Eighty fully armored Legionnaires were currently spinning in a massive circle fifty feet in the air.

Dante stood at the bottom of the gulch. His arm was outstretched, and he maintained the Zenith-tier cyclone.

The sheer volume of wind was deafening. It was a continuous and roaring shriek that echoed off the canyon walls.

The purple mist was completely gone. It was sucked into the vortex and turned the hurricane a dark bruised color.

Inside the cyclone, it was absolute chaos.

The Legion of Blades prided themselves on military discipline, perfectly timed spell rotations, and unbreakable shield walls.

None of that mattered when you were trapped in a washing machine of pure kinetic energy.

The players were completely helpless. They couldn’t cast spells. They couldn’t swing swords.

They were constantly crashing into each other. Their heavy iron armor clanged loudly as they spun helplessly in the air.

[-1,200!]

[-1,200!]

[-1,200!]

The continuous damage numbers ticked rapidly over the entire vortex.

The baseline physical damage of the Zenith-tier wind was shredding the squishier targets.

Within the first five seconds of the duration, twenty low-level casters and archers simply zeroed out.

They didn’t fall to the ground. Their avatars shattered mid-air and turned the top half of the cyclone into a swirling storm of blue pixels.

Casanova was currently hugging a large rock near the edge of the chokepoint to avoid getting sucked in. He slowly peeked over the top.

His eyes widened to comical proportions.

"Big Brother," Casanova yelled over the roaring wind, his voice cracking. "That is not a normal spell! What class are you?!"

Dante ignored him. He watched the health bars of the heavier tanks slowly ticking down.

The ten-second duration of the skill was nearing its end.

"They are going to drop," Dante called out. "Get ready to be useful."

The massive purple hurricane suddenly collapsed.

The deafening roar cut out instantly. It was replaced by the sound of eighty heavily armored bodies plummeting toward the dirt.

The remaining sixty Legionnaires hit the ground hard.

A cacophony of cracking bones and digitized groans filled the gulch.

The fall damage alone wiped out another fifteen players.

It left roughly forty-five survivors scattered across the dirt path. They were completely disoriented and heavily wounded.

Danus hit the ground and rolled. His combat instincts kicked in despite the brutal fall.

He scrambled to his feet and ignored his blinking red health bar. He raised his broadsword and looked wildly for the target.

"Formation!" Danus screamed. He spit dirt from his mouth. "Reform the line! He used his ultimate! He is on cooldown!"

The surviving Legionnaires tried to stand, but their coordination was completely broken. They were dizzy, separated, and terrified.

And they had forgotten about the bard.

"My turn!" Casanova yelled.

The skinny and flamboyant man dropped his lute. He didn’t cast a spell. He just clenched his fists.

[Player ’Casanova’ has activated Innate Talent: Titan’s Physique.]

The transformation triggered again.

Casanova rapidly expanded. His shredded silk shirt finally ripped off completely as slabs of massive vascular muscle erupted across his torso.

He grew to seven feet tall. He was a hulking and terrifying wall of digital meat.

The Nullification Array was still active and halving all base stats.

But the talent of Casanova scaled entirely off his unspent mana pool. It completely bypassed the static suppression parameters of the array.

"You guys dropped this!" Casanova bellowed. His voice rumbled deeply.

He didn’t pull out a weapon. He charged directly into the disorganized cluster of surviving Legionnaires.

He operated like a runaway bulldozer.

He slammed his massive shoulder into a heavy tank. He hit him with so much kinetic force the tank actually lifted off the ground and flew backward into three of his friends.

Casanova grabbed another Legionnaire by the front of his armor. He lifted him completely over his head and threw him twenty feet down the gulch like a sack of potatoes.

The Legion of Blades tried to fight back, but their weapons were useless.

Swords bounced off the magically hardened skin of Casanova. They dealt single-digit chip damage.

The bard was a one-man wrecking ball. He violently cleared the path with bare-knuckle brawling.

"Focus the target! Ignore the bard!" Danus roared. He shoved his own panicked men out of the way to get a clear line of sight on Dante.

Danus was an Enforcer. He knew how to close a contract. If raw damage wouldn’t work, he would use hard crowd control.

He reached into his inventory and pulled out a small and glowing green crystal.

It was a high-tier Paralyzing Dart. It was coated in a fast-acting digital neurotoxin designed to lock the joints of a player for thirty seconds.

Danus threw the dart with perfect aim. He aimed straight for the small gap in the [Sun-Forged Cuirass] of Dante near his neck.

The dart hit.

The avatar of Dante instantly locked up. His arms froze at his sides. The green poison icon flashed brightly on his system interface.

[Debuff Applied: Absolute Paralysis.]

"Got him!" Danus yelled triumphantly and raised his broadsword. "Execute!"

The Enforcer charged forward. He fully intended to drive his blade directly through the paralyzed throat of Dante.

He crossed the twenty-yard gap in less than three seconds. He brought his sword back for a lethal strike.

He didn’t see the tiny flash of silver light.

Aura popped out of her pet-space. She floated right next to the frozen ear of Dante.

She let out a sharp and resonant chime.

[Skill Activated: Harbinger’s Grace]

The twenty-foot aura of pure starlight pulsed outward.

The green poison icon on the interface of Dante instantly shattered. The absolute paralysis was completely cleansed in a fraction of a millisecond.

Danus was mid-swing and fully committed to the strike. He entirely expected his target to be a stationary statue.

The hand of Dante moved.

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

He just raised his empty right hand and activated the skillbook he had absorbed earlier.

[Skill Executed: Meteor Stride]

Dante vanished in a blinding flash of white-hot light.

The broadsword of Danus swung through completely empty air. His momentum threw him off balance.

Behind him, a massive and lingering trail of devastating superheated plasma cut straight through the center of the gulch.

The remaining Legionnaires who were busy trying to run away from the hulking and angry bard were caught directly in the path of the Zenith-tier teleportation trail.

The plasma wall dealt two thousand percent fire damage to anything it touched.

Thirty armored players were instantly incinerated. Their avatars turned to ash before they could even scream.

Danus turned around slowly. The ambient heat of the plasma trail baked his face.

Dante was standing twenty feet away at the far end of the plasma wall. The [Sun-Forged Cuirass] gleamed in the harsh and white-hot light.

Danus looked around. His eighty-man ambush squad was gone.

The gulch was empty save for Casanova. The bard was currently dusting off his hands and rapidly shrinking back down to his normal skinny size.

The Enforcer looked at Dante. He didn’t try to run.

He knew it was entirely pointless. You couldn’t outrun a Zenith-tier teleport.

"Valerius is going to burn you to the ground," Danus said. His voice was entirely devoid of fear and filled only with cold fanaticism. "The Legion does not forget."

"I hope not," Dante said.

He drew the [Crimson Edge] and triggered [Meteor Stride] one final time.

The white flash blinded Danus.

When the vision of the Enforcer cleared, his health bar was completely empty. Dante was standing directly behind him and slowly sheathing his red blade.

Danus shattered into millions of blue polygons.

The system chimed happily. It was entirely oblivious to the slaughter it was currently rewarding.

[Target Eliminated: Legionnaire (Level 18)]

[Event Modifier Active: 200% EXP Gained.]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

Dante watched his level tick up to 21.

The combination of eighty high-level players and the massive double experience modifier from the Void-Blight event had completely skyrocketed his progression.

He turned around.

The dirt path of the Wyrmrest Gulch was completely littered with loot.

Dropped silver-grade armor, basic iron weapons, low-tier skillbooks, and thousands of silver coins sparkled in the dim light.

Casanova was already on his hands and knees. He frantically scooped coins into his leather satchel.

"Big Brother, we are rich!" Casanova cheered. His previous terror was completely forgotten.

"This is at least five thousand silver! We can buy an entire guildhall with this!"

Dante didn’t bother using his infinite inventory. He had 1.2 billion credits in the real world.

A pile of dropped silver coins and useless beginner armor wasn’t worth the effort of bending down.

He let the bard play loot goblin.

Dante looked up at the cliffs. His eyes scanned for the source of the suppression.

He spotted the small metallic cylinder of the Nullification Array resting near the edge of the ridge.

He used a quick vertical [Blink Step]. He materialized next to the cylinder and crushed it under his iron boot.

The massive and shimmering silver dome covering the gulch shattered.

His base stats instantly snapped back to normal.

The heavy and oppressive weight vanished. The passive healing from his [High-Grade Vitality Elixir] immediately kicked back in.

It rapidly topped off the minor chip damage he had taken during the barrage.

He dropped back down to the canyon floor.

Casanova stood up. His satchel was visibly bulging, and he looked incredibly pleased with himself.

"Alright, that was a solid warm-up," Casanova grinned and adjusted his feathered hat. "Where to next, Boss?"

Dante pointed straight ahead.

Just fifty yards down the path, the narrow gulch opened up into the massive and gaping mouth of the Wyrmrest Caverns.

The purple mist billowing out of the darkness was so thick it looked like a solid wall.

"We are going in," Dante said. "And we are going to close that breach."