Free Web NovelChapter 38: [38]: Stacking the Harvest, The Troll Elites
Hitting Level 19 was a massive mathematical shift for Levi’s current combat loop. The Level Suppression penalty against the Level 20 Blood-Crazed Orcs completely plummeted from 10% down to a virtually non-existent 5%.
His damage output noticeably spiked. He didn’t even need to use his Reaping Arc on the trash mobs anymore. His basic physical strikes were carving through their 80 Defense with absolute ease, melting their 3,000 HP pools in just a handful of swings. The few players who had crawled up onto the city walls just watched him in dumbfounded silence. A siege event meant to break a guild coalition was being held back by a single guy in dark armor who refused to stop swinging.
But the easy farming didn’t last long.
The low, rumbling vibration in the dirt intensified. The second wave of the Blood Moon Eclipse broke over the horizon. Mixed in with the endless sea of green Orcs were towering, hulking figures that looked like they were carved out of gray stone.
They were massive. Easily twelve feet tall, with thick, rocky skin and long, dragging arms. Instead of actual weapons, they were carrying giant, jagged boulders ripped straight out of the earth.
[Elite Troll Berserker]
[Level: 22 | Elite]
[HP: 20,000 | ATK: 350 | DEF: 100]
"There’s the main course," Levi grinned. A 20,000 health pool on a mob was usually a complete wall for any solo player. It required coordinated crowd control, dedicated healers, and an armor-shredding rogue.
Levi just saw it as free base stats.
He completely ignored the basic Orcs around him. He locked his eyes onto the closest Elite Troll Berserker currently stomping toward the city gates.
"Phantom Step," Levi said.
He burned 20 Mana, his body dissolving into dark shadow. He teleported right through a pack of Orcs, bypassing the trash mobs entirely, and reappeared directly in front of the massive Troll.
The Troll let out a booming, guttural roar. It raised the massive boulder over its head with both hands, winding up to crush Levi into paste.
Levi didn’t try to sidestep. The boulder was the size of a small car; the AoE impact would clip him no matter how fast his 68 Speed was.
"Hollow’s Ward," Levi commanded.
He dumped 150 Mana. The pitch-black, swirling dark-matter shield instantly erupted around his avatar. The shield had a flat 755 HP.
The Troll brought the boulder crashing down directly onto Levi’s head.
The VR engine shook violently. The ground beneath Levi’s boots literally shattered, throwing up a cloud of dust and debris. The system instantly calculated the massive physical blow. The Troll had 350 Attack. Levi’s current Defense was 91.
350 minus 91 meant exactly 259 incoming damage.
The dark-matter shield flared as it absorbed the impact.
[-259]
The shield’s health dropped to 496, but it held perfectly. The Gold-tier skill’s passive immunity meant Levi wasn’t flattened or knocked backward by the sheer force of the boulder. He stood his ground completely unfazed.
"My turn, ugly," Levi said.
He pulled the Sovereign’s Deathknell back and went completely wild. He didn’t bother using Reaping Arc because he needed to conserve his mana pool for his healing aura. He relied entirely on his raw 410 Total Attack and his ridiculous attack speed.
The Troll had 100 Defense. Levi’s scythe ignored 20% of it, dropping it to 80.
410 Attack minus 80 Defense left 330 raw damage. The three-level gap meant he suffered a 15% suppression penalty. 330 multiplied by 0.85 resulted in 280 Final Damage per basic strike.
Levi turned his scythe into a blur. He hacked at the Troll’s thick, gray legs, landing rapid strikes one after another.
[-280] [-280] [-280] [-280]
Every single hit triggered his weapon’s 10% Lifesteal, instantly pumping 28 HP back into his health pool per swing. The Troll dropped its boulder and started frantically swinging its massive fists, trying to swat Levi away like a fly.
Levi didn’t even try to dodge every punch. When a massive stone fist clipped his shoulder or chest, dealing a couple hundred damage, Levi just kept swinging. His Lifesteal and his Siphon Aura constantly patched the holes in his health bar. He was literally trading blows with a Level 22 Elite and winning the mathematical war of attrition.
It took him two solid minutes of relentless, grueling combat. The Troll was a massive sponge, but the constant 5 DMG/sec bleed from the scythe and the rapid barrage of basic attacks eventually broke it down.
The Troll’s health bar dipped to 4,000 HP. Exactly 20%.
"Harvest," Levi snapped.
He dumped 50 Mana. The massive, spectral pitch-black guillotine materialized in the red-lit sky. It slammed down with a sickening crunch, cleanly decapitating the giant Troll. The massive, headless stone body collapsed into the dirt and shattered.
[System Notification: Target Executed. Movement skill cooldowns reset.]
Before the polygons even hit the ground, the dense, glowing crimson aura of the harvest ripped out of the boss and slammed into Levi’s chest.
[Supreme Harvester triggered.]
[Elite Troll Berserker’s primary stat is STR (120).]
[You have plundered 2.5% of its core stat.]
[Gained +3 STR permanently!]
Levi let out a sharp laugh as his raw physical power permanently increased. He didn’t stop to admire the massive chunk of XP. He immediately looked out across the chaotic battlefield.
The Northern Gate was swarming with them. The event scripting was spawning an insane number of Elites to try and break the player barricades. Levi counted exactly nine more Elite Troll Berserkers lumbering through the Orc horde.
"I am going to get so fat off you guys," Levi grinned.
For the next four hours, the Blood Moon Eclipse event became nothing more than a personal stat-farming session for the Herald of the Hollow.
Levi completely ignored the objective of defending the city. He just hunted the Trolls. He used Phantom Step to blink through the crowds of Orcs, isolating the Elites one by one. The combat loop was physically exhausting, forcing him to chug mana potions to keep his Siphon Aura running, but the dopamine rush of permanent stat gains made him ignore the VR fatigue.
He chopped down a second Troll. He executed it. Another red aura slammed into him.
[Gained +3 STR permanently!]
He blinked to a third Troll. He shattered its kneecaps, traded blows until it hit the 20% execution threshold, and dropped the spectral scythe on its neck.
[Gained +3 AGI permanently!]
The players standing on the stone walls of Threshold just watched in absolute awe. A siege event that was mathematically designed to wipe out thousands of players was being completely stalled by a single guy teleporting around like a demonic assassin.
By the end of the fourth hour, Levi had systematically hunted down and executed all ten Elite Troll Berserkers that spawned at the Northern Gate. He stood in a massive clearing of dropped loot, completely covered in digital monster blood, breathing heavily.
He opened his status menu to check the absolute snowball of stats he had just generated.
His SSS-rank talent was completely game-breaking. From those ten Elite kills, his Strength had passively climbed by a total of 30 points. His Agility had passively increased by 15 points.
Levi ran the new math.
His Strength jumped from 101 to 131. That pushed his unarmed base attack to 262. Adding the 140 Attack from his Gold-tier scythe brought it to 402. Finally, applying his class’s 20% passive multiplier shot his Total Attack up to an absurd 482.
His Agility jumped from 63 to 78. That pushed his derived Speed stat from 68 to 83.
He was now hitting like a max-level character and moving so fast the game’s targeting reticles were having trouble locking onto him. Levi dismissed his stat sheet and looked back out at the red horizon. The horde was thinning out, but the ground was trembling harder than before.
The final boss of the event was coming, and Levi was more than ready to harvest it.
