Free Web NovelChapter 118: Chapter 118: The Law of Good Boys
Dante materialized at the far end of the tunnel, completely surrounded by the Rogue Cultist Handler and a fresh pack of Abyssal Maw-Hounds.
The [Aether-Blade Storm] instantly reacted to the hostile presence. The swirling halo of silver broadswords aggressively expanded, seeking out the charging beasts.
The narrow tunnel echoed with a rapid, deafening series of explosions as the phantom swords intercepted the hounds, atomizing them in bursts of Zenith-tier True Damage.
But Dante wasn’t paying attention to the slaughter occurring immediately around him.
He had seen the coordinate swap. He knew exactly what the Cultist had pushed through the portal.
He spun around, looking back down the tunnel. The massive, chaotic melee of the Legion of Blades blocked his line of sight, but the party interface hovering in the corner of his vision was flashing aggressively.
[Warning: Pet ’Aura’ is targeted by lethal mechanic.]
"Mei! Block it!" Dante roared over the noise of the explosions, desperately trying to trigger [Meteor Stride] to close the gap.
The distance was too great. The teleport had a maximum range of one hundred feet, and the Cultist had displaced him nearly three hundred yards down the cavern.
Back at the front of the tunnel, the situation was catastrophic.
The Abyssal Maw-Hound that had dropped out of the portal landed perfectly inside their formation. The beast didn’t care about the heavily armored players screaming nearby.
Its Gold-tier system instantly locked onto the highest concentration of raw cosmic energy in the immediate area.
It aimed straight for Aura.
The tiny silver fox chimed in absolute panic, her three starlight tails tucking defensively as the massive, shadow-covered hound lunged.
The vertical maw, lined with hundreds of jagged obsidian teeth, snapped open, fully intending to swallow the Grade 8 Sprite and instantly trigger her structural deletion.
Mei didn’t freeze. The Brawler reacted with pure, unadulterated instinct.
She swung the massive cast-iron [God-Slaying Skillet] in a desperate, horizontal sweep, aiming to bat the beast away before its jaws could close over the pet.
SWISH.
The pan didn’t hit anything.
The hound’s [Devouring Charge] passive was fully active. The beast’s physical form shifted, completely ignoring physical collision parameters.
The massive iron pan passed straight through the hound’s shadowy torso like it was swinging through smoke.
"It phased right through!" Mei shrieked, stumbling forward from her own momentum.
Lila raised her wooden staff, frantically trying to cast [Gravity Well] to pin the beast, but chantless magic still required a fraction of a second to target.
The hound was too fast. The vertical jaws were mere inches from Aura.
"No!" Pip screamed, hiding inside Mei’s tunic, refusing to look.
Before the teeth could clamp shut, a small, pale hand reached out and grabbed the edge of Mei’s bright red tunic.
Erebus stepped out from behind the Brawler.
The Half-Soul Celestial didn’t look bored or hungry anymore. The tiny girl in the gothic dress looked incredibly, genuinely angry.
Her solid, blood-red eyes flared with a terrifying, absolute intensity that completely overwhelmed the ambient dimness of the tunnel.
She didn’t like the hounds. They were loud, they were chaotic, and they were trying to eat the shiny fox that gave her meat buns.
Erebus didn’t use telekinesis. She didn’t summon a massive wave of dark magic.
She simply pointed a tiny finger directly at the lunging, shadow-covered hound.
"Those are good doggies," Erebus stated. Her voice wasn’t flat. It carried a heavy, dual-layered resonance that physically vibrated the stone floor. "And good doggies bite bad people."
The Zenith Protocol’s combat engine didn’t hitch this time. It violently shattered.
[System Event: Reality Altered.]
The massive, vertical jaws, which were less than an inch away from snapping Aura in half, abruptly halted. The beast momentum simply ceased to exist.
The oily, shifting black shadows covering its body rapidly receded, turning into a smooth, glossy coat of dark gray fur.
The horrific vertical maw sealing its torso melted away, seamlessly replaced by a standard, albeit massive, canine head with glowing yellow eyes.
More importantly, the red, hostile targeting icon hovering above the beast instantly flipped to a friendly, bright green.
The hound dropped to the stone floor. It didn’t attack Aura. It sat back on its haunches, tilted its head, and let out a soft, completely normal dog whine, looking expectantly at Erebus.
Mei slowly lowered the frying pan. Her jaw was hanging completely open.
Lila stared at the massive beast sitting obediently in front of the toddler.
"She... she just un-corrupted it," Lila whispered, absolutely horrified by the casual display of power. "She literally just rewrote its fundamental combat logic."
Erebus didn’t smile. She just pointed her finger down the tunnel, aiming directly past the terrified remnants of the Legion of Blades, pointing straight at the Rogue Cultist Handler standing at the far end of the cavern.
"Bite him," Erebus ordered.
The newly reformed ’good doggie’ didn’t hesitate. It let out a deafening, terrifying roar that sounded entirely different from the grinding metal noise it had made previously.
It launched itself forward, completely ignoring Mei, Lila, and Aura.
The reality-altering command wasn’t restricted to a single target.
As the first hound charged, the ’Law of Command’ rippled outward, carrying the cosmic weight of the Half-Soul Celestial.
The command washed over the entire pack of Abyssal Maw-Hounds currently chewing their way through Valerius’s army.
Dozens of the horrific, shadow-covered beasts suddenly stopped attacking the Legionnaires.
Their black shadows melted into gray fur. Their vertical maws sealed shut. Their hostile red targeting icons flipped to friendly green.
The entire pack turned around simultaneously.
Valerius, heavily wounded and panting for breath, stared as the monsters that had just eaten half his guild completely ignored him.
The pack of massive, gray hounds surged down the tunnel, acting with terrifying, unified purpose. They didn’t run with the chaotic aggression of wild beasts; they moved like a highly disciplined strike team.
At the far end of the tunnel, Dante was busy managing the [Aether-Blade Storm]. He had just atomized the last hound in his immediate vicinity when he saw the massive pack charging toward him.
He braced himself, preparing to spam [Phantom Dash] and execute them.
Then he noticed the green targeting icons.
Dante lowered his sword, stepping slightly to the side.
The pack of hounds completely bypassed Dante. They didn’t even look at him. They rushed past him like a gray tidal wave, heading straight for the Rogue Cultist Handler.
The Cultist didn’t understand what was happening. His system programming was completely unequipped to handle his own summoned minions turning on him.
"What are you doing?!" the Cultist shrieked, raising his jagged iron staff. "Obey me!" freёwebnovel.com
The hounds didn’t obey.
They hit the Cultist like a freight train.
There was no drawn-out boss fight. There was no complex mechanic to mitigate.
Dozens of massive, powerful jaws clamped down on the Cultist simultaneously. They dragged him to the ground, completely overwhelming his defensive stats with sheer numbers and raw, aggressive kinetic force.
The Cultist screamed, his iron skull mask shattering as the hounds tore into him.
His Level 45 health bar was entirely shredded in less than three seconds.
[-12,000!]
[-15,000!]
[-18,000! OVERKILL!]
The boss didn’t even get a chance to cast a desperation spell. He was violently, ruthlessly devoured by his own ’good doggies’.
The Cultist exploded into a massive shower of blue and silver polygons.
The moment the boss died, the pack of gray hounds stopped attacking. They sat down in a neat, orderly circle around the pile of dropped loot, panting happily, their glowing yellow eyes watching Dante.
Dante stared at the hounds. Then he looked back down the tunnel toward Erebus.
The little girl was currently rummaging through her massive backpack, completely ignoring the fact that she had just casually resolved a major boss encounter by turning the enemy’s army into a pack of obedient golden retrievers.
"That is genuinely the most broken mechanic I have ever seen," Dante muttered, dismissing the [Aether-Blade Storm]. The hundred floating silver swords vanished into thin air.
He walked over to the loot pile, cautiously stepping past the sitting hounds. They didn’t growl or snap. They just wagged their tails.
Because the Cultist wasn’t a major SSS-Rank boss, the loot was relatively modest, but his 100% drop rate still guaranteed a solid haul.
He vacuumed up the gold coins, a stack of high-tier dark magic scrolls, and the shattered pieces of the iron skull mask.
He didn’t linger.
He turned around and started walking back up the tunnel to regroup with his squad.
The middle of the cavern was a complete disaster zone.
The Legion of Blades had been utterly devastated. Valerius had marched a thousand elite players into the Wyrm-Sealed Abyss.
Less than two hundred of them were still standing. The rest had been instantly executed by the hounds’ devouring charge before Erebus altered their reality.
The surviving players were completely demoralized. They were sitting on the stone floor, leaning against the walls, desperately chugging health potions and staring at the gray hounds sitting quietly at the end of the tunnel. freёweɓnovel.com
Valerius was standing in the center of the carnage. His silver armor was heavily scratched, and his cape was torn. He looked up as Dante approached.
The Warlord didn’t raise his sword. The fanatic discipline that usually defined the Legion was entirely absent. He just looked completely, utterly defeated.
"You did this," Valerius said, his voice quiet and trembling. "You planned this. You brought us down here to feed us to those things."
Dante stopped walking. He looked at the Guild Master.
"I didn’t invite you, Valerius," Dante said flatly. "You followed me. You tried to set up an ambush in a Level 70 zone. The system punished you for being arrogant."
Dante didn’t wait for a response. He walked right past the defeated Warlord, completely ignoring the surviving players. They weren’t a threat anymore.
He reached the front of the tunnel.
Lila was sitting on the ground, holding her head in her hands. Mei was excitedly petting one of the gray hounds that had stayed behind, while Pip cautiously inspected its tail. Casanova was still hiding.
And Erebus was happily chewing on another meat bun.
"Is everyone okay?" Dante asked.
"I think my brain is breaking," Lila whispered, not looking up. "She just told the game to change the rules, and the game listened. That shouldn’t be mathematically possible."
"She’s a Celestial anomaly," Dante reminded her. "The math doesn’t apply to her."
Dante looked down the dark, spiraling staircase leading deeper into the Abyss. The Cultist Handler had only been the first obstacle.
The roars of the dragons resounding from the deep were still aggressively vibrating the stone walls.
"Let’s keep moving," Dante ordered. "We still have a dungeon to clear, and I want to see exactly what else this kid can do."
