Chapter 82: [82]: Gargantua of the Wastes, Disabling the Math
He looked at his damage output. Even though his Level Suppression penalty against the Level 50 mobs was going to start shrinking as he leveled up, his raw physical damage was still a joke. He needed to hit harder to increase his Lifesteal return.
He dumped all 10 points directly into Strength.
His STR bumped from 380 to 390.
His permanent, unbuffed Total Attack is now at exactly 1,104.
"Eleven hundred attack," Levi noted, dismissing the menu.
He picked up his scythe. The canyon was entirely empty. They had completely cleared the local spawn table. He looked further down the path, where the jagged obsidian rocks opened up toward the center of the Midnight Continent.
"Come on," Levi said to Isolde. "We’ve got a bridge to cross."
***
Levi and Isolde walked out of the obsidian canyon and finally reached the inner boundary of the Midnight Continent.
The landscape didn’t get any friendlier. Stretching out in front of them was the Ashen River. It wasn’t filled with water or magma. It was a massive, fast-flowing torrent of liquid, burning gray ash that generated a suffocating amount of heat. Falling into that river meant instant death, regardless of how much damage reduction you had.
The only way across was a massive, ancient stone bridge that spanned the gap.
Levi stopped at the edge of the bridge. Standing dead in the center of the stone pathway, completely blocking the route to the Midnight Spire, was the zone’s primary gatekeeper.
It was a giant. It stood thirty feet tall, its body made entirely of fused human skulls, thick gray muscle, and rusted iron plating. It held a weapon that looked like a solid pillar of bone ripped from the spine of a dragon.
Levi pulled out an Inspect scroll and crushed it.
[Gargantua of the Wastes]
[Level: 58 | Mini-Boss]
[HP: 400,000 | ATK: 3,500 | DEF: 1,500]
"Level fifty-eight," Levi said. He didn’t even raise his scythe yet.
He was Level 38. The Gargantua was Level 58. That was exactly a twenty-level gap.
In Starfall, the Level Suppression penalty capped at exactly 100%. A twenty-level gap meant the game was going to enforce a complete, absolute 100% damage reduction penalty. It was mathematically impossible to deal damage.
’But let’s look at the armor anyway,’ Levi thought, rubbing his chin. ’Boss Defense is 1,500. My Gold scythe ignores 20%. Effective Defense drops to 1,200.’
1,104 Attack trying to punch through 1,200 effective Defense.
"My base physical strikes are entirely blocked by raw stats," Levi noted. "I would deal exactly zero damage even without the level penalty."
He ran the math for his nuke skill. Hollow’s Guillotine will give him effective Defense of 2,664.
’So my skill can pierce the armor,’ Levi thought. ’But the 100% suppression penalty makes it zero anyway. If you multiply 2,664 by zero, you get zero. I literally cannot hurt this thing.’
He looked at Isolde. She was staring at the giant, her gray cloak perfectly still.
"I need your Anomaly powers, Isolde," Levi said flatly. "I can’t break the system’s math on this one. I’m completely walled."
"Acknowledged," Isolde replied, her robotic tone back in full force.
The Gargantua of the Wastes didn’t wait for them to finish strategizing. The giant noticed them standing at the edge of the bridge. It let out a roar that sounded like thousands of voices screaming in agony, raised its massive bone pillar, and charged.
Every step the giant took shook the stone bridge. Ash fell from the edges into the liquid river below.
Levi didn’t back down. He stepped onto the bridge.
"Hollow’s Ward!" Levi shouted.
The pitch-black, dark-matter shield erupted around his avatar. It locked into place with exactly 1,505 HP. He toggled on his Siphon Aura, draining 2 Mana a second.
The Gargantua reached him. It didn’t bother with a fancy attack skill. It just brought the massive bone pillar crashing down directly on top of Levi’s head.
Levi raised the haft of his scythe to parry, but the weapon was simply too heavy. The bone club smashed directly into his dark-matter shield.
The VR pain engine sent a horrible, blunt-force shockwave through his entire virtual skeleton. His knees actually buckled under the kinetic force.
The system ran the defensive math. Boss ATK (3,500) minus Levi DEF (349) equaled 3,151 incoming damage.
Levi’s Diamond-tier necklace kicked in. 3,151 cut in half by the 50% Damage Reduction passive was exactly 1,575.5. The system rounded it up to 1,576 damage taken.
[-1,576]
The impact slammed into his 1,505 HP Hollow’s Ward. The shield violently shattered, exploding into black shards. The remaining 71 damage bled right through and hit his actual health pool.
His health dropped from 6,480 to 6,409.
"That is a very big stick," Levi coughed, stumbling backward.
Isolde stepped forward from the edge of the bridge. She didn’t point her staff to fire a True Damage blast. Instead, her character model glitched violently. Green hexadecimal code poured out of her eyes. She pointed her wooden staff directly at the Gargantua and cast a completely corrupted, game-breaking spell.
[System Notification: Anomaly Interference Detected.]
[Target’s Level Suppression mechanic disabled for 10 seconds.]
The red Level 58 tag floating above the boss’s head violently glitched, turning into a string of zeroes.
"Now!" Isolde shouted.
Levi didn’t hesitate. The 100% penalty was temporarily deleted.
"Hollow’s Guillotine!"
The scythe erupted in a blinding, dark-gold aura. He ripped the blade upward in a massive ten-meter cone that smashed directly into the giant’s chest.
With the suppression penalty gone, the raw math finally processed.
[-2,664]
The giant staggered. The skill’s debuff triggered, shredding 20% of its remaining armor. The boss’s Defense plummeted to exactly 960.
Because the defense dropped below his 1,104 Total Attack, his basic strikes could finally deal damage. Levi blurred into motion. With his Speed, he dashed around the massive giant, hacking relentlessly at its ankles.
[-144] [-144] [-144]
The scythe’s 10% Lifesteal triggered, instantly patching the 71 damage he had taken earlier. His health bar locked back at 6,480.
Isolde didn’t wait. With the boss’s defense shredded, she unleashed a rapid barrage of Anomaly blasts from the backline.
[-5,000 True Damage] [-5,000 True Damage]
Levi spammed Hollow’s Guillotine on cooldown. He burned through his mana pool like water. He dumped 100 Mana. Cast. Slashed. Cast again.
He landed exactly four casts of Guillotine during the ten-second window.
10 seconds passed.