Chương 23: The Sovereign Drop

The river silt gave way beneath Ethan's bare heels as he dragged the fourth golden pelt into his inventory matrix. He didn't clear the terra-cotta cage. He let the bloody, cracked pottery walls stand in the mud, acting as a jagged, low-cost maze that forced the incoming spawn vectors into a predictable line. His mana bar flickered, but every time his energy dipped, the Arayut clause executed another automatic sweep across the Upper City, converting Bochim's private silver scrap into raw, stamina-restoring porridge.

Thrum-thrum-snap. Another grey shape collapsed into the white sand of the nahal. [System Alert: Level Milestone Achieved!] Experience Progress: Level 4 Apprentice Yotzer HaRishon (0. 2% toward Level 5) All Baseline Attribute Caps Expanded (+1 to All Core Stats). Linguistic Capacity Expanded: Semitic Conjugation Matrices (Grade 1). Ethan lowered the hemp sling, his palm completely slick with sweat. He did not look at his expanded stats.

Back in his physical capsule, the high-density glucose-caffeine shot was beginning to burn through his bloodstream, keeping his neural paths artificially sharp even as his real-world muscles twitched under the chemical strain. His photographic memory was entirely fixed on a sudden, rhythmic vibration rattling through the limestone floor of the ravine. The standard jackal spawns had stopped.

The thick terebinth brush at the lip of the stepped cliff suddenly parted, and a creature nearly three metres long emerged into the silver moonlight. It was the Gaba'on Stalker —a unique, level-8 regional boss beast with a hide like cracked slate and a massive, low-slung jaw capable of snapping bronze spears in a single bite. [Regional Threat Materialised: The Gaba'on Stalker (Level 8 — Local Sovereign)] Health Points: 1, 200 / 1, 200 Status: Territorial Apex (Global Threat Alert Issued).

Before Ethan could plant his trowel into the riverbank, a massive, flashing amber broadcast window tore through his visual interface, echoing a high-frequency server chime directly into his headset: [LEVANT-SOUTH REGIONAL NOTIFICATION — SYSTEM GENERATED] Attention all regional leaseholders: A Local Sovereign Boss [The Gaba'on Stalker] has emerged within Sector 3 (Hazor Southern Drainage Zone). Current Threat Coordinates: Public Culvert Outlet.

Bounty Ledger: The guild that secures the final strike will receive 120 Silver Shekels and a permanent 5% Municipal Tax Exemption for the current fiscal month. Ethan's inner math engine stalled for a fraction of a second. One hundred and twenty shekels. Five percent tax exemption. That wasn't just a gaming achievement; on the black market, that was nearly sixty Singapore Dollars, enough to buy Grandma Tan an entirely fresh suite of synthetic nutrition pods.

The sobering reality of his grandmother's medical lines locked his focus into place. But the notification wasn't private. The engine had broadcast the coordinates to every single active player within fifty kilometers of the Hazor server node.

"Move the front-line shields!" a voice roared from the top of the ramparts above. Ethan tilted his chin back, his spine flat against the mud bricks. Leaning over the wooden parapet walkway was a full, high-tier heavy vanguard unit from the Pixel Rex Mercenary Corps. Twelve players wearing matching, interlocking bronze cuirasses were already unrolling ropes from the scaffolding, their heavy Naue II slashing-swords drawn alongside glinting, curved bronze khopeshes as they prepared to drop directly into the ditch.

At the head of the deployment line stood Bochim, his face dark with fury as his eyes locked onto the F2P player standing in the mud below.

"Clear the sector!" Bochim shouted down, his voice bouncing off the limestone walls.

"The guild masters just received the global ping in the Raffles Place server lounge! This boss belongs to the primary leaseholder! Step away from the spawn or we flag your character for industrial sabotage!" Ethan looked at the Level 8 Sovereign beast. The monster was already charging down the ravine, its heavy stone-hard tail smashing through the wild brush, its pathing vector locked onto his Level 4 avatar. He didn't run. He didn't drop his sling.

He had ninety-four server hours left on his sharecropping treaty, and the code explicitly stated that any environmental variables within the designated drainage sector remained a shared asset framework. Bochim's heavy vanguard squad was dropping down with expensive, high-maintenance bronze weapons that would bleed durability points every time they hit the beast's slate-like hide. Ethan dropped his shoulder, his fingers sinking deep into the wet red mire as he isolated the consonantal root א-ד-מ inside his mind.

His avatar's body felt like solid rock, fueled by the massive passive attributes of the First Shaper, perfectly balancing the chemical chaos in his actual brain. He slammed the tool into the dirt.