Chapter 27: [27] : The Artificer of the Hollows, Subterranean Descent

The Purge Wave was still active outside the Iron Bastion. Millions of Flesh-Stalkers were still throwing themselves against the Thorned Aegis walls and turning into bloody mist.

Crazy zombies.

Declan did not care. He needed an Artificer, and a swarm of gray zombies was not going to delay his city planning.

He walked to the edge of the safe zone. He did not open the gate. He just used Void Blink.

The world went pitch black. He bypassed the horde completely. He teleported through the wall and chained five blinks together in rapid succession.

He zipped across the muddy wasteland like a ghost. He left the screeching monsters far behind.

It took him twenty minutes of blinking and running to reach the coordinates Sloane had given him.

The entrance to the Subterranean Hollows did not look like much. It was just a massive and jagged crack in the ground at the base of a dead volcano in the Ashlands. Thick and foul-smelling smoke billowed out of the hole.

Seems dangerous.

Declan jumped in!

He fell for several seconds before using Void Blink to safely deposit himself on a rocky outcropping inside the cave.

It was pitch black. There were no glowing crystals here. No lava rivers. Just oppressive and suffocating darkness.

For a normal player, this was a nightmare. They would have to use torches, which would instantly alert every monster in a mile radius to their location.

For an Eclipse Sovereign, it felt like coming home.

It was the perfect skill for this environment.

[Eclipse Charge Generated. Current: 5/5]

Declan’s eyes adjusted quickly. The high agility and intelligence stats from his class and ring gave him perfect dark vision. The cavern was massive and filled with towering stalagmites and deep ravines.

He walked forward silently. His +10 Spiked Striders did not make a single sound on the stone.

Skitter. Skitter.

A sound echoed from the ceiling above him. It sounded like dozens of knives tapping against solid rock.

Declan looked up. Clinging to the cavern roof directly above him was a monster. It looked like a centipede, but it was the size of a city bus.

Its body was covered in thick dark purple armor plating. Its mandibles dripped with glowing green acid.

[Target Information]

↳ Name: Cave Crawler

↳ Level: 30

↳ HP: 12,000 / 12,000

Twelve thousand health! And judging by the thick plates, it probably had an absurd defense stat.

A normal party of ten players would spend twenty minutes chipping away at this thing while desperately dodging its acid spit.

Declan did not even pull out his heavy halberd. He reached into his digital storage and pulled out the +20 Carnage Cleaver.

The jagged and blood-red blade pulsed softly in the dark.

He did not throw a rock to pull aggro. He did not shout.

"Void Blink."

Declan vanished from the cavern floor. He teleported fifteen meters straight up. He appeared right next to the massive insect on the ceiling.

Gravity immediately took hold of him, but he did not need to fly. He just needed a fraction of a second.

He swung the cleaver at the crawler’s heavily armored side.

He mentally triggered one of his class resources.

[System Notification]

↳ 1 Eclipse Charge Consumed.

↳ Physical Damage multiplied by 200%.

The red blade blurred. It did not just strike the armor. It tore through the purple plates like a hot knife through butter.

The 200% multiplier turned his casual slash into a devastating kinetic impact.

Schwing!

The cleaver bit deep into the soft meat beneath the armor.

[System Ability Activated] 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

↳ Trait Activated: Hemorrhage

Declan let himself fall. He landed perfectly on his feet on the cavern floor. He took zero fall damage thanks to his boots.

He did not even look up at the monster. He just raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.

SNAP!

[System Ability Activated]

↳ Trait Activated: Blood Burst

The Cave Crawler did not even have time to shriek.

The massive bleed stacks applied by the cleaver, multiplied by the Eclipse Charge damage, detonated entirely from the inside of the wound.

It was like eating too much until your stomach exploded.

BOOM!

The top half of the giant centipede violently exploded! Dark green blood and shattered purple armor rained down from the ceiling like a disgusting waterfall.

The lower half of the monster twitched once and fell. It crashed into the stone floor before dissolving into blue pixels.

[System Notification]

↳ Cave Crawler Level 30 Killed!

↳ Experience Points Gained: 4,000

↳ Origin Points +100

Declan smirked. He had just one-shot a Level 30 mob in two seconds. The Eclipse Sovereign class was stupidly broken!

He kept walking deeper into the Hollows.

He encountered four more Cave Crawlers and a pack of Level 28 Blind Cave Bears. He did not sneak past any of them.

Seems like he was enjoying it.

He used Void Blink to close the distance instantly. He burned an Eclipse Charge, applied a bleed, and snapped his fingers.

He was farming them. He was a silent and teleporting grim reaper clearing out the hardest dungeon in Sector 4 without breaking a sweat.

After an hour of walking and slaughtering, he found what he was looking for.

At the end of a long tunnel, the cave opened up into a wide and circular chamber. This room was not natural. The walls had been smoothed out.

There were piles of scavenged metal, broken gears, and glowing runic batteries stacked everywhere.

The entrance to the chamber was blocked by a massive barricade of sharpened steel beams. Behind the barricade sat two heavy automatic crossbow turrets.

They were currently tracking Declan’s movements as their gears whirred loudly.

"I would not take another step, Grid-walker."

The voice came from behind the barricade. It was gruff and tired and full of gravel.

Declan stopped just out of range of the turrets. He peered into the scrap-cave.

Sitting at a heavy iron workbench was an older man. He had wild gray hair and a thick beard stained with grease. He wore a heavy leather blacksmith’s apron.

He was holding a blowtorch in his right hand.

His left arm was completely gone, severed just below the shoulder.

Seems like all the NPCs here are old men.

[Target Information]

↳ Name: Bram, The Exiled Artificer

↳ Type: Interactive Master NPC

"You are Bram," Declan said casually. He completely ignored the crossbows pointed at his chest.

"And you are an idiot if you think you are robbing my workshop," Bram snorted. He set the blowtorch down.

"Those turrets fire armor-piercing... bolts at three hundred feet per second. Turn around and walk back to whatever hole you crawled out of. I do not work for you player types."

Declan did not turn around.

He needed to calm the old man down.

"I am not here to rob you," Declan said. "I am building a city. I need an Artificer to manage my automated defenses. You are hired."

Bram laughed loudly. It was a harsh and barking sound.

"Hired? By a Grid-walker? You people are all the same. You run around swinging swords and getting yourselves killed, and you think you own the place. I do not build toys for children."

Are all old men this pigheaded ?

Declan looked at the massive turrets. Then he looked at Bram’s missing left arm.

Ha had to do something.

"Void Blink."

Declan vanished instantly!

The turrets spun wildly as they completely lost their target lock.

Instantly, Declan appeared directly behind Bram’s workbench inside the fortified barricade. He leaned against the stone wall and crossed his arms over his black coat.

Bram jumped out of his chair. He stumbled backward in absolute shock. He grabbed a heavy iron wrench from the table and held it up like a club.

"How did you bypass the spatial wards?!" Bram yelled. His eyes were wide in disbelief.

"I am just a little bit different," Declan said calmly. He looked at the stump of Bram’s left arm.

"Looking at you, you are a master mechanist, but you cannot forge properly with one hand. That is why you are hiding down here in the dark."

Bram gritted his teeth and lowered the wrench slightly. "What do you want?"

Now he is being reasonable.

Declan smiled. "I want you to run my city’s forges. And in exchange, I might help in fixing your arm."