Before Dante could step fully into the blue exit portal, he stopped.

He looked down at the invisible glass floor. The massive Dark Demon boss, Gluttony, had been completely vaporized by the localized supernova, but the Zenith Protocol’s core loot mechanics hadn’t been bypassed.

Because of the [Zenith Incarnate] title he had just earned, his loot drop rate was permanently locked at 100%.

Resting on the glass floor, completely ignored during his frantic weapon upgrade, was a pile of loot that made the Titan-tier cache from the Chimera look like pocket change.

Dante pulled his foot back from the portal. "Right. The spoils."

He walked over to the pile. The sheer volume of items was staggering. A Dark Demon boss possessed a massive, highly diluted loot table.

Normally, a forty-man raid group would kill a boss like this and receive a handful of gold coins and maybe one or two low-tier items, rolling the dice for a 0.01% chance at the premium gear.

Dante didn’t have to roll. He got everything.

He didn’t bother using the [Band of the Void-Walker] to vacuum it all up instantly. He wanted to see exactly what a 100% drop rate looked like on an end-game entity.

He knelt down and picked up the largest item first.

It was a full set of heavy armor. It looked nothing like the gleaming gold of his [Sun-Forged Cuirass]. The metal was an oily, shifting dark purple, forged into sharp interlocking plates. It seemed to absorb the dim light around it.

[Item Appraised: Carapace of the Void-Devourer]

[Tier: Dark Demon]

[Type: Heavy Armor Set (Full Body)]

[Stats: +8,000 Physical Defense, +8,000 Magical Defense.]

[Passive 1 (Hungering Maw): Converts 10% of all incoming physical damage into recovered Stamina.]

[Passive 2 (Void Shift): User can phase through solid, non-magical objects up to 5 feet thick. Cooldown: 60 seconds.]

Dante stared at the defensive stats. Eight thousand. It was more than double what his current Gold-tier armor provided.

The stamina recovery passive was incredible for his resource-heavy Zenith skills, and the ability to literally walk through walls fundamentally broke the game’s environmental design.

He immediately tapped the armor. The [Sun-Forged Cuirass] dissolved into golden light, safely returning to his inventory, while the dark purple plates seamlessly wrapped around his avatar.

The new armor felt heavier, carrying a strange gravity, but it didn’t restrict his movement.

He looked at his new baseline defense.

[Physical Defense: 10,845]

"I’m a walking bunker," Dante smiled.

He reached back into the pile and pulled out a sleek, curved broadsword. The blade was a brilliant, polished gold, etched with glowing white runes.

[Item Appraised: Dawn-Breaker Blade]

[Tier: Gold]

[Type: One-Handed Sword]

[Stats: +1,200 Physical Attack. Passive: Deals +50% damage to ’Corrupted’ or ’Void’ type enemies.]

It was a massive upgrade over the [Crimson Edge]. He equipped it instantly, strapping the heavy gold scabbard to his hip.

It would serve as the perfect secondary weapon when he didn’t want to risk triggering Voidsever’s reflection mechanics.

He tossed the [Crimson Edge] into his void ring. It had served him well, but it was officially obsolete.

Dante sifted through the remaining pile. He found massive stacks of rare crafting materials, thousands of highly concentrated Void-cores, and millions of gold coins.

He vacuumed those into his inventory, clearing space to look at the smaller, more unique drops.

He found a small, heavy iron token stamped with the image of a crossed sword and shield.

[Item Appraised: Guild Creation Token (Gold-Tier)]

[Description: Allows the user to officially register a guild with the system. Gold-Tier tokens bypass standard member requirements and instantly grant the guild access to a Level 3 Guildhall, dedicated NPC merchants, and a 10% passive EXP boost for all members.]

Dante tossed it in the air and caught it.

Guild creation tokens were incredibly expensive to purchase from the system vendors in the capital cities.

A Gold-tier token was practically priceless.

"I could sell this to Crimson Lotus for another billion," Dante mused. "Or I could just keep it in my pocket and never use it, just to spite the server economy."

He tossed the token into the void ring.

He found a skillbook sitting near the edge of the pile. The cover was a dark, bruised purple, matching his new armor.

[Item Appraised: Skillbook - Phantom Dash]

[Tier: Master]

[Description: A highly advanced mobility skill. The user instantly teleports up to 30 feet. Upon materialization, releases a localized sonic boom that inflicts a guaranteed 1-second stun on all hostile entities within a 10-foot radius. Cooldown: 15 seconds.]

Dante immediately absorbed it.

[Skill Learned: Phantom Dash (Master)]

He didn’t activate the 10,000x multiplier yet. He had enough Zenith-tier mobility skills currently draining his stamina, and an instant-teleport stun was incredibly useful in its base Master-tier form for quick crowd control without risking massive collateral damage.

He stood up, looking at the completely empty glass floor. The physical loot was gone.

But Dante wasn’t finished.

He had played survival games before the Zenith Protocol dragged humanity into the VR capsules. He knew that when you killed a massive beast, the drops weren’t the only resource available.

He pulled a basic, rusty hunting knife out of his infinite inventory.

He walked over to the spot where Gluttony had exploded. There was no physical corpse, the Dark Demon had been completely vaporized by the supernova and Aura’s reset but the residual, localized dark matter was still faintly swirling in the air, slowly fading away.

Dante activated a basic utility skill he had learned on day one of Aethelgard.

[Skill Executed: Harvest]

He slashed the rusty knife through the fading dark matter.

[Harvest Failed. Target is intangible.]

"Try again," Dante muttered.

[Skill Executed: Harvest]

[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]

The enlightenment rush for a utility skill was bizarre. Dante didn’t learn how to hit harder or move faster. He suddenly understood the exact, fundamental anatomy of digital constructs.

He knew how to perfectly flay code from a wireframe without damaging the core files. He understood how to extract raw, unfiltered data from a deteriorating server asset.

[Harvest has reached Adept tier.]

[Harvest has reached Master tier.]

[Harvest has reached Grandmaster tier.]

The rusty hunting knife glowed with a bright, clinical white light.

[Harvest has reached Zenith tier.]

[Skill Evolution Triggered.]

[Harvest has evolved into: Code Extraction.]

Dante swiped the glowing knife through the fading dark matter again.

This time, the blade didn’t pass through empty air. It hooked onto the deteriorating code of the vaporized boss, completely halting the system’s deletion sequence.

[Code Extraction Successful.]

[Item Acquired: Gluttony’s Molar (Dark Demon Material)]

Dante smiled. "Excellent."

He stood in the center of the void and began rapidly spamming the skill, slashing the glowing knife back and forth through the invisible data cloud.

[Code Extraction Successful.]

[Item Acquired: Gluttony’s Molar]

[Code Extraction Successful.]

[Item Acquired: Condensed Void Sludge]

[Code Extraction Successful.]

[Item Acquired: Tendril Fragment]

He was literally skinning a boss that didn’t exist anymore.

After thirty seconds of non-stop harvesting, the system governing the Spire partition finally reacted. It didn’t flash a standard red warning prompt.

A localized text box popped up directly in front of Dante’s face. The font was standard white, but the tone was distinctly annoyed.

[System Notice: The entity has already been deleted. Please proceed to the exit portal.]

"I’m gathering," Dante said aloud, not stopping his relentless slashing.

[Code Extraction Successful.]

[Item Acquired: Dark Demon Bone Marrow]

[System Notice: The structural integrity of this partition is deteriorating. Your continued extraction of residual code is causing localized latency. Please stop.]

"Just a few more," Dante smirked, swiping the knife again.

[Code Extraction Successful.]

[System Notice: Seriously. Stop. You have already acquired 100% of the designated loot table. You are currently harvesting raw server debris. It is unsanitary.]

"I have an infinite inventory," Dante replied. "I’ll take the garbage too."

The system was visibly exasperated. The text box flashed rapidly, changing from white to a frustrated, blinking yellow.

[System Notice: If you cease this unauthorized extraction immediately, the system will compensate you with the remaining hidden assets located within this partition’s memory cache.]

Dante stopped. He lowered the glowing knife.

"Deal," Dante said.

The system didn’t hesitate. It wanted him out of the room.

Two small, glowing items instantly materialized out of thin air and dropped directly into Dante’s outstretched hand.

[System Notice: Compensation delivered. Goodbye.]

The blue exit portal in the center of the room flared violently, its gravitational pull increasing, actively attempting to suck Dante toward the exit.

Dante held his ground against the pull and looked at the two items he had successfully extorted from the Spire’s AI.

The first was a torn, heavily burned piece of parchment. It looked incredibly old, completely out of place in a digital game world.

[Item Appraised: Fragment of the Super-Mythic Map (1/4)]

[Description: A piece of a map detailing the location of a sealed, primordial armory. Finding all four pieces will reveal the coordinates. Cannot be destroyed. Cannot be dropped upon death.]

Dante raised an eyebrow. A Super-Mythic map. The Zenith Protocol usually capped item tiers at Divine or Celestial.

Super-Mythic implied something that existed before the game was even fully compiled. He stored it safely in his void ring.

He looked at the second item.

It was a small, intricately carved piece of silver metal. It looked like a single scale from a much larger suit of armor. It glowed with a soft, warm, protective light that felt entirely different from the harsh neon of the system interfaces.

[Item Appraised: Scale of the Goddess]

[Tier: Lore Item (Divine)]

[Description: A fragment of armor worn by a forgotten deity during the First War. If kept in the user’s active inventory, it grants a permanent, passive aura of absolute protection.]

[Passive Effect: All incoming damage from any source (Physical, Magical, Environmental, True Damage) is permanently reduced by 50%.]

Dante stared at the tiny silver scale.

"A permanent fifty percent damage reduction," Dante whispered.

It didn’t require an active skill slot. It didn’t require mana. It just sat in his pocket and effectively doubled his already massive health pool.

Even if a boss managed to pierce his 10,000+ defense stat, the resulting damage would be cut in half before it even touched his HP bar.

He had pushed the system too far, and it had handed him a broken defensive artifact just to make him leave the room.

"I need to harass the system AI more often," Dante smiled, slipping the silver scale into a secure pocket on his new Dark-Demon armor.

He turned toward the aggressively pulsing blue exit portal.

He had the stats. He had the gear. He had the ultimate weapon.

Dante stepped forward, letting the blue light completely swallow him, finally leaving the Abyss behind.