Chapter 179: [179] : Sovereign Domination, The Corporate Treasury
Declan walked through the shattered glass doors of the Proud Sword Megacorp central bank.
The lobby inside was absolutely massive. The floors were made of polished white granite. Towering gold pillars held up a ceiling painted to look like a classical renaissance mural. It screamed of excessive and bloated wealth. The whole place looked more like a museum than a financial institution.
The sound of the Shadow Legion massacring the corporate guards outside echoed loudly behind him, but Declan didn’t look back. He kept his dark eyes focused on the far end of the room.
Sitting at the back of the lobby was a massive circular steel vault door. It was easily twenty feet tall and completely covered in glowing red biometric scanners.
But the room wasn’t empty.
The bank’s internal automated defense grid had already activated.
The ceiling panels slid open, revealing dozens of heavy plasma auto turrets. The walls shifted, deploying thick racks of armor piercing missile launchers. A red laser grid snapped into existence, covering every single inch of the floor between Declan and the vault.
[System Warning: Lethal Corporate Defenses Active.]
[Intruder Detected. Initiating Vaporization Protocol.]
Declan didn’t stop walking. He didn’t even slow down. He just let out a tired sigh.
"Aegis," Declan said out loud.
"Yes, Boss," the metallic AI replied. She stepped up right next to him as her Spiked Striders clicked lightly on the granite floor.
"I don’t want to get my coat dirty," Declan instructed. "Handle the turrets."
"Understood," Aegis said smoothly.
The Level 80 System Defense Entity didn’t pull out a weapon. She simply raised her dark metallic hand. The bright purple energy lines running across her sleek chassis flared with blinding light.
Aegis tapped into her core programming. She possessed the exact same true damage reflection logic as the Iron Bastion’s city walls because she was directly linked to the Sanctum Core.
The dozens of ceiling turrets fired simultaneously. A massive and concentrated storm of super heated pink plasma and heavy kinetic missiles rained down directly on their heads.
It was enough firepower to level a city block. It was meant to turn anyone who stepped past the doors into a pile of smoking ash.
Aegis just stood there. A thick transparent barrier of purple light materialized inches above their heads.
The plasma bolts and missiles slammed into the shield.
BOOM!
The explosions were deafening. Thick black smoke and bright orange fire rolled across the barrier, completely obscuring the ceiling. The heavy granite floors shook under the impact. But the shield didn’t even crack. It didn’t ripple.
[Defense Trait Activated: Absolute Reflection]
The barrier absorbed the entire kinetic and thermal payload. It calculated the raw damage output of the corporate turrets, doubled it, and fired it straight back at the source.
A massive and concussive shockwave of pure physical force exploded upward!
The shockwave hit the ceiling turrets and the wall mounted missile racks. The heavy steel weapons were instantly crushed flat against the granite. The metal shrieked and sparked violently before detonating into useless digital dust.
In less than three seconds, the entire automated defense grid was completely annihilated.
"Path is clear, Boss," Aegis reported as she lowered her hand and the smoke cleared.
"Good work," Declan smirked.
He walked through the lingering smoke and stepped right up to the massive steel vault door. He looked at the glowing red biometric scanners covering the metal surface.
[Access Denied. CEO Level Clearance Required.]
[Vault Integrity: Unbreakable.]
"Unbreakable is a very strong word," Declan muttered.
He pulled his right hand out of his pocket. The air distorted aggressively. The heavy dark matter shaft of the +40 Eclipse Severance halberd materialized directly into his grip.
He didn’t wind up. He didn’t look for a keypad. He didn’t try to hack the scanners. He just raised the razor thin blade and drove it straight into the exact center of the twenty foot steel door.
The Spacetime Laceration trait activated.
The blade carried the localized black hole in its center and ignored the concept of physical durability entirely. It severed the spatial coordinates of the vault door itself.
With a sickening and tearing sound, a massive jagged black line appeared down the middle of the thick metal. The heavy steel simply parted. The two halves of the unbreakable vault slid backward and dissolved into a massive cloud of gray static.
Declan stepped into the treasury.
His eyes widened slightly.
The room was the size of a football stadium. And it was absolutely packed.
Towering stacks of refined Sovereign Iron ingots lined the walls. Hundreds of heavy wooden crates overflowed with High Grade Mana Crystals. Racks of experimental and high tier corporate armor sat completely untouched in the back corners.
And in the very center of the room, a massive digital terminal displayed the guild’s liquid currency in bright glowing numbers.
[Proud Sword Guild Bank: 250,000,000 Origin Points]
Two hundred and fifty million points!
"Jackpot," Declan laughed out loud. The sound was dark and highly satisfied.
He tapped his +20 Ring of the Void Hoarder. The Mythic ring flared with a deep pulsing energy. It acted like a cosmic vacuum cleaner.
The entire room violently emptied.
The stacks of iron, the crates of crystals, and the racks of armor flew through the air and were instantly sucked directly into his infinite digital storage. The ring completely nullified the weight, meaning he could carry a warehouse worth of items in his pocket.
[Item Retrieved: Sovereign Iron x50,000]
[Item Retrieved: High Grade Mana Crystal x100,000]
[Origin Points Transferred: +250,000,000]
The system notifications spammed his vision in a beautiful and rapid fire blur of golden text.
He had just completely bankrupted the richest guild on the server in ten seconds.
A loud thud echoed behind him.
Declan turned around. Two of his pitch black shadow clones walked into the empty vault. They were dragging CEO Grant by his expensive suit collar. The corporate boss was completely covered in mud and digital blood from the slaughter outside. He looked absolutely terrified.
The clones tossed Grant onto the floor at Declan’s feet.
"Please!" Grant sobbed while looking up at the Warlord. "Take the points! Take the gear! Just let me live! I have a real world family! If you kill me, my pod will fry my brain!"
Declan stared down at the crying billionaire. He rested the heavy halberd on his shoulder.
"You guys bought this sector," Declan said coldly. "You paid the developers to keep the monsters out. You sat in your clean cafes while people in Sector 7 got eaten alive in the toxic rain."
"I can give you shares!" Grant begged frantically. "I can make you a board member!"
"I don’t do stocks," Declan said as his voice dropped to a heavy and unnatural bass. "I do raw assets."
Declan raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.
[Skill Activated: Absolute Execution]
The dark purple energy flared around his hand. He didn’t even use a weapon. The execution mechanic simply registered the massive level gap and the target’s completely broken morale.
Grant’s health bar instantly zeroed out.
The CEO didn’t get to scream. His avatar violently exploded into a massive shower of bright blue digital pixels.
[Player Grant Defeated. Target permanently erased.]
Declan brushed a speck of blue pixel dust off his coat. He looked at Aegis.
"We are done here," Declan ordered. "Let’s go home."
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