Chapter 89: [89] : The Boardroom Massacre, Gravity’s Edge
Declan stood in front of the massive glass wall of the Apex Paradigm lobby. He looked out at the smog-choked city below.
The glass was easily two inches thick. It was military-grade and designed to withstand bomb blasts and extreme weather.
He didn’t bother looking for a door. He just raised his right fist and casually punched the glass.
His dense knuckles hit the transparent barrier. There was no spiderweb crack or warning. The entire ten-foot panel of glass instantly shattered into a million tiny cubes and blew outward into the rainy night!
The cold wind of Metropolis immediately whipped into the pristine lobby. It scattered the expensive magazines on the reception desks.
Declan stepped out onto the narrow metal ledge outside the building.
The rain hit his face. The wind pulled at his black Predator’s Coat. He looked up to see the skyscraper stretching endlessly into the dark clouds. The executive boardroom was at the very top.
"System. Equip Spiked Striders," Declan muttered.
His bare feet were instantly covered by sleek black boots. He didn’t need the defense. He needed the mutated trait.
[System Ability]
↳ Trait: Frictionless Movement
Declan smiled. He didn’t just have to walk on flat ground. Without friction, gravity was just a suggestion.
He stepped onto the sheer vertical glass face of the skyscraper. His boots locked onto the surface perfectly. He didn’t fall. He just stood parallel to the ground and looked down at the tiny streetlights far below.
Then, he started running.
He sprinted straight up the side of the building. His base Agility of 90 made him move like a blurred shadow. The rain bounced off his coat as he defied physics. He shot up the glass tower like a rocket.
High above him, inside the executive boardroom, Director Sterling was losing his mind.
The boardroom was massive. A long mahogany table took up the center of the room. Twelve older men and women in expensive suits sat around it. They were the board of directors. The people who owned the world.
Right now, they all looked terrified.
"You told us the anomaly was contained in Sector 7!" an older woman yelled and slammed her hand on the table. "You said the bomber drones would handle it!"
"The drones were vaporized!" Sterling snapped back. He paced near the front of the room. His perfectly tailored suit was wrinkled and he was sweating heavily. "He pulled a Sanctum Core into reality. He has a shield we can’t crack."
"Then why did the lobby security feed just go dark?!" a man in a sharp blue suit demanded. "The alarms down there are screaming about a pressure breach! Did he get inside?"
Sterling pulled out a holographic tablet with shaking hands. "That’s impossible. He doesn’t have a vehicle. He can’t fly. We shut down the elevators."
Suddenly, a loud tapping sound echoed outside the room.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The board members froze. They all slowly turned their heads toward the massive floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the room.
The storm raged outside. Lightning flashed and briefly illuminated the glass.
A figure was running up the outside of the building.
Before anyone could even scream, Declan leaped off the glass. He spun in the air and drove both of his heavy boots squarely into the reinforced window.
CRASH!
The entire glass wall exploded inward!
Wind and rain violently tore into the pristine boardroom. The heavy mahogany table was instantly covered in shattered glass and water.
Declan landed perfectly on his feet at the head of the table. He stood up straight as his black duster billowed wildly in the wind. His pitch-black eyes locked onto the terrified billionaires.
"Sorry I’m late," Declan said smoothly. His deep voice easily cut through the howling storm. "Traffic was a nightmare."
The board members shrieked and scrambled out of their expensive leather chairs. They backed up against the far wall and slipped in their designer shoes on the wet glass.
Sterling dropped his tablet. He stared at Declan like he was looking at a ghost.
"You," Sterling whispered with a cracking voice. "How did you get up here?"
"I took the scenic route," Declan replied. He slowly started walking down the length of the long mahogany table. His boots crunched on the glass.
"Wait! Wait!" Sterling yelled and held both hands up in a desperate gesture of surrender. "We can fix this! We can make a deal!"
Declan didn’t stop walking and didn’t pull his hands out of his pockets.
"A deal?" Declan asked and tilted his head.
"Yes!" the older woman from the board cried out. "We own Apex Paradigm! We own the servers! We have trillions of credits! We can give you control over Earth’s governments. We can make you richer than any man alive! Just name your price!"
Declan laughed. It was a cold sound that sent shivers down their spines.
"You guys really don’t get it," Declan said softly. "Credits don’t matter anymore. Your servers don’t matter. The game is already over."
He stopped right in the middle of the room.
He pulled his right hand out of his pocket. He didn’t open a menu. He just willed the weapon into existence.
He didn’t come here to play.
The air distorted violently. The +40 Eclipse Severance materialized in his grip. The heavy shaft absorbed the emergency lighting in the room. The razor-thin blade hummed with chaotic static. The tiny black hole spinning in the center of the axe head pulsed hungrily.
The board members stared at the weapon in sheer horror. It didn’t look like anything from their game. It looked like a piece of the void dragged into their office.
"I don’t negotiate with deleted files," Declan stated.
He didn’t swing hard. He just casually dragged the heavy halberd in a wide horizontal circle.
The Spacetime Laceration trait activated.
There was no sound of metal hitting flesh. There was no resistance at all. The dark blade simply severed the spatial coordinates occupying the back wall.
The twelve board members froze. A jagged green line of binary code appeared across all of their necks at the exact same height.
A second later, twelve heads slid off twelve shoulders and hit the wet carpet.
The bodies didn’t bleed. They just instantly dissolved into bright blue digital pixels and left their expensive suits completely empty on the floor.
Declan didn’t even look at the loot drops. He turned his attention to the only man left alive in the room.
Director Sterling was backed into a corner. He was hyperventilating and tears streamed down his face. The cold corporate oligarch was completely broken.
"Please," Sterling sobbed and fell to his knees. "I was just doing my job! The company protocol... it’s just data!"
Declan walked up to him and rested the heavy halberd on his shoulder.
"You treated my life like data," Declan said. "You put me in a box to farm my reality."
Declan reached down with his free hand. His dense fingers grabbed Sterling by the jaw and violently hoisted the man up to his feet. Sterling choked and grabbed at Declan’s wrist, but he couldn’t move the Warlord an inch.
"Let’s see how your data handles this," Declan whispered.
He brought the flat side of the halberd up and pressed the spinning black hole directly against Sterling’s chest.
"Gravitational Annihilation."
The tiny singularity in the blade expanded.
Sterling didn’t even get to scream.
The localized black hole instantly triggered. It sucked the billionaire’s physical model directly into a single point of mass. Sterling’s expensive suit, his bones, and his flesh were violently crushed inward in a fraction of a millisecond.
The air popped loudly as the pressure released.
Sterling was gone. A perfectly compressed cube of gore the size of a golf ball dropped onto the wet carpet.
Declan let out a long breath and lowered the halberd.
The room was completely quiet except for the rain blowing through the shattered window.
Declan walked away from the cube. He headed straight for the massive glowing server console sitting untouched at the end of the boardroom. It was the master terminal for the entire Apex Paradigm network.
It was time to take over the game.
