Chapter 50: [50] : The Apex Raid, Unwelcome Guests

The walk back from the inner city alleys was cold and incredibly wet. The toxic rain of Sector 7 washed over the rusted skyline in thick, heavy sheets.

Declan kept to the shadows. He left the flickering neon signs and the panicked screams of the commercial zones far behind him.

The abandoned industrial district was completely dead quiet. There were no civilians running around here. There were no flashing screens broadcasting the end of the world.

There was just row after row of rusted, empty warehouses, broken concrete, and forgotten machinery.

Declan reached his specific warehouse and grabbed the heavy steel sliding door. He pulled it shut with a loud, metallic screech, sealing himself inside.

The interior was pitch black. The skylights above were too coated in decades of grime to let the moonlight through.

But for Declan, it did not matter at all!

His synced vision illuminated the dark space perfectly. The high Agility and Intelligence stats from his Eclipse Sovereign class gave him flawless night vision. He could see every speck of dust floating in the air.

He walked over to the center of the massive floor.

The stolen corporate dive pod was sitting right where he left it. The heavy machine was still humming loudly.

It was drawing massive amounts of electricity from the industrial main line he had spliced it into earlier. Sparks occasionally popped from the taped wires. The blue gel inside the open pod looked cool and inviting.

Declan did not climb in right away. He just sat heavily on the edge of the metal pod and let out a long breath.

He reached into the pocket of his wet, faded orange jumpsuit. He pulled out a cheap plastic packet of nutrient paste. He had snagged a handful of them from the street before he eliminated those crazy zombies.

Declan ripped the plastic top off with his teeth and squeezed the thick, gray sludge directly into his mouth.

"I really need to buy a fridge," Declan muttered to himself. He forced the disgusting paste down his throat and opened another packet.

His body was screaming for calories!

Having the physical density and raw muscle mass of an Ascendant-tier player in the real world meant his metabolism was operating in complete overdrive. He felt like a walking furnace.

If he did not eat, his body would literally start eating itself to maintain the stat boosts.

He tossed the empty plastic packets onto the concrete floor and focused his mind.

"Status!"

A glowing blue holographic interface popped up directly in his real-world vision.

[Host Information]

↳ Synchronization Rate: 30%

↳ Grid Inventory: Accessible

He swiped his hand through the empty air, scrolling through his digital items. He saw his massive hoard of Origin Points. He saw the piles of raw iron and monster drops Sloane had managed.

Then he looked at his equipped gear.

The +20 Carnage Cleaver. The +30 Warden’s Halberd. The +20 Purification Talisman. The +10 Predator’s Coat.

All of his high-tier gear was grayed out on the screen! There was a small red padlock icon hovering over the items.

Declan frowned and tapped the halberd icon.

[System Remark]

↳ Error: Item mass and conceptual density exceed current physical vessel limits. Higher synchronization required for materialization.

Declan read the prompt and sighed. It made complete sense, but it was still highly annoying.

He could not pull out the big guns yet. His physical body in the real world was only thirty percent synced with his digital avatar.

If he tried to summon a weapon that weighed five hundred pounds and generated a literal localized black hole, his human bones would probably shatter the second he tried to swing it. The real world physics engine just could not handle that level of conceptual weight yet.

"I need to get back into the Grid," Declan said out loud. He cracked his knuckles, the sound popping loudly in the empty room. "I need to hit the next Spire dungeon and eat another core. Thirty percent is not going to cut it anymore."

He stood up, wiped the rain from his face, and got ready to climb back into the blue gel padding of the dive pod.

Then, he stopped completely.

His enhanced senses picked up a faint sound outside the thick walls of the warehouse.

It was not the heavy rain hitting the corrugated metal roof. It was not the wind howling through the broken streets.

It was a low, rhythmic, mechanical hum.

Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!

Helicopter rotors!

Declan tilted his head slightly, his dark eyes narrowing. He listened closely, filtering out the sound of the storm.

They were not loud, clunky police choppers. They were the highly expensive, silenced rotary blades of corporate stealth gunships.

The humming sound grew slightly louder, then slowly died down about two blocks away.

They had landed!

Declan stood perfectly still. A few seconds later, his enhanced hearing picked up the faint crunch of heavy combat boots walking over broken glass and wet gravel.

There were multiple targets. They were moving in a perfect, tight, and highly synchronized military formation.

"Well, that was fast," Declan sighed, shaking his head.

Director Sterling really was not wasting any time. Apex Paradigm had obviously traced the massive, unauthorized power draw from the stolen dive pod.

Stealing a megacorp’s property and plugging it directly into an abandoned city grid was basically lighting a massive flare and waving it around.

Declan did not panic. His heart rate did not even spike.

He did not run for the back exit either. Running was for normal people!

He just casually walked over to the center of the warehouse. He found a rusted metal shipping crate sitting a few yards away from the front entrance and sat down. He faced the heavy steel rolling doors directly.

He opened his inventory again. The god-tier weapons were locked, but he still had scavenged loot.

He focused on the +20 Black Aegis. It was originally just a mundane titanium riot shield. It did not have the conceptual density of a Relic-tier weapon.

The shield materialized into reality with a heavy metallic clank.

Declan strapped the sleek, matte-black metal tightly to his left forearm. He crossed his legs, rested his chin on his right hand, and simply waited in the dark.

Outside in the pouring rain, the elite mercenary strike team stacked up against the warehouse walls.

There were exactly twelve of them. They looked nothing like the cheap, overweight prison guards like Officer Briggs.

These guys were serious! They wore full matte-black tactical armor designed specifically to absorb high-caliber rifle fire and explosive shrapnel. Their advanced combat helmets featured glowing red multi-optic visors that pierced through the rain and fog.

They carried heavily modified, suppressed assault rifles loaded entirely with armor-piercing rounds.

These were the real-world cleaners of Apex Paradigm. The absolute best of the best!

The guys the corporate board sent in the middle of the night to make rival executives, corporate spies, and annoying whistleblowers disappear without a single trace.

The squad leader stood at the front of the line. He held up a black-gloved fist.

The entire team instantly stopped moving. Not a single boot scraped the gravel.

The leader tapped his radio earpiece.

"HQ, this is Alpha Team. We are at the target location," the squad leader whispered, his voice completely professional and flat. "Thermal imaging shows a massive power source operating inside the structure. One single heat signature detected near the center of the room."

"Copy that, Alpha Team," Director Sterling’s cold, arrogant voice crackled back over the secure comms line. "The target is highly dangerous. He has somehow managed to splice our proprietary tech directly into his nervous system."

"Do not engage in dialogue. Do not try to capture him alive. Breach and execute."

"Understood," the squad leader said.

He lowered his hand and gave a quick, sharp tactical signal to his men.

Two heavily armored mercenaries stepped forward from the line. They pulled small, heavy discs from their utility belts and slapped the circular breaching charges directly onto the electronic locks of the heavy steel rolling door.

They primed the detonators, stepped back quickly, and raised their assault rifles to their shoulders.

The squad leader leveled his own weapon at the center of the metal door.

"Breaching in three. Two. One."

Boom!

The shaped C4 charges detonated simultaneously.

The explosion was incredibly precise and violently loud. A flash of bright orange fire lit up the rainy alleyway.

The thick steel door was blown completely off its heavy metal tracks!

The sheer force of the blast sent the massive sheet of corrugated iron flying inward. It crashed onto the concrete floor of the warehouse with a deafening metallic screech, kicking up a massive cloud of gray smoke, ash, and concrete dust.

"Go! Go! Go!" the squad leader barked.

The mercenaries flooded into the building like a swarm of angry hornets. They fanned out instantly with practiced, flawless military precision.

Twelve bright red laser sights cut through the lingering smoke, sweeping across every single dark corner of the massive room.

"Clear left!" a mercenary shouted.

"Clear right!" another yelled, sweeping his rifle across the empty scaffolding.

The squad leader marched straight down the middle, stepping right through the thickest part of the smoke cloud. His rifle was shouldered tight, his finger resting heavily on the trigger.

He fully expected to see a terrified, malnourished debtor asleep inside a stolen dive pod. He expected to put two suppressed rounds into the guy’s head and call it a night.

It was supposed to be a very easy, standard execution.

Instead, the glowing red laser sight of his assault rifle landed dead center on a faded orange jumpsuit.

The dust and smoke finally cleared entirely.

Declan was sitting casually on the rusted metal crate. He did not have his hands raised in surrender. He did not look startled by the explosive breach.

He did not look scared at all!

He was just resting his chin on his hand, staring right back at them.

His eyes were no longer normal human eyes. The irises glowed with a deep, swirling, dark Eclipse energy that cast a faint, highly unnatural purple light across his pale face.

"You guys really need to learn how to knock," Declan said.

His voice was entirely calm, echoing smoothly across the dark warehouse.

The squad leader did not blink. He did not hesitate. He did not care about glowing eyes or snarky comments. He followed his corporate orders immediately.

"Target acquired. Open fire!"