Regression of the Tower's Final Survivor-Chapter 54: The Ambush

The morning air on Floor 11 tasted like ozone and pine needles, a sharp, clean scent that did absolutely nothing to mask the tension radiating off Dante as he led the party out of the city gates and into the crystal forest beyond.

They weren’t moving with the casual drift of tourists anymore. This was a loose diamond formation, combat-ready spacing that let them react to threats from any angle without clustering into a single target zone. Ren took point with his new shield slung across his back but within easy reach, Ravenna and Leon flanked the center, and Astrid and Sera watched the rear while Dante floated between them like an anchor that kept the formation tight.

"Stop scuffing your feet," Ren muttered to Astrid without looking back. "You’re kicking up dust trails."

"I’m heavy," Astrid grumbled, shifting her massive axe from one shoulder to the other. "And these crystal paths are slippery as hell. Who paves a forest with glass? It’s completely impractical for anyone wearing real armor instead of those fancy robes the mages like."

"The Archon has a flair for the dramatic," Dante said, his eyes scanning the tree line where the ’trees’ were towering spires of translucent quartz with branches like jagged spikes that caught the light and threw rainbows everywhere. "Keep your eyes open. This zone spawns Crystal Panthers, they have stealth and they hunt in pairs."

"Stealth?" Astrid scoffed, spinning her axe in a lazy circle. "If it bleeds, I can kill it. If it’s made of rock, I can smash it. Either way, I’m not worried."

"Something else has stealth," Ravenna said softly, her head tilting as her orange eyes tracked something invisible in the dense undergrowth to their left.

"I know," Dante murmured.

"You feel them?"

"I don’t need to feel them because I can hear the armor clanking from a mile away." Dante turned right, leading them off the main path and into a denser cluster of spires in what looked like a random detour but wasn’t, guiding them toward a box canyon he remembered from a previous life. "Fifteen of them. Heavy plate. Standard Iron Domain formation. They think they’re being quiet, but they’re moving with the arrogance of a guild that thinks they own the floor."

"Fifteen?" Leon’s face went pale, and Dante could hear the tremor in his voice. "That’s three full parties. Are they... usually this aggressive?"

"Only when you hurt their pride." Dante remembered Garrett’s face from the night before, the mottled red of humiliation when he’d walked out of that suite with shredded contract confetti stuck to his boots. "We embarrassed a lieutenant in front of his men, and in faction politics, that’s a death sentence. If they let us walk away unpunished, they look weak. They need to make an example of us."

"So we fight?" Astrid grinned with her hand tightening on her axe haft, looking way too excited about the prospect of violence. "Good. I wanted to test this new edge anyway, I’ve been itching for something harder than goblins."

"No," Dante said.

The group stopped, and Astrid blinked at him like he’d grown a second head. "What? You just said they want to kill us."

"No one draws a weapon except me." Dante stopped in a small clearing surrounded by high crystal walls, a kill box perfect for trapping monsters, and turned to face his team. "Understand?"

"Dante," Ren warned, turning to face him with that stubborn set to his jaw. "Fifteen geared rankers. Even you can’t—"

"I can." Dante unclasped his cloak, folded it neatly, and handed it to Sera. "Hold this. Don’t drop it, it’s expensive."

"You want to solo a punishment squad?" Ravenna looked at him with narrow eyes, not scared but calculating the odds in that way she had. "Whatever mastery you think you’ve gained, fifteen people is a lot of crowd control to dodge. One stun and you’re dead."

"It’s not about winning." Dante rolled his shoulders to loosen the muscles, and the Ancient Core hummed in his chest like a purring engine waiting to rev. "It’s about sending a message. If we fight as a team, it looks like a battle. If I beat them alone, it looks like an execution. I need them to fear us, not just respect us."

He turned to face the entrance of the clearing.

"Besides," he added, and a cold smile touched his lips. "I need the exercise."

A moment later the trees rustled, not from wind but from the heavy, deliberate movement of men who weren’t trying to hide anymore now that they had their prey cornered.

Garrett stepped out first, wearing full helm this time with his visor up to reveal a face twisted in a sneer of anticipated violence. Behind him, fourteen soldiers fanned out into a semi-circle that blocked the only exit, swords and spears at the ready with three mages in the back already charging spells that made the air shimmer with heat.

It was overkill. It was meant to be.

"Lost?" Garrett asked, his voice echoing off the crystal walls. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"Just taking a walk," Dante said, standing alone in the center of the clearing with his hands empty at his sides. "You brought a lot of friends for a morning stroll."

"I told you." Garrett drew a longsword that glowed with a faint enchantment, the light dancing along the blade. "You’d regret it."

"You did," Dante agreed. "You were wrong."

"Kill the men," Garrett ordered, pointing his sword at Dante’s chest. "Take the women alive. We’ll see how much they’re worth on the slave marke—"

The word got cut off by a sound like a thunderclap.

Dante wasn’t there anymore.

There was no blur of movement, no gathering of muscles for the jump. He simply ceased to exist in the space he had occupied and reappeared directly in front of the mage on the far left, the one who had been charging something that looked particularly nasty.

Using Shadow Step, the mage didn’t even have time to widen his eyes before Dante’s hand, wreathed in the green-gold light of the Core, clamped around his throat hard enough to cut off his air.

"Wrong order," Dante whispered, and then he threw the mage. Not pushed, threw, launching the man across the clearing like a ragdoll with enough force that he smashed into two of the spearmen and sent all three of them into a tangled heap of limbs and screaming.

The clearing exploded into chaos.

"Get him!" Garrett screamed, spinning around to try and track Dante’s movement.

Dante ducked under a swinging greatsword, the blade passing inches over his head, and didn’t bother drawing his own weapon. He stepped inside the attacker’s guard, placed a palm against the man’s breastplate, and pulsed the Core.

The impact was immediate.

The steel breastplate caved in with the screech of tortured metal, and the soldier blasted backward coughing blood with his ribs likely reduced to powder.

"I told you to stand down!" Dante shouted over his shoulder at Astrid, who had taken a step forward instinctively with her axe already rising. "Watch!"

A fireball hissed through the air, aimed at his back, and Dante didn’t dodge. He spun and caught the spell on his forearm where the Core energy flared, eating the mana in an instant and dissipating the fire into harmless sparks that scattered across the crystal floor.

The remaining mage stared at his shaking hands like they’d betrayed him. "He... he ate it!"

"He’s a monster!"

"Circle him! Shield wall!" Garrett roared, trying to regain control of his men.

The soldiers tried to form up, locking shields to create a wall of steel that blocked any escape route. It was a solid tactic against a single fighter because it limited mobility and forced a head-on engagement where numbers won.

Dante looked at the shield wall. He smiled.

"Cute."

He reached over his shoulder and finally, slowly, drew his sword with a movement that was almost lazy, like he had all the time in the world.

"You brought shields," Dante said, the green light in his eyes flaring until it left trails in the air. "Let’s see if they work."

He took a step forward. Then another. Then he broke into a run, charging straight at the center of the wall where Garrett stood bracing for impact.

It wasn’t bravery; it was predation.