Started with a 10,000x Multiplier in a Game World

Chapter 153: Chapter 153: The Bait

The global forums of the Zenith Protocol were a war zone of pure panic.

The footage of Dante systematically butchering the death squad of Malachi in the Whispering Woods had leaked almost instantly.

The video wasn’t a standard highlight reel of flashy spells or massive boss executions. It was a raw visceral horror show.

Players watched as Malachi, a top-tier Enforcer, screamed in genuine agony while his avatar physically bled out in the dirt.

They watched the rest of the squad turned to stone and methodically dismembered.

The community response was immediate and overwhelming.

[Forum Post: What the hell did I just watch? Is Dan hacking the pain receptors?!]

[Forum Post: Vanguard’s Legacy members are literally pulling the plug on their VR capsules. They refuse to log back in.]

[Forum Post: He is not a player anymore. The system gave him a boss class. He is the Asura.]

Deep within the fortified and secure guildhall of Vanguard’s Legacy in Outpost 404, the atmosphere was entirely devoid of its usual arrogant swagger.

The remaining lieutenants and commanding officers of Silas were gathered in the central war room.

They were not planning raids or discussing resource monopolies. They were practically hyperventilating.

"We have to call it off," a high-ranking mage pleaded. His hands shook as he reviewed the forum footage on his datapad.

"Silas, half the death squads have already deserted. They are refusing orders. They saw what happened to Malachi."

"They do not want to experience that level of real-world trauma just to camp a spawn point."

"Let them desert," Silas snapped and paced furiously at the head of the heavy oak table. "If they run from a glitch, they are useless to me."

"He is not a glitch!" a heavily armored tank argued and slammed his fist on the table.

"He has an innate class that modifies the safety parameters of the system! If he catches us in the open world, he can torture us! I am not risking permanent psychological damage for a bounty!"

"Then log off," Silas hissed. He stopped his pacing to glare at the tank.

"Log off, delete your character, and walk away from your corporate paycheck. See how fast your real-world sponsors drop you."

The tank swallowed hard. His bravado was entirely crushed by the financial threat.

"We cannot fight him, Guild Master," the mage reiterated desperately.

"The man wiped three thousand players with a hurricane. He deleted a Celestial beast. And now he is a walking torture chamber. What are we supposed to do?"

Silas didn’t answer immediately.

He stared at the massive holographic map projecting the Veridian Alliance territory.

The red dots indicating his death squads were rapidly blinking out as players panicked and disconnected.

He was losing control. The massive five-million-man army he had recruited was a disorganized and terrified mob.

But Silas wasn’t just an arrogant gamer.

He was a ruthless corporate tactician, and he recognized that fear was a tool that could be manipulated.

"Dan is angry," Silas muttered. A slow dark smile spread across his face.

"He is emotional. He thinks he is a predator hunting prey. He is actively seeking out our squads to make an example of them."

Silas turned to his officers.

"We are going to use that," Silas declared.

He pointed directly at a high-ranking officer sitting near the back of the room.

The player, Danus, was the exact same lieutenant who had commanded the disastrous ambush for the Legion of Blades in the Wyrmrest Gulch before being sucked into a hurricane and deleted.

He had recently defected to Vanguard’s Legacy and was lured by the massive recruiting budget of Silas.

"Danus," Silas ordered.

"You are going to take a position in the Crimson Canyon on the far western border. It is isolated. It is narrow. It is the perfect place for a high-value target to hide."

The face of Danus went completely pale. "You... you want me to hide in a canyon? Sir, if he finds me, he will turn me into a bleeding statue!"

"He is going to find you," Silas corrected him smoothly.

"I am going to intentionally leak your coordinates to his information brokers. He will come to the canyon expecting to find a terrified lieutenant hiding from his wrath."

"You are using me as bait," Danus whispered. Absolute horror dawned on his face.

"I am giving you an opportunity to redeem your pathetic failure in the gulch," Silas countered, and his voice was cold.

"You will stand in the bottom of that canyon, and you will wait for him. And when he arrives, you will be the anvil against which we finally break him."

"How?!" Danus pleaded and gestured wildly to the holographic map.

"If I stand there, he will just teleport behind me and rip my spine out! I do not have a death wish, Silas!"

Silas didn’t yell. He simply tapped his communications interface and opened a secure private channel.

"You are not going to be alone, Danus," Silas smiled.

"I realized my mistake. I was trying to fight an anomaly using standard military tactics. I needed someone who understands how to build a proper trap."

A new figure stepped out of the shadows near the back entrance of the war room.

The officers gasped and instinctively reached for their weapons.

The man didn’t look like a standard player.

He wore pristine white scholar robes stained with old dried blood. He had messy gray hair and moved with an erratic twitching energy.

His eyes were wide, manic, and completely unblinking.

[Entity Identified: Vane, The Architect]

[Faction: Rogue Celestial]

[Level: ???]

It was the mad scientist Alysia had hunted in the Glacial Wastes. The architect of the Crimson Spire, the rogue NPC who had stabilized an artificial Calamity.

"What is an NPC doing in our guildhall?!" the mage shouted and stepped back from the table.

"He is not an NPC, you idiot," Silas sneered.

"He is a contractor. I offered him unfettered access to our captured anomaly data in exchange for his tactical expertise."

Vane giggled. It was a high-pitched and incredibly unsettling sound. He rubbed his blood-stained hands together and stared at the holographic map.

"The boy with the shattered blade," Vane whispered. His twitching eyes darted rapidly across the projected terrain.

"He destroyed my masterpiece in the ice. He thinks he can out-math the universe. He is a fascinating variable. I want to dissect his code."

Silas turned back to the terrified lieutenant.

"Danus," Silas said, and his voice dripped with authority.

"You will go to the Crimson Canyon. You will act as the bait. And Vane will command the ten thousand men I am currently mobilizing."

The entire room went dead silent.

"Ten thousand?" Danus repeated numbly.

"I recruited five million players, Danus," Silas reminded him coldly.

"I can afford to sacrifice ten thousand of them to test a theory. Vane has designed a perfect overlapping synchronized formation. It is not an army. It is a execution grid."

Vane stepped up to the table and tapped the holographic projection of the Crimson Canyon.

"The boy relies on instantaneous spatial displacement and raw unmitigated damage spikes," Vane analyzed rapidly. His manic energy completely consumed the room.

"We do not fight him in the open. We funnel him. We layer the canyon walls with overlapping suppression arrays."

"We station ten thousand casters and archers in perfectly calculated elevated positions."

"We do not aim at him. We aim at the space he is required to occupy."

Vane looked at Danus and flashed a terrifying unhinged smile.

"You will stand in the center," Vane instructed the lieutenant.

"You will draw his focus. He will assume you are alone. He will attempt his customary arrogant teleportation strike. And the moment he materializes, my grid will vaporize him."

Danus swallowed hard.

He looked at Silas, then looked at the mad scientist.

He didn’t have a choice. If he refused, Silas would execute his real-world financial standing.

"Understood," Danus whispered.

"Good," Silas nodded and turned his attention to the rest of the officers.

"Deploy the grid. Maintain absolute radio silence. Do not engage him in the open field. Let him feel like a god until the trap closes."

The officers scrambled out of the war room desperate to execute the orders before Silas turned his anger on them.

Silas watched them leave, then looked back at Vane.

"Are you certain this will work, Architect?" Silas asked quietly.

"Mathematical certainty," Vane giggled and adjusted his blood-stained robes.

"He is a anomaly, yes. But an anomaly is just a variable. If you apply enough raw systemic pressure to a variable, it eventually conforms to the baseline. Ten thousand overlapping attacks will shatter his invulnerability frames."

Silas stared at the holographic map, and a dark vengeful light burned in his eyes.

"Make him bleed," Silas ordered.

***

Two hours later, deep in the desolate rocky expanse of the Crimson Canyon.

Danus stood alone on the canyon floor.

The environment was a stark dusty wasteland of towering red rock walls and dry cracked earth.

Danus was trembling. His sleek gray armor felt entirely inadequate.

He stared down the narrow winding entrance of the canyon and waited for the golden-armored nightmare to appear.

He knew he wasn’t alone.

High above him perfectly hidden among the jagged ridges and overlapping caves of the canyon walls, Vane had deployed the ten-thousand-man execution grid.

Every single archer and mage was completely silent and waited for the signal.

"Please be quick," Danus whispered to himself and adjusted his grip on his broadsword.

He expected Dante to walk through the canyon entrance.

He expected the anomaly to strut in arrogant and overly confident, and take the time to trigger the hidden tripwires and alarm wards Vane had scattered across the path.

He expected a slow dramatic approach.

Danus was wrong.