The scraping sound above them grew deafening. It sounded like massive iron blades dragging across slate.

Dante didn’t look down the tunnel. He looked straight up.

The cavern ceiling fifty feet above their heads was covered in thick and pulsating purple webbing.

The webs were violently shifting. A massive shadow detached itself from the darkness and plummeted toward the stone floor.

"Move," Dante barked and shoved Casanova hard in the chest.

The bard went flying backward. He tumbled over a pile of pulverized rock.

Dante activated [Blink Step]. He teleported thirty feet backward just as the massive entity hit the ground.

The impact shook the entire cavern. The stone floor cracked and sent a shockwave of dust and purple mist outward.

Slowly, the creature uncoiled its eight massive and spiked legs.

It was a spider. But the Void-Blight had completely corrupted its anatomy.

Its abdomen was a bloated and glowing sac of highly volatile acid.

Dozens of multifaceted black eyes blinked erratically across a face covered in jagged and iron-hard mandibles.

[Zone Boss Spawn: Blighted Broodmother]

[Tier: Silver]

[Level: 10 (Void-Blighted)]

[HP: 65,000 / 65,000]

"Level 10 Silver," Casanova gasped from the dirt and scrambled to his feet.

"But the Void-Blight modifier gives it a 300% stat boost. That thing hits like a Level 30 Gold boss!"

The Broodmother didn’t wait for them to finish analyzing her stats.

She reared back on her hind legs. Her bloated abdomen glowed a sickly neon green. She let out a deafening and ear-piercing screech.

The sound wave was a physical projectile. It rippled through the air and completely bypassed the standard physics of the cavern.

[Warning: Sonic Stun Detected.]

Dante stood his ground. The screech washed over him.

The system interface flashed red and attempted to apply a ten-second stun debuff to his avatar.

Instantly, Aura popped out of her pet-space by the shoulder of Dante. The tiny silver fox pulsed with starlight.

[Debuff Negated: Harbinger’s Grace active.]

Dante didn’t even flinch. But Casanova wasn’t so lucky.

The bard was standing just outside of the twenty-foot protective radius of Aura.

The screech hit him, and a massive yellow stun icon appeared over his head.

Casanova froze completely. His face was locked in an expression of pure terror, and his lute slipped from his fingers.

The mandibles of the Broodmother snapped. She opened her mouth and sprayed a massive sweeping wave of dark green acid across the cavern floor. She aimed directly for the paralyzed bard.

"Idiot," Dante muttered.

He triggered [Blink Step]. He vanished and materialized directly in front of Casanova.

Dante didn’t try to parry the acid. [Aegis Deflection] was perfect for kinetic impacts, but liquid AoE attacks were incredibly tricky to block fully.

Instead, he simply planted his feet and raised his arms. He let the [Sun-Forged Cuirass] take the hit.

The acid washed over his gold armor.

It hissed violently. It burned away the purple mist and ate into the stone floor around the boots of Dante. The rock literally melted into bubbling gray slag.

[-1,200 HP]

[-1,200 HP]

[-1,200 HP]

The health bar of Dante took a massive hit. It dropped by over three thousand points in a single second.

The acid was designed to completely melt standard player armor and inflict a lethal damage over time effect.

But the armor of Dante wasn’t standard. His [Aetherial Nectar] buff instantly cleared the lingering burn effect.

Aura chimed, and a pulse of silver light washed over Dante.

[Resurgence Wave applied. 4,550 HP Restored.]

His health bar instantly refilled.

The stun icon over the head of Casanova finally shattered.

The bard gasped for air and dropped to his knees.

He looked at the melted stone floor just inches from his boots. Then he looked up at the smoking gold armor of Dante.

"You took that hit for me," Casanova whispered in disbelief.

"Get in the aura range and stay there," Dante ordered and did not look back. He drew the [Crimson Edge].

Casanova scrambled to his feet, but he didn’t pull out his lute.

He looked at the massive 65,000 HP boss. He looked at Dante.

For a guy who wore feathered hats and ran from women, a startlingly clear look of tactical awareness crossed his face.

"Big Brother," Casanova said. His voice was completely serious.

"The event modifier gives double EXP. If you solo this, the math says you will absorb the entire pool. You need the stats more than I do."

Dante glanced over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"

Casanova brought up his interface.

[System Alert: Player ’Casanova’ has left the party.]

"I am giving you the EXP," Casanova said. He backed away toward the cavern wall. "I will stay out of the blast zone. You kill the bug."

Dante actually smiled. The bard wasn’t totally useless after all.

"Stay behind the rock," Dante said.

He turned his full attention back to the Broodmother. The massive spider was circling him. Its eight legs clicked rapidly against the stone.

The [Crimson Edge] was a fantastic weapon. But Dante knew it would take dozens of Zenith-tier skills to whittle down 65,000 HP.

He would burn through his stamina too fast even with the healing of Aura. He needed to end this in one hit.

He needed to test the cursed weapon.

Dante sheathed the red broadsword. He held his right hand out and flexed his fingers.

The black and jagged brand on his wrist flared.

A burst of thick and light-absorbing black smoke erupted from his palm.

The smoke rapidly solidified. It formed the massive shape of [Voidsever].

The dark bone hilt felt freezing cold in his grip.

[Weapon Equipped: Voidsever (Incomplete)]

[Base Attack Power: 1]

The Broodmother lunged.

She covered the distance in a fraction of a second. She raised two massive and scythe-like front legs to impale him.

Dante didn’t activate [Blink Step]. He didn’t activate [Aegis Deflection].

The system text for [Voidsever] had mentioned a fractional and microscopic chance to trigger [Doom’s Echo].

Dante had a theory about cursed weapons in the Zenith Protocol.

They were inherently parasitical. They fed on conflict, risk, and blood.

If he played it safe, the sword wouldn’t trigger its true potential. He had to feed it.

He intentionally dropped his guard.

The right scythe of the Broodmother slammed directly into his left shoulder.

The kinetic force threw Dante backward. The sharp spike pierced the gap in his gold armor and drove deep into his digital flesh.

[Critical Hit Taken: -4,200 HP]

Dante hit the ground and skidded across the pulverized stone. His health bar dropped into the yellow.

"Boss!" Casanova yelled from behind his rock.

Dante planted his boots and dug the tip of Voidsever into the stone to arrest his momentum.

The moment Dante took the massive spike of damage, Voidsever reacted.

The black blade began to vibrate violently in his hand.

A low and thrumming sound emanated from the dark metal. It sounded like a beating heart.

The weapon recognized the risk. It tasted the blood.

[Hidden Trait Triggered: Blood-Lust.]

[Doom’s Echo probability temporarily increased.]

"There it is," Dante gritted his teeth and pulled the sword free from the stone.

The Broodmother shrieked and rushed forward to finish him off.

Dante stepped into the charge. He gripped Voidsever with both hands and pulled the massive blade back.

[Skill Executed: Abyssal Cleave]

[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]

The spatial fracture condensed along the jagged black edge of Voidsever.

It didn’t glow. It actively devoured the dim purple light in the cavern and turned the blade into a localized black hole.

Dante swung horizontally and aimed directly for the massive and glowing abdomen of the spider.

The blade connected.

The combat engine of the Zenith Protocol froze for a fraction of a millisecond.

[Passive Activated: Absolute Severance. 100% Armor Ignored.]

[Passive Activated: Doom’s Echo.]

The 100 points of cosmic Luck of Dante combined with the blood-lust trigger to manipulate the microscopic odds perfectly. The cosmic dice rolled in his favor.

[Doom’s Echo Multiplier: 1,000%]

The base attack power of Dante was multiplied by the Zenith-tier 5,000% damage of Abyssal Cleave. It was suddenly multiplied again by 1,000%.

The resulting math completely broke the interface of the game.

The black shockwave didn’t just hit the Broodmother. It ripped through her like she was made of wet tissue paper.

The spatial tear expanded to fifty feet wide. It cleanly severed the massive boss entirely in half!

It continued traveling across the cavern until it carved a massive and perfectly smooth canyon into the far stone wall.

Above the head of the Broodmother, the damage numbers popped up. They were entirely red and glitched with static.

[-1,850,000! OVERKILL!]

The top half of the spider slid cleanly off its bottom half. The two pieces hit the ground with a wet and heavy thud.

There was no death animation.

The game engine was so overloaded by the raw damage input that it skipped the dying sequence entirely. It instantly converted the corpse into a massive explosion of silver and blue loot polygons.

Dante stood completely still and lowered Voidsever.

The black blade was smoking. It radiated an aura of pure and localized destruction.

Aura chimed, and a pulse of light restored his missing health.

[Target Eliminated: Blighted Broodmother (Level 10 Silver)]

[Event Modifier Active: 200% EXP Gained. Solo Bonus Applied.]

[Massive Experience Gained!]

The system notifications spammed his vision like a slot machine paying out.

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

Dante watched his level skyrocket from 21 straight to 25!

The combination of a Silver-tier boss, the Void-Blight modifier, the double EXP event, and the fact that he absorbed 100% of the pool solo had granted him millions of experience points in a single swing.

Casanova slowly peaked his head out from behind the rock.

The bard looked at the fifty-foot-wide gash carved into the solid stone wall of the cavern. Then he looked at the massive pile of glowing loot.

"I am never leaving your side," Casanova whispered. His voice trembled with sheer awe. "You are a god."

Dante dismissed Voidsever. The black blade dissolved into smoke and sunk back into the brand on his wrist.

"I am just a guy with good math," Dante said.

He walked over to the loot pile. Because of the 50% increased drop rate of the event and his own hidden Luck stat, the Broodmother had dropped a small fortune.

He spotted a set of Silver-grade boots, a massive pile of high-tier crafting materials, and a heavy and glowing red staff. He vacuumed it all into his infinite inventory.

He found a skillbook sitting near the center of the pile.

[Item Appraised: Skillbook - Execute]

[Tier: Adept]

[Description: A brutal finishing strike. If the HP of the target is below 20%, this skill deals an instant 2x damage modifier. Cooldown: 30 seconds.]

Dante smiled. A base 2x multiplier that he could apply his 10,000x proficiency to.

He absorbed the book instantly and hardwired it into his neural loadout.

"Alright," Dante said and turned back to the bard. "Send the party invite again. Let us see what else is down here."

Casanova eagerly sent the invite and grabbed his lute. "Lead the way, Boss."