Chapter 312: “Die, Glitch!”

Sebastian planted his heavy combat boot on the man’s knee and pulled violently backward.

*SNAP! SQUELCH!*

The scavenger’s leg bent completely the wrong way, the femur tearing through the skin and chainmail in a geyser of bright red blood. The man shrieked, collapsing into the mud.

Sebastian didn’t stop. He ripped the spear out of the screaming man’s hands and hurled it like a javelin at the third scavenger. The wooden shaft pierced straight through the center of the man’s rusted breastplate, pinning him violently to the trunk of a massive oak tree.

"They’re too fast!" Valerie shouted over the din of combat.

She was engaged with two scavengers near the ruins of the toll booth. She wasn’t trying to match their hacked strength. She was fighting smart. As a scavenger swung a heavy axe at her head, Valerie dropped to her knees, sliding through the mud. She swung her heavy iron pipe, smashing it directly into the side of the man’s unarmored ankle.

*CRACK.*

The man howled, dropping to one knee. Valerie instantly popped up, gripping the iron pipe with both hands, and delivered a brutal, merciless strike directly to his temple. The scavenger hit the dirt, out cold.

*THWIP! THWIP!*

Two throwing daggers suddenly materialized out of the shadows, burying themselves to the hilt in the throats of two approaching crossbowmen.

Wraith dropped from the branches of an oak tree, landing softly in the mud. He didn’t have his stealth skills, but years of surviving the apocalypse had made him naturally invisible. He spun his mundane iron daggers, ducking under a wild sword swing and slicing the attacker’s hamstrings with surgical, terrifying precision.

"Boss! We can’t fight five hundred of them like this!" Wraith yelled, kicking a crippled scavenger in the face. "They hit too hard! The buffs are making them reckless, but one lucky shot will take our heads off!"

"I know!" Sebastian grunted, pulling his broadsword out of the dirt and blocking a heavy mace.

He pushed the attacker back with a violent front kick, sending the man flying ten feet into the lake. *SPLASH.*

Sebastian scanned the battlefield. The massive red holographic grid was pulsing aggressively around them. The scavengers were drawing their power from the four rusted iron boxes planted along the shoreline.

"We need to unplug their router!" Sebastian ordered, pointing his bloody sword toward the nearest bootleg anchor. "Wraith, Valerie! Keep the mob busy! I’m going for the hardware!"

"You heard the man!" Valerie yelled, gripping her bloody iron pipe. "Corporate restructuring! Break their legs!"

Sebastian turned and sprinted directly toward the closest glowing red iron box.

"Stop him!" Warlord Kael roared from the center of his army.

A wall of ten heavily armored brutes moved to intercept Sebastian, locking their massive iron shields together to form a phalanx. With their +500% defense and physical buffs, it was a literal, unyielding wall of solid metal.

Sebastian didn’t slow down. He didn’t try to slash at the shields.

He remembered the iron girder he had used to crush the Sky-Drake’s jaw an hour ago. It was still lying in the mud near the unfinished stone wall.

Sebastian veered slightly, dropping his broadsword. He slid into the mud, grabbing the massive, two-ton iron beam with both of his bare hands. His thirty-percent biological steel muscles screamed in protest, his fractured left arm burning with white-hot agony, but he ignored the pain entirely.

"Here’s your physics lesson, assholes!" Sebastian roared.

He hoisted the two-ton iron girder and spun, using the massive weight and centrifugal force to create an unstoppable kinetic wrecking ball.

*KRA-WHAM!*

The iron girder slammed into the center of the shield wall. The hacked stats of the bootleg anchors didn’t mean absolutely anything against raw, unadulterated physical mass. The shields didn’t just break; they completely caved in.

The ten brutes were violently launched backward into the air like bowling pins, their arms shattered, their armor crumpled into useless tin foil.

Sebastian dropped the girder with a heavy *THUD*. He sprinted through the gap, closing the distance to the first bootleg anchor.

He raised his heavy combat boot and brought it down hard on the rusted iron box.

*CRUNCH!*

The red crystals inside the box shattered into a thousand pieces.

*BZZZT.*

The red holographic grid violently flickered.

`[Warning: Node 1 Offline. Domain Integrity at 75%.]`

`[Buff Output Reduced.]`

Across the shoreline, the scavengers collectively stumbled. The frantic red light in their eyes dimmed slightly. Their movements lost that jittery, hyper-fast blur.

"He broke an anchor!" a scavenger panicked, suddenly realizing his warhammer felt a lot heavier than it did two seconds ago.

"Protect the other nodes!" Kael bellowed, realizing his absolute advantage was slipping. The Warlord hefted his colossal, acid-dripping greatsword and charged directly at Sebastian.

"I’ve got a better idea," Sebastian smirked, wiping a smear of blood off his chin.

He didn’t run toward the second anchor. He looked at the massive, smoking wreckage of the Elven galleon still half-sunk in the lake. Specifically, he looked at the incredibly thick, heavy hemp ropes Galleon had tied to the hull earlier.

Sebastian sprinted toward the water, grabbing the end of the thick rope.

Kael charged, closing the distance with terrifying speed. "You are nothing without your admin codes, glitch!" the Warlord roared, swinging his massive greatsword in a devastating, horizontal arc designed to cut Sebastian completely in half.

Sebastian didn’t try to block the acid-dripping blade. He dropped entirely to his stomach, sliding through the wet mud directly under the massive swing.

*SWOOSH!*

As he slid past Kael’s massive, armored legs, Sebastian violently whipped the thick hemp rope around the Warlord’s ankles in a crude, messy knot.

Sebastian popped back up to his feet. He didn’t pull the rope. He simply grabbed the remaining slack, sprinted toward the second bootleg anchor ten feet away, and hastily tied the other end of the rope tightly around the heavy iron box.

Kael spun around, confused, his greatsword raised. "What are you doing?!"

"Just taking out the trash," Sebastian deadpanned.

Sebastian turned toward the lake. He cupped his hands over his mouth.

"Galleon!" Sebastian roared at the top of his lungs. "Pull the boat!"

On the other side of the shoreline, the dwarf had just finished caving in a scavenger’s helmet with his sledgehammer. He heard the command, looked at the ropes, and grinned a wide, feral, gap-toothed smile.

"Elves! On the line!" Galleon bellowed, grabbing the main towing rope.

Aelion and his nineteen refugees didn’t hesitate. They abandoned their hiding spot, grabbed the thick rope, and threw their entire body weight backward into the mud.

*CREEEAAAK.*

The massive, multi-ton ruined galleon violently shifted in the water.

The slack on Kael’s rope snapped tight.

*SNAP!*

"Wait, what—?" Kael gasped.

The sheer, impossible weight of the massive wooden ship being dragged backward yanked the Warlord entirely off his feet. He hit the mud face-first. The rope around his ankles pulled violently, dragging his massive, armored body across the shoreline at a terrifying speed.

But he wasn’t the only thing attached to the rope.

As Kael was dragged past the second bootleg anchor, the tension hit the box. The heavy iron machine was ripped violently out of the dirt, tumbling end-over-end as it was dragged into the lake.

*SPLASH! SIZZLE!*

The bootleg anchor hit the water and instantly short-circuited in a shower of sparks and dead red crystals.

`[Warning: Node 2 Offline. Domain Integrity at 50%.]`

"Two down!" Sebastian yelled, sprinting toward the third box.

The Warlord army was in absolute disarray. With their buffs halved, they were suddenly just a bunch of exhausted, heavily armored thugs fighting against a highly coordinated team. Valerie was ruthlessly breaking kneecaps with her iron pipe, while Wraith moved through the chaos like a ghost, slitting throats and vanishing before the bodies even hit the ground.

Sebastian reached the third anchor. He didn’t bother with a weapon. He just grabbed the heavy iron box with his bare hands and violently hurled it directly into the nearest dropship’s engine turbine.

*KRA-BOOM!*

The turbine violently exploded, taking the anchor with it in a massive fireball of burning fuel and shattered crystals.

`[Warning: Node 3 Offline. Domain Integrity at 25%.]`

The red holographic grid was barely visible now. The scavengers lost their buffs entirely, collapsing under the weight of their own massive armor, gasping for air.

Sebastian turned toward the fourth and final box, sitting near the center of the camp.

But a massive, mud-covered figure blocked his path.

It was Kael. The Warlord had managed to cut the rope around his ankles, but he looked like absolute hell. His pitch-black armor was dented and covered in wet lake mud. His screaming-skull visor was cracked. He was panting heavily, gripping his acid-dripping greatsword with shaking hands.

"You... you ruined it!" Kael wheezed, spit flying from his visor. "We had the stats! We had the power!"

"Stats don’t mean shit if your spine is broken," Sebastian stated coldly, cracking his bleeding knuckles.

Kael screamed, lunging forward with a desperate, clumsy overhead strike.

Sebastian side-stepped effortlessly. Without the +300% movement speed buff, Kael moved like he was underwater. Sebastian grabbed the Warlord’s armored wrist, twisted his hips, and delivered a brutal, hyper-dense elbow strike directly to Kael’s elbow joint.

*CRACK!*

The joint snapped instantly. Kael dropped the greatsword with a howl of agony.

Sebastian didn’t stop. He grabbed Kael by the back of his heavy breastplate, lifting the seven-foot Warlord entirely off the ground, and violently slammed him face-first into the final bootleg anchor.

*CRUNCH!*

Kael’s armored face completely crushed the red crystals inside the box.

*BZZZZT... POP.*

`[Domain Offline. Connection Terminated.]`

The red holographic grid completely vanished. The ambient, beautiful morning sunlight flooded back over the muddy, blood-soaked shoreline.

The remaining scavengers dropped their weapons, falling to their knees in the dirt, throwing their hands into the air in absolute, terrified surrender.

Sebastian stood over the groaning, defeated Warlord. He was covered in mud, soot, and his own blood, his left arm throbbing painfully. He looked over at Valerie, who was leaning against her bloody iron pipe, giving him a tired, victorious smile.

Sebastian let out a long, heavy exhale.

"Alright," Sebastian grumbled, rubbing his aching shoulder. "Now, I am going back to my couch. And if anyone knocks on my door before noon, I am throwing them in the lake."