The Iron Bastion was operating at maximum efficiency.

Declan stood on the high stone balcony of his central keep and looked down at his sprawling megacity. The toxic rain of Sector 7 continued to pound against the massive transparent purple energy dome above them. Inside the dome, the air was perfectly clean.

It did not look like a desperate refugee camp anymore. It looked like a highly militarized corporate hub.

Down in the massive courtyard, thousands of players were rushing around with frantic and greedy energy. The golden leaderboard hovering in the center of the plaza had completely changed the psychology of the survivors.

They were no longer terrified victims hiding from the apocalypse. They were highly motivated employees fighting for a paycheck.

Sloane was sitting behind her mahogany Quartermaster desk near the main gates. She had five different holographic screens floating around her head. She looked incredibly stressed but her eyes gleamed with pure capitalist joy.

"Next!" Sloane barked as she waved her hand.

A group of five players covered in mud and blue digital blood dumped a massive pile of glowing monster cores and raw iron ore onto the stone floor.

"Fifty Level 10 Swamp Crawlers and twenty pounds of raw iron," the party leader said while panting heavily. "That pushes us up to rank four hundred on the board, right?"

Sloane tapped her screen rapidly. The pile of loot vanished and was instantly sucked into the city’s digital treasury.

"You are at rank three hundred and ninety-eight," Sloane corrected them smoothly. "Your entry tax is paid for the week. You get two minor health potions as a bonus. Move out of the line as you are holding up commerce."

Declan smiled. His Warlord economy was a beautiful thing.

He pulled up his own system interface. He did not care about the low level monster cores. He cared about the raw currency.

[Treasury Balance]

↳ 58,400,000 Origin Points

The numbers were skyrocketing. With three thousand players constantly grinding the nearby hazard zones to secure their spot in the Eclipse Legion, the city was generating millions of points an hour.

"I have too much money," Declan muttered. He rested his hands in the pockets of his pitch-black Predator’s Coat. "Time to gear up the frontline."

He didn’t just want a thousand players running around with rusty swords. If they were going to represent his city, they needed to look the part. More importantly, they needed to hit harder so they could farm faster.

Declan opened the Global Auction House.

He didn’t search for Sovereign tier items. He just went to the bulk section. He bought one thousand standard heavy iron broadswords and one thousand sets of basic steel plate armor.

It cost him exactly fifty thousand Origin Points. It was literal pocket change.

He dragged the massive stack of items into his enhancement menu. He couldn’t upgrade a thousand items one by one. He was the Warlord and he had administrative root access to the city’s storage.

’System,’ Declan commanded in his mind. ’Batch enhance all one thousand iron swords and steel armor sets. Push them to plus ten. Override safety limits.’

[System Enhancement Initiated]

↳ Batch Processing...

[Warning]

↳ Mass enhancement of 2,000 items exceeds server calculation limits. Expected queue time: 48 hours.

"I don’t do loading screens," Declan grunted.

His SSS Rank talent surged out from his neural link. Boundless Enhancement. The raw and rule breaking code slammed into the server’s queue timer and completely crushed it into digital dust.

[Talent: Boundless Enhancement activated]

↳ Wait times nullified. Cap removed.

A blinding flash of white light erupted from the city’s digital vault below the keep. The entire Iron Bastion hummed as the game engine desperately tried to process two thousand items breaking the enhancement cap at the exact same millisecond.

The light shifted to a deep and glowing purple.

Declan checked the logs.

[Item Mutated: Eclipse Vanguard Broadsword +10 (x1,000)]

↳ Tier: Forged (Mutated)

↳ Damage: 150 to 200

↳ Trait: Armor Piercing. Ignores 20% of standard physical defense.

[Item Mutated: Eclipse Vanguard Plate +10 (x1,000)]

↳ Tier: Forged (Mutated)

↳ Defense: 300

↳ Trait: Kinetic Nullification. Reduces knockback effects by 50%.

"That works," Declan nodded in satisfaction.

He tapped his communication link. "Sloane."

Down at the desk, Sloane pressed a finger to her ear. "Yeah, boss? I am a little busy currently exploiting the working class."

"Check the primary vault," Declan ordered. "I just minted a thousand sets of plus ten mutated gear. Distribute them to the top one thousand players on the leaderboard. Tell them it is their official Eclipse Legion uniform. Anyone who drops out of the top thousand loses the gear."

Sloane’s jaw dropped. She opened her vault screen and stared at the endless rows of glowing pitch black armor and razor sharp swords.

"Declan, this gear is better than what top tier corporate guilds are using," Sloane whispered in pure shock. "You just equipped an entire army in ten seconds. They are going to lose their minds."

"Keep them motivated," Declan replied smoothly. "And tell Jax to get up here."

A few minutes later, heavy footsteps sounded behind Declan on the balcony.

"You called, Boss?" Jax asked.

Declan turned around. The tall and heavily scarred scavenger captain looked like a completely different person. He wasn’t holding his rusty battleaxe anymore. He was wearing the Sovereign tier Titanium Rage Gauntlets Declan had sent him.

The massive dark gray metal fists were covered in jagged spikes. They looked incredibly heavy but Jax was holding them up with a massive grin on his face.

"How are the gloves?" Declan asked casually.

"Boss, these things are completely broken!" Jax laughed loudly as he punched the air. "I ran into a Level 15 Sludge Brute earlier. I just stood there and punched it thirty times. The damage multiplier stacked so high my last punch literally vaporized the monster into a crater! I didn’t even need a weapon!"

"Good," Declan said. "I need you to take your new toys and clear out the southern trenches. I need more Void Ore. Bram is getting impatient."

Right on cue, a deafening mechanical whirring sound came from the western wall of the city.

Declan and Jax walked over to the railing and looked out.

Bram the Level 30 Master Artificer was standing on top of the massive black iron battlements. His dark obsidian prosthetic arm was sparking with residual heat. Next to him was a towering piece of heavy machinery.

It was the Sovereign Tier Anti Air Battery.

It looked like a massive four barreled railgun mounted on a heavily armored swivel base. Thick blue energy cables ran from the turret directly into the glowing purple runes of the city’s wall to draw power straight from Declan’s raw mana crystals.

"Turret one is online, Warlord!" Bram roared over the noise of the city as he waved his heavy wrench in the air. "Targeting sensors are fully synced with the Safe Zone perimeter!"

"Let’s see if it actually works," Declan said as he narrowed his dark eyes.

He didn’t have to wait long.

High above the toxic smog outside the city, a massive shadow swooped down. It was a Level 50 Corrupted Wyvern. The giant beast had rotting green wings and eyes that burned with chaotic digital static. It let out a screech that rattled the ruined buildings in the distance.

It saw the glowing purple dome of the Iron Bastion and dove straight toward it. It was looking for a meal.

The Wyvern crossed the two mile mark.

The Anti Air Battery instantly locked on. The heavy metal base violently spun around and aimed the four barrels directly at the sky.

There was no warning shot. There was no charging sequence.

BZZZT!

A blinding flash of pure blue EMP energy erupted from the turret. It didn’t fire a projectile. It fired a concentrated beam of raw physics breaking static.

The beam hit the Level 50 Wyvern instantly.

The massive dragon didn’t even get to roar. The EMP blast completely scrambled its digital code. Its wings locked up instantly. Its health bar didn’t drain because the system just threw up a massive ERROR sign over its head.

The Wyvern dropped out of the sky like a heavy stone. It crashed into the toxic mud a mile outside the city walls and instantly shattered into millions of blue pixels.

[Base Defense Notification]

↳ Hostile Entity Eliminated.

↳ Origin Points +2,500

Down in the courtyard, the players stopped and stared at the falling blue pixels in absolute awe.

Bram patted the side of the massive turret and laughed his harsh barking laugh. "Airspace secured, Boss!"

Declan smirked. "Build thirty more. Line the entire wall."

The Iron Bastion was completely untouchable. But Declan wasn’t satisfied with just sitting behind a wall. The server merge was coming and he hated waiting for the enemy to knock on his door.