Free Web NovelChapter 149: Chapter 149: The Bloodlust Stance
Dante walked out of the heavy iron-bound doors of the Astral Emporium.
The central plaza of Aethelgardia was still bustling with high-level players and NPC merchants.
They were entirely unaware of the administrative panic unfolding within the guild headquarters. freewёbnoνel.com
Dante kept his [Mantle of the Void-Dragon] pulled tight around his shoulders. He hid his gold armor and his glowing red eyes.
He didn’t use the localized transit network or a fast-travel portal.
He needed a moment to test his new passives in a controlled environment before dropping into a massive guild blockade.
He navigated the pristine white streets and headed for the western gates of the Capital.
He activated the toggle for his newest Zenith-tier skill.
[Stance Active: Blood-Lust]
There was no flashy visual aura or dramatic sound effect.
He simply felt a strange and cold sharpness settle over his avatar. It was a predatory instinct that wasn’t generated by his own thoughts.
The system was priming his digital physiology to actively steal health from anything he damaged.
"Twenty percent lifesteal," Dante murmured.
He stepped through the massive arched western gates and out into the open plains of the Veridian Alliance.
"Let us see how much I can heal with a single swing."
Mount Daqing was located a few hundred miles to the west. It was a towering jagged peak that pierced the clouds.
It was a prime A-rank grinding zone. It was famous for its high density of Level 30 Gold-tier mobs and lucrative resource nodes.
Dante didn’t summon a mount.
He activated the flight passive on his cloak. He launched himself into the sky and soared toward the mountain at terrifying and un-tethered speed.
He arrived in less than ten minutes.
He dropped altitude and banked sharply to survey the base of the mountain.
The intelligence of Nyx was flawlessly accurate.
A massive highly organized blockade was established at the primary entrance to the mountain pass.
Over five hundred players wearing the gold and white tabards of Vanguard’s Legacy were deployed in a strict perimeter.
They had erected crude wooden barricades and positioned dozens of archers on the rocky outcroppings overlooking the path.
They weren’t fighting monsters.
They were actively stopping independent players and rival guild members from entering the zone.
They aggressively funneled them into kill-boxes or extorted them for toll fees.
Dante hovered high above the blockade entirely obscured by the cloud cover.
He didn’t want to just drop a [Starfall] meteor shower on them.
Wiping them out from orbit was efficient, but it wouldn’t send the right message.
The new recruits of Silas needed to understand the visceral and terrifying reality of fighting the Asura Vanguard.
They needed to see him walk through their front door.
Dante initiated a rapid descent. He aimed his drop directly for a dense cluster of Vanguard’s Legacy tanks holding the center barricade.
He hit the ground with the force of an artillery shell.
BOOM.
The impact cratered the dirt road.
It violently threw the heavy infantry off their feet and scattered the wooden barricades into splinters.
The dust cleared instantly to reveal Dante standing in the center of the formation.
His gold armor gleamed, and his red eyes burned with the [Asura Vanguard] class marker.
"It is Dan!" a terrified rogue screamed from the backline and recognized the [Zenith Epaulet] on his shoulder. "He is here! The anomaly is here!"
"Hold the line!" the Vanguard lieutenant roared. He scrambled to his feet and drew a massive two-handed broadsword.
"He is just one guy! We have five hundred players! Chain CC him! Do not let him cast!"
Dante didn’t draw [Voidsever]. He didn’t even draw the [Dawn-Breaker Blade].
He simply activated his class skill.
[Skill Executed: Asura’s Descent]
The system interface violently flashed a stark blinding white immediately followed by an aggressive pulsing crimson.
[Physical Defense reduced to 0.]
[Magical Defense reduced to 0.]
His heavy armor essentially became cosmetic. He was completely stripped of his baseline mitigation.
But the trade-off activated instantly.
[Maximum HP multiplied by 10.]
[Attack Power Doubled.]
[Absolute Invulnerability Applied. Duration: 5 Seconds.]
His health bar skyrocketed to an absurd 255,000 HP. His raw attack power hit 10,200.
The archers of Vanguard’s Legacy didn’t wait. A massive volley of arrows and basic magic spells rained down on him.
The attacks hit the golden invulnerability frames and harmlessly dissipated.
Dante drew the [Dawn-Breaker Blade].
He had exactly five seconds to secure a kill and extend the invulnerability window.
He triggered [Phantom Dash]. He materialized directly in front of the Vanguard lieutenant who had ordered the charge.
The sonic boom stunned the officer instantly.
Dante didn’t use a flashy skill. He just swung his sword in a basic horizontal arc.
The 10,200 base attack power was multiplied by the guaranteed 100% Critical Hit Chance from his [Predator’s Eye] passive.
It hit the lieutenant like a localized freight train.
[-20,400! Critical Hit! OVERKILL!]
The lieutenant didn’t even have time to register the damage. His Level 30 health bar vanished, and he exploded into blue pixels.
[Invulnerability Extended: +3 Seconds.]
"One," Dante counted calmly.
The Vanguard players stared at the spot where their commander had just been atomized.
Panic instantly shattered their discipline.
The massive zerg-rush tactics Silas relied on were completely useless when the front line evaporated in a single swing.
Dante didn’t stop.
He needed to chain kills to maintain the [Asura’s Descent] invulnerability. But he also needed to test the lifesteal passive.
He intentionally let the invulnerability frames expire.
The golden aura dropped from his avatar. He was sitting at 255,000 HP, but his defense was zero.
A Vanguard rogue saw the golden shield drop and activated a high-tier dash skill.
He lunged at the back of Dante and drove a poisoned dagger directly into the gap in his armor.
Because his defense was zero, the strike hit with raw unmitigated true damage.
[-1,800 HP!]
Dante staggered slightly from the kinetic impact. His massive health bar barely noticed the drop.
He didn’t turn around. He just swung the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] backward in a blind sweeping arc.
The blade caught the rogue square in the chest.
[-20,400! Critical Hit! OVERKILL!]
The rogue shattered into pixels.
Instantly, the [Blood-Lust Stance] triggered.
[Lifesteal Applied: +4,080 HP.]
The health bar of Dante instantly topped off. It completely erased the damage the rogue had inflicted and then some.
"That is completely broken," Dante laughed.
It was a cold and genuine sound that sent shivers down the spines of the surviving players.
He plunged into the formation of Vanguard’s Legacy.
He wasn’t using Zenith-tier skills. He wasn’t relying on massive AoE attacks.
He was just walking through the army casually swinging his gold broadsword.
Every time a player managed to land a hit on his zero-defense armor, they dealt significant damage.
[-2,500 HP!]
[-3,100 HP!]
[-1,500 HP!]
But every time Dante swung his sword, he instantly executed a target for twenty thousand damage.
The 20% lifesteal passive instantly healed him for four thousand hit points.
He was out-healing their entire synchronized damage output with basic attacks.
He was a walking self-sustaining meat grinder.
The five hundred players of Vanguard’s Legacy realized very quickly that they weren’t fighting a standard player.
They were fighting a raid boss that couldn’t be killed.
"Retreat!" a panicked mage screamed from the backline.
He dropped his staff and sprinted toward the road back to Ironhold. "The bounty is not worth this! He is immortal!"
The blockade completely broke.
The players abandoned their posts, dropped their weapons to shed weight, and ran for their lives.
Dante didn’t chase them. He had cleared the path and tested his passives.
He sheathed the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] and deactivated the [Asura’s Descent] skill.
His maximum health pool dropped back to 25,500. His massive defense stats instantly returned to his armor.
He stood alone at the base of Mount Daqing and watched the remnants of the army of Silas scatter across the plains.
"Sera," Dante said and opened a quick voice comm to the Emporium.
"The blockade at Mount Daqing is gone. Tell our guild members the zone is clear for farming."
"Understood," Sera replied instantly. "Nice work, Dante. You saved our logistics teams a massive headache."
Dante closed the comms. He turned toward the jagged and treacherous path leading up the mountain.
The blockade was just the appetizer.
The real reason he had come to Mount Daqing was to find a specific high-tier guild quest target to test his absolute limits.
He began the grueling climb. His iron boots crunched against the loose gravel.
As he ascended higher into the peaks, the environment shifted.
The trees thinned out and were replaced by barren jagged rocks and a howling freezing wind.
[Zone Alert: Daqing Peaks]
[Hazard Detected: Demonic Infestation.]
His Intuition stat pinged sharply.
He stepped onto a wide flat plateau near the summit of the mountain.
The plateau was swarming with massive mutated rodents.
They were the size of large dogs and were covered in glowing toxic green fur. Their teeth dripped with highly corrosive acid.
[Monster Spawn: Demonic Spirit Rat]
[Tier: Gold]
[Level: 30]
[HP: 25,000 / 25,000]
They were fast, aggressive, and heavily clustered.
"Perfect," Dante muttered.
He didn’t use a ranged attack to thin them out. He intentionally walked directly into the center of the swarm.
The Spirit Rats screeched and instantly swarmed him from all sides. They leaped onto his armor, bit, and clawed wildly.
Dante didn’t trigger invulnerability. He didn’t drop his defense.
He just let them bite him.
The [Source of Recovery] passive on his Saint Destroyer cloak activated instantly.
Every time a rat bit him for 1,000 damage, the cloak automatically halved the damage to 500. Then it instantly healed him for 250 HP. The net damage was pathetic.
And then, he swung his sword.
The 20% lifesteal from [Blood-Lust Stance] triggered.
He was essentially unkillable.
The damage mitigation, the passive cloak healing, and the massive lifesteal created a localized combat loop that completely broke the attrition mechanics of the Zenith Protocol.
He spent the next twenty minutes casually clearing the plateau. He ignored the frantic bites of the rats while he systematically chopped them to pieces.
He was just finishing off the last straggler when a massive earth-shattering roar echoed from deeper within the mountain peaks.
It wasn’t the screech of a rat. It was a roar that physically shook the plateau and dislodged massive boulders from the peaks above.
Dante turned his head and his red eyes narrowed.
The roar was followed by a massive explosion of celestial light and dark demonic energy.
"Someone is fighting a very big boss," Dante said and his combat instincts flared.
He didn’t hesitate.
He activated [Meteor Stride] and abandoned the loot from the rats.
He teleported rapidly up the jagged mountain path and headed directly toward the source of the cosmic collision.
