Chapter 67: [67] : Corporate Siege, The Goliath Mechs

The Earth Sanctum was incredibly quiet.

It was a massive, towering citadel of black iron sitting right in the middle of the Sector 7 slums. Inside the one kilometer energy dome, you couldn’t hear the toxic rain.

You couldn’t hear the screeching of the Flesh Stalkers roaming the streets outside at all!

Declan stood in the center of the massive courtyard.

However, the +40 Eclipse Severance halberd resting on his shoulder made him look like a literal demon king.

A few yards away, Sloane and Kendra were busy arranging the hospital bed.

Mia was still unconscious. Her pale face looked extremely small against the white pillows.

The ventilator pumped with a steady, mechanical rhythm.

The heavy power cables Declan had ripped out of the hospital wall were now plugged directly into a sleek black iron terminal. The terminal had manifested right next to the bed.

"The power output is perfectly stable." Sloane let out a massive sigh of relief.

She wiped sweat from her forehead and looked at the terminal.

"The Sanctum Core is feeding the life support machines pure energy. It is actually running much better than it did on the hospital grid."

"I told you," Declan said. "The core overwrites reality. It provides everything the zone needs."

Kendra sat down heavily on a stone bench. She rested her +10 Sniper Bow across her knees.

"I still can’t believe this. Yesterday we were completely broke and hiding from giant pigs."

"Today we are standing inside a magic castle in the real world!"

"Things changes pretty fast," Declan cracked his neck. The heavy resonance in his voice made the air vibrate slightly.

"The Grid is just going to keep bleeding over. The megacorps are losing control of the planet right as we speak."

Right as he said that, the ground violently shook!

It wasn’t a small tremor at all.

It was a massive, rhythmic pounding that rattled the black iron walls of the Sanctum. Dust fell from the gothic spires high above them.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Sloane grabbed the edge of Mia’s bed to keep her balance.

"What is that? Are the Flesh Stalkers trying to bash the shield down again?"

"No," Declan frowned. "Zombies don’t weigh that much."

High above the smog choked skyline of the city, Director Sterling stood in the command center. He was inside the pristine Apex Paradigm Headquarters.

The massive holographic globe in the middle of the room was currently zoomed in directly on Sector 7.

Sterling’s perfectly tailored gray suit looked incredibly sharp. But his face was completely rigid with suppressed anger.

The Alpha Team mercenaries he had sent to the warehouse were completely off the grid. Their biometric signals had flatlined in less than a minute.

And now, the satellite feeds were showing a massive, impossible structure sitting right where the warehouse used to be.

A giant black dome of energy covered a full kilometer of corporate real estate!

"The anomaly has manifested a permanent structural overwrite." A technician spoke nervously, his fingers flying across a glowing keyboard.

"Director, he pulled the Sanctum Core right into the physical world. The energy readings are completely off the charts."

"I can see that," Sterling snapped coldly.

"He thinks he can steal company property and build a fort in my city. He thinks this is still a game."

Sterling leaned over the console. "Give me the Goliath Platoon. All of them."

The technician swallowed hard.

"Sir? The Goliaths are heavy military assets. They are meant for full scale wars, not domestic deployment."

"If we march them through Sector 7, the collateral damage to the civilian infrastructure will be in the billions."

"There is no civilian infrastructure anymore," Sterling stated flatly.

"The Grid monsters are currently chewing through the slums. Sector 7 is a loss. Deploy the mechs."

"I want that black dome cracked open, and I want Player V turned into red paste."

Back down in the ruined streets of Sector 7, the thudding grew louder.

Declan walked toward the edge of the transparent black energy barrier. He looked out through the shield and into the dark, rainy streets.

The toxic smog was incredibly thick, but his Abyssal Sovereign stats gave him perfect night vision.

He saw them stepping right out of the fog.

They were massive! They were easily thirty feet tall.

They were literal walking tanks made of thick, heavy white armor plating. They had thick hydraulic legs that crushed abandoned cars flat with every single step.

Instead of arms, they had massive glowing blue railgun barrels mounted to their shoulders.

The Apex Paradigm corporate logo was painted in stark black letters across their chest plates.

There were twelve of them. A full platoon forming a semi circle around the edge of Declan’s energy dome.

"What in the world are those?!" Kendra yelled as she ran up behind Declan.

She took one look through the barrier and her face went completely pale. "Those aren’t monsters!"

"No," Declan replied casually. "Those are mechs."

"Mechs?!" Sloane screamed from the hospital bed.

"Declan, those are military grade Goliath units! The megacorps use those to put down entire planetary rebellions! They have railguns!"

"Good to know," Declan noted.

Outside, the lead Goliath Mech stopped.

The massive blue railgun on its right shoulder hummed loudly. Bright blue electricity crackled along the magnetic rails.

The air around the barrel warped from the sheer heat being generated.

"They are charging weapons." Kendra panicked. She raised her bow even though she knew an arrow wouldn’t do a thing to a thirty foot tank.

"Let them," Declan said. "Let us test the Sanctum’s auto shields."

All twelve Goliath Mechs fired at the exact same time!

The sound was absolutely deafening. It was a synchronized crack of thunder that shattered every remaining glass window in a five block radius.

Twelve supersonic slugs of heavy tungsten were accelerated to impossible speeds. They slammed directly into the black energy dome.

BOOM!

The entire Earth Sanctum shook violently. The black barrier rippled like water where the slugs hit.

Bright flashes of kinetic energy exploded outward, lighting up the dark slums.

But the shield didn’t break!

The heavy tungsten slugs flattened against the digital barrier and dropped harmlessly to the wet pavement outside.

"It held!" Kendra cheered, dropping her bow in relief. "The shield blocked it!"

Declan didn’t cheer. He was staring at a glowing red system prompt that had just popped up in his vision.

[Warning: Extreme Kinetic Impact Detected on Sanctum Barrier]

[Draining Host Mana to sustain physical overwrite]

↳ -1,200 Mana

Declan’s eyes narrowed. He pulled up his stat screen.

His total mana pool was massive thanks to his high level and Ascendant tier class. He had about 15,000 total mana.

But that single volley of railgun fire had just instantly deleted over a thousand points!

"The core isn’t tethered to the Grid’s server anymore," Declan muttered to himself. "It is tethered to me."

Because he had forced the Sanctum Core into the real world, it didn’t have the infinite digital energy of the game to draw from.

It was using his personal mana pool to maintain the physical barrier against real world damage.

Outside, the twelve Goliath Mechs started whining again. The blue electricity danced across their railguns as they charged up a second volley.

If they kept firing, they would drain his mana to zero in a few minutes.

Once he ran out of mana, the dome would shatter. The next volley of tungsten slugs would turn him, Sloane, Kendra, and Mia into a fine red mist.

"Declan, they are reloading!" Sloane yelled.

"I see them," Declan replied.

He didn’t panic. He just reached into his digital inventory.

The air warped heavily around his right hand. The massive dark iron shaft of the +40 Eclipse Severance halberd materialized.

The tiny black hole in the center of the axe head hummed with a hungry, destructive energy.

He rested the massive weapon on his shoulder. It felt perfectly weightless to him.

"Stay here," Declan ordered. He didn’t even look back at them. "Keep an eye on the life support."

"You can’t go out there!" Kendra yelled. "They are literal walking tanks!"

Declan tapped the admin console hovering in his interface.

A small ten foot section of the black barrier hissed open.

"They are just big targets," Declan stated.

He stepped out into the freezing, toxic rain of Sector 7 with full confidence.

The black barrier snapped shut behind him. He stood completely alone on the wet asphalt, staring up at twelve towering machines of corporate destruction.