Building the Reaper’s Reach
The next morning, I stood at the heart of the ruined base, staring at the system prompt floating over the old command tower.
[Territory: Crimson Base - Now under Ironclaw Control]
Commander: Vaelric
Upgrade Path: Locked until Core Structure Repaired
Status: Vulnerable (No defensive turrets, no walls, no NPC vendors)
"So… we've got ourselves a pile of broken bricks," I muttered.
Garrik had arrived with the second wave, along with a crew of builders, crafters, and junior guild officers. He clapped me on the back and pointed at the construction menu projected from the command console.
"Wrong. What we've got is potential. Big, stupid, dangerous potential."
The menu had five upgrade options, each requiring different resources and time investments:
Repair the Command Core - Unlocks upgrades and fast travel accessRebuild Outer Walls - +Defense, reduces raid vulnerabilityInstall Defensive Turrets - Auto-attacks invading players or monstersActivate Vendor Network - Unlocks NPC shopkeepers, mission boardsConstruct Reaper's Chamber - Personalized HQ for Commander (that's me)
I tapped the first one. Core structure. No reason to build anything if we didn't have the power flowing.
The materials needed weren't small:
300x Reinforced Alloy40x Plasma Conduits10x Power Cells15,000 Credits
The system gave me a delivery deadline: 48 hours.
"You know that's crazy," Nira said as she checked the list behind me. "Even if we strip every outpost nearby, we'll still fall short."
"Not if we raid another faction's supply lines," I said.
Dace grinned. "Now you're talking."
Garrik stepped between us. "I'm not going to stop you, but remember, any aggressive action from us while the territory's still unstable will mark us again. And this time, there won't be a cooldown."
"I'll take the risk," I said.
I didn't claim this place just to sit around.
Thorn handed me a half-burned datapad. "This has coordinates. Crimson Hand had supply caches hidden to the west. We hit those first."
We moved at night.
Me, Nira, Thorn, and a few new recruits looking to prove themselves. Dace stayed behind to help fortify the southern breach with what little we had.
The west zone was thick with fog and toxic dust. Most players avoided it because of the environmental damage.
But Void Reaper builds? We didn't care.
The datapad led us to a crashed convoy, four cargo trucks surrounded by feral creatures and environmental hazards.
It was a hellhole.
Toxic clouds, unstable terrain, and beast packs circling the supplies.
We didn't sneak. We didn't tiptoe.
We struck fast and brutal.
Nira dropped gas canisters to block vision, while Thorn picked off scouts from a tower ruin. I blinked from shadow to shadow, gutting the Alpha Feral before it could even roar.
[Feral Alpha Defeated - +300 XP]
Loot Recovered: 6x Plasma Conduits, 2x Power Cells, 500 Credits
Two of the rookies took a hit from acid-spitters and had to fall back, but the rest of us moved from truck to truck, loading what we could into hover crates.
By the time we were done, we had:
160x Reinforced Alloy6x Power Cells11x Plasma Conduits4,000 Credits
Halfway there.
But the worst wasn't behind us.
As we were heading back, a bounty team caught us on open ground, five players from a rival guild called Stormveil, all mounted on raptor units and armed with long-range gear.
They knew exactly who I was.
"Void Reaper!" the lead guy yelled across the cracked ground. "That bounty's still live!"
"I know," I called back. "You sure you want to earn it?"
He raised his rifle.
That was answer enough.
We hit them hard.
Nira flanked right. I blinked left. Thorn took the tower on a broken billboard. The rookies panicked but held formation long enough to draw aggro.
The raptors moved fast. But not fast enough.
I used Phase Slice to blink through two of them in one sweep, dropping both mounts instantly.
The rifleman went down next, Thorn's bolt straight through his visor.
One of the Stormveil twins tried to run.
Nira caught him in the back before he got ten feet.
[Stormveil Team Eliminated - +750 XP]
Bonus Loot: 5x Power Cells, 2,000 Credits, Territory Access Chip
"Territory chip," I said, holding up the glowing shard.
"That means they were scouting us," Nira muttered. "Probably planning a raid."
"They just funded our walls instead."
Back at Crimson Base, we turned everything in.
System prompt appeared immediately.
[Crimson Core Structure: Restored]
Fast Travel Unlocked
Upgrade Menu Expanded
Defensive Features Online in 6 hours
Reputation Gained: +120
Commander Bonus Applied: +1 Stat Point, +1 Tactical Slot
I spent the point on Perception, just to see further, scan faster, react quicker.
The tactical slot? I loaded in Phase Echo, a rare skill chip I had stored from earlier.
It let me leave a trail behind during Phase Slice. Enemies who crossed it took residual damage and slowed for three seconds.
I tested it on a dummy just for fun.
Brutal.
By morning, the base didn't feel like ruins anymore.
We had walls going up. Turret ports opening. NPC engineers walking around. And my chamber, Reaper's Reach, stood fully constructed, glowing with sleek obsidian metal and neon-blue lines.
Inside was my private terminal, an arsenal rack, and a war table that connected me directly to Ironclaw command.
This was power.
This was mine.
The war table pulsed with incoming alerts before I'd even finished syncing my gear.
Nira walked in, flipping through her own message feed. "We've got a problem."
I tapped the display.
Yeah. I'd already seen it.
[Faction Broadcast - Stormveil Dominion]
Commander Kill Contract Issued
Target: Vaelric (Void Reaper)
Contract Price: 40,000 Credits + Rare Gear Drop
Kill Requirements: On Crimson Territory Grounds
Contract Active: 7 Days
Special Clause: Commander Seat Transfers to Killer for 24 hrs (if unaffiliated)
"Are they insane?" Thorn asked from the doorway, crossbow slung over his back.
"No," I said. "They're desperate."
Stormveil wasn't a minor guild. They were mid-tier, ranked just below Ironclaw in the outer rings. But they didn't like being outplayed. I embarrassed them when I killed their bounty squad. Now they were trying to make a public example out of me.
"What do we do?" Nira asked.
I sat back, thinking.
This wasn't just about fighting off attackers anymore. If they were paying that much, they weren't just looking for blood; they were trying to send a message.
We needed to answer it loudly.
"We let them come," I said. "And when they do, we don't just defend this place. We use it."
"Use it how?" Thorn asked.
I tapped the terminal and opened the Crimson Territory Settings.
Now that we had the Command Core repaired, we could set permissions, traps, and combat conditions for the zone.
I activated:
Lockdown Mode: No teleporting in or out while inside combatKillzone Protocol: Reinforced perimeter turrets active at all entry pointsVoid Pulse Field: Decreases movement speed of enemy players by 15%
And then I added something new:
Commander's Challenge Beacon - If a hostile player enters the war courtyard, I get an instant location ping and priority strike clearance.
In other words: they'd walk straight into my arena.
Stormveil didn't wait long.
By nightfall, the first wave came.
Two parties of six, clearly hired hitmen and bounty hunters. I recognized a few of them from past PvP boards, mercenaries, not official members of Stormveil.
They crossed the border and triggered the system alerts.
[Hostile Entry Detected - Courtyard Gate]
Challenge Beacon Active
Enemy Debuff Applied: -15% Movement, -10% Defense]
I stepped onto the catwalk above the gate, cloaked in shadows, watching them spread out.
They thought I'd be hiding inside.
They thought wrong.
I blinked into the center of them mid-sentence, my blade already drawn.
First strike landed clean, Phase Echo trailing behind me as I moved.
Two went down instantly. The rest backed off, trying to regroup.
Thorn picked one off from the tower.
Nira dropped a flash bomb that blinded their mage.
I took out the archer before he could climb the scaffold.
One of them tried to surrender.
I didn't let him.
[Stormveil Contract Kill Blocked - Attackers Eliminated]
Reward Claimed: +4,000 Credits, +2 Rare Mods, +1 Tactical Point
Command Reputation +80
Contract Still Active: New attackers expected
The second wave came two hours later.
Then a third.
Each time, stronger teams. Higher-ranked. Better gear.
But none of them knew the terrain like I did. None of them could outrun a Void Reaper inside a lockdown zone. And none of them brought enough firepower to break through my defensive build now that the base was upgraded.
I killed them all.
Sometimes with Thorn's support. Sometimes with Nira and the fresh guards we'd trained. Sometimes alone, in the dark, like a ghost haunting their footsteps.
Stormveil was wasting money trying to take me out.
But that didn't mean I could relax.
Because the bounty was climbing.
[Contract Adjustment - Stormveil Dominion]
New Reward: 60,000 Credits + Epic Drop
Bonus: +3 Guild Ranks for Any Commander Kill
Status: Guild-Wide Blood Hunt
Now it wasn't just mercenaries.
Now full squads from Stormveil were coming.
Organized. Stacked. Hungry.
"Should we pull back?" Nira asked after the fifth night of attacks.
"No," I said, sharpening my blade. "We go hunting."
She blinked. "You mean leave the base?"
"Yeah."
"They're sending killers to our door and your plan is to open it for them?"
I smirked. "No. My plan is to walk out of it and start taking their bases."
She stared for a long moment.
Then smiled.
"Finally."