Chapter 153: [153] : Highway to Hell, The Abyssal Rover
The heavy iron gates of the Iron Bastion slowly ground open.
The toxic freezing rain howled and was eager to rush into the clean city.
It never got the chance.
The Abyssal Behemoth Rover shot out of the gates like a bullet fired from a railgun.
The massive pitch-black hover-tank didn’t make a sound. It didn’t roar like a combustion engine. It just emitted a low terrifying hum of pure displaced gravity as the four blue thrusters pushed it two feet off the ground.
Declan sat in the driver’s seat.
The interior of the Rover was sleek and minimalist. There was no steering wheel. There were no pedals. He just placed his hands flat on the glowing purple interface panel on the dashboard.
His neural link connected directly to the vehicle’s Sovereign-tier code. He drove it with his mind.
"This is insane," Morgan muttered from the passenger seat. She was strapped into a heavy leather harness while watching the ruined cityscape blur past the reinforced glass. "We are moving at six hundred miles an hour."
"And we aren’t feeling a single bump," Nova added from the back. The hacker was actively running diagnostics on her wrist terminal. "The inertia dampeners on this thing are rewriting the physics engine locally. It’s like we are sitting still in a moving room."
"I told you I don’t like walking," Declan replied casually.
He kept his pitch-black eyes locked on the road ahead.
The wasteland outside Sector 7 was a complete nightmare. The Great Convergence had permanently scarred the Earth.
The massive concrete highway they were flying down was fractured. Huge chunks of the road floated aimlessly in the air and defied gravity entirely. Rivers of bright orange magma cut across the asphalt to turn abandoned cars into bubbling slag.
Normal players would have to carefully navigate this maze. They would have to fight every single monster that popped out of the ruins.
Declan just held the accelerator down.
The Void Glider trait was fully active. The +30 Abyssal Rover didn’t drive on the road, it simply hovered over the gaps. It phased right through the magma rivers without even scorching the dark matter hull.
"Boss, we have a blockage ahead," Nova warned while pointing at her radar screen. "High-density hostile signature."
Declan looked through the windshield.
About a mile ahead, a massive creature was completely blocking the ruined overpass.
It was a horrific fusion of twisted metal and pulsing flesh. It looked like a giant centipede, but its body segments were made entirely of crushed corporate delivery trucks and rusted sedans. Hundreds of jagged metal legs gripped the concrete.
[Target Information]
↳ Name: Junk-Yard Crawler
↳ Level: 75 (Hazard Boss)
↳ HP: 180,000 / 180,000
"Level 75," Morgan gripped the handle of her seat tightly. "Declan, that thing is an absolute damage sponge. Its armor plating is literally made of cars. We need to go around!"
"No," Declan stated flatly.
He didn’t slow the Rover down. He didn’t swerve to find an off-ramp.
He just tapped a specific icon on his neural dashboard.
The twin-barreled plasma cannon mounted on the roof of the Rover hummed loudly. Bright purple energy quickly gathered at the tips of the barrels.
"You can’t just shoot it!" Morgan yelled. "Standard vehicle weapons barely scratch hazard bosses!"
"This isn’t a standard vehicle," Declan smiled.
He triggered the weapon.
The Rover didn’t fire a laser. It didn’t shoot an explosive shell.
It fired a concentrated pulse of pure gravitational force.
The invisible shockwave crossed the one-mile distance instantly. It slammed directly into the center of the Junk-Yard Crawler.
There was no fiery explosion.
The massive hundred-foot-long centipede just shrieked as the space around it violently collapsed inward. The heavy steel cars making up its body crumpled like cheap tin foil.
The gravitational pulse crushed the Level 75 boss into a perfectly compact square cube of scrap metal about the size of a microwave!
[Hazard Boss Defeated! Origin Points: +15,000]
Declan didn’t even tap the brakes. The Rover flew right past the tiny metal cube and left the cleared highway behind them.
Morgan and Nova sat in the cabin in absolute stunned silence.
They had just vaporized a mid-endgame boss as casually as hitting a bug on the windshield.
"I love this car," Declan noted smoothly.
He leaned back in his seat and let the machine do the work.
They crossed five hundred miles of apocalyptic wasteland in less than an hour. They bypassed entire ruined cities, froze through corrupted swamps, and ignored every single monster the Grid tried to throw at them.
Finally, the dashboard navigation pinged softly.
[Destination Reached: The Aero Wing, Blacksite Vault 04]
Declan slowed the Rover down. The massive dark matter tank drifted smoothly over a shattered ridge and came to a stop overlooking a massive valley.
He looked down through the windshield.
The Blacksite Vault was huge. It was a sprawling pristine white facility buried deep inside a crater. It didn’t look corrupted at all. The heavy steel blast doors were intact, and the corporate logos on the walls gleamed in the dim light.
But they weren’t the first ones there.
Parked neatly in rows in front of the massive vault doors were dozens of sleek white corporate AVs.
A small army of heavily armored players stood in perfect military formation. They wore matching gold and white tactical gear. They held high-tier energy rifles and massive tower shields.
And standing right in front of the locked vault doors was the golden boy himself.
Cipher.
The sponsored e-sports celebrity was posing for three floating camera drones. He was holding his massive white energy cannon to flex his perfectly rendered muscles for the livestream.
"And that, Sector 1, is how you clear the trash mobs!" Cipher yelled confidently while pointing at a pile of dissolving blue pixels near the doors. "Proud Sword Megacorp always secures the objective! We are about to crack this vault and claim the Emperor-grade payloads!"
Up on the ridge, inside the pitch-black cabin of the Rover, Declan just sighed.
"He is so loud," Declan muttered.
"They have a hundred elite guards," Morgan analyzed the situation quickly. "Level 60 and above. That is a highly coordinated raid group, Declan. We can’t just drive in there."
"I am the Warlord," Declan replied coldly. He hit the button to open the Rover’s heavy side doors. "I don’t wait in line."
He stepped out of the vehicle.
His boots hit the rocky ridge. The heavy oppressive aura of his Abyssal Sovereign class immediately rolled down the valley.
Down below, the Proud Sword guards instantly stopped moving. They felt the terrifying pressure. They raised their rifles and aimed up at the ridge.
Cipher stopped posing. He turned around as his arrogant smile faltered slightly.
He looked up and saw a single guy wearing a pitch-black trench coat standing casually next to a hovering tank made of pure dark matter.
Declan shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked down at the celebrity.
"Turn the cameras off," Declan’s voice echoed with a heavy unnatural bass that rattled the valley. "You are trespassing on my property."
