Chapter 133: [133] : The Eradicator Descends, Defending Sector 7 (1)

Declan stood in the middle of the toxic and ruined clearing. He had just finished equipping the completely broken +20 Desolation Armor Set.

The heavy dark matter plates fused perfectly over his body. It did not feel like wearing metal. It felt like wearing a second layer of unbreakable skin.

He pulled up his system interface. He wanted to look at the numbers one more time.

[Biological State]

↳ Health Points: 6,600,000 / 6,600,000

Declan let out a loud and highly amused laugh.

Six point six million health points. A normal player at Level 75 might have twenty thousand if they put every single stat point into Vitality. A massive World Boss like the Dune Leviathan probably had a few million at best.

Declan was walking around with the health pool of a literal server event.

And that was not even the best part.

The passive trait on the armor guaranteed massive true damage reflection. If someone actually managed to punch through his Sovereign tier defense, they would just end up killing themselves with the rebound.

He was entirely unkillable.

"Alright," Declan said as he cracked his knuckles. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet swamp. "I have the armor. I have the halberd. I have the speed."

He looked up at the sky.

The dark bruised purple clouds of the Primordial Grid were suddenly shifting.

It did not look like a normal weather change. The clouds completely stopped moving. The toxic wind died instantly. The air grew so thick and heavy that it was actually hard to breathe.

Then, the sky began to bleed.

A terrifying and oppressive red code started leaking out from behind the clouds. It looked like someone had dumped a billion gallons of red paint into the upper atmosphere. The digital code dripped downward, forming long and jagged lines of pure server commands.

The entire environment turned a glaring and violent red.

"They actually did it," Declan muttered. He did not look scared. He just looked extremely annoyed. "Apex Paradigm hit the panic button."

A massive server wide chime rang out. It was not the usual pleasant ding of a quest update. It was a harsh and blaring siren that physically vibrated Declan’s teeth.

[CRITICAL SERVER ALERT]

[Initiating Server Wipe Protocol.]

[Target: Sector 7.]

Declan did not waste another second. He tapped into his massive stamina pool.

"Void Blink."

The world went pitch black for a fraction of a millisecond. Declan vanished from the Corrupted Server Hub. He chained his teleportation skill flawlessly, skipping across the physical map of the Grid.

He bypassed the ruined highways, the deep magma trenches, and the toxic swamps. He covered miles of ground in seconds.

He reappeared right outside the massive black iron walls of his city. The Iron Bastion.

The glowing red energy dome that Bram had set up was still holding. It pulsed brightly against the dark and ruined slums of Sector 7.

But the real threat was not on the ground yet.

Declan looked straight up.

Directly over the center of the slums, the red code in the sky was violently swirling together. It formed a massive tearing vortex. The space inside the vortex looked like pure television static.

Something was trying to push its way out of the code.

A giant jagged hand made of solid black iron and glowing red wires reached out of the static. It grabbed the edge of the portal and pulled.

The sky literally ripped open with a deafening screech!

A monster dropped out of the portal. It did not fall fast. It slowly descended while entirely ignoring the laws of gravity.

It was absolutely colossal. It made the Dune Leviathan look like a garden snake.

It was a towering mechanical nightmare. It had the general shape of a human, but it was made entirely of shifting server blocks, heavy artillery cannons, and thick red energy shields. It had no face. Its head was just a massive glowing red optical lens that scanned the entire city below.

A golden system tag appeared above the monster. It was so large that it covered half the sky.

[System Purge Entity: The Apex Eradicator]

↳ Level: 100

↳ HP: ??? / ???

"Level 100," Declan stated flatly. "They really want me gone."

The Apex Eradicator did not roar. It did not make an angry monster noise. It just emitted a low and heavy electronic hum that made the ground shake.

Then, the true horror of the Server Wipe Protocol started.

The Eradicator was not alone.

All around the borders of Sector 7, the ground violently erupted. Massive black chasms tore open in the ruined streets, the alleyways, and the abandoned parking lots.

They were spawn portals.

And monsters started pouring out of them.

They were not the low level Flesh Stalkers from the tutorial. They were high level digital horrors. Giant multi armed Abyssal beasts. Towering mechanical golems covered in heavy armor. Swarms of glitching and static filled wolves that moved at terrifying speeds.

There were not hundreds of them. There were not thousands.

There were millions.

They formed a literal ocean of dark matter and red eyes. They completely surrounded the Iron Bastion in every single direction. They filled the streets until you could not even see the asphalt anymore.

Inside the city walls, the players were losing their minds.

Declan could hear them screaming from the other side of the heavy iron gates.

They had just survived the Purge Wave. They had just barely survived the Abyssal Tide. And now, they were looking at an endless army of high level horrors led by a Level 100 god of destruction.

Another blaring siren went off in everyone’s head.

A glaring red system prompt appeared directly in front of Declan’s face. He knew every single player inside the city was seeing the exact same thing.

[Emergency System Event: Defend the Zone]

↳ Objective: Protect the Iron Bastion from the Server Wipe Protocol.

↳ Condition: You cannot log out. You cannot use teleportation items. You cannot flee.

Declan read the final line of the prompt. His dark eyes narrowed.

↳ Failure Penalty: Permanent Hardware Deletion. Real World Host Expiration.

"Host expiration," Declan whispered. "Brain death."

Apex Paradigm was not playing around anymore. They were not just trying to delete player avatars. They had locked the server entirely.

There were perfectly willing to murder thousands of innocent civilians just to wipe Declan off the map.

They wanted to bury their mistake.

Declan shoved his hands into the pockets of his pitch black Predator’s Coat. He stood alone outside the heavy iron gates, looking at the approaching army of millions.

He didn’t feel fear. He didn’t feel panic.

He felt a cold and ruthless anger settling into his chest.

"You want to play for real?" Declan asked the massive red lens in the sky. He smiled. It was a dark and violent expression. "Fine. Let’s see who deletes who."

He turned around and walked straight through the transparent energy barrier. He had a city to organize.

He was not going to let a bunch of monsters break his toys.