Chapter 126: [126]: Hostile Takeover, The Glitch in the System

The heavy oak doors of the Platinum Vault amphitheater did not just burst open. They completely shattered into a million jagged splinters!

BANG!

The sound ripped through the massive auction house and instantly silenced the frantic bidding war. The seats trembled as the crystal chandeliers flickered and cast long erratic shadows across the faces of the wealthiest players on Server 112.

Standing in the ruined doorway was Apostle Vane.

He did not look like a player at all! His glitching cloak absorbed the light in the room. Thick strings of corrupted data peeled off his digital flesh and dissolved into static before rendering again.

"The auction is canceled." Vane’s distorted voice shrieked loudly. "The Void claims this Core!"

The silence stretched on from one second to two seconds! The corporate elites could not believe what they had heard.

"Do you know who we are?!" A fat executive in glowing golden armor bellowed from the front row as he pointed his chubby finger at the Apostle. "This is a secure Aegis Corp facility! Guards! Delete this trash!"

Four Level 80 Aegis Corp elites immediately materialized from the shadows near the stage. Their heavy plasma rifles were raised and humming with energy.

"Target locked. Hostile entity detected." The lead guard droned mechanically.

THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!

A barrage of blue plasma bolts tore across the amphitheater and aimed directly at the Apostle’s chest. Any single one of those bolts carried enough energy to melt a tank!

Apostle Vane did not even bother to raise a magical shield. He just laughed.

SQUELCH.

The plasma bolts hit his chest and instantly turned into useless black sludge. The corruption actually ate the server’s math!

"My turn." Vane hissed.

He raised a glitching hand and snapped his fingers.

A wave of rot exploded outward. The four Aegis guards did not even have time to scream!

Their pristine armor instantly rusted into brown dust. The digital flesh beneath decayed so rapidly that their health bars simply blinked out of existence. They collapsed into four piles of grey ash on the floor.

The entire room erupted into a series of murmurs as panic set in.

"Log out! Hit the exit!" A woman in red robes shrieked and frantically tapped her wrist interface.

BZZZT!

[Combat Lock Engaged. Exit Denied.]

"You aren’t going anywhere." Vane mocked as he stepped down the carpeted aisle. "Your data belongs to the grand design."

In the back row, Sebastian sat completely relaxed in his velvet chair. He leaned his chin on the head of his silver cane and watched the slaughter with a bored expression.

"I really hate tourists." Sebastian sighed and adjusted the collar of his suit.

"Sebastian." Gwen whispered from the seat next to him. The smuggler had her pistols drawn and kept them low beneath the edge of the booth.

"That is an Apostle. If you fight him in here, you will have to use your conceptual laws. The moment you do, the Spoofing Drive is going to short out, and this entire planet’s firewall will come down on our heads."

Sebastian looked down at his left wrist. The bulky iron block of the Spoofing Drive was hidden beneath his sleeve. Its heavy needles were buried deep in his bone and broadcasting his fake ID.

"I know." Sebastian muttered. "I cannot drop a black hole. I cannot delete the room. I have to play by the rules."

"Then how the fvck are you going to kill him?" Gwen hissed.

"I am going to beat him to death with a stick." Sebastian replied flatly.

He stood up.

The amphitheater was a chaotic mess of screaming billionaires tripping over each other. But Sebastian did not run. He calmly stepped out of the booth and began walking down the main aisle straight toward the approaching Apostle.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound of his silver cane hitting the floor somehow cut through the screaming.

Apostle Vane stopped his advance. His static-filled head tilted as he locked onto the man walking toward him. The System’s scanners fed Vane the spoofed data.

[Target: Silas Vance. Level 25 Merchant.]

"Get out of my way, merchant." Vane growled and raised a hand dripping with purple acid. "Or be recycled."

"You are disrupting my shopping trip." Sebastian said. His voice was completely calm. He stopped ten feet away from the glitching monster.

"I placed a bid on that rock. I intend to collect it. So, I am going to need you to take your bad code and walk out the way you came."

Vane let out a screeching laugh. "A Level 25 NPC threatens me? I am an extension of the Void! I will tear your base files apart!"

The Apostle lunged. He moved with a terrifying speed and skipped frames of animation to cross the distance in a millisecond. His hand morphed into a jagged blade of pure corrupted data aimed directly at Sebastian’s neck.

Sebastian did not cast a god-tier spell. He did not access his admin privileges. He just opened his basic inventory and looked at a trash-tier buff he had looted a week ago.

[Basic Kinetic Strike]

[Tier: 0]

[Effect: Adds 5 points of blunt force damage to a melee swing.]

He crushed the concept in his mind. He did not let the glitch evolve it into a reality-breaking law. He forcefully bottlenecked the multiplier and clamped down on the output so the server would not register an anomaly.

He pushed just enough experience into the spell to max out its physical limits without breaking the game’s physics engine.

[Action Registered: Basic Kinetic Strike.]

[Multiplier Suppressed. Evolving to Tier 4: Meteor Smash.]

Sebastian did not dodge. He planted his polished leather shoes into the marble and gripped his silver cane with both hands. Then he swung it like a baseball bat.

CRACK!

The silver cane collided perfectly with the side of the Apostle’s head.

The sheer physical force of a Tier 4 kinetic strike backed by Sebastian’s thirty-percent biological synchronization was devastating!

The impact completely shattered the Apostle’s momentum.

"GAKKK!" Vane gurgled as his digital jaw violently dislocated.

The Apostle was lifted entirely off his feet. He flew sideways through the air and crashed through three rows of velvet seating before slamming into a marble support pillar.

BOOM!

The pillar cracked and showered the screaming corporate elites in dust and debris.

Sebastian stood in the aisle and looked down at his hands. The silver cane was completely bent out of shape and ruined by the sheer force of the swing.

"Cheap local garbage." Sebastian grumbled and tossed the ruined cane aside. It clattered loudly on the floor.

Over by the shattered pillar, Apostle Vane slowly pushed himself up from the rubble. His health bar had taken a massive hit and dropped into the yellow zone.

The static composing his face was violently flickering and revealing the raw anger of the corrupted code beneath.

"You..." Vane rasped as he held his dented head. "That was not a Level 25 strike. What are you?!"

Sebastian casually unbuttoned his suit jacket and rolled his shoulders. His silver eyes narrowed behind his pristine white half-mask.

"I am the customer." Sebastian said. "And I would like to file a complaint."