Dante turned his back on the empty tunnel and walked back through the carved hole into the circular basalt chamber.

Casanova was standing near the massive bronze double doors and staring at them intensely.

"He is gone," Dante said. He waited for the sixty-second duration of the Siphon debuff to expire so his stats would return to normal.

"Boss," Casanova said. His voice was unusually quiet. "Look at the doors."

Dante walked over.

The heavy bronze doors weren’t just sealed. They were covered in intricate and glowing silver runes.

But the runes were rapidly flickering. They shifted from a bright healthy silver to a sickly corrupted purple.

The Void-Blight was actively eating through the magical seal.

"The dimensional fracture is right behind here," Dante said. He pulled the two [Aetheric Ward Banners] out of his inventory.

He handed one to Casanova.

"Take this," Dante ordered. "The second I push these doors open, you run to the far left side of the room and plant that banner into the ground."

"Do not stop. Do not try to fight anything. Just plant it and stay alive."

Casanova grabbed the silver banner tightly, and his knuckles turned white. He didn’t make a joke. He just nodded.

Dante stepped up to the center of the double doors. He placed his heavy iron gauntlets against the bronze.

He pushed.

The doors didn’t resist. The corrupted seal completely shattered the moment physical pressure was applied.

The heavy bronze swung inward with a loud echoing groan. It revealed the massive core of the Wyrmrest Caverns.

The air inside the core was suffocating. The purple mist was so thick it looked like an ocean of ink.

But it wasn’t the mist that made Dante stop dead in his tracks. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The center of the massive cavern was entirely occupied by a tearing hole in reality.

It looked exactly like the spatial rift the Tear of the Forgotten had opened, but a thousand times larger.

And something was coming out of it.

"We are too late," Dante whispered.

The system didn’t flash a standard localized warning.

A massive server-wide crimson alert projected across the sky outside. It overrode the previous Catastrophic warning.

The text bled into the cavern itself and projected directly into their vision.

[CRITICAL SERVER EVENT: ANNIHILATION-TIER CALAMITY UNSEALED.]

[Entity: Cerberus Void-Dragon]

[Status: Awakened.]

[Warning: The Outpost 404 region is currently targeted for complete atmospheric eradication. All players are advised to evacuate the zone immediately. Revive protocols disabled.]

A massive digitized roar shattered the cavern! It didn’t just hurt their ears. It caused the solid stone walls to crack and fracture.

A colossal head tore itself free from the swirling dimensional rift!

It was a dragon, but it looked nothing like the Dreadwyrm.

It was forged from pure raw Void-Blight. Its scales were pulsating cancerous tumors.

It didn’t have one head. It had three. All of them were mounted on long serpentine necks.

Its eyes burned with a sickly toxic black light that seemed to devour the surrounding mist.

It was massive. The sheer size of the entity made the cavern feel claustrophobic.

"Annihilation-Tier," Casanova gasped and dropped the banner onto the stone floor. "Boss, that is... that is not a game boss. That is a server-wipe mechanic."

The three heads of the Void-Dragon snapped toward them.

It didn’t breathe fire. The center head opened its massive jaws and let out a localized pulse of gravity.

The roof of the cavern violently exploded outward!

The dragon didn’t want to fight in a cave. It launched itself straight up.

It tore a massive hole through hundreds of feet of solid bedrock and burst completely out of the cavern system into the violet sky above the forest!

The force of its exit collapsed the entire tunnel structure behind them. Rocks the size of houses crashed down and sealed the exit completely.

Dante and Casanova were trapped in the core. They stared up through the newly created hole in the ceiling at the massive three-headed dragon blotting out the sky above the Outpost 404 region.

"It is going for the safe zone," Dante said. His voice was entirely flat.

Before he could activate [Meteor Stride] to chase it up the vertical shaft, the space directly in front of him rippled.

A clean blue portal tore open in the center of the cavern floor.

A figure stepped through.

It was the Outpost Elder.

He wasn’t wearing his standard flowing gray robes. He was wearing tattered and ancient battle armor.

His glowing white eyes were completely focused and lacked any trace of standard NPC scripting.

"You are too late, Outworlder," the Elder said. His voice carried the heavy and resonant echo of an ancient entity. "The seals have completely failed. The Void-Blight has breached the primary layer."

Dante looked at the Elder. "Who are you?"

The Elder didn’t immediately answer. He looked up through the hole in the ceiling at the massive dragon circling the sky.

"You play this game, Outworlder, believing it is a trial designed for your amusement," the Elder spoke. His voice was completely devoid of the usual Zenith Protocol formatting. "You believe the system is a machine."

The Elder turned his glowing eyes toward Dante.

"The Zenith Protocol is not a game," the Elder stated and dropped the massive lore bomb effortlessly. "It is a cosmic recruitment drive. A desperate draft."

"For ten thousand years, a war has raged across the shattered dimensions between five universal factions. Humans, Beasts, Demons, Celestials, and the Fey."

Dante stared at him. The lore of Overture had been incredibly vague up until this point.

"The balance is completely broken," the Elder continued. "The Void seeks to consume all five."

"The system pulled your planet, Veridia, into the fold because humanity possesses a unique and limitless potential for violent escalation.

You are the prophesied Outworlders. You were brought here to be soldiers. To tip the scales."

The Elder reached to his hip and drew a weapon. It wasn’t a standard NPC staff. It was a heavily rusted and chipped longsword.

"The dragon above is not a monster," the Elder said and gripped the rusted hilt. "It is an executioner sent by the Void to wipe this recruitment node before you are ready."

The moment the hand of the Elder tightened on the grip, the thick rust covering the blade violently shattered!

Brilliant and blinding white light erupted from the steel.

The chipped longsword completely transformed into a radiant and perfectly flawless greatsword of pure celestial energy!

The system finally updated the status of the NPC above his head.

[Entity Identified: The Blade-Saint]

[Faction: Human Guardian (Dormant)]

[Level: ???]

"I am the warden of this Outpost," the Blade-Saint said. He turned his radiant sword toward the sky. "I cannot let it fall."