Abyss!" Levi shouted.
He dumped 500 Mana. The air froze. A thick, swirling vortex of pitch-black abyssal matter erupted from the floor, entirely encasing his avatar. The shield locked into place with exactly 10,110 HP.
The Cerberus reached him. It didn’t just bite once. The system flagged the attack above its middle head: [Triple Void Fang].
All three heads lunged forward simultaneously, their massive jaws clamping down directly onto the dark-matter shield.
The VR engine shook violently.
[-2,073] [-2,073] [-2,073]
The three massive hits slammed into the shield. 2,073 multiplied by three was 6,219 total damage. The 10,110 HP shield cracked violently, dropping to exactly 3,891 HP. But it held firm.
The exact millisecond the jaws hit, the Platinum Ward’s reflection passive triggered.
The shield captured 20% of the unmitigated 5,500 physical attack for each of the three bites. Twenty percent of 5,500 was exactly 1,100.
A violent, dark-purple shockwave exploded out from the shield and slammed directly back into all three of the dog’s heads.
[-1,100 True Damage] [-1,100 True Damage] [-1,100 True Damage]
The corrupted red text popped up. The Cerberus whined in pain, actually staggering backward as it swallowed 3,300 points of completely unblockable True Damage.
"Good boy," Levi smirked.
He blurred into motion. With his 1,736 Speed, he dashed right into the pocket before the boss could recover from the stagger. He didn’t even bother casting Hollow’s Guillotine to shred its armor. He just went wild with basic attacks.
He swung the Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse in massive, brutal figure-eights.
[-2,458] [-2,458] [-2,458] [-2,458]
Because his attack speed was so high, he was carving nearly ten thousand damage a second out of the boss’s health bar.
The scythe’s 25% Lifesteal passive triggered instantly. Twenty-five percent of 2,458 was 614. Every single swing of his weapon violently fed 614 health back into his pool. He was literally over-healing his entire 26,180 health bar in seconds. He was completely immortal as long as he kept attacking.
Isolde stepped up behind his shield. She pointed her staff and unleashed her Anomaly blasts.
[-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage]
The combination of Levi’s relentless 2,400-damage basic strikes, the true damage bleed from his scythe, Isolde’s massive artillery blasts, and the 3,300 True Damage reflection every time the dog tried to bite him completely overwhelmed the Mini-Boss.
The 600,000 HP pool didn’t even last five minutes.
The health bar plummeted. 300,000. 150,000. 50,000.
Because Cerberus was classified as a Mini-Boss, Levi couldn’t use Soul Harvest to execute it. He had to kill it manually.
The boss’s health hit 5,000 HP. The middle head lunged forward for one last desperate bite.
Levi didn’t dodge. He sidestepped the jaws, brought the heavy Platinum blade around, and drove the razor-sharp edge directly into the middle head’s glowing purple eye.
It was a Weak Point strike.
The basic hit for 2,458 damage was automatically doubled by the critical multiplier.
[-4,916 CRIT!]
The massive yellow text exploded in the air.
The Cerberus of the Void froze completely. The purple flames wreathing its body violently blew out. The massive three-headed dog collapsed onto the iron grates and shattered into millions of glowing blue polygons.
[System Notification: You have slain Level 60 Mini-Boss The Cerberus of the Void. Gained 20,000,000 XP.]
Levi spun his scythe, flicking the digital ash off the blade, and let out a long breath. He didn’t even bother turning off his Siphon Aura. His mana was perfectly fine.
He walked over to the dissolving pixels and vacuumed up the high-tier loot boxes and massive piles of gold.
The 20,000,000 XP drop hit his progression bar, pushing him to exactly 29,500,000 out of the 140,000,000 needed for Level 54.
He walked across the rest of the bridge and stopped.
They were standing directly in front of the massive obsidian doors of the Midnight Spire. The tower loomed above them, disappearing into the black clouds. The sheer scale of the architecture made Levi feel like an ant.
Isolde stepped up beside him. She looked up at the towering monolith.
"The Night King resides at the apex," Isolde said softly. "Are you prepared for the mathematical probability of this encounter?"
Levi grinned. He rested his massive Platinum scythe on his shoulder and looked at the heavy doors.
"I’m done worrying about the math," Levi said. "We’re going to tear this tower down."
***
Levi pushed through the colossal obsidian doors of the Midnight Spire. The moment Isolde glided in behind him, the heavy stone slabs ground shut with a deafening, metallic slam. The sound echoed upward for what felt like miles.
He looked around. The interior of the Spire wasn’t a standard castle. It was a massive, hollow cylinder stretching straight up into absolute darkness. Suspended in the empty air were spiraling staircases made of jagged black glass and floating stone platforms that defied gravity.
"This is going to be a lot of stairs," Levi grunted, resting the heavy Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse against his shoulder.
"The structural integrity of this tower ignores standard physics," Isolde noted. Her blank, robotic eyes scanned the towering walls.
The walls of the cylinder were entirely covered in glowing, luminescent murals. They were painted with deep blue and silver light, depicting the ancient lore of Starfall. Levi walked over to the nearest wall to take a look.
The mural showed a figure completely wrapped in a dark, violent aura—exactly like the aura currently leaking off Levi’s boots. It was the Hollow King. The painting depicted him waging a one-man war against a dozen towering figures made of blinding white light. The Celestial Pantheon.
"Looks like my class predecessor didn’t play well with others," Levi smirked.
He read the runic text floating beneath the mural. The game translated it automatically into his UI. It described how the Hollow King was ultimately defeated. He didn’t lose because he was out-damaged. He lost because he lacked an ’Anchor’. When the Pantheon hit him with absolute erasure magic, his soul simply dissipated into the void because nothing was holding it to the digital plane.
Isolde stepped up next to the wall. She stared at the glowing blue text.
"An Anchor," Isolde murmured. Her voice lost its flat, broadcasting tone for a fraction of a second. She reached up and touched the center of her chest. "A mathematical constant to prevent code deletion."
Levi glanced at her. He knew exactly what she was processing. "You’re thinking about the real-world merge."
"If a soul lacks an anchor, the system treats it as temporary data," Isolde stated, her voice snapping back to its robotic cadence. "To survive the erasure protocols of the Pantheon, a secondary entity must tether the code."
"Well, we’re going to get you an anchor at the top of this tower," Levi said dismissively. "So don’t worry about getting deleted just yet."
Before Isolde could reply, a loud, heavy grinding noise echoed from the floating staircase directly above them.
Dropping down from the shadows were the Spire’s baseline defenders. They didn’t look like the flesh-and-blood monsters from the plains. They were towering, animated suits of obsidian armor wielding long, jagged halberds. Their visors glowed with a hostile red light.
[Spire Sentinel]
[Level: 60 | Elite]
[HP: 80,000 | ATK: 4,200 | DEF: 1,500]