Chapter 87: [88]: A Crack in the Code
Levi stood on the polished black glass of the Dread-Plains, resting the heavy, dark-gold haft of the Sovereign’s Deathknell against his shoulder. He could actually feel the sheer weight of the digital numbers radiating from the scythe in his hands. The weapon felt like it wanted to pull him forward.
He looked out across the endless sea of polished black obsidian. The level gap between him and the Level 60 Elites had just officially dropped to seventeen. But at Level 43, the game’s Level Suppression penalty specifically dropped down from 95% to 85%.
It was exactly what he had been grinding for.
"I need to test this right now," Levi muttered.
He didn’t bother herding five or six mobs like he had previously. He wanted a clean, controlled environment. He walked confidently across the slippery glass floor until he spotted a smaller patrol.
Three Obsidian Dreadknights were riding their skeletal warhorses in a tight triangle formation, the blue ghost-light from their mounts reflecting off the ground.
Levi stepped right into their aggro radius and whistled loudly.
The three giant undead knights snapped their horned helmets toward him. The skeletal horses let out hollow, rattling neighs and charged, their hooves clacking aggressively against the obsidian.
"Alright, let’s see how much that ten percent drop actually matters," Levi said, tightening his grip on the scythe.
The Dreadknights had 2,000 Defense. His Gold-tier scythe naturally dropped their effective Defense down to exactly 1,600.
His brand-new Total Attack was 2,028.
For the first time since he stepped foot on the Midnight Continent, his basic physical strikes were actually higher than the enemy’s armor.
"Sixty-four Final Damage per basic strike," Levi grinned.
It wasn’t a massive number against a 100,000 HP pool, but it meant his physical swings were finally piercing their armor. And more importantly, dealing physical damage meant his weapon’s passive was going to turn back on.
The first Dreadknight reached him and swung its massive, jagged greatsword in a horizontal cleave.
Levi didn’t bother using a skill to dodge. With his Speed, he just slid his boots across the black glass, leaning backward like a limbo dancer. The heavy iron blade completely missed his chest, the wind pressure blowing his dark cloak back.
Levi popped back up right inside the knight’s guard and swung his scythe.
The silver blade sparked against the heavy obsidian armor.
[-64]
The red number exploded into the air. It was small, but it was there.
A split second later, a tiny, bright green number floated up from Levi’s avatar.
[+6.4]
"Yes!" Levi laughed out loud.
It was a minuscule amount of healing, but the implication was absolutely massive. He wasn’t completely reliant on burning through his expensive potion supply anymore. If he hit them fast enough, he could naturally sustain himself against chip damage while grinding.
He didn’t just swing once. He abused his ridiculous attack speed to land three more basic strikes in a single second.
[-64] [-64] [-64]
[+6.4] [+6.4] [+6.4]
"Isolde!" Levi called out, keeping the bleeding teardrop icon ticking on the first knight. "I’m holding aggro! Bring the rain!"
Isolde was standing thirty yards away. She raised her cheap wooden staff. But this time, something was different.
Normally, Isolde just stood there like a basic automated turret, firing her Anomaly blasts on a fixed, robotic interval. But as Levi continued to dodge and weave between the three knights, Isolde dynamically altered her casting rhythm.
She didn’t fire immediately. She watched Levi. Her blank, robotic eyes tracked his scythe’s momentum, predicting exactly where his swing animation would end.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He ripped the blade upward in a massive ten-meter cone. The Gold-tier skill slammed into all three knights, chunking their health and applying the 20% broken shield debuff.
The exact millisecond the debuff icon popped up, Isolde fired.
[-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage]
The synchronization was absolutely flawless. She didn’t waste a single frame. The burst of damage hit perfectly in the window where their defense was shredded.
Levi stared at her from across the battlefield. "She’s predicting my animation frames," he muttered in shock. "She’s actually learning how to play the game."
The sudden, massive chunk of True Damage scrambled the knights’ threat tables. The third Dreadknight violently pulled on its skeletal horse’s reins, turning its glowing blue eyes completely away from Levi. It locked onto Isolde and charged.
"Hey! Back here!" Levi yelled.
He tried to cast Hollow’s Traverse to intercept, but he had just burned his mana on the Guillotine. He was a second too slow.
The massive Dreadknight reached Isolde. It raised its giant greatsword high into the air, the dark iron blade catching the eerie blue light of the plains. It brought the weapon crashing down directly toward her head.
Isolde didn’t have armor. She didn’t have any physical defense stats. If that sword hit her, she was taking the full 4,000 damage.
Levi sprinted toward her, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it.
Isolde didn’t even flinch. She didn’t try to run. Instead, her character model violently glitched. A stream of green hexadecimal code poured out of her left hand. She raised her palm toward the falling greatsword.
A completely corrupted, digital barrier materialized in the air above her. It looked like a wall of static television screens stacked on top of each other.
The heavy iron greatsword smashed into the static wall.
The sound was horrifying, like a server server rack physically crashing to the floor. The game engine hitched. But the blade didn’t move an inch further. The glitching digital barrier perfectly parried the attack, completely nullifying the kinetic force.
[-0]
The Dreadknight froze, its AI completely incapable of understanding why its attack had just bounced off thin air.
Levi skidded to a halt on the black glass, his jaw physically dropping.
"What the hell was that?" Levi yelled, staring at the dissipating wall of static. "You didn’t have a defensive protocol!"
Isolde slowly lowered her hand. She turned her head to look at him. For a fraction of a second, the gray, untextured hood of her cloak flickered, and a tiny, almost imperceptible smirk crossed her face.
"I rewrote my subroutines," Isolde stated, her voice still broadcasting in his head, but it sounded distinctly more human. "Your habit of damage-tanking for me was aesthetically unpleasing."
Levi blinked. Then, he actually burst out laughing.
"Aesthetically unpleasing?" Levi cackled, shaking his head. "Okay. Fine. Show off."
He didn’t waste another second. The Dreadknight was still locked in its confused recovery animation. Levi blurred into motion, crossing the remaining distance and swinging his scythe directly into the back of the knight’s knee joint.
He battered its health bar down to exactly 19,000 HP.
"Soul Harvest."
The pitch-black spectral guillotine materialized in the dark sky and slammed straight down.
[Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
His teleport refunded its mana. Levi blinked across the black glass, appearing directly between the other two knights. He slashed them rapidly, letting his 64-damage basic attacks and tiny lifesteal ticks hold them in place while Isolde went back to acting as a True Damage machine gun.
With Isolde defending herself and syncing her shots perfectly with his debuffs, the clear time was cut in half. The knights didn’t stand a chance.
They dropped the last two knights below the 20% execution threshold simultaneously.
"Soul Harvest. Soul Harvest."
Levi chained the executions flawlessly. The giant spectral scythes dropped back-to-back. The remaining two Level 60 Elites violently shattered into millions of glowing blue polygons, scattering silver coins and rare bone-crafting materials all over the polished floor.
[System Notification: Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
Before the dust even settled, three dense, blindingly bright crimson auras ripped out of the empty space. They shot across the plains and slammed heavily into Levi’s chest.
[Supreme Harvester triggered 3 times.]
[Obsidian Dreadknight’s primary stat is STR (1,500).]
[You have plundered 3% of its core stat.]
[Gained +135 STR permanently!]
Levi let out a long, highly satisfied exhale as the raw physical power forced its way into his avatar. Plus one hundred and thirty-five Strength. It was a completely game-breaking injection of stats. He felt his virtual muscles tighten, the massive scythe in his hand feeling practically weightless.
A second later, the massive XP drop hit his progression bar.
Fighting three Level 60 Elites at a seventeen-level disadvantage still granted an absolutely monstrous underdog multiplier.
[System Notification: Slain 3x Level 60 Elite Obsidian Dreadknights.]
[Massive Level Gap Multiplier Applied. Gained 45,000,000 XP.]
The golden pillar of progression light crashed down from the dark sky. It washed over Levi, instantly clearing away his simulated physical fatigue and refilling his health and mana pools to 100%.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 44.]
Levi rested his scythe against his shoulder and opened his status menu. The massive 45 million XP drop easily cleared the 70 million threshold, leaving him with exactly 22,500,000 XP carrying over into his next bar. He needed 75,000,000 XP to hit Level 45.
He had 5 new free stat points to allocate.
His raw damage was scaling beautifully thanks to the plunder, but his Speed was starting to feel just a little bit sluggish against the faster attack animations of the higher-tier mobs. He needed to make sure his evasion was absolutely flawless.
He dumped all 5 points directly into Agility.
His Agility bumped from 326 to 331.
His total on-foot Speed is exactly 351.
Next was the offensive calculation. His permanent Strength is exactly 910.
His unbuffed, permanent Total Attack to a terrifying 2,352.
"Two thousand, three hundred and fifty-two attack," Levi noted, dismissing the menu.
He looked at his character model. He was Level 44, but he was holding the stats of an absolute endgame monster. He turned around and walked over to Isolde. She was standing quietly, her staff resting by her side.
"Nice upgrade," Levi said, gesturing to where the glitched static shield had appeared.
"It was mathematically necessary to maintain the firing line," Isolde replied, her voice slipping slightly back into its flat, robotic cadence.
Levi just smiled. "Sure it was. Come on. Let’s keep moving."