The sky above Outpost 404 was no longer a canvas for a slaughter.

It was an execution block. The Cerberus Void-Dragon was the one resting its necks on the chopping block.

The two God-tier Guardians were completely restored and entirely immune to the Void-Blight. They did not hold back.

The Blade-Saint moved with the speed of a falling star. He didn’t bother with defensive parries anymore.

He gripped his radiant celestial greatsword with both hands and teleported directly above the left head of the dragon.

With a single and devastating downward swing, he carved a trench of white light deep into the tumor-covered neck of the beast.

The Void-Dragon shrieked. Thick black blood rained down on the Outpost below.

Lady Vespera was a apocalypse. She didn’t cast individual spells. She simply existed as a conduit for pure and unadulterated magical destruction.

Her phoenix-fire wings flared.

She unleashed a continuous and blinding torrent of superheated plasma that completely engulfed the right head of the dragon.

The cancerous scales didn’t just burn. They actively melted and exposed the digital bone beneath.

[Cerberus Void-Dragon HP: 65%]

[Cerberus Void-Dragon HP: 42%]

The Annihilation-Tier beast was panicking.

It had spent its ultimate wipe mechanic. The Void-Blight Seed was supposed to permanently cripple the node defenders and guarantee the destruction of the Outpost.

It didn’t possess the combat logic to process how a tiny floating silver fox had completely negated a cosmic-level curse.

It thrashed wildly. It snapped its jaws and unleashed erratic bursts of dark matter.

But the Guardians were relentless. They tore through its defenses and systematically dismantled its massive health pool.

Dante hovered in the air. He maintained his position with short and controlled bursts of [Blink Step].

He wasn’t going to just watch.

The system rewarded experience and loot based on damage contribution and the final kill strike.

If the NPCs killed the dragon, the server would be saved. But the Annihilation-Tier loot pool would vanish into the system ether.

Dante needed that kill.

He opened his inventory and pulled out the small gray skillbook he had looted from the Blighted Broodmother just an hour ago.

[Item Appraised: Skillbook - Execute]

[Tier: Adept]

"Let us see what the system thinks an execution really looks like," Dante muttered.

He tapped the cover. The book dissolved into red light and flowed into his chest piece.

[Skill Learned: Execute (Adept)]

Dante didn’t wait. He immediately activated the base skill.

[Skill Executed: Execute.]

The anomaly in his code flared to life.

[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]

[Registering 10,000 flawless executions.]

The combat enlightenment was radically different from his previous skills. It wasn’t about raw kinetic force, atmospheric pressure, or heat.

This was absolute and clinical lethality.

The mind of Dante was flooded with the fundamental understanding of structural failure.

He felt the exact microscopic weak points in bone, steel, and digital code.

He understood exactly how to strike a target so that its own failing life force catalyzed its destruction.

[Execute has reached Master tier.]

[Execute has reached Grandmaster tier.]

The air around Dante grew incredibly cold.

The ambient light in the sky actually dimmed. It was pulled toward his avatar as the system struggled to compile the sheer lethal parameters of the evolving skill.

[Execute has reached Zenith tier.]

[Skill Evolution Triggered.]

[Execute has evolved into: Gaze of the Abyss.]

The system interface updated violently. The text flashed in a deep and bruised purple.

[Gaze of the Abyss (Zenith)]

[Description: A localized manifestation of terminal finality. If the HP of the target is below 20%, the user teleports instantly to the critical weak point of the target. The resulting strike ignores all damage caps, invulnerability frames, and health-locking mechanics. Base damage is multiplied by 50x. Cooldown: 24 hours.]

Dante stared at the prompt.

A flat fifty-times damage multiplier on an armor-piercing strike that ignored invulnerability frames.

He looked up at the sky.

The Blade-Saint and Lady Vespera had the dragon completely pinned.

The fire of Vespera had burned away the massive wings of the beast and grounded it.

The dragon was desperately trying to stay airborne. Its three heads thrashed in agony.

Dante watched the massive server-wide health bar hovering above the beast.

[Cerberus Void-Dragon HP: 26%]

[Cerberus Void-Dragon HP: 22%]

"Almost there," Dante whispered and held his right hand out.

The black brand on his wrist violently flared.

Thick and light-absorbing smoke erupted from his palm. It instantly solidified into the massive and jagged shape of [Voidsever].

The primordial greatsword recognized the cosmic scale of the target above.

It vibrated furiously in his grip. It let out a low and thrumming hum that vibrated in the teeth of Dante.

[Cerberus Void-Dragon HP: 20%]

The Blade-Saint swung his celestial greatsword. He drove it deep into the center chest of the dragon.

[Cerberus Void-Dragon HP: 19%]

"Now," Dante said.

[Skill Executed: Gaze of the Abyss]

The sky didn’t just flash. Reality itself seemed to tear open.

Dante completely bypassed standard teleportation physics. He didn’t cross the physical distance between himself and the dragon.

The system simply deleted him from his current coordinates and pasted him directly into the optimal strike zone.

He materialized in mid-air and stood perfectly still.

He was directly behind the center head of the Cerberus Void-Dragon and hovered just inches over its exposed tumor-covered spinal column.

The dragon didn’t even have time to register his presence.

Dante gripped the bone hilt of Voidsever with both iron-plated gauntlets.

He didn’t pull the blade back for a massive winding swing.

He just angled the jagged tip downward and thrust it cleanly into the gap between the vertebrae of the dragon.

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

The black blade slid through the Annihilation-Tier scales like they didn’t exist.

The moment the blade penetrated the digital flesh of the dragon, the system interface hitched.

The mathematical calculations required for the interaction were actively crashing the combat engine of the server.

Dante had 100 points in his hidden Luck stat.

Voidsever was plunging into a Calamity. The sword was drowning in bloodlust.

The cosmic dice didn’t just roll. They shattered.

[Hidden Trait Triggered: Doom’s Echo]

[Multiplier Applied: 1,000,000,000%]

The base attack power of Dante was multiplied by the Zenith-tier 50x modifier of [Gaze of the Abyss]. It was suddenly multiplied again by one billion percent.

There was no sound. There was no massive explosion of fire or shockwave of concussive force.

The Cerberus Void-Dragon just stopped moving.

The Blade-Saint was hovering ten feet away and lowered his celestial sword. His glowing white eyes widened in absolute shock.

Lady Vespera stopped casting. Her violet eyes locked onto the tiny gold-armored human standing on the spine of the beast.

Above the three heads of the dragon, a damage number popped up.

The number was so astronomically large that the standard Zenith Protocol font broke.

The numbers overlapped and glitched in bright and aggressive red static.

[-5,940,000,000,000! OVERKILL!]

Nearly six trillion points of unmitigated true damage.

The dragon didn’t explode into pixels.

The sheer and overwhelming force of the strike completely unraveled its core code.

The physical form of the beast turned entirely gray and lost all color and texture.

It cracked like brittle porcelain. Spider-webbed fractures raced across its massive body.

Then, the Annihilation-Tier Calamity silently dissolved into fine and glittering gray ash that drifted harmlessly into the wind.

Dante didn’t fall.

He dismissed Voidsever back into his wrist.

He perfectly timed a [Blink Step] to arrest his momentum and hovered calmly in the center of the massive ash cloud.

The sky above Outpost 404 was completely clear.

The oppressive purple light faded and returned to the standard and vibrant violet of the beginner zone.

The server went dead silent.