Chapter 110: The Apex Predator, 8,000 DPS
"We fight as one," Isolde said.
Levi smirked. "We fight as one."
He turned back to the colossal, frost-covered doors. He didn’t bother trying to find a handle. He just raised his Gold-tier boot and kicked the center where the two slabs met.
The impact echoed like a cannon shot. The heavy iron doors violently shuddered, the thick layers of frost cracking and spider-webbing across the metal. With a deafening, deep groan, the massive doors slowly ground open outward.
A thick wall of freezing, white mist spilled out from the room beyond, rolling over Levi’s boots like dry ice.
Levi stepped through the threshold.
The architecture of the Spire completely vanished. They weren’t inside a room. They had stepped out onto a massive, open-air platform that served as the absolute roof of the tower.
There were no walls. The platform was a perfect, flat circle of polished black ice roughly a hundred yards across. Above them was the sky of the Midnight Continent. It was a shattered, starless void. Thick, aggressively swirling black clouds formed a massive hurricane directly above the arena, constantly flashing with dark purple lightning.
The wind up here was dead. The silence was absolute.
At the far end of the black ice platform sat a throne. It wasn’t made of bone or obsidian. It was carved out of pure, condensed midnight. It looked like a solid block of dark space.
Sitting on the throne was a humanoid figure.
He wore heavy, jagged plate armor that looked exactly like Levi’s Obsidian Carapace, except it was frosted over with a thick layer of blue ice. A heavy, tattered black cape hung from his shoulders, pooling on the floor. Resting against the armrest of the throne was a massive greatsword. The blade of the sword wasn’t metal; it was literally made of swirling, condensed dark magic.
The system UI forced a massive, glowing red nameplate into Levi’s vision.
[Kaelen, The Night King]
[Level: 60 | Boss]
Levi didn’t stop walking. He marched directly toward the center of the arena, his scythe held loosely at his side. The dark-matter shield swirling around his avatar cast weird, shifting shadows on the black ice.
When Levi crossed the fifty-yard mark, the figure on the throne finally moved.
Kaelen slowly raised his head. The helm covering his face was completely smooth, devoid of any features, except for a horizontal slit across the eyes.
From within the dark slit, two glowing, violently bright blue eyes snapped open.
The Night King grabbed the haft of his massive greatsword and stood up. He didn’t rush. He didn’t roar. He just stepped down from the throne, his heavy armored boots clicking loudly against the ice.
The boss raised the greatsword, pointing the tip directly at Levi’s chest.
"Let’s see what you’ve got," Levi said.
He didn’t wait for the boss to make the first move. Levi kicked off the black ice, his 1,736 Speed violently tearing the silence of the arena apart. He crossed the fifty yards in a fraction of a second, raising the Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse high above his head.
The final battle of the Midnight Continent had officially begun.
**
Levi stepped fully onto the polished black ice.
The Apex of the Midnight Spire didn’t have walls. It was a massive, completely flat circular platform suspended directly under a shattered, starless sky. Swirling black clouds formed a slow hurricane above the arena, constantly flashing with dark purple lightning, but the platform itself was dead silent. There was no wind. No ambient background music.
Just the heavy crunch of Levi’s Gold-tier boots hitting the ice.
At the far end of the hundred-yard platform sat a throne carved from pure, condensed midnight. Rising from that throne was the final boss of the continent.
[Kaelen, The Night King]
[Level: 60 | Boss]
[HP: 15,000,000 | ATK: 8,000 | DEF: 5,000]
"Fifteen million health," Levi said, resting his Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse on his shoulder. "And five thousand defense. The developers were really trying to make people quit the game."
He didn’t run in yet. He stood his ground and ran the math. It was the only way to survive.
He was Level 56. Kaelen was Level 60. That was exactly a four-level gap.
In Starfall, a four-level difference meant the system was going to enforce a 20% Level Suppression penalty. It wasn’t the suffocating 100% or 85% walls he had dealt with out on the plains, but it was still a flat chunk of his damage getting deleted by the game engine.
’Alright, let’s break down the armor,’ Levi calculated, his eyes tracking the boss as it stepped down from the throne. ’Kaelen’s Defense is 5,000. My Platinum scythe ignores 30% of that. Thirty percent of 5,000 is 1,500. That drops his effective Defense down to 3,500.’
’Two thousand, six hundred and four Final Damage per basic strike,’ Levi sighed.
He did the division in his head. Hitting for 2,600 damage against a 15,000,000 HP pool meant it would take roughly 5,760 basic attacks to kill the boss.
"I’m going to be swinging for a very long time," Levi muttered.
Kaelen didn’t bother with a villain monologue. The Night King simply raised his massive greatsword—a blade forged from swirling dark magic—and crossed the massive arena in a single, terrifying bound. For a heavily armored giant, his speed was completely physics-defying.
The boss brought the greatsword down in a devastating overhead cleave aimed right at Levi’s skull.
"Platinum Ward of the Abyss!" Levi shouted.
His massive 10,110 HP shield locked into place.
He didn’t try to dodge. He planted his boots and anchored himself. He needed to gauge the boss’s raw damage output immediately.
The dark magic greatsword smashed directly into the black-hole shield.
The VR pain engine sent a harsh, vibrating shockwave right through Levi’s boots. The impact was deafening, but Levi didn’t flinch. He watched the system process the defensive math.
Kaelen had 8,000 Attack. Levi’s current Defense was 1,354.
8,000 minus 1,354 meant the raw incoming damage was 6,646. But Levi’s Diamond-tier [Heart of the Chained] necklace instantly cut that number in half with its 50% Damage Reduction.
6,646 divided by two was exactly 3,323 damage taken.
[-3,323]
The massive hit slammed into the 10,110 HP shield. The black vortex rippled violently, dropping down to 6,787 HP, but it held firm.
The exact millisecond the greatsword bounced off the shield, the Platinum Ward’s reflection passive triggered. The shield captured 20% of the boss’s *unmitigated* 8,000 physical attack. Twenty percent of 8,000 was 1,600.
A violent, dark-purple shockwave exploded out from Levi’s shield and slammed directly back into Kaelen’s chest.
[-1,600 True Damage]
The corrupted red text popped up over the boss’s head. The Night King actually staggered backward, his attack animation violently canceled as he swallowed the unblockable reflection damage.
"My turn," Levi snarled.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He twisted his hips and ripped the heavy blade upward in a massive, ten-meter-wide cone that smashed directly into Kaelen’s frozen armor.
[-16,116]
The heavy red number exploded into the air.
The boss roared in annoyance. The skill’s debuff popped up, a broken shield icon shredding 20% of the Night King’s remaining armor. Kaelen’s effective Defense instantly plummeted from 3,500 down to 2,800.
Levi blurred into motion. His 1,736 Speed turned his avatar into a glitching black shadow on the ice. He dashed right into the boss’s guard and unleashed a relentless blender of basic physical attacks.
With the defense shredded, his basic strikes hit harder. 6,756 Attack minus 2,800 Defense equaled 3,956. Minus the 20% penalty, his basic strikes now hit for exactly 3,164 Final Damage.
[-3,164] [-3,164] [-3,164]
Because his attack speed was so ridiculously high, he was landing three or four hits a second. He was easily generating over 8,000 DPS.
Every single hit triggered the 25% Lifesteal from his Platinum weapon. He wasn’t taking any actual health damage right now, so the massive chunks of healing just uselessly over-capped his 26,180 HP bar.
Isolde didn’t wait. Standing thirty yards away near the edge of the arena, she raised her basic wooden staff. Her blank, robotic eyes tracked the armor-shred debuff on the boss.
[-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage]
Her Anomaly blasts completely bypassed the boss’s massive defense and suppression penalties, slamming into Kaelen’s back.
The marathon had officially begun.
Levi fell into an absolute flow state. The fight wasn’t a chaotic brawl; it was a perfectly optimized rhythm game. He kept his eyes glued to the boss’s shoulders. When Kaelen raised his greatsword for an overhead crash, Levi used his speed to slide completely behind the boss’s legs. When Kaelen swept the blade horizontally, Levi ducked.
He didn’t recast his shield immediately. He needed to save his 5,160 Mana pool for his armor shred.