Chapter 115: [115] : Body-Block, Looting the Laser

The blinding white light of the orbital deletion beam consumed everything. It punched through the executive penthouse, shattered the reinforced concrete floor, and drove Declan straight down into the lower levels of the skyscraper.

The server audio engine could not process the sheer magnitude of the code deletion. The floors just ceased to exist.

Up in the ruined boardroom, Kato stood near the shattered glass window. He was panting heavily as sweat covered his pale face. The heavy plasma cannon had dropped from his remaining hand.

He stared down into the massive and perfectly circular hole. The Orbital Ion Reflector had carved it right through the center of his guild headquarters.

A red damage number slowly floated up from the bottom of the pit.

[True Damage Taken: 1,000,000 HP]

Kato let out a loud and hysterical laugh that echoed in the rainy night.

"You arrogant trash!" Kato screamed down into the smoking hole. "You thought you could walk into Sector 9 and give me orders? I just dropped a million points of true damage on your head! Nobody survives that! Your character file is dust!"

Kato turned away and clutched the bleeding stump of his right shoulder. He needed a high-tier medic right now.

But as he took a step toward the door, a low buzzing sound echoed from the pit. It sounded like a massive swarm of angry hornets or a highly unstable energy field.

Kato froze. He slowly turned his head and looked back at the hole.

Deep down in the rubble of the fortieth floor, the dust was glowing. It was not the bright white light of the deletion beam but a dark and violently swirling crimson red.

Declan stood up from the shattered concrete.

His black Predator Coat was completely untouched. His boots were planted firmly on a steel beam, and surrounding his entire body was a thick bubbling barrier of pure blood.

The Sanguine Engine.

His mutated Sovereign-tier consumable did not just heal him. It converted fifty percent of all the massive overkill damage he dealt into a permanent stacking physical blood-shield.

Declan had spent hours in the Ascension Trial swinging a dark matter halberd that weighed four hundred pounds, crushing Level 60 Phantom Kings into paste. He had wiped out an entire vanguard army and deleted Abyssal entities.

The system had constantly converted that absurd damage into his shield.

One million points of true damage was a lot. For any normal player or even a World Boss, it was an instant deletion.

For Declan, it simply peeled off the outer layer of his over-heal barrier.

"That was loud," Declan muttered as he rolled his shoulders. He looked up at the gaping hole leading to the penthouse.

A glaring red system warning flashed in his vision.

[Warning: Target Lock Maintained. Orbital Ion Reflector preparing second volley.]

"Right. It is a continuous beam," Declan noted casually.

He did not have time to run up forty flights of stairs before the satellite fired again. He also did not want to burn through his blood shield just standing there taking hits. He needed a distraction.

"Legion," Declan commanded.

The dark shadows pooling around his boots instantly bubbled and rose. A single pitch-black figure materialized right next to him.

The Eclipse Clone held a shadowy replica of the massive halberd and stared upward with glowing purple eyes.

"Don’t just stand there," Declan pointed right above his own head. "Catch the next one."

The clone did not speak. It just jumped straight up, using its own high Agility to hover directly in the path of the open ceiling.

A second later, the sky flashed white again.

The Orbital Ion Reflector fired its second volley. The massive beam of pure deletion code shot down through the hole, aiming straight for the coordinates Declan stood on.

It hit the Eclipse Clone dead center.

The dark matter clone did not have a health bar. It was an immortal summon designed to persist until Declan dismissed it or ran out of mana.

The system deletion beam violently clashed with the absolute immunity code of the clone.

The air shrieked with a horrific grinding noise as the game engine fought itself. The clone was instantly frozen, its dark body turning a glaring white as the beam tried to scrub it from the server.

It could not kill the clone, but the sheer force of the beam pinned it in mid-air.

"Good boy," Declan smirked.

He had the opening he needed.

"Void Blink."

The world went pitch black for a fraction of a millisecond. Declan bypassed the forty floors of destroyed concrete and shattered glass entirely.

He materialized perfectly in the middle of the ruined executive boardroom right behind Kato.

Kato was still staring at the glowing white beam shooting down through the center of the room. The Guild Master of the Neon Syndicate had a smug smile on his face, fully believing the second shot was finishing the job.

"You missed," a cold and heavy voice whispered right in the ear of Kato.

Kato eyes went wide as the blood drained from his face. He did not even have time to turn around or scream.

Declan raised his left hand and swung the +20 Carnage Cleaver in a fast and brutal arc.

Schwing!

The jagged blood-red blade sliced cleanly through the remaining left shoulder Kato had. The cybernetic armor parted like cheap plastic.

"AGH!" Kato shrieked in absolute agony.

His left arm hit the wet carpet with a heavy thud.

[Trait Activated: Hemorrhage]

Dark corrupted blood immediately started spraying from the clean stump on the shoulder of Kato. The unblockable bleed effect began ticking down his health bar at fifty points a second.

Kato collapsed to his knees. He was completely armless now. His expensive gear was ruined, and his health was rapidly draining into the red zone.

"My arm! You cut off my arm!" Kato sobbed, rolling on the floor in the glass and puddles of rainwater.

Declan did not care about his crying. He looked at the floor where the left arm had fallen. The severed hand was still tightly gripping a small and glowing silver remote control. It looked like a highly advanced detonator.

It was the control unit for the massive satellite currently shooting lasers at his clone.

Declan walked over and stomped his heavy spiked boot directly onto the severed mechanical hand. The metal fingers crushed under his weight and released the remote.

Declan reached down and picked it up.

A golden system prompt immediately flooded his vision.

[Item Retrieved: Orbital Ion Reflector Control Unit]

↳ Tier: Sovereign Corporate Asset

↳ Status: Active

This was the best loot ever.

Declan smiled and tapped the glowing red button on the side of the remote.

Instantly, the massive white beam of deletion code shooting through the room vanished. The roaring sound of the satellite died down. Outside, the dark clouds rolled back over the sky and hid the massive space weapon from view.

"Thanks," Declan said smoothly. He tossed the remote into the air and willed it into his digital inventory. It vanished into a swirl of blue pixels.

Kato was still thrashing on the floor, gasping for air as the Hemorrhage trait melted his health bar.

Declan walked over and kicked Kato squarely in the chest. The heavy impact flipped the guild leader onto his back.

Declan stepped forward and pressed the bottom of his heavy spiked boot directly against the throat of Kato, pinning him to the floor.

He summoned the +40 Eclipse Severance. The massive dark matter halberd dropped into his right hand.

He rested the razor-thin blade directly against the cheek Kato had. The tiny black hole spinning in the axe head tugged aggressively at his pink hair.

"Now," Declan said as his voice dropped to a terrifying and resonant bass. "Let us talk about the Sector Annihilation Protocol."