Free Web NovelChapter 28: [28]: Tomb of the Sunken Sovereign, The 10-Man Nightmare
Levi arrived at the dead center of the Drowned Hollows.
The swamp was just as disgusting as he remembered. He completely ignored the Level 12 Murk Murlocs splashing around in the shallows; they weren’t worth his time or his mana anymore.
He waded into the deep end of the murky lake until he reached a massive, swirling whirlpool violently churning the water.
This was the entrance to the Tomb of the Sunken Sovereign. In a normal VRMMORPG, dungeon entrances were safe zones where parties could group up, cast their buffs, and plan their strategy. Here, the entrance was a literal death trap if you couldn’t swim.
Levi didn’t hesitate. He held his breath, clamped his hands to his sides, and dove directly into the violent center of the whirlpool.
The game’s sensory engine simulated the terrifying rush of cold water and the crushing pressure of being pulled under. His screen went entirely black for three seconds before a bright, magical blue light washed over his vision.
He was violently spat out of a glowing portal, landing perfectly on his boots on a dry, subterranean stone floor.
The environment completely changed. He was standing inside a massive, ruined underwater palace. The walls were made of polished white marble covered in glowing blue coral.
A massive red system prompt immediately flashed across his screen.
[Entering 10-Man Instance: Tomb of the Sunken Sovereign.]
[Difficulty Adjusted: Nightmare Mode.]
[Warning: As a solo player in a 10-man instance, all monster stats have been increased by 50%.]
"Of course they have," Levi sighed, swiping the prompt away. "Because fighting a boss ten levels above me wasn’t annoying enough."
He summoned his Silver-tier Arachnid’s Fang Scythe. The dark, shadowy aura of his Herald class immediately wrapped around the silver blade, humming with an aggressive, low vibration.
He didn’t have to walk far to find the welcoming committee. Guarding a massive set of coral doors at the end of the entrance hall were two hulking monstrosities.
They were Palace Guards. They looked like massive, mutated sharks with arms and legs, wearing heavy rusted iron armor. They each held a towering shield in one hand and a heavy, jagged halberd in the other.
[Palace Guard]
[Level: 20 | Elite]
[HP: 4,500 | ATK: 200 | DEF: 100]
Levi stood at the edge of their aggro radius and ran the combat math in his head. The numbers were brutal.
He was Level 16. They were Level 20. A four-level gap imposed a flat 20% Level Suppression damage penalty. On top of that, because it was a Nightmare instance, these basic mobs had the stats of open-world mini-bosses.
’Alright, let’s break it down,’ Levi thought. ’Guard Defense is 100. My scythe ignores 15% of that. That leaves them with exactly 85 effective Defense.’
He checked his own offensive output. His Total Attack was sitting at a massive 246.
246 minus 85 meant his raw damage per swing was 161. Now, apply the 20% suppression penalty for the level gap. 161 multiplied by 0.8 resulted in exactly 128.8. The game rounded it down.
’One hundred and twenty-eight Final Damage per basic strike,’ Levi calculated. ’And if they hit me? Their Attack is 200. My Defense is 76. That means I take 124 damage per hit.’
Taking 124 damage wasn’t a joke, even with his 1,020 Max HP. If both guards hit him at the same time, he would lose a quarter of his health instantly.
Levi opened his skill menu and toggled on [Siphon Aura]. The warm green light wrapped around his boots, and his mana began ticking down by 2 points every second.
"Let’s dance," Levi said.
He sprinted forward. The 63 Speed generated by his Agility and his Boots of the Deep Tide made him a literal blur. The Palace Guards let out a gargling, wet roar and slammed their massive shields together, creating an overlapping wall of iron meant to block any frontal assault.
Normally, a raid party would have to send a tank in to break their guard while the mages fired spells over the top.
Levi just smiled. "Phantom Step."
He burned 20 Mana. His body dissolved into a pitch-black shadow, passing straight through the impenetrable iron shield wall, and materialized directly behind Guard A.
Before the massive shark-man could even turn its heavy armor around, Levi dumped 10 Mana.
"Reaping Arc!"
The silver scythe erupted in bloody red light. He carved a massive horizontal sweep directly across the back of Guard A’s knees.
[-285]
Guard A staggered violently, the hit-stun animation forcing it to drop its shield. Levi immediately followed up with a rapid flurry of basic physical attacks, relying on his massive speed advantage to swing the heavy scythe like a toy.
[-128] [-128] [-128]
The scythe’s passive triggered, applying the bleeding teardrop icon to the guard’s head. It started ticking for 5 true damage every second.
But these were Nightmare-tier mobs. They didn’t just stand there and take it. Guard B immediately pivoted and swung its massive halberd in a wide, horizontal cleave.
Levi was locked in his swing animation. He couldn’t dodge perfectly. He leaned back, letting the blade miss his neck, but the heavy iron shaft of the halberd slammed squarely into his Obsidian Carapace.
The VR pain engine sent a harsh, blunt shockwave through his ribs.
[-124]
His health bar instantly dropped from 1,020 down to 896. Levi grunted, but he completely ignored the pain. A second later, his Siphon Aura pulsed a bright green [+15], bringing his health back to 911.
He didn’t bother trying to hit Guard B. He focused entirely on Guard A. In this game, spreading damage was a terrible idea. Dead mobs deal zero DPS.
Levi sidestepped another clumsy halberd thrust and kept his scythe moving. Reaping Arc came off its 5-second cooldown. He dumped another 10 Mana and slammed the red wave of energy into Guard A’s chest.
[-285]
The fight was intense, loud, and incredibly fast. The sound of clashing metal and gargling roars echoed through the marble hall. Levi perfectly managed his stamina, weaving three basic attacks between every Reaping Arc cast.
After twenty seconds of relentless hacking and slashing, Guard A’s health bar finally plummeted to exactly 900 HP.
Levi’s eyes locked onto the number. The guard had 4,500 Max HP. 900 HP was exactly 20%. The threshold was met.
"Soul Harvest!" Levi commanded.
He felt a massive 50 Mana drain from his pool. The dark aura surrounding his scythe violently detached and materialized in the air as a massive, pitch-black guillotine blade. It slammed straight down, cleanly decapitating the hulking Palace Guard.
[System Notification: Target Executed.]
[Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
Guard A shattered into thousands of glowing blue polygons.
Levi didn’t even pause to watch the animation. His Phantom Step icon flashed green.
"Phantom Step!"
He burned another 20 Mana, dissolving into shadow and instantly teleporting away from Guard B’s incoming halberd strike. He reappeared directly above the remaining guard, gravity pulling him down.
He swung the scythe directly into the top of the monster’s helmet.
[-128]
The rest of the fight was a formality. Guard B was too slow to track Levi’s 63 Speed. Levi stayed glued to its blind spots, keeping the bleed ticking and chipping away at the massive health pool. When Guard B dropped to 900 HP, Levi dumped another 50 Mana.
The spectral scythe dropped. The second guard was decapitated and shattered into pixels.
[System Notification: Slain 2x Nightmare Palace Guards. Gained 20,000 XP.]
Levi landed on the marble floor and instantly toggled Siphon Aura off. He sucked in a massive breath of dry air, letting his virtual muscles relax.
"Ten thousand XP per kill," Levi laughed out loud, staring at his progression bar. "The Nightmare multiplier is absolutely insane."
He looked at his mana pool. He had started with 450 Mana. Between the constant aura drain, the Phantom Steps, the Reaping Arcs, and two massive 50-Mana executions, he was sitting at exactly 110/450 Mana.
He reached to his quick-belt, popped the cork on a top-tier mana potion, and downed the bitter blue liquid. His fuel tank rapidly filled back up.
He walked over to the loot piles, snagged a few silver coins, and looked down the massive, sprawling entrance hall of the dungeon. There were easily another thirteen Palace Guards patrolling the corridors ahead. To a normal team, clearing this hall would take hours of careful pulling, crowd-control, and mana breaks.
To Levi, it was just an obstacle course.
He cracked his neck, spun the scythe in his hand, and sprinted down the hall.
For the next two hours, Levi turned the Nightmare instance into his own personal execution ground. He chained his Phantom Steps perfectly, blinking from target to target. He would isolate a guard, drop it to 20%, execute it to reset his blink, and immediately teleport to the next victim.
He burned through his stack of mana potions aggressively, but the XP return was staggering. He slaughtered the remaining thirteen guards flawlessly.
The massive influx of 130,000 XP hit his progression bar like a tsunami.
He stood at the end of the entrance hall, covered in digital sweat and surrounded by dissolving polygons. He checked his log. He had pushed his XP up to 200,000 out of the 350,000 required for Level 17.
"This is going to be the easiest server-first clear in history," Levi grinned, stepping through the massive coral doors into the next zone of the tomb.
