Chapter 87: [87] : Shadows in the Streets, The Coffee Break
The warning sirens in the Earth Sanctum didn’t go off. Declan didn’t need automated turrets to tell him company was coming.
His Abyssal Sovereign stats gave him physical senses that bordered on precognition.
He heard the heavy rhythmic thwip thwip thwip of the stealth gunship rotors when they were still three miles away, cutting through the sound of the rain.
Declan was sitting in a ragged floral patterned armchair he had dragged out of an abandoned office upstairs earlier. He was sitting right in the middle of the warehouse floor and slowly sipping from his tin cup of dirt flavored coffee.
"Sloane. Kendra," Declan said calmly, not taking his eyes off the heavy steel doors at the front of the building.
"Yeah?" Kendra asked and looked up from wiping down her bow.
"Take Mia and get behind the heavy concrete pillars in the back. Do not peek your heads out."
Sloane frowned and put her coffee cup down on the crate. "Why? What is going on?"
"Apex Paradigm is sending another delivery," Declan smiled and showed his teeth. "And I don’t think they want to talk this time."
Kendra didn’t ask any more questions.They rapidly wheeled the comatose girl behind a thick structural support column near the back wall.
Declan took another sip of his coffee. It was still hot.
Outside, the heavy stealth gunships didn’t bother landing. They just hovered fifty feet above the street. The cargo doors dropped open.
Heavy massive objects slammed into the wet asphalt outside the warehouse! The ground literally shook with the impact of their landing.
A loud screeching roar echoed through the rain. It sounded exactly like the Blood Crazed Wendigo he had fought in the Ashen Bog, but mixed with the harsh grinding of heavy industrial machinery.
"Open the door," Declan said out loud.
He didn’t use a remote. He just used the administrative authority of his Earth Sanctum.
The massive steel rolling doors of the warehouse violently ripped open. They slid up into the ceiling tracks with a loud shrieking bang!
Standing in the street and illuminated by the flickering streetlights were fifteen Project Ragnarok super soldiers.
They were absolutely hideous! Their bodies were massive hulking masses of pale monster muscle and dark corporate steel.
Glowing green tubes pumped strange chemicals directly into their exposed spines. Their hydraulic saw blade arms spun rapidly and threw off bright sparks in the rain.
They spotted Declan sitting casually in the armchair.
The lead mutant roared. It was a sound of pure mindless aggression as it charged forward.
The other fourteen immediately followed. They stomped heavily into the warehouse and tore up the concrete floor with their heavy metallic boots.
They expected the guy in the chair to run. They expected him to pull out an assault rifle.
Declan just crossed his legs.
"You guys tracked mud into my house," Declan noted casually.
He raised his right hand and he snapped his fingers.
SNAP!
The dark shadows cast by the flickering warehouse lights suddenly rebelled against normal physics. The shadows beneath the mutants stretched, pooled, and violently bubbled upward like boiling tar.
"Legion," Declan commanded.
Ten figures made entirely of swirling pitch black dark matter rose from the floor instantly. They wore the exact same long coat as Declan!
They held massive shadowy replicas of the +40 Eclipse Severance halberd. Their glowing purple eyes locked onto the mutants.
The super soldiers didn’t stop. They didn’t know what fear was. The lead mutant swung its heavy hydraulic saw blade directly at the neck of the closest shadow clone.
The spinning metal blade passed cleanly through the clone’s dark matter body. It didn’t draw blood. It didn’t cause damage.
The clone didn’t have a physical hit box for the weapon to interact with!
The mutant looked confused for a fraction of a second.
The shadow clone didn’t hesitate and it swung the massive halberd horizontally.
The Spacetime Laceration trait triggered. There was no clashing of metal. There was just the distinct sound of tearing wet canvas!
The shadowy blade ignored the mutant’s thick cybernetic armor completely. It severed the physical space the mutant’s torso occupied.
The top half of the super soldier slid cleanly off its waist and crashed to the floor. It didn’t bleed. It instantly dissolved into a massive pile of bright blue digital pixels.
[Project Ragnarok Mutant Defeated! Origin Points +500]
"Kill them all," Declan said and took another calm sip of his coffee.
The warehouse turned into an absolute slaughterhouse. It was not a fight. It was an industrial meat grinder!
The mutants shrieked and swung their weapons wildly. They fired integrated shoulder cannons and filled the room with loud bangs. Bullets and saw blades tore through the air but hit nothing but empty shadows.
The Eclipse Legion moved with Declan’s absurd 90 base Agility. They were just blurs of black ink.
One clone used Void Blink and teleported directly behind a charging mutant. It brought the heavy blunt side of the halberd down on the creature’s head.
The Weight of the Warden trait triggered! It crushed the mutant’s reinforced skull into a tiny metal cube before deleting it into pixels.
Three clones surrounded a group of five mutants. They swung their weapons in perfect synchronization. The air warped and tore.
The physical reality of the warehouse groaned as the space was repeatedly lacerated.
Blue pixels erupted into the air like bright geysers!
The mutants were heavily armored and genetically modified to be the ultimate real world killers. But against a game mechanic that simply ignored durability and deleted targets, they were absolutely helpless.
In exactly twelve seconds, the fight was over.
The fifteen Project Ragnarok super soldiers were completely gone. The warehouse floor was entirely covered in a thick layer of dissolving blue pixels and glowing Reality Shards.
The ten shadow clones stood perfectly still among the loot and rested their halberds on their shoulders. They waited for orders.
Declan lowered his tin cup. He looked at the massive pile of dropped Origin Points and shards.
