Chapter 22: [22] : Establishing the Sanctum, The Iron Bastion

Sector 4-Blight was exactly as miserable as they had left it.

The air smelled like wet trash and rusted metal, and the sky remained a bruised sickly purple color.

Ruined gothic buildings loomed in the thick fog with their shattered windows looking like empty eye sockets.

With a soft pop of displaced air, Declan, Sloane, and Kendra materialized in the middle of a ruined city square.

Kendra stumbled forward and grabbed her knees while panting heavily.

Her face was pale. Teleporting halfway across the map in a fraction of a second using a mutated void ring was not a pleasant experience for a normal player!

Sloane handled it a little better. She just groaned and leaned against a crumbled stone fountain.

"I hate that spell," Sloane muttered as she rubbed her temples. "It feels like my brain gets put in a blender and poured back into my skull."

"You get used to it," Declan said calmly.

He didn’t feel dizzy at all. The +20 Agility and +10 Intelligence from his new Mythic ring made his avatar’s body handle the spatial jump perfectly.

He looked around the square. It was empty. The weak Level 1 monsters that usually roamed this area were nowhere to be seen.

The area was quiet, but it wasn’t a peaceful quiet. It was the kind of quiet that happened right before a bomb went off.

Declan opened his system interface and checked the global timer.

[Notice: The Purge Wave will initiate in exactly 2 hours and 14 minutes.]

"We don’t have much time," Declan said. He closed the menu and looked at the two girls. "The server wipe is coming. We need to set up the safe zone."

He reached into his digital inventory. A heavy thud resounded in the quiet square as he pulled out the Sanctum Core.

The massive block of perfectly smooth black obsidian pulsed with a deep purple energy. It felt warm in his hands, almost like it had a heartbeat.

Kendra looked at the rock with wide eyes. "That’s it? That’s the item that dropped from the World Boss?"

"Yeah, That is the deed to our new property," Declan smiled.

He looked down at the muddy cobblestone ground. The system provided a few floating holographic prompts the moment he pulled the core out of his inventory.

[Sanctum Core Detected in active inventory.]

[Would you like to establish a permanent Safe Zone at your current coordinates?]

[Warning: Once planted, the Sanctum Core cannot be moved. The surrounding terrain will be permanently altered.]

Declan didn’t hesitate. "Yes."

The system reacted instantly.

[Please drive the core into the earth.]

Declan raised the heavy obsidian block high above his head and slammed it straight down into the muddy cobblestones.

The moment the black stone touched the ground, the earth violently shook!

"Whoa!" Kendra shrieked as she fell backward onto her hands and knees.

Sloane grabbed the edge of the ruined fountain to keep from falling over. "Earthquake! Brace yourselves!"

Declan stood perfectly still. His Spiked Striders gripped the shaking ground easily.

The Sanctum Core began to sink into the mud on its own.

As it sank, glowing purple lines spread out from it and traced a massive circular pattern across the ruined square.

The lines moved incredibly fast, crawling up the sides of the broken buildings, slicing through the rotting trees, and expanding outward into the fog.

A deafening hum filled the air. It sounded like a massive generator powering up.

Then, the ground ripped open.

A towering monolith of pure black iron erupted from the spot where Declan had planted the core.

It shot up ten feet, then twenty, then fifty feet into the air! It was a massive intimidating pillar covered in glowing purple runes.

From the top of the monolith, a sheer dome of transparent black energy exploded outward.

The dome expanded in a massive wave. It blew the toxic fog away instantly.

It pushed past the ruined buildings, past the alleyways, and expanded until it covered a massive one-kilometer radius.

Where the black energy dome settled, the air inside became instantly pure and breathable.

The ruined buildings inside the radius began to physically shift.

The crumbling stone walls reinforced themselves with dark iron. The muddy ground smoothed out into solid clean paving stones.

System notifications flooded Declan’s vision.

[Sanctum Core Planted.]

[Terrain successfully assimilated.]

[Safe Zone Created: The Iron Bastion.]

[Owner: Player V (Hidden Alias)]

"Wow," Kendra whispered as she stared at the massive black dome that now covered the sky above them. "It actually worked. We have a city."

Declan looked at the massive iron monolith in the center of the square.

A new holographic interface was hovering directly in front of it. It was completely different from his normal player menu. It was an administrative dashboard.

He walked up to the monolith and tapped the glowing screen.

[Iron Bastion Management Panel]

Current Population: 3

↳ Defenses: Level 1 (Basic Stone Walls)

↳ Treasury: 0 Origin Points

↳ Entry Tax: Unset

A new, massive holographic interface popped up in front of Declan. It was completely different from his normal player menu. This was a base management screen.

[The Iron Bastion]

↳ Zone Radius: 1 Kilometer

↳ Base Defense: Stone Wall (Level 1)

↳ Shield Integrity: 10,000 / 10,000

↳ Owner: Declan Vance

↳ Faction: None

[Administrative Controls:]

↳ Toggle Entry Access (Open / Restricted / Locked)

↳ Set Zone Tax (Disabled)

↳ Base Upgrades (Requires Origin Points)

↳ Ban/Kick Player

Declan scrolled through the menu. He noticed the ’Base Upgrades’ section. He tapped it.

A list of options appeared. He could upgrade the walls, add automated turrets, build forges, and set up healing stations.

But every single upgrade cost Origin Points. And they were not cheap.

Just Upgrading the basic stone wall to Level 2 cost five thousand Origin Points.

He checked his balance. He had much points after his fight with the world boss but he had barely enough to spend on any of those upgrades.

"Okay," Declan muttered to himself. "I have shelter. Now I need the money."

He could build NPC shops, upgrade the walls, hire automated guards, and set local laws. But everything cost Origin Points.

"I am not playing a city builder simulator," Declan muttered. He hated micromanaging menus. He turned around and looked at Sloane.

"Quartermaster," Declan called out.

Sloane jogged over while still looking around at the transformed buildings in awe. "Yeah boss? What’s up?" And why did you call me that?"

"Oh.., you said you were an ER nurse, so i thought you were good at dealing with terrible people and organizing chaos." Declan asked.

"Yeah. I was an ER nurse," she replied smoothly, still looking at the monolith. "Why?"

"I am giving you administrative access to the Iron Bastion," Declan said.

He tapped a few buttons on the monolith and linked Sloane’s player ID to the core. "You are now the city manager. You run the logistics."

Sloane blinked. A new gold menu popped up in front of her face. Her jaw dropped!

[Sub-Admin Rights Granted to Player: Sloane.]

"Wait, really? You’re just giving me control over the only safe zone in the sector?"

"I am giving you the boring paperwork," Declan corrected her. "Your first job is to set the entry tax."

"The Purge Wave is hitting in two hours. Every surviving player in Sector 4 is going to come running here when the monsters start spawning. They want to live, they pay."

Sloane’s eyes lit up with a dangerous capitalist gleam. She cracked her knuckles. "Oh, I like this job. How much are we charging?"

"Ten Origin Points per person to walk through the gate," Declan said.

"If they don’t have points, they hand over raw materials. Iron, wood, monster cores. Anything we can use to upgrade the walls."

And one more thing," Declan added, pointing at her admin interface. "Use the city’s spatial recall function to pull that blind diver, Thatcher, out of the Sunken Armory and put him in one of the secure vaults. He’s useful."

Kendra walked up and looked nervous. "Ten points? That’s a lot for newbies. What if they can’t pay?"

"Then they stay outside and fight the Flesh-Stalkers," Sloane said ruthlessly, already tapping away at her new admin screen.

"Declan didn’t solo a World Boss so we could run a charity. Ten points is cheap for keeping your brain from getting fried."

Declan nodded in approval. Sloane understood the assignment.

Declan was busy scrolling through the auction house when a red warning box hijacked his vision.

[System Alert: Vital signs critical in physical vessel. Extreme nutrient deficiency detected.]

[Forced Log-Out initiated to prevent host expiration.]

"Wait, what?" Declan frowned. "Cancel that. What is going on?"

[Override Denied. Safety Protocol Beta engaged.]

The glowing purple lights of the Iron Bastion flickered and died.

The world dissolved into a blinding white flash followed immediately by the suffocating darkness of reality.

Declan gasped. His eyes snapped open.

The smell hit him first. It was a disgusting mix of stale sweat, moldy concrete, and chemical cleaner.

It was the undeniable stench of Sector 7’s debtor’s prison.

He was lying on his back in the cold gel-lined dive pod. The mechanical halo around his head clicked loudly and released its grip.

The clamps on his wrists and ankles hissed and snapped open.