Chapter 102: Chapter 102: The Blood Pact Invoked

The battlefield outside Ironhold was rapidly turning into a barren wasteland.

Dante stood on the high stone battlements and relentlessly chained [Cataclysmic Ray].

The blinding white beams of pure arcane energy swept across the plains.

They carved massive and smoking trenches into the dirt and vaporized hundreds of corrupted beasts with every pass.

[Siege Event Update: 1,500 Kills Secured.]

[Blood of the Vanguard Buff: +150% to all base stats.]

His stats were inflating to absolutely absurd localized levels.

His magical attack power was so high the air around his gauntlets crackled with stray voltage even when he wasn’t casting.

Down on the plains, the scattered remnants of the rival guilds had completely stopped trying to fight the horde.

They were actively running away from the front lines and were desperate to avoid getting accidentally clipped by the sweeping beams of annihilation raining down from the city walls.

"Boss," Casanova yelled over the roaring sound of the magic. "You are literally kill-stealing from three entire guilds at once! They are going to hate you so much!"

"Let them," Dante said and kept his focus locked on the horde.

At the far edge of the battlefield, standing near the tree line of the Sky Demon Forest, Void-Bishop Morgrim was finally reacting.

The Level 25 Dark Demon boss hadn’t advanced.

The towering bone-masked priest watched as his massive localized army was systematically deleted in less than two minutes.

The glowing crimson eye on his staff flared with intense furious dark magic.

The boss didn’t try to fire a ranged spell at the city walls.

The distance was too great, and the localized height advantage gave Dante too much time to dodge or parry.

Morgrim needed Dante on the ground.

[Boss Mechanic Triggered: Spatial Usurpation]

The system interface flashed a sudden harsh purple warning.

Dante didn’t have time to react. The spell wasn’t a projectile. It was a targeted localized coordinate swap.

On the wall right next to Dante, a terrified NPC archer suddenly vanished in a burst of black smoke.

A fraction of a millisecond later, Dante felt the solid stone battlements disappear from beneath his boots.

He didn’t fall. He materialized instantly.

He was standing in the mud right in the absolute dead center of the surviving monster horde.

He was perfectly surrounded by hundreds of massive corrupted hounds and bone-golems.

The NPC archer appeared high on the city walls and dropped his bow in shock.

"Dante!" Lila screamed from the battlements and gripped her wooden staff.

Dante didn’t panic.

He was completely surrounded, but he had his Gold tier amor and a massive health pool.

He could just [Phantom Dash] his way out of the cluster or use [Cyclone of Ruin] to clear the immediate area.

Before he could activate a skill, Void-Bishop Morgrim stepped forward.

The boss was only thirty yards away.

Morgrim didn’t raise his staff to cast a spell.

He reached into his shadowy clerical robes and pulled out a tightly bound and dripping black parchment.

[Boss Item Activation: Scroll of Abyssal Rot]

[Tier: Dark Demon]

[Type: Catastrophic Environmental Hazard]

[Description: Instantly floods a 100-meter radius with concentrated un-cleansable void acid. Deals 5,000 True Damage per second to all entities within the blast zone. Bypasses all standard immunities.]

The blood of Dante ran cold.

Five thousand true damage per second. Bypasses immunities.

His massive health pool was currently sitting at 9,130.

The [Aetherial Nectar] made him immune to standard curses and instant-death mechanics, but environmental true damage wasn’t a status effect.

It was pure math.

If that scroll went off, his avatar would literally melt in less than two seconds.

The reality-bending invulnerability dome of Aura was on a massive one-hour cooldown after saving him from the black hole of Gluttony in the Spire.

He couldn’t teleport away. A hundred-meter radius was too wide for a single [Phantom Dash] or [Meteor Stride] to clear before the acid hit him.

He didn’t have time to run. He didn’t have time to defend.

He had to kill the boss before the casting animation finished.

"Erebus," Dante said. His voice was completely flat and devoid of panic.

He didn’t need to summon her physically. She was bound to his soul matrix.

[Pet Command Issued: Blood Sacrifice.]

The system interface violently hitched. The screen flashed a deep bloody crimson.

[Skill Activated: Blood Sacrifice.]

[User HP voluntarily burned: 90%.]

Dante felt the massive agonizing drain instantly.

It didn’t feel like taking a hit from a monster. It felt like his digital life force was being actively ripped out of his chest.

His massive health bar plummeted instantly from 9,130 down to a terrifyingly fragile 913 HP. A stiff breeze would kill him now.

But the sacrifice wasn’t for nothing.

[Attack Power increased by 900%.]

The math applied immediately.

The base attack power of the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] and his raw Strength stat were violently multiplied.

His attack stat didn’t just spike. It shattered the intended scaling curve of the system.

But Dante wasn’t finished.

"Aura," Dante whispered.

The tiny silver fox was hovering frantically above his shoulder and chimed loudly.

[Skill Activated: Aura of Dominion]

The 100-foot domain of cosmic authority expanded outward from the tiny Aether Sprite.

The massive corrupted beasts surrounding Dante were instantly hit with a 50% reduction to their movement speed and locked in place.

More importantly, the domain granted Dante a flat +50% boost to his base stats.

Combined with the 150% boost he had already accumulated from the [Blood of the Vanguard] siege event buff, his stats skyrocketed.

His base attack power crossed the threshold of localized absurdity.

[Current Attack Power: 6,450]

He was a Level 55 Warrior walking around with the raw unmitigated attack power of an endgame fully buffed raid boss.

Void-Bishop Morgrim crushed the black scroll in his shadowy hands. The dark acid began to violently erupt from the parchment.

Dante didn’t brace for the acid.

[Skill Executed: Phantom Dash]

Because of his [Chrono-Shift] talent, the skill had zero wind-up and zero mana cost.

Dante vanished.

He didn’t teleport to run away.

He teleported directly forward to instantly cross the thirty yards between himself and the Dark Demon boss.

He appeared perfectly inside the personal space of the boss directly in front of the bone-masked face.

BOOM.

The sonic boom of his materialization detonated point-blank against the Void-Bishop.

Normally, a Dark Demon boss possessed massive crowd-control resistances. A one-second sonic stun wouldn’t even register against their tenacity.

But the attack power of Dante was currently sitting at 6,450. The concussive force of the materialization scaled directly off his raw physical stats.

The sonic boom hit the boss with the force of a meteor strike.

[Guaranteed Stun Applied. Duration: 1 Second.]

The Void-Bishop locked up completely.

The dark acid erupting from the crushed scroll froze mid-air, and the casting animation was violently interrupted by the hard crowd control.

Dante didn’t hesitate. He had exactly one second.

He gripped the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] with both hands.

The gold broadsword was practically screaming. It vibrated violently with the sheer volume of concentrated sacrificed energy pumping through the avatar of Dante.

He swung a brutal and perfectly horizontal strike directly at the neck of the boss.

He didn’t use a Zenith-tier skill. A Zenith skill had an animation time. A basic raw swing was faster.

The Gold-tier blade amplified by the +50% bonus damage against corrupted enemies slammed into the Void-Bishop.

The massive defensive stats of the boss tried to mitigate the blow.

It didn’t matter.

[-12,800! Critical Hit!]

The massive damage number exploded above the head of the boss in bright aggressive red text.

The Void-Bishop staggered backward. The localized stun broke instantly from the sheer kinetic force of the strike.

The health bar of the boss took a noticeable and massive hit.

Dante landed perfectly on the mud, and his gold armor gleamed.

He wasn’t finished.

He was sitting at 913 HP. He was surrounded by thousands of corrupted beasts, and the boss was recovering.

"You brought me down here," Dante said. His voice was terrifyingly calm. "Now you have to deal with me."

Dante raised the gold sword again. He was operating as the ultimate glass cannon.

He couldn’t take a single hit, but anything he touched was going to turn to digital ash.

It was time to break the damage cap completely.