Chapter 54: [54] : The Hospital Run, The Gore-Hulk

The blinding blue energy slugs tore out of the rifle barrel.

They crossed the hallway instantly and slammed directly into the back of the Gore-Hulk’s head. The hyper-kinetic force exploded against the red and bruised skin.

[Critical Hit! Minus 450 HP]

The Gore-Hulk staggered forward. Its massive face smashed into the dented steel doors. The monster let out a confused and furious bellow.

It slowly turned its massive bulk around to face the hallway.

Declan frowned. He looked at the gun.

Four hundred and fifty damage was a massive hit for a normal player. But against an Elite Level 12 monster with thick damage-absorbing skin, it was just a scratch!

The rifle was great for clearing low-level trash mobs and unarmored targets. But it lacked the raw and physics-breaking conceptual destruction of his heavy melee weapons.

The Gore-Hulk locked its tiny bloodshot eyes on Declan. It didn’t care about the gun. It just saw a target.

It roared and stomped its heavy feet. It charged down the narrow hospital corridor like a runaway freight train.

Declan willed the rifle into his inventory. He didn’t have the space to kite the monster in this tight hallway. Pouring energy slugs into its thick hide would take too long.

He needed to break it!

He planted his plus 10 Spiked Striders firmly into the linoleum floor. He lowered his stance and bent his knees slightly, bringing his left arm up. The heavy and matte-black surface of the plus 20 Black Aegis faced squarely down the hall.

He wasn’t going to dodge. He was going to catch a Level 12 Elite monster charging at full speed.

The Gore-Hulk closed the distance in seconds. It lowered its massive shoulder and threw its entire three-thousand-pound body weight into a devastating tackle aimed directly at Declan’s chest.

It hit the shield.

The sound was like a bomb going off in an enclosed space. The sheer kinetic impact shattered the fluorescent lights on the ceiling and blew out all the glass windows in the adjacent hospital rooms.

Declan didn’t move an inch!

His boots dug into the floor and perfectly conserved his momentum. His thirty percent real-world synchronization gave his muscles the density of solid titanium.

The shield ate the entire force of the blow. It absorbed the massive kinetic energy perfectly.

The Gore-Hulk stopped dead in its tracks. It looked confused as it stared down at the tiny human who had just completely halted its charge.

"My turn," Declan said coldly.

He didn’t swing the shield. He just let the built-in system mechanics do the work.

The Kinetic Repulsion trait triggered.

All of the force the Gore-Hulk had just delivered into the shield was instantly multiplied. It fired directly back out as a focused and concussive shockwave.

The air between the shield and the monster physically rippled.

BOOM!

The shockwave slammed into the Gore-Hulk’s chest at point-blank range. The massive creature was literally lifted off its feet!

Its ribcage cracked loudly and caved completely inward. It was launched backward down the hallway and flew through the air like it had been fired from a cannon.

It crashed through the drywall of an empty patient room and completely obliterated the wooden studs. It shattered the medical equipment inside.

It rolled across the floor and slammed into the exterior brick wall, coming to a dead stop in a cloud of plaster dust.

Declan walked slowly through the massive hole in the wall.

The Gore-Hulk was trying to push itself up. Its chest was completely flattened, and dark corrupted blood leaked from its mouth.

[HP: 800 / 3,500]

The repulsion blast had taken a massive chunk out of its health, but it was still alive. Elites were stubborn.

Declan reached his right hand out. He wanted to end this quickly.

"Let’s see if the system lets me do this," Declan muttered.

He tried to summon the plus 20 Carnage Cleaver. He focused entirely on the jagged blood-red blade sitting in his digital inventory.

The air warped around his fingers. The system flashed a warning in his vision.

[Warning: Sync Rate Insufficient for full manifestation. Attempting partial render.]

Declan pushed his mana into the connection. He forced the data through the dimensional gap.

A heavy dark iron handle materialized in his grip. The blade followed, but it wasn’t the massive terrifying machete it was in the Grid.

It was heavily corrupted with gray static. The blade was flickering and struggling to maintain its physical form in reality. The red glow was dim and unstable.

It was glitched, but it was solid enough to hold.

Declan walked right up to the struggling Gore-Hulk. The monster raised a weak and shaking fist to swat at him.

Declan casually batted the fist away with his shield. He raised the flickering Carnage Cleaver high and brought it down viciously into the side of the monster’s thick neck.

Schwing!

The blade sliced through the tough hide. It didn’t trigger a massive Blood Burst. The system connection was too weak in the real world to activate the complex conceptual traits.

But the raw physical sharpness of a plus 20 weapon was still there.

It severed the monster’s thick jugular perfectly!

The Gore-Hulk choked, and its eyes rolled back into its head. Its massive body slumped against the broken bricks and went completely still.

[Level 12 Gore-Hulk Defeated. Origin Points +150.]

The massive corpse began to dissolve. It turned into a cloud of bright blue pixels that floated up into the ruined ceiling. It left behind a small glowing Reality Shard on the dusty floor.

Declan willed the glitched cleaver back into his inventory. The weapon instantly vanished, and the system warning disappeared from his vision.

He bent down, picked up the shard, and tossed it into his storage.

He walked back out of the ruined hospital room and stepped into the hallway.

The heavy steel doors of the ICU were dented inward, but they were still standing. Declan walked up to the doors and knocked firmly on the metal with his knuckles.

"Sloane," Declan called out. "Open the door."

There was a long moment of total silence. Then, he heard the sound of heavy objects being scraped across the floor on the other side. Someone was dragging vending machines out of the way.

The doors clicked and slowly pulled open.

Sloane stood in the doorway. She looked absolutely terrified. Her white medical scrubs were stained with dirt and sweat. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

She was holding a heavy red fire extinguisher like a baseball bat. Her knuckles were totally white from gripping it so hard.

She stared at Declan. She looked at his pitch-black tactical jacket, the heavy riot shield strapped to his arm, and the massive smoking hole in the wall a few yards away where the monster used to be.

She slowly lowered the fire extinguisher.

"Declan?" Sloane whispered. Her voice was shaking. "You... you actually came."

"I told you I was coming," Declan said smoothly. He stepped past her and into the Intensive Care Unit.

The room was large and dimly lit by emergency backup lights. There were several beds, but only one was occupied.

Lying in the center of the room was a young girl. She was incredibly pale. She had thin fragile arms and a shaved head.

She was hooked up to a ventilator and several heart monitors that beeped with a slow and steady rhythm.

Declan looked at the medical equipment. Then, he looked back at Sloane.

"This is Mia?" Declan asked softly.

Sloane nodded. She dropped the fire extinguisher and walked over to the bed. She gently took her sister’s hand. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"The power grid in the city is failing," Sloane said. Her voice cracked. "The backup generators here only have enough fuel for another six hours. Once they die, the ventilator stops. She... she won’t make it."

Declan looked around the quiet and sterile room. He thought about the Weaver of Lies in the Crimson Spire. He thought about the deal the monster had offered Sloane.

A complete cellular restoration for her sister, in exchange for betraying him.

Sloane had shot the monster in the face instead. She had trusted him. She had banked her entire life on a guy who wore a black trench coat and killed virtual bosses for fun!

Declan didn’t take loyalty lightly.

"We’re not staying here," Declan said. He tapped his earpiece and accessed his system interface.

"What do you mean?" Sloane asked as she wiped her eyes. "I can’t move her. She’s hooked up to the machines! If I disconnect her, she’ll die before we even reach the street!"

"I have a city," Declan stated simply.

He pointed out the window of the hospital. Through the toxic rain and the smoke of Sector 7, far in the distance, a massive pillar of glowing purple light was shooting up into the dark sky.

It was the Iron Bastion. His sanctuary.

It is a glitch in reality within the real world.

"The Iron Bastion is a safe zone," Declan explained. "It has perfectly clean air. It has a magical infrastructure that doesn’t rely on the city’s power grid. And I have millions of Origin Points in my treasury to buy any advanced healing item on the Global Auction House."

Sloane stared at him. She looked at the glowing purple light in the distance.

"But how do we get her there?" Sloane asked desperately. "We can’t carry a bed through a warzone."

Declan smiled. He raised his right hand. The dark silver Ring of the Void-Hoarder gleamed under the emergency lights.

"I’m going to touch the bed," Declan said. "I’m going to put her, the life support machines, and you entirely into my digital inventory. It’s perfectly safe. Time freezes inside the storage space. Then, I’m going to blink us straight into the Bastion."

Sloane’s jaw dropped. "You can store living people in your inventory?!"

"I can do whatever I want," Declan replied.

Sloane looked at him. She really looked at him. She saw the absolute terrifying confidence in his dark eyes.

She realized the guy standing in front of her wasn’t just a skilled gamer who found an exploit. He was something completely new.

The world was ending, the megacorps were falling, and Declan Vance was building an empire!

Sloane stood up straight. She wiped the last tear from her face. Her expression hardened into pure and ruthless determination.

"Alright, boss," Sloane said. Her voice was steady. "Get us home."