Chapter 123: God-Shards, Gravity Well
The blade smashed into Gideon’s liquid-metal leg.
[0 Damage]
A gray zero popped up.
"You’ve got to be kidding me," Levi grunted, jumping backward as the massive molten axe came crashing down where he just stood.
His physical attacks were completely walled. He was doing zero damage.
Gideon didn’t give him a second to complain. The mutated guild leader swung the molten axe in a wide, horizontal arc. The weapon was too massive to dodge on the narrow deck.
Levi raised the haft of his scythe to block.
The molten axe slammed into the Platinum metal. The VR pain engine sent a violent, bone-rattling shockwave right through Levi’s arms.
The game ran the defensive math instantly. Gideon had 25,000 Attack. Levi’s current Defense was 1,554.
[-23,446]
Because Levi had sacrificed his Diamond-tier necklace to forge the Soul-Tether rings, he didn’t have his 50% damage reduction anymore. He ate the entire hit at full value.
His massive Shared HP pool took the hit. It dropped from 105,980 straight down to 82,534.
High above the dreadnought, floating safely in the air thanks to her Anomaly code, Isolde physically flinched. The Mythic tether meant she felt the damage too. But she didn’t panic. She just tightened her grip on her wooden staff and watched the deck.
"Platinum Ward of the Abyss!" Levi roared.
His massive 10,110 HP shield locked into place.
Gideon let out another metallic screech. The mutant raised the molten axe over his head and brought it crashing straight down onto the black-hole shield.
The 10,110 HP barrier absorbed the hit, but 25,000 Attack was just too much.
The shield violently shattered into black glass.
But the exact millisecond it broke, the Platinum Ward’s reflection passive triggered. The shield captured 20% of the mutant’s *unmitigated* 25,000 physical attack.
A violent, dark-purple shockwave exploded out from the broken shield and slammed directly back into Gideon’s liquid-metal chest.
[-5,000 True Damage]
The corrupted red text popped up. The mutant staggered backward, its attack animation violently canceled as it swallowed 5,000 points of completely unblockable damage.
"Okay, the reflection works," Levi muttered, rubbing his virtual shoulder. "But I can’t just stand here and let him break my shield every sixty seconds. I need to actually hit him."
He checked his skill bar. [Abyssal Overdrive] was still on cooldown from wiping out the fleet earlier. He didn’t have his 150% damage multiplier to force his way through the armor.
He was stuck with his base stats. And his base stats were dealing zero damage.
Levi looked up at the sky.
"Isolde!" Levi yelled over the sound of the burning ship. "I’m completely walled! His defense is too high! I need you to break him!"
*
The molten axe swung again, carving a massive chunk out of the dreadnought’s wooden deck.
"Hollow’s Traverse!"
He teleported thirty meters backward, reappearing near the splintered railing of the ship.
He didn’t have the damage to pierce the mutant’s 8,000 Defense natively, but he was still a Level 60 Herald with over eighty thousand health and incredible speed. If he couldn’t kill Gideon right now, he was going to act as the ultimate evasion tank.
"Hey, ugly!" Levi shouted, dragging his Platinum scythe aggressively against the wooden deck. Sparks flew. "Over here!"
Gideon roared. The liquid-metal monstrosity turned its burning, featureless face toward Levi and charged. The mutant was huge and hit like a freight train, but it was incredibly slow. Levi used his 1,636 Speed to literally jog circles around the heavy axe swings.
Levi kept the boss’s aggro entirely focused on him, perfectly setting up the board.
High above the burning ship, Isolde hovered in the air.
Her untextured gray cloak fluttered in the hot wind rising from the Aether Skies. She looked down at the mutated guild leader. Her gray eyes didn’t show fear or disgust. They just showed cold, hard calculations.
"Gideon," Isolde stated. Her voice was totally calm, cutting through the chaos of the battle. "Your code is unstable."
She didn’t point her staff to fire a standard True Damage blast. She raised her left hand, her fingers glowing with aggressive, blinding white Anomaly energy.
"Gravity Well of the Abyss," Isolde commanded.
She slammed her staff downward.
A massive, glowing red sphere of pure Anomaly energy instantly materialized out of thin air. It dropped straight down and entirely enveloped Gideon’s fifteen-foot-tall body.
The effect was instantaneous and completely horrifying.
The heavy, liquid-metal flesh of the mutant violently compressed. Gideon shrieked, the sound warping as the artificial gravity inside the red sphere spiked to impossible levels. The mutant’s knees buckled. Its Speed stat was instantly locked to an absolute 0. The monster couldn’t lift its axe. It couldn’t take a step forward.
But Isolde wasn’t just restricting its movement. She was actively hacking the boss’s stat block.
"Defense parameters halved," Isolde announced flatly.
Inside the NerveDive helmet, Levi watched the math update in real-time on his UI.
Gideon’s base Defense was 8,000. Isolde’s Anomaly spell physically crushed the mutant’s armor, slicing the stat exactly in half. The Defense plummeted to 4,000.
Levi grinned. He didn’t hesitate. He kicked off the railing and dashed straight into the red gravity sphere. The spell didn’t affect him; it was hard-coded to the enemy.
"Let’s check the new math," Levi laughed.
He swung the Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse.
The boss’s Defense was now 4,000. Levi’s scythe passive ignored 30% of that. That dropped Gideon’s effective Defense down to a very manageable 2,800.
Levi’s Total Attack was 7,464.
7,464 minus 2,800 left him with 4,664 raw damage per swing.
Now, the system applied the brutal 60% Level Suppression penalty for the twelve-level gap.
4,664 multiplied by 0.4 left exactly 1,865.6.
[-1,865]
A heavy red number popped up as the scythe tore a massive gash into Gideon’s liquid-metal chest.
"There it is!" Levi yelled.
He was finally dealing damage. It wasn’t the apocalyptic fifty-thousand damage hits he was doing during Overdrive, but it was enough to get the job done.
More importantly, dealing damage meant his weapon’s passive was back online.
The Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse boasted a 25% Lifesteal.
Twenty-five percent of 4,664 raw damage equaled exactly 1,166 HP.
[+1,166 HP]
The green healing numbers popped up instantly. Levi swung again. And again.
[-1,865] [+1,166 HP]
[-1,865] [+1,166 HP]
[-1,865] [+1,166 HP]
Levi turned into a glitching black shadow, hacking relentlessly into the paralyzed mutant. He was swinging four times a second. He was ripping nearly 4,600 health back into his Shared HP pool every single second.
The damage he took earlier from the molten axe was completely erased. His Shared HP bar violently shot from 82,534 straight back to a perfect 105,980.
He was back to being immortal.
Gideon struggled inside the Gravity Well. The spell finally wore off after ten seconds. The red sphere shattered.
The mutant immediately swung the molten axe in a desperate horizontal sweep.
Levi easily ducked under the slow, telegraphed swing. "You’re too slow, man."
He jammed the scythe upward, dragging the blade across the boss’s stomach to keep the 5 DMG/sec True Damage bleed active.
"Hit him again, Isolde!" Levi ordered, maintaining the boss’s aggro.
Isolde floated down slightly, her staff humming. "Applying debuff."
She dropped another Gravity Well. The red sphere trapped Gideon again, crushing his defense back down to 4,000.
The fight settled into a flawless, mechanical rhythm. It was a beautiful display of synergy. Isolde locked the massive, hard-hitting boss down and stripped away its armor advantage. Levi acted as the executioner, diving into the debuff windows to unleash a blender of basic attacks, constantly healing their shared health pool to full.
They were slowly, methodically chipping away at the massive 5,000,000 HP pool.
4 million. 3.5 million.
Levi didn’t even need to use his mana for Hollow’s Guillotine. He just relied on raw attack speed and Lifesteal. He dodged the molten axe swings with minimal effort, his 1,636 Speed making the Level 72 Elite look like it was fighting underwater.
3 million. 2 million.
Ovidia watched from her flagship in absolute despair. She saw her strongest ally, fully mutated by a God-Shard, getting completely dismantled by two players using nothing but basic attacks and a debuff.
"It’s not working!" an officer on her ship yelled. "The anomaly is stripping his stats!"
"I can see that!" Ovidia shrieked.
On the dreadnought below, Levi landed another heavy swing.
[-1,865]
Gideon’s health bar finally dipped to 1,500,000.
Levi spun the scythe, flicking liquid metal off the blade. He looked up at the towering, melting monstrosity. The mutant was breathing heavily, its artificial digital lungs struggling.
"You guys sold out the whole server just for a piece of garbage code," Levi said coldly, staring at the glitching white God-Shard buried in Gideon’s chest. "You really thought this would make you a God?"