Chapter 88: [88] : The Corporate Raid, Crushing Gravity

The warehouse was an absolute mess of blue pixels, melted corporate titanium, and actual blood pooled on the concrete floor.

Declan sat right in the middle of it all. He rested in his ragged floral armchair and took a slow sip of his dirt-flavored coffee.

"I am a Quartermaster." Sloane complained loudly.

She held a cheap plastic broom she had found in a closet.

"I manage spreadsheets and auction house listings. I do not sweep up dead bodies."

"They aren’t bodies anymore," Declan pointed out. "They are just digital trash. Sweep them into a corner. We need the floor space clear."

Sloane grumbled but kept sweeping the glowing blue pixels into a neat pile.

Kendra sat on the edge of the hospital bed. She kept a close eye on Mia’s ventilator. The machine hummed perfectly, drawing endless power from the mutated magical crystals.

Declan put his tin cup down. He looked at the smoking wreckage of the armored ambulance and the crushed corporate drones scattered near the entrance. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Apex Paradigm actually thought they could just drop a hit squad on him and call it a day. They treated him like a minor bug in their software.

Declan narrowed his eyes. He noticed something moving in a pile of twisted metal near the garage door.

A small black object the size of a dinner plate shifted quietly in the rubble. It was a secondary scout drone. It must have detached from one of the massive bomber drones right before Declan crashed them into the barrier.

The tiny machine hovered a few inches off the ground. Its red optical lens blinked twice. It was recording the warehouse. It was recording him.

Declan didn’t pull out a gun or throw a rock at it.

He simply watched as the scout drone backed out of the ruined garage door and zipped up into the dark and rainy sky of Sector 7. It was heading straight back to its masters to report its failure.

’System,’ Declan commanded in his mind.

He looked down at his right hand. The dark silver Ring of the Void-Hoarder rested on his index finger. The tiny black gemstone in the center swirled with heavy energy.

[Trait: Spatial Anchor]

↳ Functionality: The user can instantly recall themselves and all equipped items to the exact coordinate of any active party member regardless of distance, spatial locks, or environmental restrictions.

↳ Cooldown: 1 Hour.

Declan smiled. He didn’t just have to use the anchor on his party members. The system recognized anything he marked with his mana as an active tether point.

He had flicked an invisible drop of his Abyssal Sovereign mana onto the drone’s metal casing the second he noticed it.

The scout drone was now a flying teleportation beacon!

Declan pulled up his minimap. A small purple dot moved rapidly across the digital layout of Metropolis. It crossed the ruined slums, passed over the commercial district, and headed straight for the massive white spire in the center of the city.

Apex Paradigm Headquarters.

"I need to step out again," Declan said as he stood up from his armchair.

Sloane stopped sweeping and looked at him in disbelief. "Are you serious? You just got back. You just wiped out a corporate death squad. Where are you going now?"

"To file a complaint with management," Declan replied smoothly.

He dusted off the heavy dark leather of his Predator’s Coat. He didn’t pull out a weapon. He had a sixty percent synchronization rate in the real world. His physical body was basically a walking weapon of mass destruction.

He watched the purple dot on his minimap. It moved all the way up the central spire and finally stopped near the top floor.

"Perfect," Declan muttered.

"Declan, what are you doing?" Kendra asked and stood up from the bed.

"Ending the corporate interference," Declan said. "Lock the doors behind me."

He tapped the dark silver ring on his finger.

"Spatial Anchor."

The world in the warehouse instantly vanished. A massive cylinder of pure void energy crashed down from the ceiling and swallowed Declan whole. There was no sound and no wind. He just stopped existing in Sector 7.

A fraction of a millisecond later, the darkness spat him out.

His bare feet hit a perfectly smooth and polished marble floor.

Declan blinked as his eyes adjusted to the glaring white lights.

He was no longer in a dirty slum. He stood in the middle of an incredibly expensive corporate lobby. The walls were made of sleek white glass. A giant silver Apex Paradigm logo slowly rotated behind a massive reception desk.

The air smelled like expensive cologne and air fresheners. It was the absolute opposite of the world down there.

Standing right in front of him were about forty heavily armed corporate security guards.

These guys were not regular mall cops. They wore pristine white tactical armor and held high-end energy rifles. They had glowing blue visors covering their eyes. They were the real-world equivalent of the elite players he had slaughtered in the game.

They all stared at the tiny black scout drone hovering near the ceiling.

Then, they all looked down at the guy who had just popped out of thin air right in the middle of their secure lobby.

Declan looked completely out of place. He wore a dark coat over a ruined orange jumpsuit. He didn’t even have shoes on.

"Intruder!" a guard near the front screamed.

The entire lobby erupted into chaotic action. Forty assault rifles were instantly raised and pointed directly at Declan’s chest. Red laser sights painted his black coat.

"Get on the ground!" the lead guard bellowed. "Put your hands behind your head! Do it now!"

Declan didn’t put his hands up. He just shoved them into his coat pockets.

He looked around the pristine lobby. He looked at the terrified receptionists hiding under their desks and the forty guns pointed at him.

He didn’t pull out the +20 Carnage Cleaver or the +40 Eclipse Severance.

He didn’t need to.

He was a Level 60 Ascendant-tier Abyssal Sovereign. His real-world body operated at a sixty percent synchronization rate. His raw physical stats were so absurdly high that his mere presence warped the air around him.

Declan took a single step forward.

His bare foot touched the polished marble floor.

He didn’t activate a skill. He just stopped holding back his base stats. He let the raw weight of his mutated character file bleed directly into the physical room.

The effect was instantaneous and absolutely horrifying!

The air in the lobby suddenly turned incredibly heavy. It felt like the entire room had just been submerged at the bottom of the ocean.

The guard closest to Declan suddenly dropped his rifle. The heavy metal weapon clattered loudly against the marble. The guard grabbed his own throat as his eyes widened with pure terror.

"What... what is..." the guard gasped.

Then, the guard collapsed. He fell straight down to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut. He hit the marble hard and could not lift his arms to break his fall.

It didn’t stop with him.

The heavy gravitational pressure of Declan’s passive aura washed over the entire lobby.

It was not magic. It was just the sheer mathematical weight of his existence in a space that wasn’t designed to hold him.

Thirty-nine other guards hit the floor simultaneously. The sound of heavy tactical armor slamming against the polished marble echoed through the massive room.

They couldn’t stand up. They couldn’t even raise their heads!

The sheer density of the air pressed them flat against the ground. The reinforced white marble floor actually began to spiderweb with tiny cracks under the sudden weight of the bodies.

Declan kept walking with a completely calm face. He strolled through the middle of the paralyzed security force like he was walking through a park.

"Turn it off!" a guard screamed from the floor. He tried to push himself up, but his arms shook violently. The veins in his neck bulged.

Declan ignored him.

As he walked deeper into the lobby, the pressure increased.

Pop.

It was a small and wet sound.

The lead guard suddenly screamed in absolute agony. He reached up and grabbed the side of his helmet. Bright red blood began to leak out from under his white tactical visor.

His eardrums had just ruptured from the sheer atmospheric pressure!

Pop. Pop. Pop.

The sound echoed across the room as the rest of the guards suffered the exact same fate. They writhed on the floor and clutched their ears. They screamed blindly into the heavy air.

Blood leaked from their noses and trailed out of the corners of their eyes. The capillaries in their faces burst under the weight of an Ascendant player simply walking past them.

Declan didn’t even look down. He didn’t feel sorry for them. These were the guys who got paid to erase people in the slums and keep the debtors in line.

He reached the end of the lobby.

A massive bank of elevators stood against the back wall. The doors were made of thick steel. A glowing red scanner panel was mounted on the wall next to them.

Declan pulled his hands out of his pockets and tapped the red panel.

The screen flashed.

[System Prompt]

↳ Access Denied. Executive Keycard Required.

Declan sighed. "I really hate locked doors."

He turned around and looked at the groaning guards pinned to the floor. None of them were in any condition to hand over a keycard. Most of them were passing out from the pain.

He looked at the front of the building. The entire wall was made of towering glass panels overlooking the dark city.

Declan smirked. He didn’t need an elevator because he had high agility.

He walked right past the elevator bank and headed straight for the massive glass windows.