Chapter 77: The Sea of Screams, The 50% Wall
The *Wraith’s Wake* cut through the pitch-black water of the Sea of Screams. It wasn’t exactly a luxury cruise. The wooden deck was completely rotted, glowing with a sickly green ghost-light, and the ambient audio engine of the game was playing a continuous, annoying loop of drowning voices and muffled wails.
Levi stood at the bow of the ship, leaning his elbows against the wooden railing. He just stared out into the thick black fog.
"I really should have checked the settings to see if I could mute the background noise," Levi grumbled, rubbing his temples inside the VR helmet. "This is just giving me a headache."
He turned around and looked at Isolde. She was sitting on a stack of wooden crates near the main mast. Her gray cloak was completely still, but her character model was heavily glitching. Small streams of green hexadecimal code leaked from her sleeves and dissolved into the air.
She wasn’t looking at him. She was staring blankly at her own hands, murmuring quietly to herself.
"The density of this liquid is inconsistent," Isolde stated, her voice completely flat and robotic. "The buoyancy algorithms are mathematically incorrect. The ship should currently be sinking at a rate of two meters per second."
Levi rolled his eyes. "It’s a magic ghost ocean, Isolde. The developers didn’t care about real-world physics when they coded it. Don’t think about it too much, or your brain is going to fry itself."
Isolde’s empty eyes snapped up to look at him. She didn’t respond. Her human personality was buried deep right now, suppressing the God-fragment that was trying to actively delete her from the server.
Before Levi could try and force another conversation, the entire ship violently lurched to the left.
The wooden deck groaned as if the hull had just slammed into a solid brick wall. Levi lost his footing and stumbled backward, grabbing the railing to keep from falling into the black water.
"What did we hit?" Levi yelled, pulling the Sovereign’s Deathknell off his back.
The water on the right side of the ship exploded.
A massive, disgusting appendage covered in suction cups and thick, rubbery purple skin slammed directly onto the wooden deck. It was easily the width of a bus, crushing the wooden crates and instantly destroying a few of the skeletal pirate NPCs who were manning the rigging.
The system threw the monster’s stat block directly into Levi’s UI.
[Leviathan Tentacle]
[Level: 45]
[HP: 150,000 | ATK: 1,800 | DEF: 700]
"Level forty-five," Levi said, tightening his grip on his Gold-tier scythe. "Of course. Why wouldn’t the ocean be full of endgame trash mobs?"
He didn’t run. He just stood there and ran the combat math instantly. It was pure muscle memory at this point.
He was Level 35. The tentacle was Level 45. That was exactly a ten-level gap.
In Starfall, a ten-level difference meant the game slapped him with a 50% Level Suppression damage penalty. It was going to chop his damage perfectly in half before he even took a swing.
’Alright, let’s break down the armor,’ Levi thought. ’The tentacle’s Defense is 700. My Platinum Scythe ignores 20% of that. Twenty percent of 700 is 140. That drops its effective Defense down to 560.’
He checked his permanent, unbuffed Total Attack. It was sitting at a highly respectable 1,080.
1,080 Attack minus 560 Defense meant his raw damage per swing was exactly 520. Now, he had to apply the 50% suppression penalty.
Half of 520 was exactly 260.
’Two hundred and sixty Final Damage per basic strike,’ Levi calculated, letting out an annoyed sigh. ’Against a hundred and fifty thousand health. That is a lot of swinging.’
The massive purple tentacle didn’t wait for him to finish his math. It thrashed wildly across the deck, sweeping toward Levi like a massive, rubbery baseball bat.
Levi relied entirely on his 341 Speed. He ducked under the sweeping attack, popping up right next to the thickest part of the appendage. He swung the Sovereign’s Deathknell in a rapid flurry of basic strikes.
[-260] [-260] [-260]
The jagged Gold-tier blade hacked into the rubbery skin. The 10% Lifesteal from his weapon tried to trigger, but his health was already at a perfect 5,480, so the green numbers just floated uselessly into the air.
The weapon’s bleed passive triggered instantly. The small teardrop icon appeared over the tentacle, ticking for 5 true damage per second.
The tentacle reared back, coiling into the air like a snake, and then violently slammed straight down onto the deck.
Levi tried to use his speed to dodge, but the deck of the ship was too narrow. He was pinned between the railing and the main mast. The massive slab of purple flesh slammed directly into him.
The VR pain engine flared to life, sending a massive, blunt-force shockwave through his entire virtual body. The kinetic force actually crushed him into the wooden planks.
The system rapidly processed the hit.
The Leviathan Tentacle had 1,800 Attack. Levi’s current Defense was 299.
1,800 minus 299 meant the raw incoming damage was a staggering 1,501.
But Levi was wearing the [Heart of the Chained]. The Diamond-tier necklace instantly kicked in, applying its permanent 50% Damage Reduction.
1,501 cut exactly in half was 750.5. The system rounded it down to 750 incoming damage.
[-750]
Levi’s health bar violently chunked down from 5,480 to 4,730.
"Okay, that actually hurt," Levi coughed, pushing himself up off the splintered deck.
He quickly realized the flaw in his Diamond necklace. A 50% damage reduction was an absolute godsend, but taking 750 damage from a random ocean trash mob was a huge wake-up call. When he finally reached the Midnight Continent, the Level 60 Elites waiting for him were going to be hitting significantly harder than this. If he didn’t evade perfectly, they would easily three-shot his massive health pool. He couldn’t just face-tank everything anymore.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
Levi burned 50 Mana. His body dissolved into a pitch-black shadow, instantly teleporting directly upward. He completely bypassed the tentacle’s next sweeping attack, reappearing thirty meters in the air, directly above the monster.
Gravity instantly took hold. Levi plummeted toward the deck.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He dumped 100 Mana. The scythe erupted in a blinding, dark-gold aura. He ripped the heavy blade downward in a massive ten-meter cone that smashed directly into the top of the tentacle.
The skill math triggered. 1,080 Attack multiplied by the 3.5 modifier gave him exactly 3,780 raw damage.
3,780 minus the 560 effective Defense left 3,220 raw damage.
Apply the 50% suppression penalty, and the final skill damage was exactly 1,610.
[-1,610]
The heavy red number exploded into the foggy air. The tentacle shrieked—a weird, wet squealing sound—and slammed against the deck. The broken shield debuff popped up, shredding 20% of its remaining armor.
Levi hit the wooden planks and immediately dashed forward, resuming his basic attack blender. With the defense shredded, his 260 damage swings hit slightly harder, but it was still a massive slog.
Suddenly, Isolde stepped forward from the back of the ship.
Her gray cloak flickered violently. She didn’t say a word. She just raised her basic, Level 1 wooden beginner’s staff and pointed it directly at the thrashing tentacle.
A pulse of pure, bright white light shot from the tip of the staff.
[-5,000 True Damage]
The corrupted red text floated above the tentacle. The monster’s health bar took a massive dive. Because Isolde was an Anomaly, her attacks completely ignored the 50% Level Suppression penalty and the mob’s defense. She was just dealing raw, unmitigated damage to the server code.
"Keep doing that!" Levi yelled, hacking away at the rubbery skin.
With Isolde acting as his heavy artillery, the marathon fight heavily compressed. Levi used his massive 341 Speed to constantly weave around the slamming tentacle, completely holding its aggro by maintaining his true-damage bleed. He refused to take another hit, perfectly sidestepping the massive swings while carving his scythe into its flank.
Isolde dropped another 5,000 True Damage blast. Then another.
Between her Anomaly strikes and Levi’s relentless assault, the tentacle’s massive 150,000 HP pool melted away.
Eighty thousand. Forty thousand.
Finally, the health bar hit exactly 30,000 HP.
That was exactly 20% of the monster’s maximum health. The execution threshold was met.
"Soul Harvest."
Levi spent 50 Mana. The dark aura wrapping his avatar violently detached, shooting into the foggy sky. The massive, pitch-black spectral guillotine materialized and slammed straight down. It entirely bypassed the 50% suppression wall and cleanly severed the massive purple tentacle in half.
The monster shattered into millions of glowing blue polygons, raining seawater all over the deck.
[System Notification: Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
[System Notification: Slain 1x Level 45 Leviathan Tentacle. Gained 1,200,000 XP.]
Levi toggled off his Siphon Aura to stop his mana drain. He let out a long sigh and shook the digital sea-water off his scythe.
The 1,200,000 XP hit his progression bar, making a decent dent in his massive requirement, but it wasn’t enough to trigger a level up.
He didn’t care. He looked out past the bow of the ship. The thick black fog of the Sea of Screams was finally starting to clear. Looming in the distance, covered in absolute darkness and jagged black rocks, was the shoreline.
The Midnight Continent was waiting.