Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Vengeance is a Dish Served Scorched, The Syndicate’s Stand

Dante walked toward the main gates of Outpost 404. His boots crunched against the hard dirt.

The massive wooden doors were wide open to reveal the dark and sprawling expanse of the beginner forest beyond.

But the exit was currently blocked.

Standing in a wide crescent formation just outside the safe zone boundary were over a hundred players.

They were all wearing the matching black and gold armbands of Vanguard’s Legacy.

Front and center stood Thorne.

The massive tank had already used his free game-wide respawn.

He was back in his starting linen shirt and basic leather pants. He was completely stripped of the heavy iron armor and the [Titan’s Blood Gem] Dante had looted off his corpse an hour ago.

He looked significantly less intimidating without the legacy gear. But the sheer number of players backing him up gave him a renewed sense of extreme arrogance.

Dante stopped right at the edge of the safe zone boundary.

A crowd of neutral players quickly gathered behind him. They whispered and pointed.

"You actually have the nerve to show your face," Thorne spat and stepped forward.

He held a basic wooden club. It was a pathetic downgrade, but his eyes were burning with absolute hatred.

"Did you really think you could humiliate us and just walk away? Silas gave the order. You do not leave this Outpost. We camp you here until you delete your character."

"You brought a hundred Level 3s to camp a Level 10," Dante said with a flat voice. "Silas always was terrible at math."

"Numbers win, Dan," Thorne sneered. He gestured to the mob behind him.

"You might have high stats, but you only have one health bar. You step one foot outside that safe zone, and we are going to chain-stun you into the dirt. We take back the sword of Vargas, we take the Ironfang loot, and we take your pride. It is over."

"Right," Dante sighed and rolled his shoulders. "Let us get this over with."

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

He simply took a casual step forward. He crossed the invisible boundary line that separated the strict non-combat zone of the Outpost from the open PVP rules of the wild.

"Light him up!" Thorne roared and pointed his club at Dante.

The backline of Vanguard’s Legacy immediately went to work.

Fifty archers drew back basic wooden bows.

Twenty mages began chanting. Their hands glowed with the faint and flickering light of Novice-tier magic.

"Fire!"

A massive barrage of iron-tipped arrows and small elemental bolts launched into the air. They arched directly toward Dante.

For a normal player, even a Level 10, getting hit by seventy projectiles at once was a guaranteed death sentence.

The chip damage alone would zero out their health pool in less than a second.

Dante didn’t even blink. He just tapped into his newly acquired skill.

[Skill Executed: Wrath of the Firebird]

He swiped his right hand horizontally across the empty air in front of him.

The temperature in the clearing instantly spiked to a suffocating extreme.

The air directly in front of Dante ignited. It exploded into a blinding and white-hot wall of primordial flame.

The arrows and magic bolts hit the wall of fire and instantly vaporized into nothing. They didn’t even leave ash behind.

"What the..." Thorne started. He took a step back as the sheer heat washed over his face and singed his eyebrows.

The wall of fire didn’t just burn. It shrieked!

The flames rapidly condensed and expanded. They took the distinct and terrifying shape of a colossal phoenix with a forty-foot wingspan.

The projection illuminated the entire forest. It cast long and horrific shadows across the faces of the Syndicate members.

"Burn," Dante said.

The Firebird launched forward.

It didn’t fly overhead. It swept directly through the formation of Vanguard’s Legacy.

The speed of the projection was completely unavoidable.

When the white-hot flames hit the frontline, the damage numbers of the game popped up in the air.

[-1,450!]

[-1,520!]

[Critical Hit: -3,000!]

For a crowd of Level 3 players who boasted a maximum health pool of around 150 HP, taking four-digit damage was a mathematical absurdity.

The entire center of the Syndicate formation simply ceased to exist.

There were no screams. There was no time to panic or pop health potions.

Over sixty players were instantly deleted from the server. Their avatars turned into massive clouds of blue pixels that drifted upward into the violet sky.

The Firebird projection continued for another set of feet.

It left a massive and scorched trench of blackened earth in its wake before finally fading into a shower of harmless embers.

Thorne had managed to dive to the far left edge of the formation. He barely escaped the direct hit.

He hit the dirt hard and scrambled frantically backward like a cornered animal.

The remaining forty Syndicate members who had survived the blast radius were completely frozen.

They looked at the smoking crater where their friends had just been standing. They looked at the four-digit damage numbers fading into the air.

Weapons clattered to the ground. Players literally fell to their knees.

"Impossible," Thorne whispered. His voice trembled violently. "You are cheating. That is a hacked skill. You are a hacker!"

Dante slowly walked forward. His boots stepped over the blackened and smoking earth.

He stopped a few feet away from where Thorne was cowering in the mud.

"I told you," Dante said. He looked down at the massive tank. "Numbers do not win. Power wins."

Dante reached over his shoulder and slowly drew the [Crimson Edge].

The blood-red metal of the longsword gleamed under the torches of the Outpost.

He held it up so the entire crowd of surviving Syndicate members and the massive audience of neutral players watching from the safe zone could see it clearly.

"Listen up," Dante projected his voice. He made sure it carried across the dead silence of the clearing.

Every single eye locked onto him.

"This sword is a Silver-grade legacy weapon. It has a base attack power higher than anything you are going to see in this starter zone for the next month. And I do not need it."

Dante pointed the tip of the [Crimson Edge] directly at Thorne.

"Thorne and Vargas have already used their free game-wide revives," Dante announced to the crowd.

"If they die again, it is permanent. Their capsules on Veridia will fry their brains. They are currently sitting on exactly one life."

The face of Thorne went completely pale. "Shut up! Dan, shut up!"

"I am placing a public bounty," Dante continued. He completely ignored the panic of Thorne.

"Whoever permanently kills Thorne or Vargas gets this sword. I do not care if you are a solo player, a rival guild, or one of their own Vanguard’s Legacy members who wants a massive upgrade."

"You bring me proof of their final death, and the [Crimson Edge] is yours."

The silence in the clearing shattered.

The forty surviving Syndicate members didn’t look at Dante. They slowly and mechanically turned their heads to look at Thorne.

A Silver-grade weapon. In the first few hours of a new world.

It was enough to make a player a localized god. It was enough to secure lucrative sponsorships back in the real world.

And all they had to do was kill a guy who was currently sitting in the mud with a wooden club.

"Guys," Thorne stammered. He held his hands up as his own guildmates started taking slow steps toward him. "Guys, come on. Silas will pay you. Silas has money! Do not listen to him!"

"Silas is not here," one of the Syndicate mages said. He pulled a crude iron dagger from his belt.

Dante didn’t stick around to watch the betrayal unfold.

He turned his back on the mob and walked past the slaughter. He headed directly into the deep woods.

Behind him, the chaotic and desperate screams of Thorne echoed into the night. It told him the bounty was already working flawlessly.