Chapter 125: The Floating Domain, Aether Cannons
The players who were supposed to be guarding it had all joined Ovidia’s blockade fleet, and Levi had just massacred them.
"This is almost too easy," Levi laughed as the Behemoth’s hooves finally struck real, solid dirt.
He rode the mount straight up the white stone pathway leading to the center of the island. There were no walls yet. The mega-guilds hadn’t even had the time to construct their defensive perimeters. It was just a massive, empty plot of premium digital real estate floating in the clouds.
At the very center of the island sat the stronghold’s core. It was a floating, ten-foot-tall crystalline monolith pulsing with deep blue Aether energy.
Levi pulled the Behemoth to a halt and jumped off the saddle.
He walked up to the crystal. He didn’t even bother checking for traps. He just opened his spatial inventory and pulled out a heavy, rolled-up parchment with a wax seal.
[Domain Edict: Ruined Keep of Ash]
It was the deed to his old territory on the surface. Because the Harvester’s Exchange down in the Ashen Peaks was completely dead, the game engine allowed players to migrate their domains if they found an unclaimed territory core.
Levi slammed the Edict directly against the glowing blue crystal.
The system instantly recognized the item. The Edict dissolved into golden light, completely absorbing into the monolith.
A massive, server-wide notification popped up on his UI, accompanied by the loud, triumphant sound of a blaring horn.
[Domain Claimed.]
[Floating Territory Transferred.]
[Please enter a new name for your Domain.]
Levi swiped open the text box keyboard in the air. He didn’t hesitate.
"The Apex Harvester," Levi said, typing it in and hitting confirm.
The entire floating island violently shook. It felt like a minor earthquake.
A blinding flash of white light erupted across the grass. When the light faded, the empty island wasn’t empty anymore.
The system had literally teleported his entire surface infrastructure up into the sky.
The heavy, dark stone walls of his keep materialized in a perfect square around the core. The Grand Mercantile Hub—the specialized building that connected his domain to the global auction house network—rendered perfectly into place, its wooden signs swinging in the high-altitude breeze.
Even his Level 31 NPC guards spawned at the front gates, looking incredibly confused about the sudden change in elevation, but instantly assuming their patrol routes.
Levi opened his Domain management interface.
"Alright, let’s see how much I can exploit the system up here," Levi muttered, swiping through the menus.
Because his island was situated directly in the center of the Aether Skies hub, his territory boundary completely overlapped the primary flight paths connecting the other smaller islands. Anyone trying to fly from the lower zones to the high-level grinding areas had to pass through his airspace.
He found the ’Territory Toll’ tab.
He dragged the slider bar from 0% straight up to 10%.
[Toll Applied. A 10% tax will be automatically deducted from all transactions and transit fees within the Domain airspace.]
"Let’s see if anyone is desperate enough to pay," Levi smirked.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Less than two minutes later, his UI chimed. A tiny gold coin icon flashed in the corner of his screen.
[Domain Income: +500 Gold Coins.]
[Domain Income: +1,200 Gold Coins.]
[Domain Income: +800 Gold Coins.]
The notifications started rolling in like a slot machine paying out.
The mega-guilds had a monopoly on the main islands, but there were hundreds of smaller, casual guilds who had scrambled up to the Aether Skies to escape the surface apocalypse. They didn’t have their own strongholds. They were just trying to use the flight paths to reach safe zones, and the game engine automatically forced them to pay Levi’s transit tax the second they crossed his invisible borders.
"Idiots will pay anything not to fall back down to the surface," Levi laughed.
He watched his Domain Vault balance tick up rapidly.
10,000. 25,000. 40,000.
Within ten minutes, he had generated a massive 50,000 Gold Coins entirely from passive transit taxes. He was officially rich again.
Isolde walked up next to him, her staff resting on the ground. She looked at the scrolling gold notifications on his holographic screen.
"Your economic strategy is highly predatory," Isolde observed, though her tone was completely casual.
"It’s not predatory; it’s a convenience fee," Levi corrected, swiping to the ’Defenses’ tab on the management screen. "And right now, I need to spend it before Ovidia realizes I just stole her front lawn."
He selected the outer perimeter walls of the island.
The mega-guilds were definitely going to retaliate once they regrouped. He wasn’t going to sit here and let them bombard his island with their remaining galleons.
He found the defensive upgrade tree. He completely skipped the standard iron ballistas and basic magic turrets. He scrolled straight to the endgame defensive installations.
[Automated Platinum-Tier Aether Cannons]
[Cost: 30,000 Gold Coins]
[Effect: Auto-targets hostile entities within a 5-mile radius. Fires compressed True Damage Aether blasts.]
Levi slammed the purchase button.
His vault balance instantly dropped from 50,000 down to 20,000 Gold.
The island shuddered again. Along the dark stone walls of his keep, massive, sleek cannons made of polished silver and glowing blue crystal materialized out of thin air. They hummed with a deep, intimidating mechanical noise as they instantly swiveled outward, their targeting arrays scanning the cloudy horizon for threats.
"Try flying a wooden ship into that," Levi smirked.
He closed the Domain interface. He was officially a dictator of the sky.
He walked past the core and headed up the stone stairs leading to the observation deck of his keep. Isolde followed him, her boots clicking softly on the steps.
They reached the top balcony. The view was absolutely staggering. They were miles above the surface. Below them, a thick blanket of purple storm clouds hid the ruins of the mainland. Above them, the Aether Skies stretched out in a sprawling network of floating rocks, glowing waterfalls, and massive iron chains.
It was beautiful, but it was just a staging ground.
Isolde stood next to him, resting her hands on the stone railing.
"Our operational base is secure," Isolde said, turning her head to look at him. "The automated defenses will repel any standard retaliatory strikes from the Coalition fleet. What is our next objective?"
Levi leaned against the railing. He didn’t look at the fleeing ships in the distance. He pointed his finger toward a massive, violent storm front brewing on the far horizon. The clouds there weren’t purple; they were pitch black, aggressively flashing with jagged, terrifying chains of lightning.
"The Storm-Reaches," Levi said.
"That is a Level 80 hostile zone," Isolde noted, her eyes running calculations. "The environmental hazards alone apply a constant True Damage drain."
"I know," Levi said, a ruthless smile crossing his face. "But that’s where the Storm-Dragons spawn. My Platinum scythe is great, but it’s not going to cut it against the World Bosses that are about to drop. We need their scales. We’re going to upgrade my weapon to Diamond-tier."
Isolde nodded once, her grip on her staff tightening. "Understood. Adjusting combat parameters for high-altitude reptilian entities."
Levi laughed, pushing himself off the railing.
"Let’s go hunting," Levi said.
**
The Behemoth of the Hollow galloped straight off the edge of Levi’s floating island.
The massive armored beast didn’t fall. Its hooves struck the empty sky with heavy, cracking sounds. Isolde’s green Anomaly code flared beneath them, instantly forcing the game engine to treat the ambient atmospheric moisture as a solid, flat surface. They were literally riding on thin air.
"Next stop, the Storm-Reaches," Levi said, gripping the leather reins.
He steered the mount away from the central hub of the Aether Skies. They left the scattered remains of the Mortal Coalition’s fleet far behind. The sky ahead of them wasn’t the picturesque blue of the upper atmosphere. It was a massive, violent wall of pitch-black clouds violently churning with jagged streaks of purple and white lightning.
The Storm-Reaches. A Level 75 to 80 hostile zone designed to completely gatekeep players who didn’t have endgame gear.
The moment the Behemoth broke through the outer edge of the black clouds, the environment attacked them.
There was no warning. A thick bolt of ambient lightning snapped out of the clouds and struck Levi directly in the chest.
The VR pain engine hissed, sending a sharp, burning static shock through his avatar.
[-2,000 True Damage]
The red text popped up over his head. A second later, another bolt struck the side of the mount.
[-2,000 True Damage]
"Okay, that’s annoying," Levi grunted.
The Storm-Reaches didn’t just look dangerous. The ambient lightning dealt a flat 2,000 True Damage per second to anything flying through it. It completely bypassed his 1,554 Defense. For a normal player, losing two thousand health a second was an instant death sentence. They would burn through their potion supply in a minute and die.
But Levi wasn’t a normal player.
He didn’t even bother pulling a potion from his quick-belt. He just glanced at the massive Shared HP bar floating in the top left corner of his UI.
[Shared HP: 105,980 / 105,980]
"Siphon Aura," Levi commanded.