The eight-hour mandatory lockout felt like it passed in a fraction of a second.

The physical body of Dante had rested in his cramped apartment, but his mind had been racing the entire time.

When the VR capsule finally chimed to signal the end of the required disconnect window, he didn’t hesitate.

He pulled the heavy neural-link cables down and pressed them against the base of his neck. He let the Zenith Protocol pull him back under.

The transition was instant.

The stale and recycled air of his apartment in Oakhaven vanished. It was replaced by the smell of woodsmoke and the loud overlapping chatter of thousands of players.

He materialized exactly where he had logged out. He stood in a quiet corner of the Outpost 404 safe zone near the central fountain.

Dante kept his player ID hidden.

The server had been in a complete frenzy when he logged off.

He didn’t need a mob of low-level players swarming him for handouts.

He walked away from the crowded fountain and ducked into a narrow empty alleyway between a player-owned tavern and an NPC blacksmith shop.

He needed to organize his build.

He opened his infinite inventory.

During the absolute chaos of the Embercraig Canyon fight, he had vacuumed up an absurd amount of loot.

Most of it had been sold to the studio of Seraphina. But he had kept a few specific items for himself.

He pulled out a small and red-bound book.

[Item Appraised: Skillbook - Flame-Dash]

[Tier: Novice]

[Description: A basic mobility skill. The user bursts forward ten feet and leaves a short trail of low-damage fire. Cooldown: 12 seconds.]

Dante had utilized a temporary scroll version of this during his fight with the Enforcers of Malric. But temporary items didn’t permanently lock into the system interface.

Now, he held the actual skillbook. It was time to permanently hardwire it into his neural loadout.

He tapped the cover of the book. It dissolved into a stream of red light that flowed directly into his chest.

[Skill Learned: Flame-Dash (Novice)]

Dante didn’t wait. He drew the [Crimson Edge] and dropped into a low and aggressive stance.

He activated the skill.

[Skill Executed: Flame-Dash.]

The moment the system registered the command, the anomaly in his code triggered.

[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]

[Registering 10,000 flawless executions.]

The rush of combat enlightenment slammed into his brain with the force of a physical blow!

He didn’t just learn how to jump forward and spark a little bit of fire.

His mind was flooded with the absolute and fundamental understanding of thermal propulsion.

He felt the exact physics required to ignite the ambient oxygen behind him.

He understood how to completely eliminate friction from his physical form and turn his body into a projectile of pure kinetic energy.

[Flame-Dash has reached Adept tier.]

[Flame-Dash has reached Master tier.]

[Flame-Dash has reached Grandmaster tier.]

The air inside the narrow dirt alleyway began to warp and distort from the sudden and intense heat.

The dirt beneath his iron boots started to bake and turn hard and brittle.

[Flame-Dash has reached Zenith tier.]

[Skill Evolution Triggered.]

[Flame-Dash has evolved into: Meteor Stride.]

The system interface flashed violently and updated the skill description.

[Meteor Stride (Zenith)]

[Description: Instantly teleport to a target location within 100 feet. Leaves a massive and lingering trail of devastating superheated plasma in your wake. Deals 2,000% Fire Damage to any entity that crosses the trail. Cooldown: 5 seconds.]

"Let us see what it looks like on a permanent cast," Dante muttered.

He targeted a spot at the far end of the alleyway.

It was roughly eighty feet away and right before the path dumped back out into the main merchant street.

He triggered the skill.

Dante didn’t run. He didn’t jump. He vanished in a blinding flash of white-hot light!

He materialized instantly at the end of the alley, and his boots planted firmly in the dirt.

There was no travel time. There was no wind resistance.

Behind him, the alleyway was completely destroyed.

A thick ten-foot-wide wall of violently burning plasma cut straight through the narrow space.

The heat radiating off the lingering trail was so intense it instantly melted the cobblestones lining the edges of the buildings.

The safe zone mechanics prevented the fire from damaging the actual player-owned structures, but the environmental ground was turned into liquid slag.

The plasma burned bright white for two seconds before dissipating with a sharp static crack. It left behind a massive trench of blackened and smoking glass.

"Five-second cooldown," Dante said and read his interface. "I can basically spam this. Uncatchable and untouchable."

He sheathed the [Crimson Edge] and stepped out of the alleyway to merge smoothly into the heavy foot traffic of the main street.

Outpost 404 was bustling.

It was mid-afternoon in-game, and the player economy was in full swing.

Stalls were packed with people haggling over copper coins, recruiting for dungeon runs, and loudly complaining about the exorbitant prices of basic health potions.

Dante walked casually and blended in with the crowd.

His [Sun-Forged Cuirass] drew a few lingering stares. Gold-tier armor was practically a myth this early in the game.

But without his nameplate visible, nobody realized they were looking at the most wanted target on the server.

He was heading toward the northern gate to find a new hunting ground when a sudden and low rumbling sound caught his attention.

It sounded like a stampede.

Dante stopped in the middle of the street and looked back toward the central plaza.

The rumbling grew louder. It wasn’t the sound of a boss spawning.

It was the frantic and overlapping thud of dozens of heavy boots sprinting against the packed dirt.

A cloud of dust plumed into the air near the corner of the forge of the blacksmith.

A man suddenly sprinted around the corner. His boots skidded wildly in the dirt as he desperately took the turn at full speed.

He was dressed ridiculously.

He wore a ruffled silk shirt that was unbuttoned halfway down his chest, tight leather pants, and a wide-brimmed feathered hat that looked like it had been stolen from a renaissance faire.

He held a lute in his left hand and clutched it to his chest like a baby.

His player ID floated above his head in bright green letters.

[ID: Casanova]

[Level: 18]

Dante raised an eyebrow.

Level 18. That put this ridiculous-looking bard in the top ten players on the entire server.

He was severely over-leveled compared to the general population.

And he was currently screaming his lungs out.

"I am sorry!" Casanova yelled over his shoulder and sprinted down the middle of the street. "It was the system! I did not want to do it! You have my deepest apologies, ladies!"

A second later, the source of the stampede rounded the corner.

It was a mob.

A literal furious mob consisting of at least fifty female players.

They were heavily armed. Tanks with tower shields, rogues with drawn daggers, and mages with fireballs already burning in their palms.

They weren’t moving in a tactical formation.

They were completely blinded by rage. They sprinted down the street in a chaotic swarm to knock over merchant stalls and shove neutral players out of the way.

"Get back here, you creep!" a heavily armored warrior screamed and raised a broadsword.

"I am going to rip your eyes out!" a mage yelled and hurled a bolt of frost magic.

Casanova ducked. The frost bolt narrowly missed his feathered hat and shattered against a wooden post nearby.

"It was on the cheek!" Casanova shrieked and pumped his arms as he ran. "It was entirely platonic. I respect your boundaries!"

The mob surged forward and closed the distance.

Casanova was fast, but he was clearly running out of stamina.

He looked around wildly. His eyes scanned the crowd of neutral players who had completely frozen to watch the bizarre spectacle.

His eyes locked onto Dante.

Specifically, they locked onto the massive and imposing Gold-tier chest piece of Dante.

Casanova didn’t hesitate. He changed his trajectory and sprinted directly toward Dante.

Dante didn’t move. He just watched the flamboyant bard close the gap.

"Big guy! Armored guy!" Casanova yelled. He slid into the dirt and dived squarely behind the broad shoulders of Dante.

He grabbed the back of the cape of Dante and used him as a human shield. "Save me! They are entirely unreasonable!"

The mob of fifty furious women skidded to a halt about twenty feet away.

They formed a tight semicircle and cut off any escape routes.

Weapons were drawn. Magic was primed.

They glared at Dante and were completely unbothered by his high-tier armor.

"Step aside, armor," the lead warrior sneered and pointed her broadsword at Dante. "This does not concern you. We just want the bard."

Dante looked over his shoulder. Casanova was cowering behind him, clutching his lute, and breathing heavily.

"What did you do?" Dante asked. His voice was flat.

"It was a curse!" Casanova pleaded. He spoke so fast the words completely blurred together. "I swear on the grave of my mother, it was not my fault.

I picked up a cursed lore item in the southern ruins. It locked me into a mandatory quest!"

Dante stared at him. "A quest."

"Yes!" Casanova nodded frantically. His feathered hat bobbed.

"A bizarre and highly unethical curse quest. The system mandates that I have to steal kisses from one hundred different players within twenty-four hours.

If I do not complete it, I get hit with a massive ten-level penalty!"

The expression of Dante remained completely blank. He slowly looked back at the mob of fifty angry women.

"You are sexually assaulting people for EXP?" Dante asked. His tone dripped with absolute deadpan judgment. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

"It is not assault! It is a mechanic!" Casanova protested defensively. He peaked around the arm of Dante to look at the mob.

"And it is on the cheek. Mostly. Look, do you know how hard it is to grind to Level 18? I cannot afford to drop ten levels. I will be ruined!"

"I am going to cut off your mechanic," one of the rogues in the crowd hissed and twirled a dagger.

"See?!" Casanova shrieked and pulled his head back behind Dante.

"They are violent! They do not respect the grind! Please, man, you have to help me. I am rich! I can pay you! I am a top-ranked player, I have utility!"

Dante didn’t care about the money of Casanova.

He had a billion credits sitting in the real world. He didn’t care about the utility of the bard. He was a one-man army.

He actually considered just stepping to the left and letting the mob tear the flamboyant idiot to pieces.

It would be entirely justified, and it would save him a headache.

"He kissed my boyfriend too!" a male caster suddenly yelled from the back of the mob.

Casanova groaned and buried his face in his hands. "The quest did not specify gender, I was on a timer, I panicked!"

Dante could not help it. A short and sharp laugh escaped his chest.

The absolute absurdity of the situation was a massive contrast to the life-or-death and high-stakes slaughter he had been dealing with all morning.

Silas was running a militarized hit squad. This guy was running around playing tag with half the server because of a joke item.

"I will give you a thousand gold!" Casanova begged and tugged on the cape of Dante. "Five thousand!"

Dante looked at the mob. The lead warrior took a step forward and raised her sword.

"I said step aside," the warrior growled. "Or you die with him."

Dante stopped smiling. The humor evaporated instantly.

He didn’t like being threatened. He especially didn’t like being threatened by Level 10 players holding basic iron weapons.

Dante didn’t draw the [Crimson Edge]. He didn’t drop into a combat stance.

He just stood perfectly still with his hands resting casually at his sides.

"He is an idiot," Dante said. His voice projected clearly across the street. "But he is currently standing behind me. So you have exactly three seconds to lower your weapons and walk away."

The warrior laughed harshly. "There are fifty of us, you arrogant prick. What are you going to do?"

"One," Dante said.

The mages in the backline began chanting. Their hands glowed with offensive magic. The archers drew their bows.

"Two," Dante said.

Casanova whimpered and braced himself for the impact.

"Three."