Chapter 112: The Midnight Blizzard, Attrition

It completely bypassed his 1,354 Defense. It bypassed his Diamond-tier 50% damage reduction.

"Siphon Aura!" Levi grunted, instantly toggling the skill on.

The green light wrapped around his boots, burning 2 Mana a second to feed him 15 HP back. But 15 HP a second was a joke against a 500 True Damage drain. His health bar started ticking down.

He didn’t panic. He dashed straight back into the boss’s hitbox and started swinging. His 25% Lifesteal instantly kicked in, ripping chunks of health out of the boss and feeding it back into his pool, completely overriding the blizzard’s drain.

But out of the corner of his eye, he saw another set of damage numbers floating in the storm.

[-500 True Damage] [-500 True Damage]

It was Isolde.

She was standing near the edge of the arena, her plain gray cloak whipping wildly in the dark blizzard. Her Anomaly health bar, which usually sat comfortably around 52,000 HP, was visibly draining.

She didn’t have Lifesteal. She didn’t have passive regeneration. She was just taking 500 True Damage every single second.

Levi ran the math instantly. 52,000 divided by 500 meant she had exactly 104 seconds to live. One minute and forty-four seconds before the game engine deleted her entirely.

"Isolde! Fall back to the stairs!" Levi yelled over the howling wind, parrying a massive horizontal sweep from Kaelen’s greatsword. The impact rattled his teeth. "Get out of the storm!"

"Negative," Isolde replied. Her voice broadcast directly into his ears, completely flat despite her rapidly dropping health bar. "If I retreat, my True Damage artillery ceases. Your mathematical probability of defeating the boss before his enrage timer expires drops to 12.4 percent. I will remain."

"I don’t care about the probability!" Levi roared, ducking under another sword swing. "You’re going to die! Get off the platform!"

"I am executing my optimal parameters," Isolde stated coldly. She raised her wooden staff through the black snow. A beam of white light smashed into the boss.

[-5,000 True Damage]

Levi gritted his teeth. He couldn’t heal her. He couldn’t shield her from environmental True Damage.

He only had one option. He had to end Phase Three before her health hit zero. The phase would break the second Kaelen’s health dropped below 7,500,000 HP—the 50% threshold.

That meant he had to burn through 2.5 million health in exactly 104 seconds.

Levi abandoned all defensive maneuvers.

"Hollow’s Ward," Levi muttered, intentionally turning his shield off. He needed every single drop of mana for his damage skills, and casting the shield took too much time.

He planted his boots directly in front of the massive Night King and just let loose.

Kaelen brought the greatsword crashing down. Levi didn’t dodge. He just took the hit squarely to the chest.

The VR pain engine flared, sending a horrible, blunt-force shockwave through his ribs.

[-3,323]

His health bar violently plummeted. Between the 3,323 boss damage and the ticking 500 True Damage from the blizzard, his HP was hemorrhaging.

But Levi didn’t stop swinging. His 1,736 Speed turned his Platinum scythe into a glitching wheel of silver and black light. He was landing exactly four hits every single second.

[-3,283] [-3,283] [-3,283] [-3,283]

He wove [Hollow’s Guillotine] into the absolute microsecond it came off cooldown.

[-17,211]

His Lifesteal went absolutely berserk. Because he was dealing over 13,000 damage a second, the 25% return was force-feeding roughly 3,250 health back into his pool every second.

His health bar yo-yoed violently. It would drop down to 5,000 HP when the boss slammed him, then violently shoot straight back up to 26,000 a second later as his scythe carved into the armor. The UI was flashing red and green so fast it was giving him a headache.

"Die faster!" Levi screamed, his real-world arms burning with a searing, lactic-acid fire.

He kept his eyes locked on Isolde’s health bar in his party frame.

40,000. 30,000. 20,000.

The clock was ticking down. The blizzard howled, ripping chunks of black ice off the platform.

15,000. 10,000.

Isolde didn’t even flinch. She just kept firing her white Anomaly blasts into the storm, perfectly syncing her hits with his Guillotine armor shreds.

Levi’s fingers cramped inside his haptic gloves. He ignored the pain. He ignored the massive sword swings crashing into his face. He just kept mashing his basic attack commands.

Isolde’s health hit 5,000.

Ten seconds left. Kaelen was sitting at 7,600,000 HP.

Isolde’s health hit 2,000.

Four seconds left. Kaelen was at 7,530,000 HP.

Levi didn’t have time for another basic rotation. He needed a spike.

Kaelen raised his greatsword for another swing. Levi used his Speed to violently sidestep the blade, ignoring the glancing blow that chipped his shoulder. He jammed the tip of the Platinum Scythe of the Eclipse directly upward, aiming straight for the glowing blue slit in Kaelen’s featureless helmet.

The game registered it as a Weak Point strike.

The basic hit for 3,283 damage was automatically doubled by the critical multiplier.

[-6,566 CRIT!]

Levi yanked the blade out and hit the exact same spot twice more in a fraction of a second.

[-6,566 CRIT!] [-6,566 CRIT!]

Kaelen’s health bar violently chunked down.

7,499,999 HP.

The exact millisecond the health bar crossed the 50% threshold, the dark ice storm stopped. The howling wind instantly died. The black snow froze in mid-air and shattered into harmless white pixels.

The Midnight Blizzard was over.

Levi stumbled backward, gasping for digital air. He looked over at Isolde.

Her health bar was blinking a critical, aggressive red. She was sitting at exactly 500 HP. One more second in that storm, and the server would have deleted her.

Isolde lowered her staff. She looked at her own health bar, then looked up at Levi.

"Phase Three cleared," Isolde stated flatly.

"Don’t you ever do that again," Levi wheezed, resting his scythe against his knee.

Before Isolde could reply, Kaelen let out a deafening, metallic roar that shook the entire platform. The boss wasn’t done. The real nightmare was just starting.

***

Kaelen’s massive health bar finally hit 7,499,999 HP.

The howling black winds of the Midnight Blizzard completely vanished, but Levi didn’t even get a single second to catch his breath. The moment the health bar crossed the 50% threshold, the Night King slammed his dark magic greatsword against his own chest plate.

A violent, pulsing wave of dark blue energy exploded outward from the boss.

A system warning flashed across Levi’s UI in bright, urgent red text.

[Warning: The Night King is Enraged.]

[Aura of the Sovereign activated.]

Levi’s eyes darted to the boss’s stat block floating above its head. The numbers were physically changing in real-time.

Kaelen’s base Defense permanently increased by 50%. It shot from 5,000 straight up to 7,500.

His Attack increased by 20%, bumping from 8,000 up to a terrifying 9,600.

But that wasn’t the worst part.

The [Aura of the Sovereign] buff icon appeared under the boss’s health bar. The Level 60 tag next to Kaelen’s name glitched, shifting artificially to read Level 65.

"You have got to be kidding me," Levi groaned, his stomach dropping.

He was Level 57. By artificially inflating his level to 65, the boss just pushed the level gap from four up to eight. In Starfall, an eight-level difference meant the Level Suppression penalty instantly spiked from 20% to a brutal 40%.

Levi rapidly ran the new math in his head while the boss finished its enrage animation.

’Alright, his Defense is 7,500,’ Levi calculated. ’My Platinum scythe ignores 30%. Thirty percent of 7,500 is 2,250. That drops his effective Defense to exactly 5,250.’

’One thousand, one hundred and twelve Final Damage per basic strike,’ Levi thought, letting out a frustrated sigh. His damage had just completely plummeted.

Kaelen’s new Attack was 9,600. Levi’s Defense was 1,354.

He was going to take exactly 4,123 damage per hit.

Levi’s health was currently sitting at 8,450 from the blizzard phase. If Kaelen hit him twice right now, he was dead.

He glanced over his shoulder. Isolde was standing near the edge of the platform. Her health bar was a miserable sliver of green, sitting at exactly 500 HP. She was way too fragile to draw any kind of aggro. If the boss even looked in her direction, she would be deleted instantly.

"Isolde, stay exactly where you are," Levi barked. "Do not pull aggro. I don’t care about your optimal parameters. Do not cast until I shred his armor."

"Acknowledged," Isolde replied, her voice quiet.

Levi opened his quick-belt. He had exactly ten standard health potions and five Greater Mana Potions left. He pulled the corks on two health potions and a mana potion and chugged them all simultaneously.