Chapter 160: Chapter 160: The Sins Collected, A Shattered God
Patriarch Yan, leader of the Sect of the Scorched Earth, dropped to one knee.
The Level 65 NPC clutched his chest. He stared at the shattered remains of his superheated obsidian katana lying on the gray stone.
The sheer overwhelming kinetic force of [Voidsever] hadn’t just broken his weapon. The 100% armor-piercing strike had completely devastated his health pool.
He had entered the fight fully intending to execute a player. He was currently bleeding out from a single casual swing.
"I cannot fail," Yan rasped. He coughed up a spray of digitized glowing embers.
He looked up at Dante, and his eyes burned with absolute desperate determination.
"If I do not fulfill the contract, the Vanguard’s Legacy will withhold the cure. My Sect will rot."
Dante rested the massive black blade of Voidsever on his shoulder.
"Silas does not have the cure," Dante stated flatly. "He does not have anything. He is bankrupt."
"He is currently bleeding his entire guild dry just to keep his real-world corporate backers from pulling his funding."
"If he offered you [Three Star Rainbow Berries], he is lying. I bought the only verified stack on the market two days ago."
Yan froze. The glowing embers leaking from his mouth dimmed slightly.
"Lying?" the Patriarch whispered. Genuine horror crept into his voice.
"He is a politician," Dante said. He slowly lowered the greatsword. "He needed an assassin he did not have to pay with liquid credits. He used you."
Dante reached into his infinite inventory.
He scrolled past the massive piles of gold and Dark Demon armor and retrieved a small intricately carved wooden box.
He popped the latch and pulled out a single glowing cluster of berries that shifted through a brilliant prismatic spectrum of colors.
He tossed the [Three Star Rainbow Berries] onto the cracked stone directly in front of the kneeling Patriarch.
"Take the berries," Dante ordered. "Go back to your Sect. Cure your curse. If Silas comes looking for a refund, tell him the anomaly said no."
Patriarch Yan stared at the glowing fruit.
His hands trembled as he slowly reached out and picked them up.
The dynamic system governing the high-tier NPC was actively struggling to process the interaction.
A player had just effortlessly defeated him, exposed a contract fraud, and then freely handed over the exact priceless item he required to survive.
"I... I do not understand," Yan stammered and looked up at Dante. "Why spare me? I attempted to execute you."
"Because executing you does not hurt Silas," Dante replied coldly.
"Having the entire Sect of the Scorched Earth realize Vanguard’s Legacy tried to scam them? That hurts Silas. A lot."
Yan slowly nodded. A look of profound localized respect settled over his weathered face.
"The Sect does not forget a debt, Champion," Yan said and carefully tucked the berries into his robes. "If you ever require the fires of the earth, call upon us."
The Patriarch didn’t hesitate.
He activated a localized transit scroll and vanished in a burst of searing orange light. He left Dante alone on the windswept plateau of the Weeping Crags.
"That was remarkably civil," Dante muttered and dismissed Voidsever.
The black blade dissolved into thick smoke and retreated into the brand on his right wrist.
He didn’t immediately activate [Meteor Stride] to fly back to Aethelgardia.
His wrist was burning.
It wasn’t the sharp agonizing pain that had accompanied the assimilation of the first Chaos Orb back in the Spire of Ascension.
It was a dull, rhythmic, and intense heat that pulsed in perfect synchronization with his own heartbeat.
Dante rolled up the sleeve of his dark purple gauntlet.
The pitch-black brand of Voidsever was physically glowing.
The ink was actively shifting across his digital skin and struggling to contain the massive overwhelming cosmic weight currently surging through the code of the weapon.
"What is wrong with you?" Dante asked and stared at the brand.
A voice didn’t answer. A feeling did.
The neurological bleed-over triggered instantly.
It wasn’t an aggressive hostile invasion like the mindscape of the Asura.
It was a slow overwhelming flood of ancient fragmented memories pouring directly from the sword into the consciousness of Dante.
He didn’t see fire or slaughter this time.
He saw a massive towering bear sleeping in the center of a glassed crater.
Seven Evils - Sloth.
Dante watched the memory of his own recent boss fight replay in his mind.
He watched himself activate the massive buffs, charge down the crater slope, and deliver the one-shot execution to the Celestial Beast.
But the memory didn’t end when the bear exploded into loot.
The perspective shifted. Dante wasn’t watching from his own eyes anymore. He was watching from the perspective of Voidsever.
The black blade didn’t just cut the code. It actively and aggressively devoured it.
As the massive Celestial bear shattered, a massive swirling orb of pure concentrated lethargic cosmic energy was violently sucked into the metal of the sword.
The vision violently shifted again.
He was back in the invisible glass arena of the Abyss-level Spire. He was watching himself fight the massive tumor-covered sphere of dark matter.
Maw of the Void - Gluttony.
He watched the same process occur. When the boss was deleted, a massive orb of pure consuming energy was sucked into the blade.
The fragmented memories rapidly coalesced. The localized lore data forcefully compiled in the brain of Dante.
The "Seven Evils" weren’t just random primordial bosses wandering the server. They weren’t localized natural disasters.
They were fragments.
Thousands of years ago, before the Zenith Protocol was even a beta-test, a single unified God of Creation had existed within the server architecture.
The automated algorithms of the system recognized the overwhelming cosmic weight of the entity as a threat to the rigid leveling structure and had violently shattered the God.
The consciousness of the entity had been fractured into seven distinct corrupted pieces.
The system had labeled them the ’Seven Evils’ and scattered them across the world to prevent them from ever reforming.
And Voidsever, the primordial greatsword, wasn’t just missing three random ’Chaos Orbs’.
It was actively trying to consume the fractured pieces of the dead God to rebuild itself.
Dante gasped. The overwhelming lore dump suddenly released its grip on his neural link.
He stumbled backward on the rocky plateau and clutched his head.
"You are eating them," Dante whispered and stared down at the glowing black brand on his wrist. "You are not just a sword. You are a resurrection protocol."
The brand flared brilliantly in response to confirm the deduction.
The system interface violently exploded in front of his vision.
The text wasn’t blue or gold. It was a deep bruised purple identical to the text that had appeared when he first found the weapon.
[System Override: Primordial Integration Detected.]
[Item: Voidsever has fully assimilated the essence of ’Sloth’.]
[Initiating structural upgrade...]
Dante held his breath.
He had been so focused on managing his new [Asura Vanguard] class that he had completely forgotten that the sword had absorbed a massive chunk of cosmic energy during the fight on Mount Daqing.
The dark bone hilt of the weapon didn’t materialize.
But the brand on his wrist shifted and expanded slightly to accommodate the massive influx of data.
[Structural Upgrade Complete.]
[New Active Skill Unlocked: Calamity - Sloth]
[Description: The weapon manifests the devoured ego of the fragment. Upon activation, the user projects an aura of absolute primordial lethargy.]
[Forces any targeted entity, regardless of grade, level, or immunity, into a state of absolute ’Sleep’ for exactly 30 seconds. Bypasses all invulnerability frames and systemic boss mechanics. Cooldown: 7 Days.]
Dante stared at the prompt.
He read it again.
"Thirty seconds," Dante whispered.
In the Zenith Protocol, a three-second stun was considered a massive tactical advantage. A five-second paralyze was a guaranteed execution window.
Thirty seconds of un-blockable un-cleansable sleep entirely bypassing all systemic boss immunities was mathematically absurd.
He could walk up to the final boss of a hundred-man raid, cast [Calamity - Sloth], and the entire raid team could leisurely beat the boss to death while it took a nap.
He now possessed a guaranteed instant-kill button against lower-level targets and a guaranteed thirty-second stun against anything else on the server.
"You are a very good sword," Dante smiled and tapped the brand on his wrist affectionately.
Before he could pull up his inventory to check the rest of the loot from the Mount Daqing fight, the pet interface chimed happily.
A brilliant blinding flash of silver light erupted next to him on the rocky plateau.
Dante shielded his eyes and entirely expected Aura to pop out and demand a head pat.
But the entity that materialized wasn’t a tiny three-tailed silver fox.
The light faded and revealed a tall incredibly elegant woman.
She wore a sleek form-fitting dress woven from pure shimmering starlight.
Her long silver hair floated gently in the air and defied gravity. She looked incredibly serene, and her large luminescent silver eyes gazed warmly at Dante.
[Pet: Aura has reached Level 31.]
[Evolution Sequence Complete.]
[Grade: Mystic Sovereign]
Dante stared at the woman.
"Aura?" Dante asked. He was genuinely shocked by the complete physical transformation.
The woman didn’t chime like a bell. She smiled, and a soft melodic laugh escaped her lips.
"I am here, Master," Aura spoke. Her voice was incredibly smooth and comforting. It completely lacked the artificial robotic sound of standard NPCs.
"You can talk," Dante noted and crossed his arms.
"The evolution to Mystic Sovereign my cognitive parameters," Aura explained and floated slightly closer to him.
"I am no longer a simple sprite. I can actively process and articulate complex combat strategies."
"Well, that is a massive upgrade," Dante said. He was thoroughly impressed. "What else did you get?"
Aura raised her hand. Two new glowing icons appeared on the interface of Dante.
[Skill Unlocked: Light of Chaos]
[Description: An AoE burst of concentrated starlight. Inflicts absolute ’Silence’ on all targets within 100 feet for 10 seconds. Additionally, has a 50% chance to randomly and permanently destroy one equipped item on hostile player targets. Cooldown: 1 Hour.]
[Skill Unlocked: Ultimate Guardian Halo]
[Description: A massive protective aura. All party members within a 200-foot radius receive a flat 60% reduction to all incoming damage and massive passive health regeneration. Cooldown: None (Permanent Passive).]
Dante let out a low whistle.
The 60% damage reduction stacked with his own massive mitigation passives made his entire party practically invincible.
[Light of Chaos] was a horrifying tool for PvP engagements. Destroying the gear of an enemy player mid-fight was a psychological nightmare.
"You are definitely earning your keep," Dante told the Mystic Sovereign.
"I aim to please," Aura smiled warmly.
Dante opened his inventory and intended to finally sort through the loot he had snagged after the Sloth execution.
He didn’t get the chance.
The clear blue sky above the Weeping Crags violently shifted and turned a deep vibrant gold.
A massive server-wide announcement blared across the heavens and completely overrode all localized interfaces.
[GLOBAL SERVER EVENT TRIGGERED]
[The Cosmic Menagerie has awakened.]
[Three Exclusive Pet Dungeons are now officially open for exactly 24 Hours.]
[1. Rain Valley]
[2. Demon Spirit Land]
[3. Dark Phoenix’s Last Wish]
[Warning: Entry is heavily restricted. Only the strongest Outworlders may claim the anomalies within.]
Dante read the text.
Pet dungeons.
In the Zenith Protocol, high-tier pets were almost as valuable as Hidden Classes.
A top-tier pet could completely alter the tactical capabilities of a guild, just as Aura and Erebus had done for him.
If those dungeons were only open for twenty-four hours, every single major guild on the server was going to mobilize immediately to secure the drops.
Silas would be desperate to claim a high-tier pet to compensate for his recent massive losses.
"Looks like we have a schedule to keep," Dante said and looked at Aura.
He didn’t wait.
He triggered [Velocity Paradox] and instantly turned intangible.
He sprinted back toward Aethelgardia at terrifying un-tethered speed to gather his squad. The race for the anomalies was on.
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