Chapter 106: [106] : Aegis Forcefield Protocol, The Vanguard

Declan stood in the dark alleyway as rain slicked his clothes. He held a glowing silver data drive in his hand. The tiny needle at the tip dripped with bright blue digital code.

He had just ripped a passive core skill straight out of a Level 50 Juggernaut!

On the wet asphalt at his feet, Darius groaned.

The massive tank shifted and his ruined crimson armor scraped loudly against the pavement. He coughed up a mouthful of pixelated blood and slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.

Darius blinked his eyes open as he looked incredibly disoriented. The total knockout from the Kinetic Repulsion shockwave had scrambled his avatar’s sensory feedback.

"What... what hit me?" Darius mumbled and shook his heavy helmeted head.

"Math," Declan replied smoothly.

Darius froze. He looked up and saw the Warlord in the pitch-black Predator’s Coat standing right in front of him.

Panic instantly flooded the Juggernaut’s face. He scrambled backward and his boots slipped on the wet garbage in the alley. He tried to raise his heavy gauntlets to form a defensive guard and activate his signature tanking aura.

He pushed his mana into his neural link to trigger his passive skill.

But absolutely nothing happened!

Darius frowned and pushed his mana again. He pushed it even harder this time.

A glaring red system error box popped up right in front of his face.

[System Error: Action Denied.]

[Class File: Heavy Kinetic Plating not found.]

[Status: Permanent File Corruption. Passive Core missing from registry.]

"No," Darius whispered. The color completely drained from his face and he looked like a ghost. "No, no, no. That’s a glitch. System! Reboot interface!"

He tapped the air frantically and opened his character profile. He swiped to his skill tree.

There was a massive gaping empty slot right where his primary defensive passive used to be. It was just a black box filled with gray static. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

"Where is it?!" Darius screamed. His voice cracked with sheer unfiltered terror. "My build! My entire build is gone! I spent six months farming for that drop!"

"You should have kept backups," Declan said casually.

He tossed the glowing silver data drive up into the air and caught it.

Darius stared at the drive and his eyes widened as he realized exactly what it was.

"You stole it," Darius gasped. "You physically ripped my skill file out of my character model. You can’t do that! That is a direct violation of the server’s hard-coding!"

"I told you I didn’t care about the rules," Declan said. "I own this sector. I own the code in this sector. Thanks for the donation."

Declan completely ignored the crying broken tank sitting in the mud. He pulled up his own system interface.

He looked at the stolen item in his inventory.

[Skill File: Heavy Kinetic Plating]

↳ Type: Passive Core Skill

↳ Tier: Epic

↳ Description: Generates a permanent layer of kinetic-absorbing energy over the user’s armor. Passively negates 20% of all incoming physical damage. Scales with the user’s base Defense stat.

It was a very solid skill. A twenty percent flat damage reduction was incredibly valuable for a frontline fighter. It was the reason Darius could survive getting hit by trucks.

But Declan wasn’t a normal frontline fighter. He was a Level 70 Abyssal Sovereign with a massive health pool and a heart that converted damage into an over-heal blood shield.

Taking twenty percent less damage was boring. He didn’t want to take damage at all!

’System,’ Declan commanded in his mind. ’Learn the file. Then apply Boundless Enhancement. Push it to plus twenty. Use the funds from the extortion payout.’

He had easily squeezed 1.5 million Origin Points out of the Praetorian Guard squad earlier. He had plenty of money to burn!

The silver data drive in his hand shattered into a burst of bright blue light. The light sank directly into his chest and integrated the stolen code into his neural link.

Instantly, the familiar and blinding white enhancement light erupted from his body.

The system chimes started ringing rapidly in his ears.

[System Enhancement Initiated.]

↳ Heavy Kinetic Plating +1... +5... +10...

[Warning: Skill parameters exceeding maximum safety thresholds.]

[Warning: Neural link collapse imminent. Immediate skill deletion recommended.]

Declan gritted his teeth. The headache hit him like a hammer. The game engine was aggressively trying to reject the enhancement. It recognized that a player was forcing too much data into a single passive slot.

"Override," Declan growled.

His SSS-Rank talent did not care about the game’s safety warnings. It surged forward and crushed the red error boxes into digital dust.

[Talent: Boundless Enhancement activated. Cap removed.]

↳ Heavy Kinetic Plating +15... +18... +20.

[Skill has reached +20.]

[Triggering Conceptual Mutation...]

The white light suddenly shifted. It turned into a deep vibrating purple energy that completely swallowed Declan.

The air around him physically warped. The heavy toxic rain falling into the alleyway didn’t just bounce off his coat anymore. The raindrops hit an invisible barrier a full inch away from his skin and instantly lost all their momentum. They dropped harmlessly to the floor.

The headache vanished. It was replaced by a feeling of absolute impenetrable security.

Declan looked at the new system text floating in his vision.

[Skill Mutated: Event Horizon Bulwark]

↳ Type: Passive Core Skill (Sovereign Tier)

↳ Description: The user’s physical presence generates a conceptual absolute barrier.

↳ Functionality: Generates a permanent forcefield that scales to 30x the user’s Maximum HP. This barrier passively absorbs and completely nullifies all incoming kinetic energy, physical momentum, and impact force. Barrier regenerates completely when out of combat for ten seconds.

Declan let out a low dark laugh.

Thirty times his maximum HP!

His health pool was already sitting at a completely absurd number because of his Abyssal Sovereign class multipliers. Multiplying that massive number by thirty created a shield so thick it was mathematically impossible to break with conventional weapons.

He didn’t just have high defense now. He had an actual regenerating energy shield that stopped physical force from even touching him.

He could literally sleep through an artillery bombardment!

’Just a normal day for him,’ Declan smiled.

Suddenly, the heavy rhythmic thwip-thwip-thwip of helicopter rotors filled the air.

It wasn’t a faint sound in the distance. It was right on top of him.

The wind in the alleyway whipped up violently. Trash cans were knocked over and loose bricks went flying.

Declan looked up.

Hovering just fifty feet above the ruined street was a massive heavily armored stealth gunship. Its optical camouflage flickered and died. It revealed a sleek dark gray hull covered in corporate military logos.

The side door of the gunship slid open.

A figure stepped out into the open air and simply dropped!

The man fell fifty feet and slammed into the wet asphalt with a deafening crash. The concrete shattered and formed a spiderweb crater around his boots.

He didn’t even bend his knees.

The dust cleared.

Standing between Declan and the main street was a massive player. He wore heavy highly advanced tactical power armor that looked like a cross between a medieval knight and a futuristic super-soldier. The metal was a pristine glowing white with thick blue energy lines running across the chest plate.

In his hands he held a massive shoulder-mounted railgun that hummed with a terrifying amount of raw mana.

A golden system tag hovered over his helmet.

[Name: Commander Richter]

[Level: 70]

[Class: Vanguard Prime]

Richter slowly raised the heavy railgun. The massive barrel leveled directly at Declan’s chest. The blue energy coils whined as the weapon charged up to maximum power.

"Player V," Richter’s voice boomed through the external speakers of his helmet. It was cold, deep, and completely professional.

"You just robbed my men. You stole my property. And you are standing in my way."

Richter locked the targeting laser right between Declan’s eyes.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t vaporize you right now."

Declan didn’t flinch. He didn’t pull out a weapon. He just stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black coat and looked at the glowing railgun.

"I think i have found the reason the universe brought you to me now"

"Because I just bought a new shield," Declan said casually. "And I really want to test it out."