Chapter 169: Chapter 169: A Brief Encore
The Rain Valley had been a chaotic success.
Nyx had secured a highly lethal untargetable stealth asset in Violet. She had subsequently unlocked the [God of Shadow] Hidden Class to permanently remove herself from the vulnerable backline and turn into a devastating frontline assassin.
But the server-wide event wasn’t over.
The twenty-four-hour timer was ticking, and there were two more exclusive Pet Dungeons remaining on the map.
Dante didn’t wait for Silas to regroup and organize another desperate ambush.
He gathered the Aegis Vanguard squad of Lila, Mei, Casanova, Sera, Nyx, and Garrick.
He immediately used his [Spatial Stone] to bypass the congested transit hubs. He teleported the entire seven-man party directly to the entrance coordinates of the second event zone.
The Demon Spirit Land.
They materialized on a massive cracked plateau of dark gray stone.
The environment was completely different from the vibrant toxic beauty of the peach groves.
The sky above was a permanent oppressive twilight.
Jagged ancient gravestones and massive mausoleums littered the landscape. The air was freezing cold and smelled heavily of ozone and dust.
At the far end of the plateau stood a towering iron-wrought gate leading into a subterranean tomb complex.
It was the staging area before the dungeon entrance.
And it was completely packed.
Thousands of players from the major guilds were currently clustered on the plateau and formed tense heavily armed perimeters around their respective Guild Masters.
Nobody had entered the dungeon yet. They were all waiting for their scouts to return with localized intel on the boss mechanics.
The party of Dante materialized near the edge of the crowd.
The arrival of the gold-armored anomaly and his mismatched squad sent an immediate physical ripple of tension across the entire staging area.
Conversations stopped. Weapons were drawn.
Silas stood near the iron gates surrounded by hundreds of elites of Vanguard’s Legacy.
His silver armor was polished, but his posture was rigid with barely contained fury.
He glared at Dante, and the memory of his public humiliation and his slaughtered hit squads burned in his eyes.
On the opposite side of the plateau, Kaelus leaned on his silver longsword.
The Warlord of the Legion of Blades looked exhausted, and his reputation was still heavily bruised from the Wyrm-Sealed Abyss disaster.
But the most aggressive reaction didn’t come from the Veridian Alliance leaders.
"You!"
A furious screeching voice cut through the tense silence.
A player shoved his way through a cluster of heavily armored warriors.
He was wearing pristine highly customized crimson samurai armor. It was completely identical to the set he had worn before Mei crushed his skull in the canyon.
It was Ryujin. The God-King of the Sakura Nation.
The forty-eight-hour lockdown on his home territory had finally expired.
He had immediately rushed his core team to the event zone. He was desperate to secure a high-tier pet and salvage whatever remained of his shattered geopolitical reputation.
Ryujin didn’t look like a disciplined leader. He looked completely unhinged.
He marched straight toward the party of Dante, and his hand rested aggressively on the hilt of his Gold-tier katana.
His elite bodyguards followed closely behind and formed a wedge formation to intimidate the smaller squad.
"I have been waiting for this," Ryujin snarled and stopped ten feet away.
He pointed a trembling gauntleted finger directly at Dante.
"You locked my nation in a box! You stole my server-wide announcement! You humiliated me in front of the entire world!"
Dante didn’t draw [Voidsever]. He didn’t even drop into a combat stance. He just looked at the furious Samurai.
"I am pretty sure you humiliated yourself with that pink text box," Dante corrected smoothly.
Lila stifled a laugh and gripped her Dark Demon staff.
The face of Ryujin turned an ugly shade of purple. He didn’t realize he was dealing with the most dangerous entity on the server.
Because the Sakura Nation had been locked in the beginner zones, they hadn’t witnessed the live stream of the Ironhold siege or the execution of the Void-Bishop.
They didn’t understand the cosmic weight of the [Asura Vanguard].
"I am going to execute you right here, Dan," Ryujin threatened and drew his katana.
The blade sparked with highly concentrated lightning magic.
"I am going to wipe your pathetic little seven-man party off the map and claim this dungeon for the Sakura Nation."
"Excuse me," a cheerful voice interrupted.
Ryujin blinked and was momentarily confused by the sudden polite interjection.
Mei stepped out from behind the heavy cape of Dante.
The Hua Nation brawler was wearing her simple red combat tunic and was completely unarmored.
She didn’t look terrified of the heavily geared Samurai or his elite bodyguards. She was smiling broadly.
"You are the guy from the canyon, right?" Mei asked brightly and tilted her head.
Ryujin stared at her.
He recognized the red tunic and the twin hair buns. He remembered the humiliating cartoonish thud that had instantly deleted his health bar.
"You!" Ryujin shrieked, and his focus instantly snapped from Dante to the brawler. "You are the glitch who ambushed me!"
"I did not ambush you," Mei corrected him happily. "You tried to stab me in the back. I just blocked."
"I am going to slice you into ribbons!" Ryujin roared. He raised his katana high above his head and prepared to activate his fastest and most lethal sword art.
Mei didn’t wait for him to finish his casting animation.
She didn’t use [Colossal Manifestation]. She didn’t need the thirty-foot-wide AoE.
She casually swung the standard four-foot-wide cast-iron [God-Slaying Skillet] off her shoulder in a smooth, effortless, and entirely un-telegraphed upward arc.
BONK.
The sound echoed loudly across the completely silent and tense plateau.
The heavy cast-iron pan connected perfectly with the underside of the jaw of Ryujin.
The combat engine of the Zenith Protocol flashed.
[Hidden Multiplier Triggered: Knock on the Head.]
[Blunt Force Trauma increased by 500%.]
[Guaranteed Concussion Applied.]
The avatar of Ryujin locked up instantly.
The massive multiplying blunt force trauma completely bypassed his physical mitigation.
His Level 42 health bar padded by premium cash-shop buffs completely vanished in a single frame.
The Samurai didn’t fly backward. He simply crumpled to the stone floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
A ring of spinning digital stars appeared briefly above his helmet before he violently exploded into a massive cloud of blue pixels.
[-45,000! OVERKILL!]
[Target Eliminated: God-King (Level 42 Samurai)]
The elite bodyguards standing behind where their Guild Master used to be froze in absolute uncomprehending horror.
They lowered their weapons and stared at the empty space on the ground.
They were entirely unable to process how their leader had just been casually one-shot by a girl holding cookware.
Mei rested the frying pan back on her shoulder and sighed.
"He really does not learn," Mei noted and turned back to Dante.
Pip fluttered down from her tunic and expertly snatched a heavy glowing coin pouch out of the dissolving pixel cloud before the system could even register the drop.
"Easiest money we have made all day," the tiny red dragon cheered.
The entire staging area was completely silent. Thousands of players from Vanguard’s Legacy and the Legion of Blades stared at the anomaly squad.
Silas slowly lowered his hand, and his eyes were wide.
Kaelus tightened his grip on his longsword and took a slow step backward.
They knew Dante was a monster. They hadn’t realized his party members were also capable of instantly deleting high-tier players.
"Is anyone else going to try and scream at us?" Dante asked. His voice projected clearly across the dark plateau.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The Sakura Nation bodyguards slowly backed away to entirely abandon their aggressive posture.
"Good," Dante nodded.
He didn’t waste any more time on guild politics.
He turned his back on the thousands of players and walked directly toward the towering iron gates of the Demon Spirit Land.
The system interface popped up as he approached the threshold.
[Dungeon Entrance: Demon Spirit Land]
[Warning: This is a 12-Man Raid Environment. Engaging with fewer participants will result in severe numerical disadvantages.]
[Confirm Entry?]
Silas was watching from the safety of his barricades and finally found his voice.
The Guild Master couldn’t let Dante just walk in and claim the server-first clear without saying something to save face.
"You are going into a twelve-man raid with seven people?" Silas mocked loudly and tried to sound confident.
"Your arrogance is going to be your downfall, Dan."
"You cannot out-damage a raid boss without a full roster to manage the mechanics. You are going to wipe in the first room."
Kaelus nodded in agreement and leaned on his sword.
"The system scales the encounters for a full platoon. A seven-man squad lacks the required crowd control. You are marching into a slaughterhouse."
Dante stopped at the gate. He didn’t turn around.
He just smiled.
"Casanova," Dante called out smoothly over his shoulder. "Tell them."
The flamboyant bard didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, pushed his pink feathered hat up, and looked directly at the two most powerful Guild Masters on the server.
"You guys really need to get better analysts," Casanova said. His voice dripped with pure unadulterated condescension.
"We are not entering a twelve-man raid with seven people."
"We are entering a twelve-man raid with a walking apocalypse, an indestructible chef, a gravity mage, a shadow god, and a tank powered by sheer unfiltered divorce trauma."
Casanova winked at Silas.
"We outnumber the dungeon," the bard declared.
Dante tapped the ’Confirm’ button on the interface.
The heavy iron gates of the Demon Spirit Land groaned open. It revealed a pitch-black descending tunnel lined with glowing purple runes.
Dante didn’t look back at the stunned and silent armies.
He stepped through the threshold and led the anomaly squad into the dark.
The heavy gates slammed shut behind them to seal them inside the tomb.
They left Silas and Kaelus standing on the plateau to manage the bruised egos of their terrified guilds.
"Alright," Dante said. His red eyes burned in the absolute darkness of the dungeon hallway. "Let us go find a pet."
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