Chapter 116: [116] : The Deathmatch Initiated, Global Panic

The rain poured into the ruined penthouse through the shattered glass walls.

Kato lay flat on his back, staring up at the razor-thin blade of the night sky hovering inches from his eye. He could feel the sheer gravitational pull of the tiny black hole threatening to suck his avatar into nothingness.

He could not breathe because Declan was crushing his windpipe with a heavy boot.

"You... you cannot," Kato choked out, coughing up bright blue pixels and digital blood. "My guild... forty thousand players..."

"I do not care about your numbers," Declan said flatly. He did not move his boot. "I gave you a choice earlier. You chose to drop a satellite on my head. That was very rude."

Declan pulled up his administrative interface with his mind. The glowing gold menu hovered in the air right next to the terrified face of Kato.

[Sector Annihilation Protocol: Pending Target Acceptance.]

"Accept the match," Declan ordered.

He didn’t want to just eliminate Kato, he wanted to show his people what happens when they are being harassed.

"No!" Kato shrieked as he thrashed his legs. "It is a server-mandated deathmatch! If we lose, my entire guild gets permanently deleted! I am not risking forty thousand accounts because of you!"

"You already risked them when you stole my ore and shot my miner," Declan replied smoothly. "You have two options Kato. You accept the prompt and you get to fight me in the plaza with your little army."

Declan leaned down slightly. His pitch-black eyes swirling with dark purple energy locked onto Kato.

"Or you refuse," Declan whispered. "And I chop your head off right now. I take your respawns. I take your treasury. And then I go downstairs and start deleting your guild members one by one until Sector 9 is empty."

Kato stared at the monster standing over him.

This was not a player. This was a walking glitch. He had completely ignored a one-million-damage orbital strike and summoned shadows that could not be killed.

But Kato was cornered. If he died here, his guild would panic and fall apart anyway. If he accepted the match, at least he had forty thousand armed players with plasma rifles and mechs.

One guy, no matter how glitched his stats were, could not kill forty thousand people before his stamina ran out. Right?

"Fine!" Kato spat, tears of pure rage and pain leaking from his eyes. "You want to die that badly? Fine! I will accept!"

Kato could not use his hands because Declan had chopped both of them off. He awkwardly jerked his chin upward, using his neural link to interact with the hovering gold menu.

He hit Accept.

BONG!

The massive deafening bell chimed again. It was not just in Sector 9. It echoed across the entire ruined planet of Earth. Every single player, whether they were hiding in a basement in Tokyo or fighting mutants in London, heard the exact same sound.

A massive and glaring red banner unrolled across the dark sky.

[Global Server Announcement!]

[Sector Annihilation Protocol Initiated.]

↳ Challenger: Player V (Sector 7 - Iron Bastion)

↳ Target: Neon Syndicate (Sector 9)

↳ Match Type: Server-Mandated Deathmatch. No Respawns. No Logouts. Winning faction absorbs all local assets. Losing faction faces permanent database deletion.

↳ Participant Ratio: 1 (Player V) vs 40,000 (Neon Syndicate)

[Teleporting participants to designated combat zone in 3... 2... 1...]

Declan smiled. The world around him instantly dissolved into a swirl of bright red pixels. He did not resist the forced teleportation as the game engine grabbed him and yanked him across the city.

A split second later, his boots hit solid ground.

He was no longer in the ruined executive office. He was standing exactly in the center of the massive central plaza of Sector 9.

It was a sprawling open square made of sleek black concrete. Towering neon-lit skyscrapers surrounded the area on all sides, casting bright pink and green reflections on the wet ground.

Declan casually adjusted the collar of his black Predator Coat. He looked around.

The system was busy.

All around the plaza, thousands of red pillars of light were crashing down from the sky. Every single member of the Neon Syndicate who was logged in was being forcibly dragged into the arena by the server.

Players were dropping into the streets, holding half-eaten food, holding crafting tools, or gripping their weapons in sheer confusion.

While the enemy army materialized, Declan opened his system interface. He pulled up the Global Server Chat.

He wanted to see the reaction.

The chat box was moving so fast it looked like a waterfall of pure white text.

[User_Ironclad: Bro! Did you see the ratio?! It is 1 versus 40,000!]

[Mage_Girl_99: Player V is completely insane! He just declared a deathmatch against the biggest PK guild on the server!]

[Rogue_Shadow: He is going to get turned into Swiss cheese! Sector 9 has plasma rifles and mechs! You cannot solo an army!]

[GuildLeader_Rex: I do not care how good his gear is. The action economy alone will crush him. Forty thousand attacks hitting at once? His game client is going to crash before he even dies.]

[Lone_Wolf: RIP Player V. It was fun while it lasted. At least he went out like a legend.]

Declan chuckled softly and closed the chat window. "They really love their math," he muttered.

He looked up.

A massive transparent red energy barrier suddenly erupted from the edges of the plaza. It shot hundreds of feet into the air, forming a colossal dome over the entire combat zone.

It was the deathmatch boundary. Nobody could leave until one side was completely wiped out.

And separating Declan from the rapidly assembling army of forty thousand players was a thin and glowing yellow wall of light.

A giant digital timer appeared in the sky above them.

[Combat Phase begins in: 10:00] 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Ten minutes of prep time.

The Neon Syndicate members were finally shaking off the teleportation sickness. They realized where they were and what the prompt meant.

And then, they saw the guy in the black coat standing all alone in the center of the plaza.

"It is him!" a player with a green mohawk yelled, pointing his plasma rifle at Declan. "That is the glitch! That is Player V!"

Sirens started blaring from the surrounding buildings. The Neon Syndicate was highly organized. Guild officers started screaming orders over their comms.

Heavily armored tanks rushed to the front lines and slammed their massive shields down. Mages and snipers scrambled up the fire escapes of the nearby buildings to take high-ground positions.

Declan just stood there with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He watched forty thousand people aggressively prepare to murder him.

He did not pull out a weapon. He just waited.