Started with a 10,000x Multiplier in a Game World

The gray vortex of the [Spatial Stone] collapsed. It spat Dante out onto solid ground.

He didn’t stumble. He landed perfectly balanced. The heavy iron boots of his [Evil Spirit Armor] crunched against a thick layer of coarse black ash.

He had arrived in the southern Ash-Wastes.

The environment was a bleak monochromatic nightmare.

The sky wasn’t blue or the bruised purple of a corrupted zone. It was a flat suffocating gray choked with thick continuous flurries of falling ash that looked like dirty snow.

The ground was entirely composed of cracked blackened earth and jagged obsidian spires.

There was no vegetation. There was no water.

[Zone Alert: The Ashen Peak]

[Hazard Detected: Extreme Ambient Heat. Continuous stamina drain active.]

Dante immediately felt the oppressive heat pressing against his armor, but the [Frost-God Constitution] completely neutralized the environmental threat.

His stamina bar remained full. It was permanently locked at maximum capacity by the [Breath of the Colossus].

He didn’t draw a weapon. He needed to find Silas before the Guild Master reached the headquarters of the Sect.

Dante activated [Dragon’s Insight].

His vision shifted, stripped away the gray ash, and revealed the underlying systemic data streams.

He scanned the desolate landscape. He looked for the bright aggressive red cluster of player signatures that would indicate an escort of Vanguard’s Legacy.

He saw nothing.

The immediate area was completely devoid of player activity.

The only signatures registering on his grid were the faint dormant yellow outlines of low-level ash-scorpions hiding beneath the rocks.

Dante frowned.

Silas had a massive head start, but a heavily armored player escort shouldn’t have been able to cross the wastes without leaving a distinct digital trail.

Unless Silas didn’t bring an escort.

Dante deactivated the vision skill and returned to standard perception.

He looked up at the towering jagged black mountain dominating the horizon. The peak was completely obscured by thick swirling gray clouds.

"He went in alone," Dante murmured.

It made sense.

The Sect of the Scorched Earth wasn’t a standard monster faction you could fight your way through. They were a highly specialized neutral lore faction.

Marching an army of guild members to their front door would trigger an aggressive defensive response.

Silas had to approach as a humble supplicant if he wanted to barter with the Patriarch.

Dante didn’t have time to hike up the mountain.

He triggered [Meteor Stride].

He vanished in a flash of white-hot light and teleported vertically up the steep ash-covered slopes of the mountain.

He chained the skill back-to-back and left a massive burning trail of superheated plasma cutting straight through the falling gray ash.

He reached the summit in less than a minute.

He materialized on a wide flat plateau carved directly into the peak of the mountain.

The architecture here was spartan and incredibly imposing.

A massive courtyard of smooth black obsidian surrounded a sprawling open-air temple complex.

Massive braziers forged from dark iron lined the courtyard and burned with intense roaring orange flames.

Dante stepped out of his plasma trail and walked forward. He kept his hands away from his weapons.

He didn’t make it ten feet.

The air in front of him shimmered violently and completely distorted the heat waves rising from the braziers.

Six figures stepped out of the distortion. They materialized in a perfect aggressive semi-circle completely blocking the path to the temple.

They weren’t standard NPC guards.

They wore sleek form-fitting armor forged from dark red scales and heavy black leather.

Their faces were entirely hidden beneath smooth featureless obsidian masks.

They didn’t carry swords or shields. They held long thin staves that glowed with concentrated searing heat.

[Entity Identified: Cinder-Mage Assassin]

[Faction: Sect of the Scorched Earth]

[Level: 60]

"Level 60 elite guards," Dante noted calmly. "You guys definitely are not a starter village faction."

The lead assassin didn’t raise his staff. He simply pointed a dark red gauntlet directly at the chest of Dante.

"Halt, Outworlder," the Cinder-Mage spoke. His voice didn’t echo. It was incredibly dry and sounded like cracking charcoal.

"You trespass upon the Ashen Peak. The Sect does not accept uninvited guests. Turn back, or we will reduce your avatar to cinders."

Dante didn’t retreat.

"I am looking for a player," Dante said and kept his voice entirely flat. "Silver armor. Arrogant. Probably sweating a lot right now. His name is Silas."

The Cinder-Mage didn’t react to the description.

"The affairs of the Patriarch are not the concern of a wandering anomaly. You will not pass."

Dante sighed.

He didn’t want to slaughter the guards of a neutral lore faction, but he wasn’t going to let Silas secure an assassination contract.

Before Dante could activate a skill to bypass them, the heavy iron-bound doors of the open-air temple slowly swung open.

The six Cinder-Mages instantly snapped to attention. They lowered their staves and bowed their heads respectfully.

A figure walked out of the temple.

It was Silas.

The Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy looked incredibly pale.

His pristine silver armor was covered in a fine layer of gray ash, and he was visibly trembling.

But as he looked up and saw Dante standing in the courtyard completely blocked by the elite NPC assassins, a slow incredibly vicious smile spread across his face.

"Dan," Silas called out, his voice echoing across the quiet courtyard. He didn’t sound panicked anymore. He sounded triumphant.

Dante looked at his former friend. "Silas. I see you found the gift shop."

Silas laughed. It was a harsh desperate sound.

He walked slowly toward the perimeter of the Cinder-Mages perfectly safe behind their Level 60 protection.

"You thought you won," Silas sneered and stopped a few feet behind the lead assassin.

"You thought bankrupting my guild and stealing the Celestial pet was the end of it. You think raw stats make you a god on this server."

"I think your corporate backers are going to break your kneecaps in the real world," Dante replied smoothly.

Silas flinched, the comment hitting dangerously close to home.

But he recovered quickly, his eyes burning with absolute unfiltered hatred.

"My corporate backers will reward me when I hand them the empty shell of your account," Silas spat.

He raised his hand. He wasn’t holding a weapon. He was holding a small intricately carved wooden box. It was open.

It was completely empty.

"I bought the cure, Dan," Silas stated. His voice dripped with pure unadulterated malice.

"I paid ten million real-world Veridian credits to a black-market data broker to secure the only known stack of [Three Star Rainbow Berries] on the server."

"And I just handed them directly to the Patriarch."

Dante stood perfectly still.

He didn’t pull the actual legitimate stack of [Three Star Rainbow Berries] out of his void ring.

He knew Silas had been scammed.

Silas had bought a convincing fake from a broker desperate for cash and was completely unaware that Dante had purchased the genuine system-verified item two days ago.

But Dante didn’t correct him. He wanted to see how deep Silas had dug his own grave.

"A cure for an assassination contract," Dante summarized.

"A cure for a complete systemic purge," Silas corrected him and pointed a finger at Dante.

"The Cinder-Mages do not just deal damage. Their attacks inflict an un-cleansable permanent ’Soul Burn’ debuff."

"If they kill you, your avatar does not just respawn. The burn actively degrades your core coding."

"You will lose levels, skills, and raw stats every single time you die."

Silas stepped closer to the line of assassins.

"I did not just hire one assassin," Silas grinned and spread his arms wide.

"I hired the entire Sect. They are going to hunt you, Dan. They are going to camp your respawn points, ignore your invulnerability frames, and burn you down until your account is completely utterly erased from the Zenith Protocol."

Dante looked at the six Level 60 assassins. Then he looked at Silas.

"That is a very dramatic plan, Silas," Dante said, utterly unimpressed.

"It is a flawless plan!" Silas roared and his composure finally broke. He turned to the lead Cinder-Mage.

"What are you waiting for?! The contract is sealed! Execute him!"

The six elite assassins didn’t move. They didn’t raise their staves.

They remained perfectly still with their featureless obsidian masks staring blankly at Dante.

Silas frowned. "I said execute him! I gave the Patriarch the cure! Fulfill the bargain!"

The heavy iron doors of the temple swung completely open.

The ambient temperature in the courtyard didn’t just spike. It aggressively skyrocketed.

The gray ash falling from the sky instantly vaporized into steam before it could even touch the ground.

A figure slowly walked out of the dark interior of the temple.

He was an old man dressed in simple ash-stained martial arts robes. He didn’t wear armor.

He leaned heavily on a polished wooden walking stick. But the sheer overwhelming cosmic weight radiating from his frail body completely dwarfed the six elite assassins standing in the courtyard.

It was Patriarch Ignis.

[Entity Identified: Patriarch Ignis (Sect of the Scorched Earth)]

[Level: 85]

[HP: 10,000,000 / 10,000,000]

The eyes of Dante widened slightly. Level 85. Ten million health.

This wasn’t a standard wandering NPC like the one he had encountered in the lower crags. This was the true awakened faction leader.

Patriarch Ignis stopped at the top of the temple steps. He didn’t look at Silas. He looked directly at Dante.

"Outworlder," Ignis spoke. His voice was a deep resonating rumble that sounded like shifting tectonic plates. "You stand upon the Ashen Peak. The domain of the Scorched Earth."

Silas panicked and stepped toward the steps. "Patriarch! The contract! I gave you the berries! You swore the Sect would eliminate my enemies!"

Ignis slowly turned his head to look at the Guild Master.

The eyes of the Patriarch weren’t old or clouded. They burned with a blinding terrifying white-hot internal fire.

"You brought me a clever forgery, Outworlder," Ignis stated. His voice was completely devoid of anger and stated an absolute systemic fact.

"The berries you offered possessed the visual data of the cure, but they lacked the necessary cosmic weight. They were useless."

Silas froze. The blood completely drained from his face.

"Fake?" Silas whispered and his voice cracked. "No. No, that is impossible. I paid ten million credits..."

"Your wealth is irrelevant to the system," Ignis dismissed him smoothly.

The Patriarch turned his attention back to Dante.

"The contract with the Guild Master is void," Ignis declared and his voice echoed across the courtyard.

"But the Sect of the Scorched Earth does not allow armed intruders to walk freely within its sanctum. We will test your resolve, anomaly."

Ignis didn’t raise his walking stick. He simply nodded to the six Cinder-Mages standing in the courtyard.

"Burn him," Ignis ordered.

The six elite assassins instantly snapped into motion.

They didn’t charge Dante with melee weapons.

They slammed the butts of their glowing staves into the obsidian floor in perfect synchronization.

[NPC Mechanic Triggered: Cinder-Storm Array]

A massive intricate array of glowing orange runes erupted across the courtyard. It completely trapped Dante inside a fifty-foot circle.

The temperature inside the array didn’t just rise. The air literally combusted.

A torrential unavoidable storm of highly concentrated superheated ash and liquid fire rapidly flooded the circle.

It was an environmental execution mechanic designed to completely ignore physical defense and continuously inflict the dreaded ’Soul Burn’ debuff.

Silas scrambled backward and hid behind a massive iron brazier to avoid the intense heat radiating from the trap.

He watched the trap spring with wide desperate eyes.

"Yes!" Silas cheered and his manic energy returned. The berries might have been fake, but the NPC was still killing his enemy. "Burn him to ash!"

Inside the blazing inferno of the array, Dante didn’t trigger an invulnerability frame.

He didn’t try to teleport out.

He just stood perfectly still and let the superheated fire wash completely over his dark purple armor.

He opened his system interface to watch his health bar.

[-0]

[-0]

[-0]

The [Frost-God Constitution] didn’t just double his ice damage. It completely and fundamentally rewrote his interaction with thermal energy.

The system text was absolute: All Ice and Frost-based damage taken is reduced to zero.

But Dante wasn’t relying on frost.

He pulled out the [All Lives Are Equal Scroll].

Wait. He didn’t have another one.

Dante just smiled. He didn’t need one.

He was immune to negative status effects. The ’Soul Burn’ debuff bounced harmlessly off his [Aetherial Nectar] buff.

He walked slowly through the blazing roaring fire completely unharmed to head directly toward the six terrified assassins.

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