Chapter 83: [83] : Ripping the Halo, Execution of an Angel

The Seraph of the Protocol froze.

The Level 80 administrative entity just hovered there in the sterile white light. Its six massive wings, made entirely of shifting glass prisms, stopped rotating. The system AI was completely stuck.

It had just fired the ultimate deletion command. The Law of Eradication was designed to wipe anything from the server instantly. It had a one hundred percent success rate. It did not calculate defense stats. It did not calculate health pools.

But the guy in the black coat was still standing there.

A flurry of bright red error codes began to flash wildly around the Seraph’s faceless head.

[Error. Target not found in standard registry.]

[Error. Target possesses higher local authority. Command overridden.]

[Attempting system reboot...]

Declan watched the angel glitch out. He let out a low, dark laugh that echoed across the massive glass server room.

"You don’t get to reboot," Declan said. "We are in the middle of a fight."

He didn’t bother pulling out the +40 Eclipse Severance halberd. He didn’t need the localized black hole or the reality slicing blade. His new Abyssal Sovereign stats were completely absurd. He had dumped hundreds of points into Strength and Agility, and his new class just doubled those multipliers.

He wanted to feel this one with his own hands.

"Void Blink," Declan thought.

The world went pitch black for a fraction of a millisecond.

With his new stats, the teleportation skill didn’t even feel like movement anymore. It felt like he was just editing his location on a map.

He completely bypassed the fifty yards of empty space. He bypassed the Seraph’s defensive proximity wards. He materialized directly in the air, right above the glowing angel’s head.

Gravity tried to pull him down, but his +10 Spiked Striders and the Frictionless Movement trait let him briefly anchor his momentum. He hung there in mid-air, casting a dark shadow over the creature of pure light.

The Seraph snapped its head upward. The red error codes flashed faster.

[Warning: Hostile entity within critical perimeter!]

[Initiating defensive light barrier!]

A dome of solid white energy instantly erupted around the Seraph. It was a conceptual shield designed to vaporize any physical object that touched it.

Declan didn’t care. He reached his bare right hand straight down.

His hand hit the white energy barrier. The system threw up a massive warning saying he was taking severe holy damage. But Declan’s health bar was so ridiculously large now that the damage looked like a mosquito bite.

His hand easily pushed right through the conceptual shield like it was made of thin tissue paper.

He reached directly toward the jagged, golden halo hovering over the Seraph’s head.

[Target invalid. Object is non physical.] The system warned him.

"I don’t care," Declan grunted.

His SSS Rank talent, Boundless Enhancement, wasn’t just for items anymore. It was fused into his very being. His physical grip carried the weight of the Abyss.

His fingers closed around the golden halo.

It felt like grabbing a live, high voltage power line. Blinding heat and pure digital electricity surged up his arm. The halo tried to phase out of reality to escape his grip, but Declan’s dark purple mana locked it in place.

He tightened his fist.

"Gotcha," Declan smiled coldly.

He violently yanked his arm upward.

The Seraph let out a horrible, mechanical screech! The sound was deafening. It sounded like a massive jet engine suddenly grinding to a halt.

Declan ripped the golden halo completely away from the angel’s head. He dropped down, landing heavily on the glass platform right in front of the boss.

He held the glowing, struggling ring of light in both hands. He raised his right knee and slammed the halo down onto it with every ounce of his massive Abyssal Strength.

CRACK!

The sound echoed through the entire dungeon.

The golden halo snapped cleanly in half. It shattered into dozens of glowing shards that immediately turned gray and dissolved into useless ash.

Declan tossed the broken pieces onto the floor.

The Seraph collapsed. Without the halo, the entity lost its ability to float. It hit the glass floor hard. The bright, sterile white light radiating from its body instantly dimmed, turning into a sickly, flickering yellow.

[Admin Privileges Revoked.]

[Entity downgraded to physical parameters.]

The Seraph was no longer a concept of light and rules. Declan had literally broken its administrator access. It was just a physical monster now. And physical monsters could be beaten to a pulp.

The angel tried to push itself up off the floor. It raised one of its arms to cast a spell.

Declan stepped forward and kicked the arm away. His heavy spiked boot completely shattered the creature’s wrist. The Seraph shrieked again, a very real and very physical sound of pain.

"You talk too much," Declan said, his voice entirely flat.

He grabbed the Seraph by the neck. The entity’s body felt like warm, hard glass. Declan lifted the Level 80 boss entirely off the ground with one hand.

The angel thrashed wildly. It swung its massive glass prism wings forward, trying to slice Declan in half.

Declan raised his free hand. He grabbed the edge of the right wing. He didn’t dodge the sharp glass. He just held it in place. He dug his fingers into the wing joint and violently ripped backward.

SNAP!

The entire wing tore off the Seraph’s back. Thousands of glass prisms rained down onto the floor, shattering into tiny blue pixels.

Declan tossed the ruined wing aside. He grabbed the left wing. He ripped that one off too.

The angel stopped thrashing. It just hung limply in his grip, leaking a glowing white fluid from its ruined back.

Declan dropped the creature to the floor.

The Seraph lay there, completely broken and defenseless. The glowing core in the center of its chest pulsed weakly, a desperate and dying rhythm.

Declan didn’t pull out a weapon for a grand execution. He didn’t cast a massive spell. He just looked down at the pathetic program that had tried to delete him.

He raised his right foot.

He brought his heavy, metal spiked boot down directly onto the glowing chest core.

CRUNCH!

The core shattered instantly. The white light inside the boss violently exploded outward, before being sucked back into a single point and vanishing completely.

The Seraph’s body dissolved into a massive cloud of bright gold digital dust.

[Boss Encounter: Seraph of the Protocol Defeated!]

[Experience Points Gained: Error. Level Cap Removed. Calculating Overflow...]

Declan stood alone in the quiet server room. He dusted off his hands and adjusted the collar of his black coat.

"Easiest boss fight yet," Declan smiled.