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

The deep, resonant hum of Aria’s flute resounded across the high plateau. The [Hymn of Strength] washed over Aegis Vanguard, instantly doubling their attack power and locking their critical hit chance at a flawless one hundred percent.

Dante stood at the very edge of the steep cliff, looking down into the massive, sprawling gorge.

At the edge of the Sky Demon Forest, the unified army finally came to a complete halt. Fifty thousand heavily armored players filled the valley floor, creating an absolute ocean of overlapping guild tabards.

The sheer scale of the force was breathtaking. It wasn’t a standard raid; it was a mobilized nation preparing for total war.

At the very front of the massive formation, riding incredibly expensive armored warhorses, sat the three Guild Masters.

Silas wore his pristine Silver-grade armor, his face twisted into a mask of pure, desperate determination.

To his right, Ryujin sat clad in bright crimson samurai plating, gripping a replacement katana.

To his left, Gawain of the Apex Coalition rested a massive golden warhammer against his broad shoulder.

"He is in this forest," Silas stated, his voice tight. "The bounty trackers confirmed he jumped into this quadrant."

"The forest is massive, Silas," Gawain growled, looking at the towering, twisted trees dripping with dark sap.

"We cannot blindly march fifty thousand infantrymen into these woods. The terrain will break our formations. If he uses his mobility skills, he will pick us apart from the shadows."

Ryujin sneered behind his samurai mask. "We don’t need to wander blindly. We flush him out."

The Sakura Nation leader raised his hand, signaling a specialized detachment of mages sitting just behind the frontline.

"Trackers!" Ryujin barked. "Find the anomaly!"

A dozen high-tier mages stepped forward. They didn’t cast offensive fireballs or defensive barriers.

They slammed their wooden staves into the dirt in perfect synchronization, initiating a massive, highly complex tracking array.

Glowing geometric circles expanded across the ground. The mages fed raw mana into the spell, searching the entire geographical footprint of the Sky Demon Forest for the specific, overwhelming cosmic weight radiating from Dante’s avatar.

For a few tense seconds, nothing happened.

Then, a blinding, bright red beam of magical light erupted from the tracking array. It shot horizontally through the forest canopy, curving sharply upward before slamming directly into the high, rocky plateau overlooking the gorge.

The red beam illuminated Dante’s gold armor perfectly.

"There he is!" Ryujin roared, pointing his katana up at the high ground. "He backed himself into a corner!"

Silas stared up at the cliff. He saw Dante looking down at them. He saw the small, seven-person squad standing behind the anomaly.

"He’s using a chokepoint," Silas realized, his strategic mind evaluating the terrain. The steep, narrow, rocky path leading from the gorge floor to the plateau was barely twenty feet wide.

"He wants us to funnel our troops up that incline to negate our numerical advantage."

"Let him try," Gawain bellowed, his massive chest heaving with righteous fury. "A chokepoint only works if the defenders can hold the line. He has seven people. I don’t care what his stats are. He cannot stop the combined might of three armies!"

Gawain spurred his armored warhorse forward, raising his golden hammer high into the air.

"Apex Coalition! Vanguard’s Legacy! Black Dragon Syndicate!" Gawain’s voice thundered across the valley, amplified by his Paladin class skills. "Advance! Take the hill! Leave nothing but digital ash!"

The fifty-thousand-man army roared in unison. The sound was deafening, a physical shockwave of battle cries and clashing steel.

The vanguard, consisting of thousands of heavy tower-shield tanks and heavily armored berserkers, broke from the main formation.

They surged forward, a tidal wave of metal and magic, charging aggressively up the steep, rocky incline of the gorge.

Up on the plateau, Dante didn’t flinch.

"They took the bait," Dante said, keeping his voice perfectly calm over the roar of the approaching army.

He stepped back from the edge of the cliff, giving his team a clear line of sight down the narrow path.

"Garrick," Dante ordered. "You’re up."

Garrick stepped forward. The middle-aged man walked directly to the absolute narrowest point of the steep path, completely blocking the only entrance to the plateau.

He wore the Silver-tier [Ash-Walker] armor Dante had given him, but he still looked incredibly out of place.

He wasn’t an intimidating, seasoned warrior. He was just an ordinary guy carrying a rusty kite shield, facing down a stampede of thousands of bloodthirsty players.

"I can do this," Garrick muttered to himself, his hands shaking slightly. "It’s just a game. Just a game."

He looked down the incline. The front line of the allied vanguard was less than forty yards away and closing fast.

Garrick closed his eyes. He stopped thinking about the game. He thought about the luxury hover-car. He thought about the ridiculous late-night book clubs.

He thought about the sheer, undeniable audacity of a three-inch pothole completely destroying his bicycle tire on a Tuesday night.

A deep, profound wave of absolute emotional frustration washed over him.

"I ASKED FOR THE MANAGER!" Garrick screamed at the top of his lungs.

[Player ’Garrick’ has activated Innate Talent: Spiteful Bulwark.]

A massive, translucent dome of incredibly hostile, dark red energy erupted from his rusty kite shield.

The dome expanded violently, perfectly sealing the twenty-foot-wide chokepoint from wall to wall.

The front line of the charging army slammed directly into the barrier.

CLANG! CLANG! CRASH!

The impact of hundreds of heavily armored players hitting the shield sounded like a train derailment. The sheer kinetic force of the charge was staggering.

But Garrick didn’t move an inch.

The [Spiteful Bulwark] absorbed the entire impact without buckling. The red energy flared aggressively, feeding directly off the tank’s immense marital trauma.

"Push!" a Vanguard’s Legacy lieutenant screamed, his face smashed against the red energy barrier. "Break his guard! Focus fire!"

The archers and mages running behind the frontline infantry didn’t hesitate. They unleashed an absolute torrent of magical artillery.

Fireballs, frost lances, and thousands of armor-piercing arrows rained down on the narrow path, detonating violently against Garrick’s shield.

The red dome crackled under the sheer volume of overlapping damage.

Garrick grunted, dropping to one knee as the physical strain of maintaining the shield started to bleed through. His health bar dipped slightly.

He wasn’t alone.

Aura, the Grade 8 Mystic Sovereign, floated serenely right above Garrick’s head. She didn’t look worried about the massive army. She simply pulsed her bright silver light.

[Skill Activated: Ultimate Guardian Halo]

A massive, invisible dome of pure starlight enveloped Garrick. The 60% flat damage reduction instantly blunted the incoming artillery fire. But more importantly, the massive, continuous passive healing engaged.

[+5,400 HP/sec]

Garrick’s health bar snapped back to maximum instantly. Every time the magical bombardment chipped away a fraction of his health, Aura’s healing immediately overwrote the damage.

He was mathematically invincible.

"You call this damage?!" Garrick yelled at the army trapped on the other side of his shield. "My divorce lawyer hits harder than that!"

Dante stood behind his unbreakable tank, nodding in approval. The frontline was perfectly secure.

"Lila, Nyx," Dante commanded, drawing the [Dawn-Breaker Blade]. "The chokepoint is clogged. Clear it out."

Lila stepped up to the edge of the cliff overlooking the packed path. Her blue eyes narrowed in intense focus. She didn’t chant.

She raised her Dark Demon staff and slammed the butt into the stone.

[Skill Executed: Gravity Well]

She dropped the massive, invisible cylinder of concentrated atmospheric pressure directly into the center of the charging infantry.

The effect was devastating. Hundreds of players were instantly crushed against the dirt path, their heavy armor buckling under the extreme gravitational pull.

They couldn’t move forward to attack Garrick, and the players charging up behind them stumbled and tripped over their pinned bodies, creating a massive, chaotic pile-up.

Nyx didn’t use a magical staff. The top-tier analyst stepped forward, her dark glasses reflecting the explosions below. She activated her [God of Shadow] class abilities.

[Skill Executed: Shadow-Spike Eruption]

The dark, elongated shadows cast by the trees lining the gorge suddenly solidified. Massive, razor-sharp spikes of pure, compressed darkness shot out of the ground directly beneath the players Lila had pinned.

The synergy was flawless.

[-14,000! Fatal Damage!]

[-15,500! Fatal Damage!]

Dozens of elite warriors were instantly impaled, their health bars zeroing out before they could even trigger a healing potion.

Blue pixels erupted in massive clouds as the vanguard was systematically shredded.

Dante didn’t just watch. It was time to add his own artillery to the mix.

He walked to the edge of the plateau, looking down at the struggling, panicking army trying to break through the chokepoint.

He opened his inventory and equipped the Novice-tier parry skillbook he had evolved at the forge.

[Skill Executed: Aether-Blade Storm]

Because of his [Chrono-Shift] talent, the Zenith-tier defensive skill had zero casting time and zero mana cost.

One hundred glowing, silver broadswords instantly materialized in the air around him. They formed a massive, swirling metallic halo, humming aggressively.

Normally, the skill was used to passively intercept incoming attacks.

Dante had a different application in mind.

He pointed his dark purple gauntlet directly down the steep incline, aiming at the densest cluster of surviving players struggling against the gravity well.

"Rain," Dante commanded softly.

The hundred phantom swords stopped swirling. They instantly reoriented, pointing their silver tips downward.

They shot off the plateau like a volley of high-tech missiles.

The silver blades tore through the air, screaming as they crossed the distance. They didn’t just cut when they hit the crowd.

They detonated.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The explosions of 1,000% True Damage completely bypassed the heavy physical mitigation of the enemy tanks. The narrow path of the gorge turned into an absolute slaughterhouse.

Every single explosion vaporized three or four players instantly. The True Damage ignored their shields, their armor, and their defensive buffs.

Because Aria was playing the [Hymn of Strength] in the background, Dante’s base attack power was doubled, and every single explosion registered as a guaranteed critical hit.

The damage output was mathematically apocalyptic.

[-65,000! OVERKILL!]

[-65,000! OVERKILL!]

Dante didn’t wait for the dust to clear. With his zero cooldowns, he simply activated the skill again.

Another hundred silver swords materialized. Another hundred swords rained down.

He turned himself into a fully automated, Zenith-tier orbital strike cannon. Wave after wave of explosive silver blades crashed into the gorge, relentlessly pounding the allied vanguard into digital ash.

Down at the base of the gorge, Gawain stared up at the plateau in absolute, unadulterated horror.

The massive Paladin watched his elite heavy infantry completely evaporate. They weren’t fighting.

They were just dying. The chokepoint was a literal meat grinder, and Aegis Vanguard hadn’t even taken a single point of damage.

"They aren’t breaking!" Gawain roared at Silas, pointing his golden hammer at the massacre. "That tank is absorbing everything, and Dan is dropping nukes on us! We have to pull them back!"

"No!" Silas screamed, his eyes wide and manic. "Push harder! He has to run out of mana eventually! Keep firing!"

"You’re going to get my entire guild deleted!" Gawain yelled back.

Ryujin, sitting silently on his warhorse, didn’t join the argument.

The Sakura Nation leader knew that a frontal assault against a mathematically flawless chokepoint was suicide.

He didn’t care about the infantry dying in the mud. He was looking at the high, sheer cliffs that flanked the plateau.

Ryujin signaled a lieutenant standing in the shadows behind his horse.

"They are completely focused on the front door," Ryujin whispered maliciously. "Take the stealth squads. Scale the cliffs. Bypass the tank entirely. I want those support casters dead in sixty seconds."

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