Free Web NovelChapter 69: [69] : The Blackout and The Beacon, Unlimited Power
High above the burning streets of Metropolis, Director Sterling was not having fun.
He was inside the pristine command center of Apex Paradigm Headquarters.
The command room was dead silent. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
The dozen technicians in white lab coats were completely frozen. They stared at the massive holographic screens in sheer disbelief.
The live feed from Sector 7 was playing on a loop.
It showed a guy in a faded orange prison jumpsuit teleporting through the air. He casually chopped thirty foot military tanks in half with a stick.
Sterling’s perfectly manicured hands were gripping the edge of the central console.
He gripped it so hard his knuckles were entirely white. A cold bead of sweat slid down the side of his face.
He had sent the Goliath Platoon to crush a minor annoyance. He had expected to see a crater.
Instead, he had just watched billions of dollars in company assets get turned into a scrapyard in under three minutes!
"Director," a senior technician whispered, his voice trembling. "All Goliath units are offline. The pilots are fleeing on foot."
"Sir... he didn’t even use a defensive skill. He just bypassed the armor completely. Our physics engine models say that is mathematically impossible."
"I don’t care about your models!" Sterling finally snapped. He lost his cold, professional composure entirely.
He slammed his fist right onto the console.
"The anomaly is physically overriding reality! He is pulling Grid admin tools right into our dimension!"
"If he decides to walk out of that sector and come here, nothing we have can stop him!"
Sterling began pacing back and forth rapidly. His mind raced.
He could not send more troops. Guns and mechs clearly did not work against a guy who could delete physical space.
He needed to be smart. He needed to cripple the anomaly. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
"The shield," Sterling said. He stopped and looked at the holographic globe.
The black dome of the Earth Sanctum was still glowing brightly in Sector 7.
"That barrier requires an astronomical amount of energy to maintain in the physical world. He has to be drawing it from the local power grid."
Sterling turned to the lead technician. "Cut it."
"Sir?"
"Cut the power!" Sterling barked.
"Shut down the entire Sector 7 grid! Turn off the electricity. Turn off the water mains. Sever the data lines."
"I want that entire district plunged into the dark ages!"
The technician hesitated.
"Director, there are still hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in Sector 7. If we cut the power, the automated defense turrets on the border walls will go offline."
"The Flesh Stalkers will flood the streets. It will be a total massacre."
"Do it now!" Sterling roared.
"Let the monsters eat them! Let the monsters swarm his little fortress!"
"If we starve him of power, his dome will fall, and the Grid will handle the problem for us!"
The technician swallowed hard and quickly began typing commands into the master terminal.
"Executing full sector blackout," the tech said softly. "May God help them."
Back in Sector 7, Declan was walking past the smoking remains of a Goliath Mech.
He was heading back toward the black energy dome of his Sanctum when the world suddenly changed.
The flickering neon signs on the ruined buildings instantly died. The buzzing streetlights completely shut off.
The low, constant hum of the city’s underground power lines faded into nothing.
Total, suffocating darkness fell over the slums.
Declan stopped. His synced vision easily pierced the gloom, but the sudden absence of light was jarring.
He looked up at his Earth Sanctum.
The heavy iron braziers that were burning with magical purple fire along his walls flickered and died.
The massive black dome above the city rippled. It lost its solid appearance and turned dangerously thin.
The megacorp had pulled the plug!
Instantly, Declan heard it from the dark alleyways and the ruined buildings all around him.
The horrific, metallic screeching of Flesh Stalkers.
Without the city’s automated lights and border turrets to keep them back, the monsters were boldly creeping out of the shadows. They were drawn to the sudden silence.
Declan didn’t panic. He just stepped through the thin black barrier and back into his city.
The courtyard was entirely pitch black.
Sloane ran up to him immediately. She was holding a tiny battery powered flashlight that barely illuminated the ground.
She looked absolutely terrified.
"Declan! The power just went out!" Sloane yelled over the panicked crowd. "The barrier is failing! But that isn’t the worst part!"
She grabbed his arm and pointed toward the hospital bed sitting near the center monolith.
"Mia’s ventilator!" Sloane cried.
"The Sanctum Core stopped feeding it power! It is running on its internal emergency battery now."
"It only has ten minutes left! If the power doesn’t come back on, she is going to die!"
Declan looked at the hospital bed. The rhythmic beeping of the machine was faster now. A warning alarm flashed red in the dark.
Sterling thought he was smart. He thought cutting the cord would starve the Sanctum.
He fundamentally misunderstood what Declan was.
Declan was a hacker. He didn’t rely on the system. He brought his own power.
"Calm down, Sloane," Declan said smoothly. He didn’t sound worried at all.
He opened his system interface.
He completely ignored the screaming players around him and the warning prompts flashing in his vision about the failing dome.
He opened his digital inventory.
He scrolled past the useless iron swords and the monster parts. He found the massive stack of items he had looted from the high level zones in the Grid.
He willed them into reality.
With a loud clatter, dozens of massive, jagged crystals dropped onto the stone floor of the courtyard.
They were pure white, glowing with a very faint, dull light.
[Item: Radiant Mana Crystal]
"What are those?" Sloane asked, shining her flashlight on the rocks.
"Raw batteries," Declan said. He cracked his knuckles.
"But they aren’t strong enough yet. System. Enhance the Mana Crystals. All of them. Push them to plus twenty."
He didn’t care about the Origin Point cost. He dumped thousands of points into the pile of rocks simultaneously.
A blinding, intense white light erupted in the center of the dark courtyard!
The players screamed and covered their eyes.
The system chimes hammered rapidly inside Declan’s head. They completely ignored the safety warnings about material density.
When the light faded, the dull white rocks were gone.
Sitting on the floor were massive, perfectly smooth crystals. They pulsed with an impossibly bright, deep purple energy.
They hummed so loudly they made the ground vibrate. The sheer magical energy radiating from them felt like standing next to an open furnace.
[Item Mutated: Sovereign Core Crystal +20]
[Trait Unlocked: Infinite Resonance]
↳ Generates a massive self sustaining output of pure magical energy.
Declan picked up two of the massive purple crystals.
They were heavy, but his physical stats handled them easily. He walked right up to the massive black iron monolith sitting in the center of the city.
He slammed the crystals directly into the admin terminal of the Sanctum Core.
The system recognized the raw, mutated energy instantly.
"Assimilation," Declan commanded.
The monolith roared to life!
The purple energy from the crystals shot up the iron pillar like a geyser.
The heavy iron braziers along the city walls violently exploded with towering pillars of purple fire. The darkness was banished completely!
The thin, failing black dome above them instantly solidified. It became thicker and stronger than ever before.
Over by the hospital bed, the ventilator gave a loud beep.
The red warning light turned a solid, healthy green. The machine hummed happily, drawing power directly from the new magical grid.
Sloane dropped to her knees next to the bed and let out a massive sob of relief.
Outside the walls, the Flesh Stalkers that had been creeping closer shrieked in pain.
They scrambled backward, terrified by the sudden explosion of magical light.
Sector 7 was completely pitch black. The megacorps had abandoned it. The monsters were flooding it.
But right in the middle of the ruins, the Earth Sanctum stood as a towering, untouchable beacon of glowing purple light.
Declan stood by the monolith, his dark eyes reflecting the purple fire.
The megacorps had tried to turn the lights off.
Declan had just brought the sun.
