Free Web NovelChapter 68: [68] : Modern Warfare vs. The Sovereign, Cleaving Titanium
The heavy toxic rain of Sector 7 washed over Declan.
It instantly soaked his fresh new clothes, but the water didn’t bother him.
His body ran incredibly hot. His his percentage synchronization rate made his core temperature completely ignore the cold.
He stood alone in the middle of the ruined street.
Behind him was the towering black energy dome of his Earth Sanctum. In front of him were twelve thirty foot tall Goliath Mechs.
The machines were incredibly intimidating. Their white armor plating was thick and heavily reinforced.
The glowing blue railguns mounted on their shoulders were tracking him with perfect mechanical precision.
Red laser sights cut through the rainy darkness. All twelve of them rested directly on Declan’s chest.
A loud, metallic screech echoed from the lead mech.
A heavily amplified voice boomed out from its external speakers.
"Player V." The corporate pilot’s voice was filled with absolute arrogance. "You stepped outside your little bubble. Big mistake."
"Lay down on the ground and put your hands behind your head. You are under corporate arrest."
Declan just stared up at the giant machine. He rolled his shoulders.
The +40 Eclipse Severance rested easily in his right hand.
The localized singularity inside the blade was already sucking in the falling raindrops. It deleted the water from existence before it even touched the dark metal.
"I don’t like being told what to do," Declan said.
His voice wasn’t amplified, but his dense vocal cords carried the words perfectly over the sound of the rain.
"Especially by a guy hiding inside a giant tin can."
Inside the cockpit of the lead Goliath, the pilot sneered. He pushed the heavy targeting joystick forward.
"Fire."
The massive blue railgun on the mech’s shoulder fired!
The sound was a deafening crack that physically shook the concrete under Declan’s boots.
A massive tungsten slug was accelerated to supersonic speeds by magnetic rails. It tore right through the air.
It was aimed perfectly at Declan’s center of mass.
It was designed to punch through heavily armored bunkers. Against a human body, it would completely vaporize the target.
But Declan wasn’t a normal human body anymore. And he didn’t just stand there.
His base Agility was sitting at a completely absurd level.
To the corporate pilot, the railgun fired instantly. To Declan, the world seemed to slow down to a crawl.
He saw the bright blue flash of the muzzle. He saw the air warping around the massive metal slug as it left the barrel.
He didn’t try to block it. He didn’t try to parry it.
’Void Blink.’ Declan thought.
The world went pitch black for a fraction of a millisecond.
Declan completely bypassed the physical space between him and the projectile. He teleported fifteen meters forward, passing directly through the incoming supersonic slug!
The heavy tungsten round slammed into the black energy dome behind where he had just been standing. It exploded into a useless shower of sparks.
Instantly, the darkness spat Declan out.
He materialized perfectly in mid air, directly above the lead Goliath Mech.
Gravity tried to pull him down. The pilot inside the cockpit looked up through his reinforced glass canopy.
His eyes went incredibly wide! The arrogant smirk vanished, replaced by pure, unfiltered horror.
A guy in wet clothes was falling toward his mech, holding a weapon that looked like a piece of the night sky.
Declan gripped the heavy shaft of the halberd with both hands. He didn’t hesitate.
He swung the massive weapon straight down in a brutal, vertical arc. freewёbnoνel.com
The moment the downward swing started, the system trait activated.
[Trait: Weight of the Warden triggered]
The mass of the halberd increased by five hundred percent. The already heavy weapon instantly became a four hundred pound meteor of dark matter.
Combined with the sheer falling speed and Declan’s absurd physical strength, the kinetic energy behind the strike broke the laws of physics.
The halberd tore through the air, creating a sharp, whistling sonic boom.
The razor thin edge of the +40 Eclipse Severance didn’t just hit the mech. The Spacetime Laceration trait activated.
The blade ignored the physical durability of the thick white titanium armor entirely. It simply severed the space the mech was occupying.
Declan landed on top of the mech’s chassis.
His halberd passed cleanly through the center of the giant machine. It sliced right between the pilot’s seat and the main engine block.
There was no sound of clashing metal. There was no explosion. It was perfectly silent.
Declan stood up straight. He casually pulled the halberd out. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
For a split second, the Goliath Mech just stood there.
Then, a massive perfectly straight black line appeared down the exact center of its armor. The two halves of the thirty foot machine slowly slid apart.
With a deafening crash, the multi ton halves of the severed mech slammed onto the wet concrete on opposite sides of the street.
The heavy engine sparked wildly before dying out.
The pilot rolled out of his shattered cockpit, coughing and grabbing his ribs. He was alive, but his billion dollar machine was completely deleted.
The street went dead silent. The rain was the only sound.
The remaining eleven mech pilots stared at the two halves of their commander’s tank.
Their brains could not process what they were seeing. A guy with a stick had just cut a heavily armored military vehicle in half like it was made of warm butter.
"What... what just happened?" one of the pilots stammered over the open comms channel.
"He cut it!" another pilot shrieked. Panic completely took over. "He cut a Goliath in half! Fall back! Break formation!"
The corporate elite broke instantly.
The mechs started stepping backward clumsily. Their heavy gears whined as they tried to turn their massive bodies around in the tight street.
They didn’t care about their orders anymore. They just wanted to get away from the monster in the rain.
Declan smiled. His pitch black eyes gleamed with the corrupted purple energy of the Grid.
"Nobody runs," Declan stated.
"Void Blink."
He vanished from the top of the ruined mech. He teleported fifteen meters to the left, appearing directly in front of the cockpit of the second Goliath.
The pilot screamed and wildly fired his heavy machine guns. Bullets tore up the pavement, missing Declan completely.
Declan swung the halberd horizontally.
The Spacetime Laceration sliced cleanly through the mech’s mechanical knees.
The massive machine lost its legs and collapsed forward. It crashed face first into the street with a massive crunch of titanium and glass.
"Void Blink."
Declan teleported again. He appeared behind a third mech that was trying to run down an alleyway.
He brought the heavy blunt side of the halberd down on the mech’s shoulder joint.
The Weight of the Warden crushed the thick armor inward. It completely shattered the arm and sent the massive railgun tumbling into a brick wall.
"Fire at him! Just fire!" a pilot screamed over the radio.
Three mechs turned and fired their railguns blindly into the street.
The blue slugs tore through empty air, blowing up abandoned cars and destroying entire storefronts.
They couldn’t track him. Declan was moving way too fast.
He was a teleporting grim reaper turning their billion dollar tech into absolute scrap.
He blinked onto the chest of a fourth mech. He drove the halberd straight down through the main power core.
The machine violently shut down, freezing in place like a giant statue.
He blinked again. He sliced the barrel of a railgun clean off before it could fire.
He didn’t use any flashy magic. He didn’t use fireballs or shields.
He just used raw, overwhelming speed and a weapon that completely ignored the concept of physical defense.
In less than thirty minutes, the street was a total graveyard.
Burning titanium, sparking wires, and leaking hydraulic fluid covered the wet asphalt. All twelve Goliath Mechs were completely destroyed.
Some were cut in half. Some were crushed. Some were missing their limbs.
The corporate pilots who had survived the crashes were scrambling out of their ruined cockpits.
They were slipping in the mud, crying, and running away into the dark fog as fast as their legs could carry them.
Declan didn’t chase them. He didn’t care about a bunch of terrified normal humans.
He stood in the middle of the burning wreckage. He rested the +40 Eclipse Severance on his shoulder.
He looked up at the sky, knowing exactly who was watching him through the satellite feeds.
"Send more," Declan spoke out loud to the empty street. "I am having fun."
