Chapter 164: Chapter 164: The Boomshade Trickster
"They are moving," Nyx repeated. Her voice was tight as she stared at her datapad.
"Dante, the hostile signatures are not just shifting position. They are actively converging on our coordinates."
The red eyes of Dante narrowed. "Stay in the dome."
Before the squad could react, the massive gnarled trunks of the peach trees violently cracked open.
The wood didn’t splinter. It peeled back like thick skin.
The trees weren’t plants. They were dormant highly camouflaged monsters.
They stepped out of their wooden shells and shook off the remaining pink blossoms.
They were towering humanoid figures forged entirely from twisted bark and glowing pink sap.
Their arms ended in massive razor-sharp wooden scythes, and their faces were featureless masks of hardened timber.
[Monster Spawn: Rain Demon]
[Tier: Gold]
[Level: 40]
[HP: 85,000 / 85,000]
"Level 40 Gold mobs," Lila gasped and gripped her staff. "There are dozens of them."
"They were the real trap," Dante noted calmly.
The hallucinogenic pollen wasn’t designed to make players fight each other.
It was designed to disorient intruders so the Rain Demons could easily slaughter them while they were confused.
The fact that the two rival guilds had done the job for them was just a happy accident.
The Demons didn’t roar. They moved with a slow, terrifying, and creaking silence.
They formed a tight perimeter around the clearing to completely box the squad in.
"Mei," Dante called out and did not take his eyes off the closest demon. "Front line."
"I am the wall!" Mei cheered. She hoisted the massive cast-iron [God-Slaying Skillet] off her shoulder and stepped to the edge of the starlight dome of Aura.
Before the Rain Demons could charge, a voice cut through the silent clearing.
It didn’t come from the monsters. It came from high up in the canopy of a surviving tree.
"You ruined my game," the voice pouted.
Dante looked up.
Sitting casually on a thick branch and swinging her legs over the edge was the Mischievous Boomshade Trickster. Her solid black eyes glared down at the gold armor of Dante.
"You did not fall asleep," the Boomshade Trickster complained. Her high-pitched voice was laced with genuine annoyance. "You did not fight your friends. You just stood there and took my egg."
"It is not your egg," Dante pointed out logically. "It is a system drop."
"It was shiny," the Boomshade Trickster countered, as if that explained everything. She crossed her arms and looked extremely irritated. "Now the bad men are all dead, and you are being boring. I wanted to see you bleed."
Dante didn’t engage with the logic of the rogue NPC.
He was trying to figure out how to efficiently clear a dozen Level 40 Gold-tier mobs without accidentally collapsing the entire valley.
Before Dante could activate a Zenith-tier skill, the space directly behind the Boomshade Trickster violently ripped open.
It wasn’t a standard swirling blue fast-travel portal. It was a jagged aggressive tear in reality glowing with intense dark energy.
A figure stepped out of the rift and stepped directly onto the thick tree branch behind the rogue NPC.
It was Silas.
The Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy wasn’t wearing his pristine Silver-grade armor.
He wore sleek dark leather, and his face was twisted in absolute unfiltered fury.
He had clearly used a highly restricted premium teleportation item to bypass the standard travel mechanics and arrive directly at the coordinates of his wiped squad.
He looked down at the clearing. He saw the piles of dropped Vanguard’s Legacy gear.
He saw Dante standing in the center perfectly unharmed.
The eyes of Silas burned with genuine hatred.
"You slaughtered them," Silas hissed. His voice resounded across the clearing amplified by a system item.
"They slaughtered each other, Silas," Dante corrected him smoothly. "I just watched. They breathed in some pink dust and decided they hated their own tabards."
Silas didn’t believe him. He glared at Dante and completely ignored the massive wooden demons currently surrounding the clearing.
"I am going to bankrupt you, Dan," Silas roared. "I am going to track your physical hardware, and I am going to make sure you never log into this server again!"
Before Silas could finish his tirade, the Boomshade Trickster sitting on the branch below him suddenly looked up.
Her solid black eyes locked onto the furious face of Silas.
She didn’t look scared of the Guild Master. She smiled. It was a wide incredibly malicious expression.
"You are very loud," the Boomshade Trickster noted cheerfully.
She didn’t cast a spell. She didn’t use a weapon. She simply reached up and grabbed the edge of the dark leather boot of Silas.
Silas recoiled and looked down at the NPC. "Get your hands off me, glitch!"
He tried to kick her away.
He didn’t make contact.
The Boomshade Trickster didn’t just grab his boot. She initiated a highly specialized localized NPC interaction protocol.
[System Event: NPC ’Mischievous Boomshade Trickster’ has initiated a Master-Servant Dialogue.]
The system interface popped up directly in front of the face of Silas.
The Boomshade Trickster looked up at the Guild Master and her black eyes widened innocently.
She intentionally shifted her demeanor and turned herself into a fragile terrified victim.
"Please, strong man," the Boomshade Trickster begged, her voice trembling perfectly.
"The bad man in the dark armor took my shiny egg. He killed all my friends. If you kill him for me... I will serve you. I will be your pet."
Silas froze.
The rage radiating from the Guild Master completely vanished. It was instantly replaced by sheer unfiltered greed.
He looked at the system prompt.
A Level 45 Rogue Sylvan. A highly specialized incredibly rare combat pet offering itself to him voluntarily.
If he secured a pet of that caliber, it would completely overshadow the Anomaly squad of Dante. It would salvage his reputation.
Silas looked down at Dante.
"You hear that, Dan?" Silas mocked. A triumphant sneer spread across his face.
"Even the system hates you. I am taking the pet. And then I am taking your head."
Dante didn’t answer. He just stared at Silas and was completely baffled by the sheer density of the ego of the man.
"Nyx," Dante whispered and did not take his eyes off the tree branch. "Tell me you are recording this."
"I am streaming this directly to the private channel of Cipher," Nyx confirmed as her fingers flew across her datapad. "The entire server is currently watching him talk to a tree."
Silas didn’t realize he was being broadcast. He hit the ’Accept’ button on the system prompt.
[System Error: Master-Servant Contract Failed.]
[Reason: Entity ’Mischievous Boomshade Trickster’ is not a tameable asset. Entity is a dungeon hazard.]
Silas stared at the red error text.
He looked down at the Boomshade Trickster.
The terrified innocent expression was completely gone. She was smiling her wide malicious smile again.
"You are very stupid," the Boomshade Trickster giggled.
She didn’t wait for Silas to react.
She simply let go of his boot and pushed herself backward. She dropped off the high branch and fell gracefully toward the dense canopy below to instantly vanish into the shadows.
"Wait!" Silas yelled and reached out to grab her.
He didn’t catch the NPC.
But his sudden movement shifted his weight on the branch.
The massive towering peach tree he was standing on violently groaned. The wood didn’t splinter. It peeled back.
The tree Silas was standing on was a dormant Rain Demon.
The Level 40 Gold-tier boss actively woke up. It didn’t step out of its shell. It just aggressively snapped its massive scythe-like branches upward.
Silas didn’t even have time to trigger a defensive skill.
The wooden scythe sheared cleanly through his dark leather armor to completely ignore his localized physical mitigation.
[-35,000! Critical Hit! OVERKILL!]
The health bar of Silas instantly vanished.
The Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy, the man who had spent billions of credits to secure a monopoly, was casually and brutally batted out of the tree by a plant monster.
He didn’t scream. He exploded into a cloud of blue pixels before he even hit the ground.
Because he had died in an open-world zone with hostile intent, the system penalized him heavily.
A massive glowing item dropped from his deleted avatar and plummeted toward the clearing.
Pip the dragon shrieked happily and instantly dived from the shoulder of Mei.
The tiny red familiar expertly snatched the item out of the air before it could touch the dirt and hauled it back to the starlight dome.
Pip dropped the heavy pitch-black fabric at the feet of Dante.
[Item Acquired: Wings of the Void]
[Tier: Dark Demon]
"He brought the wings," Dante laughed, genuinely amused.
"He spent two hundred million credits at our auction to buy unrestricted flight, and then he forgot to use them when he fell out of a tree."
Dante picked up the dark matter wings and tossed them casually into his infinite inventory. He would sell them again tomorrow.
The comedy of the situation was abruptly cut short.
With Silas dead and the Boomshade Trickster vanished, the dozens of Rain Demons completely surrounding the clearing lost their secondary distractions.
They all turned their featureless wooden masks toward the center of the clearing.
They locked onto the massive glowing gold armor of the anomaly player.
The demons raised their scythe-arms in perfect synchronization. They didn’t charge immediately.
The thick glowing pink sap running through their wooden bodies pulsed violently.
"Boss," Casanova gulped and took a slow step backward. "They look incredibly angry."
"They are Level 40 Gold mobs," Dante said and drew the [Dawn-Breaker Blade]. "They have high base defense, but they are made of wood. And I have [Starfall]."
Dante didn’t want to use his ultimate twenty-four-hour cooldown on a pack of mid-tier bosses.
But he couldn’t afford a long drawn-out war of attrition in a confined space.
He needed to clear the room and track down the Boomshade Trickster before she caused any more chaos.
Before Dante could activate his Zenith-tier meteor shower, the shadows near the edge of the clearing violently compressed.
It wasn’t the Boomshade Trickster.
A figure stepped out of the darkness and walked directly into the path of the advancing wooden demons.
He wore deep crimson robes, and his face was partially obscured by a heavy ornate hood.
He wielded two serrated daggers that dripped with dark magic.
[Entity Identified: Xerxes]
[Guild: Blood Throne]
[Level: 42]
The Guild Master of the Blood Throne had arrived. And unlike Silas, he hadn’t come to talk.
Comments