Chapter 98: The Massacre of the Maze, Server Lag
The game engine physically hitched.
A localized lag-spike hit the entire coliseum.
It didn’t just slow the monsters down. It completely froze the server connection for the NPC entities.
The Abyssal Goliath froze mid-swing, the stone pillar hovering inches above Levi’s head. The Dreadknights froze on their skeletal horses. The Shadow-Weavers froze in mid-air. The entire coliseum was suspended in absolute, frozen silence.
Isolde dropped to her hands and knees, her avatar glitching wildly between solid rendering and green wireframes. She was forcing the server to pause, and it was ripping her code apart.
"Execute them," Isolde stammered, her voice shaking with actual, uncalculated emotion. "Levi, please. Execute them."
Levi forced himself off the bone floor. He ignored the flashing red borders of his UI. He gripped the Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse.
He didn’t have to worry about suppression penalties against frozen targets. The server lag treated their defense as zero.
"You got it," Levi snarled.
He had ten seconds before the server corrected the lag-spike. It was time to clear the room.
***
The fifteen Level 60 Elites were entirely frozen in space.
It wasn’t a game mechanic like a stun or a root. The server itself had physically stopped updating their character models. An Abyssal Goliath hung in mid-air, its massive stone pillar paused exactly an inch above Levi’s skull. Two Shadow-Weavers were stuck mid-leap. The skeletal warhorses of the Dreadknights had their front hooves suspended in the air.
The entire coliseum was perfectly, absolutely silent.
Isolde was on her hands and knees by the bone wall. Her avatar was glitching violently, rapidly shifting between her untextured gray cloak and a bright green digital wireframe. She was forcing the Starfall server to pause, and the effort was visibly ripping her Anomaly code apart.
"Execute them," Isolde stammered. Her voice wasn’t broadcasting in her usual flat, robotic tone. It was shaking. It sounded like actual, unfiltered human panic. "Levi, please. Execute them."
Levi forced himself off the bone floor. His health bar was sitting at a miserable 1,180 out of 10,080. The flashing red borders of his UI were trying to warn him that he was essentially one stubbed toe away from deletion, but he swiped the warnings away.
He gripped the Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse.
He knew he had roughly ten seconds before the server’s backend corrected the lag-spike and the game resumed. He didn’t have to worry about the 45% Level Suppression penalty right now. Against frozen targets suffering from an Anomaly-induced server crash, the game engine registered their Defense as zero.
"You got it," Levi snarled.
He didn’t waste a millisecond.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
He teleported a short distance, positioning himself at the absolute perfect angle where the fifteen frozen hitboxes overlapped in the center of the coliseum.
He planted his Gold-tier boots against the polished bone dust.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
Levi ripped the heavy blade in a massive, ten-meter-wide cone that carved straight through the frozen mob.
The math processed instantly, and it was glorious.
His Total Attack was 4,992. The skill applied a 3.5 damage multiplier. Because the enemies were frozen by an Anomaly, their 3,000 and 2,000 Defense stats were completely ignored, and the Level Suppression was temporarily deleted.
The dark-gold wave smashed into five Abyssal Goliaths, five Obsidian Dreadknights, and five Shadow-Weaver Assassins.
[-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472]
[-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472]
[-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472] [-17,472]
Fifteen massive red numbers exploded into the air at the exact same time. The total damage dealt across the pack was a staggering 262,080.
But Levi didn’t care about the damage. He cared about his weapon’s passive.
A blindingly bright green number floated above Levi’s head.
[+65,520]
His health bar didn’t just fill up. It violently slammed against its maximum capacity. In a single frame of animation, his HP shot from 1,180 straight back to a perfect 10,080. He just healed for over six times his total health pool in one swing.
"I love this weapon," Levi laughed.
He didn’t stop to admire his full health bar. He had eight seconds left on the lag-spike.
With 1,191 Speed, Levi moved so fast his character model broke. He turned into a glitching black shadow, hacking into the frozen Elites with a relentless barrage of basic attacks.
He didn’t need to dodge. He didn’t need to parry. He just swung the scythe like a madman. His basic strikes carved massive chunks out of their health bars.
He targeted the Goliaths first, hacking their legs until their 250,000 HP pools dropped down to the 50,000 mark. He moved to the Dreadknights, dropping them to 20,000 HP. He finished with the Shadow-Weavers, bringing them below 14,000 HP.
Three seconds. Two seconds. One second.
Every single one of the fifteen Elites was sitting comfortably below the 20% health threshold.
The green static around Isolde suddenly vanished. The server caught up.
The coliseum un-froze. The massive stone pillar that had been hovering over Levi’s previous position finally crashed into the floor, shattering the bone tiles. The Dreadknights roared. The Shadow-Weavers shrieked, their animations snapping back to full speed.
"Too late," Levi said.
"Soul Harvest."
[Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
His Hollow’s Traverse instantly refunded its cost. Levi didn’t even blink. He just spammed the input.
Teleported two feet to the right.
"Soul Harvest."
Execute. Blink. Execute. Blink.
It was an absolute massacre. Levi flashed across the coliseum in a chaotic, blinding web of teleports and giant spectral scythes. He didn’t even look at the targets anymore; he just locked onto the red health bars and let the class mechanic do the work.
A terrifying storm of fifteen spectral blades rained down on the coliseum. He decapitated five Abyssal Goliaths, five Obsidian Dreadknights, and five Shadow-Weaver Assassins in absolute unison.
All fifteen Level 60 Elites violently shattered into millions of glowing blue polygons at the exact same second.
The sound of breaking glass was so overwhelmingly loud that the game’s audio engine peaked and temporarily muted itself. The coliseum was completely covered in a thick layer of dissolving pixels, high-tier crafting materials, and piles of silver coins.
Levi landed on his boots, his Platinum scythe resting against the bone floor. He let out a massive, heavy exhale.
Before the dust could even settle, fifteen incredibly dense, blindingly bright crimson auras ripped out of the empty space. They shot across the room like a barrage of missiles and slammed heavily into his chest.
[Supreme Harvester triggered 15 times.]
[Gained +225 STR permanently!]
[Gained +300 AGI permanently!]
[Gained +400 VIT permanently!]
Levi actually stumbled backward a half-step. The raw, completely unfiltered influx of stats forced its way into his avatar’s code. Plus two hundred and twenty-five Strength. Plus three hundred Agility. Plus four hundred Vitality. It was an apocalyptic amount of power.
Then came the experience points.
Killing fifteen Level 60 Elites with a nine-level gap still applied a massive underdog multiplier.
[System Notification: Slain 15x Level 60 Elites. Gained 135,000,000 XP.]
The golden pillar of progression light crashed down from the ceiling, turning the entire coliseum blindingly bright. It washed away the real-world fatigue burning in Levi’s arms and fully restored his mana pool.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 52.]
Levi dismissed the prompt with a swipe of his hand.
He opened his status menu. The 135 million XP easily cleared the 120 million threshold, leaving him with 67,500,000 XP carrying over into his next bar. He needed 130,000,000 XP to hit Level 53.
He had 5 new free stat points. He dumped them all into Vitality, riding the massive wave of health he just plundered.
He ran the math as his character sheet updated.
His previous Strength was 1,830. He added the massive +225 from the Dreadknights. His permanent Strength hit 2,055.
His Total Attack shot up to exactly 5,532.
His Speed hit an absurd 1,491.
His new Vitality was exactly 904.
His Max HP exploded to 18,180.
His Defense bumped up as well. 904 Vitality plus the 50 Defense from his mantle pushed it to exactly 954.
Levi stared at his numbers. Eighteen thousand health. Fifty-five hundred attack. Nearly fifteen hundred speed.
He closed the menu. He was ready to rip this labyrinth apart.
The heavy bone doors on the far side of the coliseum slowly ground open, signaling that the kill-box event was officially cleared.
Levi didn’t immediately walk toward the exit. He turned around and jogged over to the canyon wall where Isolde was sitting on the floor.
**
Updated Stat Sheet:
Name: Levi | Level: 52
Class: [Herald of the Hollow (Unique)] |Talent: [Supreme Harvester (Unique)]
HP: 18180/18180 | Mana: 5160/5160
STR: 2055 | AGI: 1471 | VIT: 904 INT: 511 | LUK: 175
Attack: 5532 | Defense: 954 | Speed: 1491
Core Skills: [Hollow’s Guillotine], [Hollow’s Traverse], [Siphon Aura], [Soul Harvest], [Platinum Ward of the Abyss].