Chapter 102: The Final Knights, Plunder Quota
"Level sixty elites right out of the gate," Levi said, stepping away from the mural. "Welcome to the endgame."
He didn’t panic.
He was Level 53. The Sentinels were Level 60. That was exactly a seven-level gap. In Starfall’s brutal scaling system, a seven-level difference imposed a 35% Level Suppression penalty. It was a solid wall, but compared to the 100% penalties he had dealt with outside, it felt like child’s play.
’Alright, break the armor down,’ Levi thought. ’Sentinel Defense is 1,500. My Platinum scythe ignores 30% of enemy defense. Thirty percent of 1,500 is 450. That drops their effective Defense down to exactly 1,050.’
He checked his permanent Total Attack. It was sitting at a massive 5,532.
’Two thousand, nine hundred and thirteen Final Damage per basic strike,’ Levi grinned. ’Against an eighty thousand health pool. I don’t even need to use my skills for these guys.’
He looked back at Isolde. "There are some ranged ones floating on the platforms above us. Drop your gravity snares on them so they can’t snipe me. I’ll handle the stairs."
"Artillery protocols engaged," Isolde replied. She raised her wooden staff, her eyes flashing with green hexadecimal code.
Levi kicked off the ground.
With his 1,736 Speed, he didn’t just run up the floating black glass staircase. He absolutely blurred. He was a glitching shadow tearing up the steps. The three Spire Sentinels waiting on the first landing didn’t even have time to fully lower their halberds.
Levi crashed right into their formation. He swung the massive Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse in a brutal, horizontal arc.
[-2,913] [-2,913] [-2,913]
The heavy red numbers exploded over the Sentinels’ heads. The jagged blade carved right through their thick obsidian armor.
Because his attack speed was so astronomically high, he didn’t just hit them once. He spun the scythe like a helicopter blade, landing five basic strikes in less than two seconds.
[-2,913] [-2,913] [-2,913]
The Sentinels stumbled, but they were endgame Elites. They didn’t stagger easily. One of the Sentinels thrust its halberd forward, catching Levi in the ribcage.
The VR pain engine sent a sharp jolt through his body.
The system ran the defensive math. The Sentinel had 4,200 Attack. Levi’s current Defense was 1,354.
4,200 minus 1,354 meant 2,846 incoming raw damage. Levi’s Diamond-tier necklace instantly cut that in half. He took exactly 1,423 damage.
His health bar dropped, but he didn’t even flinch. The exact millisecond the Sentinel hit him, Levi’s scythe carved into its chest.
The Platinum weapon had a 25% Lifesteal passive. Twenty-five percent of his 2,913 damage was 728 HP. He hit the Sentinel twice in a fraction of a second, instantly healing for 1,456 HP. The chip damage was completely erased before it even registered in his brain.
He was out-healing their damage purely through violence.
Up on a floating platform to his right, a ranged Sentinel raised a heavy crossbow. Before it could fire, a massive red circular field erupted directly beneath its boots. Isolde’s gravity snare locked the enemy in place, dropping its speed to a crawl. A second later, a blinding pulse of white light smashed into the crossbowman.
[-5,000 True Damage]
"Nice shot!" Levi yelled, continuing his blender of physical strikes on the stairs.
He hacked the three Sentinels to pieces. Their 80,000 HP pools melted under the relentless 2,900 damage swings. He didn’t even bother spending the 50 Mana to execute them with Soul Harvest. He just battered them until their health bars hit zero.
The three massive suits of armor collapsed and shattered into glowing blue polygons.
Levi didn’t stop to loot. He kept sprinting up the spiraling staircase. He became a literal force of nature, carving a path through the first nine floors of the Midnight Spire. He relied entirely on his raw speed and Lifesteal to sustain the climb. Isolde floated up behind him, perfectly managing the ranged threats with her Anomaly blasts.
After thirty minutes of non-stop, high-speed combat, the massive XP drops from the Sentinels flooded his progression bar.
[System Notification: Slain Spire Sentinels. Gained 15,000,000 XP.]
The golden light didn’t trigger a level up, pushing his bar to 44,500,000 out of the 140,000,000 needed, but the sheer volume of kills told Levi everything he needed to know. The Spire was a goldmine.
He reached the landing of the tenth floor and finally stopped, resting his scythe on the black glass to catch his breath.
***
The tenth floor of the Midnight Spire wasn’t just a narrow landing. It opened up into a massive, circular platform hovering in the dark void. A chilling wind howled through the open space, swirling around the glowing blue torches that lined the edges.
Levi stepped onto the platform. He didn’t care about the architecture. He cared about what was waiting in the middle of the room.
Four massive Obsidian Dreadknights were stationed there. They sat atop their towering skeletal warhorses, their jagged greatswords resting aggressively against their armored shoulders.
"Perfect," Levi grinned, rolling his neck.
He pulled up his mental plunder tally. Over the last few days, he had executed exactly 39 Dreadknights out on the plains. To hit his theoretical Strength limit before facing the Night King, he needed exactly 11 more kills. Gamer OCD dictated that he absolutely could not leave a quest at 39 out of 50.
He looked at Isolde, who glided onto the platform right behind him.
"I need these specific guys for my quota," Levi told her. "I’m pulling all four of them. You sync your blasts with my armor shred. Let’s make this fast."
"Synchronizing fire patterns," Isolde stated flatly.
Levi kicked off the glass floor. His 1,736 Speed allowed him to cross the massive platform in the blink of an eye. He didn’t sneak up on them. He dragged his scythe against the ground, the screeching noise echoing loudly across the void.
The four Level 60 Elites turned their glowing blue eye slits toward him. Their skeletal horses let out hollow neighs and charged.
"Platinum Ward of the Abyss!" Levi shouted.
He dumped 500 Mana. The air instantly froze as a thick, swirling vortex of pitch-black abyssal matter erupted from the floor, entirely encasing his avatar. His massive 10,110 HP shield locked into place.
He planted his boots and let the four knights reach him.
The Dreadknights brought their massive greatswords crashing down in a synchronized overhead smash.
The four greatswords slammed into his black-hole shield.
[-1,323] [-1,323] [-1,323] [-1,323]
The 10,110 HP shield shuddered violently, absorbing all 5,292 combined damage. It dropped to 4,818 HP but held firm.
The exact millisecond the blades hit, the Platinum Ward’s reflection passive triggered. The shield captured 20% of their *unmitigated* 4,000 attack.
Four violent, dark-purple shockwaves exploded out from Levi’s shield, slamming directly back into the knights.
[-800 True Damage] [-800 True Damage] [-800 True Damage] [-800 True Damage]
The Dreadknights staggered backward, taking the unblockable reflection damage. Levi didn’t give them a second to recover.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He burned 100 Mana. The Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse erupted in a blinding dark-gold aura. He ripped the blade upward in a massive ten-meter cone that smashed directly into all four Elites.
[-11,902] [-11,902] [-11,902] [-11,902]
Massive red numbers exploded into the air. The knights shrieked as the skill’s debuff popped up over their helmets, shredding 20% of their remaining armor.
Isolde’s timing was absolutely flawless. The microsecond the defense-shred icon appeared, she unleashed a rapid volley of pure white light from her wooden staff.
[-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage]
Her Anomaly blasts chunked the massive 100,000 HP health bars down even further.
Levi blurred into a glitching black shadow, hacking relentlessly into the skeletal horses with basic strikes. The combat went incredibly fast. Between his heavy basic attacks, his 25% Lifesteal keeping him immortal, the True Damage reflection from his shield, and Isolde acting as a machine gun, the four Elites melted.
Two minutes later, all four Dreadknights dipped below exactly 20,000 HP.
Twenty percent.
"Soul Harvest."
Levi dumped 50 Mana. The pitch-black spectral guillotine materialized in the air and slammed down, decapitating the first knight.
[Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
He instantly burned 20 Mana for Hollow’s Traverse, blinking two meters to the left.
"Soul Harvest."
Execute. Blink. Execute. Blink.
Levi flashed across the circular platform in a chaotic web of teleports and giant spectral scythes. He chained four consecutive executions in under two seconds. The Level 60 Elites violently shattered into millions of glowing blue polygons.
Four dense crimson auras ripped out of the empty space and slammed into his chest.
[Supreme Harvester triggered 4 times. Gained +60 STR permanently!]
"Forty-three down. Seven to go," Levi smirked.
For the next two hours, Levi aggressively hunted the remaining seven Obsidian Dreadknights as they climbed floors eleven through twenty.