Chapter 86: [87]: The Mathematical Grind, A Crack in the Logic(BONUS)
He kited them back toward the canyon wall where Isolde was waiting.
"Get ready!" Levi shouted.
He didn’t bother using his shield.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
He swung the Gold-tier scythe in a brutal, ten-meter-wide cone that smashed directly into all five knights simultaneously.
The knights had an effective Defense of 1,600 after his scythe’s 20% penetration. His new Attack was 1,464.
[-176] [-176] [-176] [-176] [-176]
The tiny red numbers popped up. It was pathetic damage against a 100,000 HP pool, but it did its job perfectly. The broken shield debuff triggered on all five targets, shredding their remaining defense.
"Fire!" Levi yelled.
Isolde raised her basic wooden staff. She unleashed a rapid volley of pure white light into the cluster.
[-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage]
The knights roared in confusion as massive chunks of their health bars were instantly deleted. The sudden burst of True Damage completely scrambled their threat tables. The game’s AI recognized Isolde as the primary threat.
Two of the massive Dreadknights completely ignored Levi. They spurred their skeletal horses and charged directly at Isolde.
Levi cursed. He was standing slightly out of position. He tried to dash into their path, but the black glass was too slippery to make a sharp ninety-degree turn at 346 Speed.
One of the knights reached Isolde. It raised its massive, jagged greatsword high into the air, preparing to bring it down in a devastating overhead crush. Isolde didn’t have any armor. She didn’t have any evasion stats. If that sword hit her, she was going to take the full 4,000 damage.
Isolde just stood there, her blank robotic eyes staring up at the falling blade. She didn’t even try to cancel her casting animation.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
His body dissolved into a tunnel of dark light. He bypassed the physical distance entirely, teleporting directly into the empty space between Isolde and the falling greatsword.
He didn’t have time to cast his shield. He couldn’t even raise his scythe to parry. He just threw his back toward the blade and braced himself.
The heavy iron greatsword slammed squarely into his Obsidian Carapace armor.
The VR pain engine sent a violent, agonizing shockwave down his virtual spine. The sheer kinetic force of the blow dropped him entirely to one knee.
[-1,826]
Levi’s health bar violently chunked down from 6,160 to exactly 4,334.
He coughed, fighting the hit-stun animation, and quickly swung his scythe in a wide arc to clip the horse’s legs, refreshing his true-damage bleed to force the knight’s aggro back onto him.
Isolde finally stopped casting. Her character model completely froze. She slowly lowered her wooden staff and looked down at Levi, who was still kneeling on the glass floor in front of her.
"Warning," Isolde stated, her voice sounding completely robotic but slightly disjointed. "Your self-sacrifice parameters are highly inefficient. My health pool is significantly larger than yours. Furthermore, my deletion does not impact your game state."
Levi pushed himself up to his feet, ignoring the throbbing ache in his back. He glared at her.
"It impacts my game state," Levi grunted, gripping his scythe. "Just do your job and keep firing."
Isolde stared at him for a fraction of a second. Her gray cloak flickered with a sudden burst of green static. Her logic circuits were violently clashing with the completely illogical human action she had just witnessed.
She raised her staff again, aiming past Levi’s shoulder.
[-5,000 True Damage]
Levi dove right back into the cluster of five knights. The fight was absolute chaos. He had to manage the aggro of five massive swords swinging at him simultaneously. He couldn’t take another direct hit like that without a shield.
He treated the combat like a perfectly choreographed dance. He used his Speed to weave between the skeletal horses, sliding under horizontal sweeps and teleporting out of the way of overhead crashes. He kept his bleed ticking on all five targets.
Isolde acted like a machine gun. She systematically dropped the knights’ health bars.
60,000. 40,000. 25,000.
Levi watched the red bars closely. The moment the first knight dropped to exactly 19,000 HP, he went to work.
"Soul Harvest."
The pitch-black spectral guillotine materialized and slammed down, decapitating the first knight.
[Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
His teleport refunded its cost. He didn’t even pause to watch the body shatter. He teleported three meters to the right, appearing next to the second weakened knight.
"Soul Harvest."
Execute. Blink. Execute. Blink.
It was a terrifying display of absolute mechanical perfection. Levi turned into a glitching afterimage, flashing across the dark plains in a chaotic web of teleports and giant spectral scythes. He chained five consecutive executions in less than three seconds.
The five Level 60 Elites all violently shattered into millions of glowing blue polygons at the exact same time. The sound of breaking glass echoed deafeningly across the canyon.
Levi landed on his boots, breathing heavily.
Before the dust even settled, five blindingly thick crimson auras ripped out of the empty space. They shot across the plains and slammed into his chest like a barrage of physical punches.
[Supreme Harvester triggered 5 times.]
[Obsidian Dreadknight’s primary stat is STR (1,500).]
[You have plundered 3% of its core stat.]
[Gained +225 STR permanently!]
"Two hundred and twenty-five Strength," Levi laughed, rubbing his chest as the massive wave of raw power flooded his stats.
Then came the experience points.
Fighting five Elites nineteen levels higher than him with the maximum underdog multiplier applied yielded an absolutely world-breaking amount of XP.
The golden pillar of progression light crashed down from the sky. It hit Levi, instantly washing away the physical pain in his back and completely refilling his health and mana pools.
The light didn’t fade. It flashed again instantly.
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 42.]
[System Notification: Level Up! You are now Level 43.]
Levi dismissed the notifications with a tired wave of his hand. Jumping two levels at once in the mid-forties was unheard of.
He immediately opened his status menu. He had 10 new free stat points to allocate. He didn’t even need to think about it. He dumped all 10 points directly into Strength.
His previous Strength was 540. He added the massive +225 from the plunder, bringing it to 765. Then, he added the 10 free stat points.
His new permanent Strength stat hit exactly 775.
His Attack is now 1,690.
Finally, the 20% Herald class passive applied.
Pushing his permanent, unbuffed Total Attack to a staggering 2,028.
"Over two thousand attack," Levi whispered.
He closed his menu and looked out across the Dread-Plains. The math was finally starting to shift in his favor. He had broken the two-thousand damage barrier. The Level 60 Elites weren’t a wall anymore; they were just stepping stones.
He looked back at Isolde. She was still standing perfectly still, but the green static in her eyes was flickering slightly.
"We’re just getting started," Levi said, spinning his scythe. "Let’s go find the rest."