Chapter 100: Chapter 100: The Void-Bishop’s March

The sounds of the three rival armies tearing each other apart faded as the squad of Dante pushed deeper into the Sky Demon Forest.

The environment rapidly deteriorated.

The massive ancient trees were heavily corrupted.

"This is significantly worse than the swamp," Lila muttered. She held her wooden staff tight. Her blue eyes darted nervously between the dark sludgy trunks.

"The ambient corruption here is actually eating away at the lighting."

Dante checked his system interface.

[Zone Alert: Sky Demon Core]

[Hazard Detected: Severe Demonic Corruption.]

[Warning: Environmental toxicity is actively suppressing standard healing modifiers. Natural regeneration is disabled.]

Aura chimed softly from her spot hovering over the shoulder of Dante.

The Grade 8 Doom Harbinger pulsed a wave of starlight that effortlessly cleared the heavy and oppressive atmosphere within her twenty-foot radius.

"We are fine," Dante said. "Just stay close to Aura."

Casanova was back in his shredded silk shirt and looked like a terrified tourist. He practically glued himself to the back of Dante.

"I am standing exactly inside the safety circle, Boss. Do not move too fast."

Mei marched ahead. Her massive [God-Slaying Skillet] rested comfortably on her shoulder.

She seemed completely unbothered by the toxic environment while Pip the tiny dragon rode safely inside her tunic.

The Intuition stat of Dante suddenly flared.

It was a massive and concentrated spike of raw and unadulterated cosmic energy. It felt like standing next to a live reactor core.

"Hold up," Dante ordered and raised his gauntlet.

The squad stopped at the edge of a massive circular clearing.

Dante crouched low and peered through the dense corrupted brush.

The clearing wasn’t a natural formation. The trees had been violently sheared away to create a flat expanse of scorched black earth.

In the dead center of the clearing stood a massive towering portal.

It wasn’t a standard swirling blue dungeon entrance.

The portal was forged from black bone that glowed with an intense sickly green light. It was easily fifty feet tall and actively tore a hole in the localized reality of the server.

Standing in front of the massive portal was the source of the corruption.

It wasn’t a standard beast.

It was a towering twelve-foot-tall humanoid figure clad in heavy ornate clerical robes woven from pure shadow.

The entity held a massive staff topped with a glowing corrupted crimson eye. Its face was hidden entirely beneath a heavy bone-white mask.

[Zone Boss Spawn: Void-Bishop Morgrim]

[Tier: Dark Demon]

[Level: 25]

[HP: 300,000 / 300,000]

"That is a very big and very angry priest," Mei whispered and gripped her frying pan with both hands.

"He is a Dark Demon," Dante noted. His eyes locked onto the boss.

He had fought a Level 20 Dark Demon in the Abyss, the massive unkillable sphere of Gluttony.

He knew exactly how structurally dense and mechanically unfair Dark Demon bosses were.

They didn’t rely on simple melee attacks. They possessed reality-bending curses and passive immunities.

But it wasn’t the Void-Bishop that made Dante hesitate.

It was what was coming out of the portal.

The glowing green vortex wasn’t idle. It was violently churning and actively disgorging a relentless tide of mutated corrupted beasts.

Massive multi-limbed horrors forged from bone and black sludge poured out of the portal by the hundreds.

They didn’t look like standard mobs.

They were grotesquely disproportionate, and their health bars flashed aggressively in the dim light.

They weren’t just standing around.

As soon as they exited the portal, they formed up into a highly disciplined organized marching column. They headed straight down a wide pre-cleared path leading north out of the forest.

"Boss," Casanova squeaked and pointed a trembling finger at the marching horde. "Those are not just random spawns. That is an army."

Dante did the math instantly.

He possessed Zenith-tier skills. He had zero cooldowns. He had infinite healing and an indestructible Vanguard.

But he couldn’t fight a 300,000 HP Dark Demon boss while simultaneously fending off a literal army of thousands of corrupted beasts.

The sheer volume of incoming damage and hard crowd control would eventually overwhelm the cleansing pulse of Aura.

He couldn’t drop [Cyclone of Ruin] on an entire marching column because the sheer mass of the bodies would choke the vortex.

If he engaged now, it wasn’t a battle. It was a war of attrition, and the portal was generating infinite reinforcements.

"We cannot take him here," Dante decided. His voice was low and incredibly serious.

"If I drop the health of the boss below a critical threshold, he is just going to pull the entire army back to defend him. We will get completely swarmed."

Lila looked pale. "So we retreat? We just leave an SSS-Rank boss sitting in the woods?"

"We do not leave him," Dante corrected. "We dictate the engagement zone. We need to lure him away from the portal."

Before Dante could formulate a pull strategy, Erebus decided to help.

She was standing quietly next to his leg.

The tiny barefoot Celestial boss didn’t use telekinesis or reality warping. She just lifted her pale hand and pointed directly at the towering Void-Bishop.

"You are ugly," Erebus stated.

Her voice wasn’t loud. But the resonance of her Half-Soul carried the words perfectly across the massive clearing. It cut through the ambient noise of the portal.

The Void-Bishop stopped chanting.

The massive bone-masked head snapped slowly toward the brush where the squad was hiding. The glowing crimson eye on his staff flared violently.

The boss didn’t need to see them. He felt the weight of the insult.

"Well," Dante sighed and drew the [Dawn-Breaker Blade]. "Stealth was fun while it lasted."

The Void-Bishop simply raised his staff and pointed it directly at their position.

The entire marching column of corrupted beasts stopped moving north.

Thousands of glowing red eyes turned toward the brush simultaneously.

"Run," Dante ordered.

They didn’t hesitate. The squad broke cover and sprinted back the way they came while tearing through the corrupted underbrush.

Behind them, the forest erupted.

The massive horde of beasts abandoned their march and surged into the trees. They chased the threat with terrifying aggressive speed.

"They are too fast!" Mei yelled. She glanced over her shoulder as a massive corrupted hound crashed through a dead pine tree just thirty feet behind them. "I cannot block a thousand of them!"

"Lila, pin the front line!" Dante commanded and pulled up the rear to intercept the fastest beasts.

Lila didn’t stop running. She just tapped the butt of her staff against the ground behind her.

[Skill Executed: Gravity Well]

The invisible cylinder of high pressure slammed down. It instantly crushed the leading edge of the horde into the dirt.

But the sheer volume of the army was too massive.

The beasts behind the pinned vanguard simply ran directly over their crushed allies and completely ignored the roadblock.

"It is not enough!" Lila yelled.

Dante didn’t have time to chain [Phantom Dash] executions on a horde this massive. He needed a hard stall tactic.

"Aura!" Dante shouted.

The tiny silver fox was flying just above his head and understood instantly. She didn’t pulse a heal or a cleanse.

She utilized a basic utility skill she had retained from her previous grade.

[Skill Activated: Holy Light Glint]

Aura didn’t project an aura. She physically flared her own digital body. It burned with a blinding intensely concentrated burst of pure celestial starlight.

The flash was instantaneous and entirely blinding.

The massive horde of corrupted light-sensitive beasts rushing through the dark canopy-covered forest took the flash point-blank in the eyes.

The entire front half of the army shrieked in agony.

[Mass Blindness Applied. Duration: 5 seconds.]

The beasts stumbled blindly. They crashed into trees and trampled each other in absolute panicked confusion.

The organized and terrifying pursuit instantly devolved into a localized writhing pile of mutated limbs and claws.

Even the Void-Bishop striding confidently behind his army staggered slightly. He shielded his bone mask from the intense light.

"Keep running!" Dante ordered.

The five-second blind gave them exactly the window they needed.

The squad tore through the forest.

They sprinted for five minutes straight before Dante finally held up his hand to signal them to stop.

They were standing near the edge of the Sky Demon Forest. The trees began to thin out and revealed the open plains leading back to Ironhold.

Casanova collapsed against a tree trunk and gasped for air.

"I am a bard! I am not built for cardio! My stamina bar is screaming!"

Dante didn’t look tired. He looked at the digital map floating in his system interface.

"They are not chasing us anymore," Dante said and traced the red dots on the map.

"Because we are too fast?" Mei asked and leaned heavily on her massive frying pan.

"No," Dante said. His voice dropped to a grim register. "Because we are not the primary target."

He zoomed the map out.

The massive red cluster of hostile entities hadn’t scattered back into the forest. They had reformed their marching column.

They were moving steadily north and completely ignored the anomaly squad that had just blinded them.

Lila stepped up next to Dante. She looked at the glowing holographic map.

"Dante," Lila whispered. Her blue eyes were wide with horror. "Look at their trajectory."

The Void-Bishop wasn’t amassing an army to fight random players in the woods. The Dark Demon boss was operating on a highly specific siege mechanic.

The massive red line of the marching horde was pointed directly perfectly north.

Straight at the towering steel gates of Ironhold.

"They are not stopping," Dante confirmed. "The system is triggering a massive invasion event. The Void-Bishop is marching on the capital."

"If that army hits the city gates while everyone is out here fighting in the mud, the NPC guards will get overrun in minutes," Casanova realized.

His flamboyant persona was completely replaced by genuine panic.

"Ironhold is the primary respawn point for the entire Veridian Alliance! If the city falls, we all get server-wipe penalties!"

Dante didn’t hesitate. He dismissed the map.

The three rival armies of Vanguard’s Legacy, the Black Dragon Syndicate, and the Apex Coalition were still actively butchering each other in the center of the forest.

They were completely oblivious to the fact that their home city was about to be burned to the ground.

"We need to get back to the city," Dante said. His voice carried absolute authority.

"We just ran all the way out here!" Mei groaned.

"We are not running," Dante corrected.

Dante reached into his infinite inventory and pulled out the glowing blue crystal.

The emergency extraction talisman.

"Grab hold," Dante ordered.

Lila and Mei grabbed his armor. Casanova scrambled over and awkwardly hugged the leg of Dante.

Erebus went back into her pet space.

Dante crushed the blue crystals in his gauntlet.

The blinding column of teleportation magic erupted around them.

They vanished from the edge of the Sky Demon Forest and left the marching corrupted army behind them.

They had to warn the City Lord. The Siege of Ironhold was about to begin.