Chapter 95: [95] : The Ultimatum of Flame, The Sun Sized Threat
The sky above Sector 7 was a blinding and horrific red.
The toxic rain had completely stopped.
The sheer heat radiating from the alien player floating above the city had evaporated every cloud in a ten mile radius.
Korr, the Saint of Embers, hovered directly over the black energy dome of the Iron Bastion.
The Level 90 alien player looked down at the sprawling megacity below him.
His face was hidden behind a heavy helmet carved from dark obsidian and shaped like a snarling dragon.
Bright orange fire leaked from the eye slits of the helmet. The magma veins in his armor pulsed with a slow and terrifying rhythm.
He raised his right hand.
He didn’t pull out a sword. He didn’t pull out a staff. He didn’t even start chanting a magic spell.
He just opened his palm to the sky.
The air around his hand instantly warped and distorted.
A tiny spark of white hot fire appeared above his fingers.
Within a fraction of a second, the spark rapidly expanded. It didn’t just grow into a fireball.
It became a literal and localized sun.
The sphere of roaring and twisting plasma expanded until it was easily the size of a commercial football stadium.
The heat was so intense it turned the sky bright white.
Inside the Iron Bastion, the temperature spiked immediately.
The black energy dome of the Sanctum Core blocked the physical flames but it couldn’t stop the blinding light and the massive wave of thermal energy.
Players covered their eyes and screamed.
The stone pavement of the courtyard grew uncomfortably hot beneath their boots.
The air in the city felt like it was baking them alive.
"He’s going to melt the shield!" a player shrieked. He dived under a wooden merchant stall for cover.
He curled into a ball and covered his head.
"We are all dead! The dome can’t hold that much damage! He brought a literal star!"
Down at the main gates, Sloane threw her arms up to shield her face from the glaring light.
The heat was making her medical tunic stick to her sweating skin.
She looked at the administrative panel hovering over her desk. The numbers were flashing wildly.
[Warning: Extreme Thermal Radiation Detected.]
[Sanctum Core Integrity: 100%. Mana drain increasing.]
The shield was holding but the sheer visual of a sun hanging directly over their heads was entirely breaking the morale of the city.
The raw intimidation factor was off the charts.
The alien player lowered his hand slightly. The massive sphere of plasma hovered obediently behind him and was ready to drop at a moment’s notice.
Then, Korr spoke.
He didn’t use a megaphone. He didn’t use a system chat.
His voice simply bypassed physical acoustics and broadcast directly into the minds of every single player standing in the Iron Bastion.
"Native rats." The voice of the alien was deep and guttural and filled with absolute arrogant contempt.
It sounded like grinding rocks mixed with a roaring furnace.
Thousands of players fell to their knees. They clutched their heads as the telepathic voice slammed into their brains.
The pressure of the mental transmission was incredibly heavy.
"I am Korr, Saint of Embers," the alien announced.
"Your world has been deemed weak. Your server is fresh. Your resources belong to the Vanguard of the Outer Sectors."
"This land is now my personal farming ground. You are nothing but data to be harvested."
The alien pointed a heavy and magma veined finger directly at the black dome.
"You have managed to acquire a Sovereign tier core. A pathetic anomaly for such low level trash."
"Kneel. Lower the barrier. Offer me your core, your items, and your lives to serve as my slaves."
The alien clenched his fist.
The sun sized fireball behind him flared violently and expanded another hundred feet in diameter. The light in the city grew blinding.
"Refuse, and I shall drop this star upon your heads. I will turn your little sanctuary into a crater of melted glass."
"You have exactly thirty seconds to comply."
The telepathic projection cut off. The crushing mental weight lifted.
Absolute panic ripped through the city.
Players weren’t just screaming anymore. They were completely losing their minds.
Some of them ran toward the closed iron gates. They wildly banged their fists against the heavy metal and begged to be let out so they could surrender.
"Open the gate!" a warrior yelled. He grabbed the edge of the desk of Sloane. He had completely lost it.
"Give him the core! If we give it to him, he might let us live! We can’t fight a Level 90! I don’t want to die in a fvcking video game!"
Sloane kicked the desk forward and knocked the warrior back into the crowd.
She pulled out her heavy crossbow and leveled it right at the mob.
"Nobody touches the gates!" Sloane roared. Her voice cracked with stress.
"The Warlord makes the calls! You step past this desk and I will put a bolt through your eye! The shield is holding!"
She was trying to keep order but even her voice was trembling.
She looked up at the floating giant of fire and magma and her face was completely pale.
She had seen Declan do impossible things.
But Level 90 was a completely different universe of stats.
It was a twenty level gap. In the Grid, a three level gap was usually a death sentence.
Up on the highest balcony of the central keep, Declan watched the entire display.
He didn’t cover his eyes from the blinding light.
His Abyssal Sovereign stats completely nullified the glare.
The intense heat washing over the balcony didn’t even make him break a sweat. His physical density just ignored the temperature change.
He just looked incredibly annoyed.
"I just got this city organized," Declan sighed and crossed his arms.
"I finally got the supply chains running. I finally got the economy stable. The refugees are finally paying their taxes."
"And now this guy shows up to ruin my view and act like he owns the place."
Kendra was crouching behind the thick iron railing and panting heavily. The heat was getting to her.
"Declan, he has a sun. He literally brought a sun. We have to run. Can you teleport us out of here? We can abandon the city!"
"Run?" Declan looked down at her. His pitch black eyes were completely calm.
"I don’t run. I own this sector. I’m not giving up my real estate to an overgrown lizard with a superiority complex."
Declan stepped away from the railing.
He walked out into the absolute center of the massive balcony and completely exposed himself to the alien floating in the sky.
He didn’t yell back. He didn’t try to negotiate. He didn’t bother using the system chat to send a message.
He hated monologues.
He just reached into his digital inventory.
The air around his right hand distorted violently.
The space tore open and revealed a flash of green binary code as the system rendered the item.
A heavy and massive dark matter shaft dropped perfectly into his grip.
He fully manifested the +40 Eclipse Severance.
The eighty pound ceremonial weapon had been mutated into a four hundred pound halberd of pure destruction.
The razor thin blade made of the night sky hummed with a chaotic and static energy.
The tiny black hole spinning in the center of the axe head instantly began violently sucking in the surrounding heat and light.
The area around Declan actually grew dim as the weapon passively ate the thermal energy in the air.
Declan rested the massive weapon on his shoulder.
He looked up at the Level 90 invader floating in the sky.
"System," Declan commanded in his mind.
He didn’t care about the thirty second timer. He didn’t care about the demands of the alien.
He was the Warlord.
"Let’s go show the Outer Sectors how Earth plays the game."
