Chapter 121: [121] : Asylum, The Rogue Splicer
The heavy iron gates of the Iron Bastion were completely closed. A massive black energy dome hummed quietly, keeping the toxic rain and the roaming monsters of Sector 7 outside.
Morgan stood right at the edge of the barrier.
The top-tier corporate assassin looked like absolute garbage. Her sleek tactical suit was torn in several places. She was covered in dried gray mud, digital blood, and ash. She leaned heavily against the transparent energy shield. She looked completely exhausted.
She did not have a weapon. She did not have a guild tag floating over her head anymore.
On the other side of the barrier, Sloane sat behind her mahogany desk. The Quartermaster of the Iron Bastion looked up from her glowing yellow inventory screens. She raised an eyebrow.
"You have got a lot of nerve showing your face here," Sloane said through the communication port. "You tried to put a sniper bullet through my boss’s head a few days ago."
"It was just business," Morgan replied with a raspy and dry voice. "I was an independent contractor. The contract is canceled."
"What makes you think we will not just open this gate and delete your character file?" Sloane asked. She rested her hand on the heavy crossbow sitting on her desk.
"Because I have something your Warlord wants," Morgan stated.
She stood up a little straighter. She forced her professional posture back into place despite the pain radiating through her avatar.
"Tell Declan I am here. Tell him I want to make a deal."
A dark shadow suddenly pooled on the stone pavement right next to Sloane’s desk. The shadow bubbled and hissed before rising upward.
Declan stepped out of the Void Blink. He wore his pitch-black coat. His dark eyes locked onto the assassin standing outside his city.
"I am listening," Declan said smoothly. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
Morgan looked at him. She still felt a shiver of pure terror run down her spine when she looked at the Warlord. She had watched him literally delete an entire corporate army and slice a Level 90 alien boss in half. He was a walking server glitch.
But he was also her only way out.
"Apex Paradigm completely burned my credentials," Morgan explained with a bitter tone. "I failed the hit. The executives panicked. They wiped my corporate bank accounts and put a permanent kill-on-sight bounty on my head. If I log out, the megacorp will have a physical hit squad waiting at my real-world apartment in ten minutes."
"That sounds like a personal problem," Declan noted casually. "Why are you at my door?"
"Because you are the only one on the server who does not care about Apex Paradigm," Morgan said. "I want asylum. I want permanent residence inside the Iron Bastion. In exchange, I am offering you high-level intel."
"Intel on what?" Declan asked.
"A Blacksite," Morgan replied. "A highly corrupted underground data vault. The developers called it the Blood Demon Realm. It is a quarantined storage sector where the megacorps dump their illegal and experimental gear. Sovereign-tier weapons, Ascendant-tier skill books, and massive stockpiles of raw dimensional energy."
Declan’s eyes narrowed slightly. He loved the sound of Sovereign-tier loot.
"Apex Paradigm locked it down because the Abyssal code inside mutated," Morgan continued. "The monsters in there are completely broken. But I have the exact coordinates. I can guide you right to the main vault doors."
Declan looked at Sloane. "Quartermaster. What is the policy on admitting corporate refugees?"
"If they pay the tax, they get a bed," Sloane shrugged. "Intel on a Sovereign-tier vault covers the entry fee. But boss, if it is a corporate blacksite, it will be locked behind heavy digital firewalls. Your halberd breaks physics, but it does not type passwords."
"She is right," Morgan agreed. "The vault is secured by the Ten Thousand Demon Palace mainframe. It is a maze of lethal encryption logic. If you trigger the alarm, the vault permanently deletes the loot."
"So we need a hacker," Declan said.
"I know one," Morgan said quickly. "The best independent rogue in Sector 7. She operates off the grid. If we bring her, she can crack the Palace mainframe while you deal with the monsters."
Declan tapped his chin. He pulled up his administrative interface and pressed a button. A small section of the black dome hissed open.
He actually didn’t need anything at the moment, but it seems like it was going to be fun, so why not?
"Welcome to the Iron Bastion," Declan smiled a cold and pragmatic smile. "Take us to your hacker."
An hour later, they were walking through the dark alleys of Sector 7. The expanding borders of the Iron Bastion now encompassed several abandoned commercial districts. Declan had pushed the city limits out incredibly far.
Morgan led Declan and Sloane down a set of broken concrete stairs. They entered an old underground arcade. The place was lit by flickering blue neon signs. Rows of dead arcade cabinets lined the walls.
They had a hard time before finding her.
Sitting in the very back was a player. She was bathed in the glow of six different holographic monitors.
She wore a sleek silver and white cybernetic suit that looked incredibly expensive. Her long hair was a stark icy blue, tied back in a neat ponytail. She was rapidly typing on a hard-light keyboard and completely ignoring the world around her.
A system tag hovered faintly over her head.
[Target Information]
↳ Name: Nova
↳ Level: 55
↳ Class: Arcane Splicer
"Nova," Morgan called out as they approached.
The hacker did not even turn her head. "I told you to lose my contact info. You have a corporate bounty on your head. Standing next to you drops my credit score."
Her voice was like cracked ice. It was cold, sharp, and completely devoid of emotion.
"I have a new employer," Morgan said. She gestured to the guy in the black coat standing next to her.
Nova finally stopped typing. She swiped a hand and minimized her six screens. She turned her chair around and looked at Declan. Her bright blue eyes scanned him up and down.
"Player V," Nova stated flatly. "The server glitch. You have been busy making a mess of the game engine."
"I prefer the term aggressive remodeling," Declan replied. "I need a vault opened. The Blood Demon Realm."
Nova’s eyes widened just a fraction of an inch before her icy mask slammed back into place.
"That is a suicide mission. The Abyssal corruption in that zone causes severe bio-feedback. If you take a hit in there, the system does not just drain your health bar. It damages your real-world nervous system. It is a quarantined zone for a reason."
"I do the fighting," Declan said simply. "You just sit in the back, look pretty, and type on your little keyboards when we reach the door. You get a cut of the vault loot. Any Mage-class items we find are yours."
Nova looked at him. She looked at his pitch-black eyes and the dark veins pulsing on his neck.
She was an elite player and knew what high stats looked like. The guy standing in front of her radiated a heavy and suffocating pressure. It made the air in the arcade feel thin.
She pulled up a digital calculator on her wrist interface. She tapped a few keys.
"Twenty percent of the total haul," Nova demanded. Her voice was entirely strictly business. "And absolute immunity inside your Iron Bastion. I need a secure place to set up my servers."
"Ten percent," Sloane immediately cut in from behind Declan. The Quartermaster crossed her arms. "And you pay the standard entry tax like everyone else. We are not running a charity."
Nova glared at Sloane. Sloane glared right back.
"Fifteen percent," Nova countered. "And I get my own private server room in the central keep."
"Deal," Declan said. He ended the negotiation before Sloane could argue.
He did not care about the percentages. He had millions of Origin Points and more gear than he could ever use. He just wanted the Sovereign-tier drops.
Nova stood up. She grabbed a sleek silver staff leaning against the arcade machine. It hummed with blue digital magic.
"Let us go," Nova said coldly. She walked right past them. "Try not to get me killed. I have a lot of expensive hardware I do not want to lose."
Declan smirked. He liked people who only cared about the loot. It made them predictable. He opened his party interface and sent party invites to Morgan and Nova.
[System Notification]
↳ Player Morgan has joined the party.
↳ Player Nova has joined the party.
"Alright," Declan cracked his neck. "Next stop, the Blood Demon Realm."
