Free Web NovelChapter 33: [33]: Isolde the Anomaly, The True Damage
Levi breached the surface of the massive whirlpool in the Drowned Hollows and practically walked on water until he hit the muddy banks. The dark, ruined underwater palace of the Sunken Sovereign was gone, replaced once again by the nasty, rotting smell of stagnant swamp water and algae.
He took a moment to adjust to the dim, foggy lighting of the overworld. His digital pockets were significantly heavier, loaded down with raw gold and silver coins, but his attention was entirely focused on the massive weapon resting in his right hand.
The `[Sovereign’s Deathknell]`.
It was a Gold-tier scythe, completely pitch-black with a crescent blade that dripped with a shadowy water effect. Because of his Herald of the Hollow class, a dark, pulsing aura naturally wrapped around the haft of the weapon. It looked incredibly intimidating, but Levi only cared about the math.
"I need to hit something," Levi muttered.
He didn’t have to look far. About thirty yards away, wading through the knee-deep mud, was a small pack of Murk Murlocs. They were Level 14, just standard trash mobs wandering the swamp, holding their crude bone spears and gargling at each other.
Because Levi was now Level 18, the game’s Level Suppression penalty didn’t apply here. Actually, because he was higher level than them, he was going to get exactly zero XP for killing them. But he didn’t care about experience points right now. He just wanted to test his new toy.
Levi splashed through the water, walking right up to the closest Murloc.
The fish-man shrieked and thrust its spear at Levi’s chest. Levi didn’t even bother dodging. The spear bounced harmlessly off his Silver-tier `[Obsidian Carapace]`. The Murloc’s attack was so low, and Levi’s Defense was sitting at 91, so the hit registered as a completely pathetic 1 damage.
Levi swung the Sovereign’s Deathknell in a casual, lazy horizontal arc.
He ran the math in his head right as the blade connected. The Murloc had 30 Defense. His Gold scythe had a passive effect that ignored 20% of enemy armor. Twenty percent of 30 was 6, dropping the Murloc’s effective Defense to 24.
Levi’s Total Attack was a monstrous 410.
410 minus 24 equaled exactly 386 raw damage.
A massive, heavy red number exploded over the Murloc’s head.
[-386]
The Murloc only had 600 Max HP. A single, casual auto-attack instantly carved away more than half of its health bar.
But the damage wasn’t the best part. A split second after the hit registered, a bright green number floated up from Levi’s own avatar.
[+38]
The scythe’s second passive was 10% Lifesteal on all physical damage dealt. He hit for 386 damage, so the game instantly fed him 38 health back.
"Oh, that is absolutely disgusting," Levi laughed loudly, entirely ignoring the other Murlocs thrusting their spears at him. "I don’t even need my Siphon Aura anymore. If I’m taking chip damage, I can just heal it by hitting things. I am a walking vampire."
He swung the scythe one more time.
[-386]
The Murloc’s health bar hit zero, and it shattered into glowing blue polygons. Levi quickly dispatched the rest of the pack in three more swings, effortlessly out-healing their tiny spear pokes just by landing basic attacks.
He dismissed his menu, feeling incredibly satisfied with his build. He was ready to head back to the City of Thresholds and push into the Level 20 zones.
But right as he turned around, he heard a loud, violent hiss from the other side of a ruined stone temple. It wasn’t a Murloc. It sounded like a massive reptile.
Levi kept his scythe out and quietly waded through the murky water, creeping around the edge of the moss-covered stone wall. He peeked around the corner.
In a clearing surrounded by dead trees, a Level 16 Swamp Basilisk was thrashing around. It was a giant, six-legged lizard with thick, scaled armor that usually required a full party to break through.
Fighting the Basilisk was a single player.
It was a woman wearing a plain, untextured gray cloak. She didn’t have any visible armor, and she was holding a basic, Level 1 wooden beginner’s staff. A plain white username floated above her head: ’Isolde’.
"What is a beginner doing out here?" Levi frowned. A Level 16 Basilisk would snap a fresh player in half by just looking at them.
The Basilisk roared and lunged at her, its massive jaws snapping open.
Isolde didn’t dodge. She didn’t panic. She simply raised the wooden staff and cast `[Magic Missile]`. It was the most basic, Common-tier spell in the entire game. It cost 5 mana and usually dealt around 20 magic damage.
A tiny, pathetic-looking blue orb shot out of the tip of her staff and hit the Basilisk squarely between the eyes.
The damage number that popped up wasn’t blue. It was a violently bright, glowing red font that Levi had never seen before.
[-1,500 True Damage]
The Basilisk didn’t even get a chance to finish its lunge. Its entire health bar was instantly deleted. The massive lizard hit the swamp water and immediately shattered into pixels.
Levi’s breath caught in his throat. His eyes went wide.
"True Damage?" Levi whispered, instinctively stepping back behind the stone wall.
In Aethelgard, True Damage was a mechanic that completely ignored defense, shields, and level suppression. It was incredibly rare, usually reserved for massive environmental hazards or high-level execution skills. A beginner’s Magic Missile physically could not deal True Damage, let alone 1,500 points of it.
Levi quickly opened his inventory. He had purchased a few `[Inspect]` scrolls back in the beginner village just to check NPC stats. He pulled one out, crushed the parchment in his hand, and targeted the woman in the gray cloak.
A system window popped up in front of him.
[Target: Isolde]
[Level: ERROR]
[Class: NULL]
[Stats: UNKNOWN]
A cold chill ran down Levi’s spine. The VR engine was simulating the ambient temperature of the swamp, but this chill was entirely real. He knew exactly what he was looking at. He remembered the stories from his past life.
She wasn’t a hacker. She wasn’t a glitch.
She was an Anomaly.
In exactly three years, the servers of Aethelgard were supposed to merge with the real world, bringing the apocalypse and the descending Gods with it. But the Gods didn’t just wait around. They needed vessels. Anomalies were human players whose avatars had already been hijacked by the consciousness of a descending God. They were bypassing the game’s code, rewriting the math with raw divine authority.
Isolde slowly turned her head.
Levi froze. Her eyes were completely empty. There was no human spark in them, no reaction to the environment. They looked like blank, robotic lenses staring right through the digital fog.
She didn’t say anything. She simply raised her wooden staff and pointed it at a massive, petrified swamp tree standing a few yards to her left.
She didn’t cast a spell. She just pointed.
The entire tree instantly ceased to exist. There was no explosion, no damage numbers, no shattering polygons. The code for the tree was just completely deleted from the server, leaving a perfectly smooth crater in the mud where the roots used to be.
Then, without any teleportation animation or flash of light, Isolde simply vanished. One frame she was there, and the next frame she was gone.
Levi stood behind the stone wall in total silence. The ambient croaking of the swamp frogs slowly returned to his audio feed.
He looked down at his Gold-tier scythe. A minute ago, he felt like a raid boss because his attack stat was sitting at 410. He thought he was completely breaking the game. But seeing an Anomaly casually drop 1,500 True Damage from a starter spell and delete a terrain object from the server was a massive reality check.
"The timeline is wrong," Levi muttered, his voice tense.
In his past life, Anomalies didn’t start showing up in the open world until year two. For one to be wandering around the Drowned Hollows on the first week of the server meant the merge was accelerating. The Gods were already poking holes in the server code.
"Three years might be a joke," Levi said, gripping his weapon tightly. "If they trigger the merge early, I’m dead. Level 18 isn’t enough. Four hundred attack isn’t enough."
