Chapter 97: System Error: Fear, The Human Glitch
Levi’s health bar chunked down from a perfect 10,080 to exactly 9,065.
"A thousand damage through my shield," Levi grunted, stumbling back a half-step. "You guys hit hard."
But the Platinum Ward’s reflection passive triggered perfectly. The shield captured 20% of the unmitigated total physical attack before it broke. The five Goliaths had hit him with a combined 25,000 raw attack power.
A violent, dark-purple shockwave exploded out from Levi’s shattered shield and blasted outward, slamming directly back into all five Goliaths.
[-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage]
The red corrupted text popped up over their massive heads. All five giants completely staggered backward, dropping their stone pillars and roaring in confusion as their own attack bypassed their 3,000 Defense and chunked their health bars.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
He didn’t stick around to let them recover. He bypassed the staggering giants and reappeared thirty meters away, right next to the struggling Shadow-Weavers caught in Isolde’s gravity snare.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He ripped the heavy blade in a massive ten-meter-wide cone that smashed into the snared assassins and two of the charging Dreadknights.
Levi blurred into motion. His 1,191 Speed made him completely untouchable to the snared targets. He swung the massive scythe rapidly, landing basic physical attacks that hit for over 1,500 damage a pop through the 45% suppression wall.
[-1,500] [-1,500] [-1,500]
The 25% Lifesteal from his Platinum scythe triggered instantly. Every single swing fed massive chunks of health back into his pool. The 1,015 damage he took from the Goliaths was completely erased in less than a second.
[+375] [+375] [+375]
His health bar locked back at a perfect 10,080. He was functionally immortal as long as he kept attacking.
"I’ve got the big guys!" Levi shouted over the chaos. "Keep the assassins pinned down!"
"Acknowledged," Isolde stated. She pointed her wooden staff at a Shadow-Weaver trying to crawl out of the red circle.
[-5,000 True Damage]
The True Damage blast chunked the assassin. Levi dashed away from the red zone, intentionally throwing a basic attack at one of the skeletal warhorses to draw the Dreadknights’ aggro.
He ran back to the center of the coliseum. He became a human meat shield. He used his absurd speed to physically run circles around the five Goliaths and the five Dreadknights. He ducked under heavy bone clubs and sliding under massive greatswords.
He didn’t bother trying to kill the Goliaths with basic attacks. He just kept the 5 DMG/sec true damage bleed ticking on all ten heavy targets. He let them chase him. Every time his Platinum Ward came off its 60-second cooldown, he stopped moving. He popped the 10,110 HP shield, let them hit him with everything they had, and watched the shield violently reflect 5,000 True Damage right back into their faces.
The kill-box had turned into a perfectly optimized grinding session. The game tried to throw an overwhelming numerical advantage at him, but Levi’s math was just better.
*
The coliseum of spines turned into an absolute nightmare of clashing metal, dark magic, and roaring monsters. Levi was sweating heavily inside his NerveDive helmet. Managing the aggro of ten massive, slow-moving Elites while keeping an eye on his mana pool was pushing his multitasking limits to the edge.
He chugged a Greater Mana Potion, restoring 300 Mana instantly to keep his fuel tank topped off for his next shield rotation.
Over by the canyon wall, Isolde was acting like a flawless machine gun. She dropped gravity snares perfectly to keep the five hyper-fast Shadow-Weavers locked down, systematically blasting them with True Damage.
But the game’s AI was adapting to the chaos.
One of the Shadow-Weaver Assassins, a monster with a ridiculous 600 Speed stat, spawned just outside the radius of Isolde’s latest red gravity circle. Isolde’s tracking parameters didn’t register it in time.
The Assassin shrieked, blurring into motion. It didn’t charge at Isolde. It targeted Levi.
Levi was currently dodging a massive horizontal sweep from a Dreadknight’s greatsword. He saw the purple blur out of the corner of his eye. He tried to pivot, but the Assassin didn’t want to get into melee range.
The monster flicked its wrist and threw a small, dark purple dagger completely cloaked in void magic.
Levi’s 1,191 Speed was fast, but he was locked in his dodge animation. The flying dagger clipped his shoulder.
It dealt zero physical damage, but the system UI violently flashed yellow.
[Debuff Applied: Void Paralysis.]
[You are Rooted for 2 seconds.]
Levi’s avatar completely locked up. His boots felt like they were glued to the bone floor. He couldn’t swing his scythe. He couldn’t cast Hollow’s Traverse. He couldn’t move a single muscle.
"Stunned!" Levi yelled, trying to mash his movement commands to break the root early. "Isolde, pull aggro!"
But the situation instantly went from bad to worse.
One of the Abyssal Goliaths, a massive twenty-foot-tall tank holding a stone pillar, realized Levi wasn’t moving. The game’s threat table recognized that Levi’s DPS had paused. The Goliath’s glowing red eyes snapped away from Levi and locked directly onto the squishy, unarmored caster standing by the wall.
The Goliath let out a deafening roar and charged straight at Isolde.
Isolde’s blank, robotic eyes tracked the incoming giant. Her internal logic processed the math instantly.
She had zero physical defense. She had zero evasion stats. The Goliath’s attack speed was faster than her casting animation. She could not drop a gravity snare in time. She could not outrun the massive hitbox of the bone club.
The Anomaly code calculated her evasion probability at exactly zero percent.
Isolde’s character model completely froze. Her gray cloak stopped moving. She just stood there, her wooden staff lowered, accepting the mathematical reality that she was about to get hit.
"Move!" Levi screamed, his finger practically breaking against his virtual controller trying to snap the stun.
The two-second root timer ticked down. 1.5 seconds. 1.0 seconds.
The Goliath reached Isolde. The giant raised its massive stone pillar high into the air. The system flagged the attack above the monster’s head.
[Warning: Abyssal Goliath is casting Skull Crusher.]
Levi knew that skill. It was an elite-tier critical hit modifier that dealt 400% damage. If that hit Isolde, it wouldn’t matter how bloated her Anomaly health pool was. It was going to flatten her into the bone dust.
0.5 seconds.
Levi’s root debuff shattered a fraction of a second early.
His Platinum Ward of the Abyss was still on a 15-second cooldown. He had no shield.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
Levi burned 50 Mana. His body reappeared directly in the tiny gap between Isolde and the falling stone pillar.
He didn’t have time to swing his scythe. He didn’t have time to dodge. He just threw his back toward the Goliath and braced himself, acting as a literal meat shield.
The massive stone pillar smashed squarely into his Obsidian Carapace.
The VR pain engine went absolutely nuclear. It felt like a wrecking ball had hit him in the spine. The kinetic force was so overwhelming it actually threw him into Isolde, knocking them both to the floor.
The system ran the brutal, unforgiving math.
Goliath ATK was 5,000. Levi’s DEF was 549.
[-8,900 CRIT!]
The massive yellow and red text exploded over Levi’s head.
His health bar violently plummeted from a perfect 10,080 down to exactly 1,180 HP.
Levi hit the bone floor hard, coughing up virtual blood. His avatar flickered aggressively with red warning static. His vision actually blurred inside the helmet. He was sitting at 10% health. One stray hit from a normal mob right now would instantly kill him.
Isolde scrambled to her knees next to him.
Her God-fragment code processed his dropping health bar. The Anomaly logic kicked in immediately. Levi’s combat capability was compromised. He was highly likely to die. The logical choice was to abandon him, reset aggro, and wait for the system to delete his avatar so she could find a more efficient anchor.
But the human Isolde—the code Levi had been talking to, protecting, and treating like an actual person for the last few days—violently rebelled.
Isolde’s blank, robotic eyes completely shattered. A blindingly bright, aggressive red system prompt violently flashed directly over her head, visible to everyone in the room.
[SYSTEM ERROR: EMOTIONAL OUTPUT > LOGICAL PARAMETERS]
Isolde looked at Levi coughing on the floor, then looked up at the massive Goliath raising its stone pillar to finish him off.
For the first time since Levi met her, she didn’t state a flat, robotic observation.
She screamed.
It wasn’t a digital sound. It wasn’t a game audio file. It was a raw, panicked, entirely human cry of absolute terror.
"No!" Isolde shrieked.
Her Anomaly power didn’t just cast a spell. It violently erupted from her body in a wave of pure, corrupted green static. The system couldn’t handle the massive contradiction in her code.