Chapter 110: Chapter 110: The Oblivious Bastion

"Fire!" Silas roared.

The command sounded across the massive, open field outside Aethelgardia.

Three thousand members of the Gilded Syndicate didn’t hesitate. The front lines of heavy infantry didn’t charge.

They held their ground behind the iron barricades while the backlines unleashed absolute hell.

Hundreds of arrows blotted out the flawless gold sky. Massive, overlapping magical circles detonated simultaneously, launching a synchronized barrage of fireballs, frost lances, and crackling lightning bolts directly at the tiny seven-man squad standing on the arrival platform.

It was a apocalypse designed to instantly glass the entire spawn point.

Lila screamed, raising her hands to cover her face. Sera and Nyx dropped to the ground. Mei gripped her pan, ready to try and block the incoming storm.

Dante didn’t move. He kept his eyes locked on Garrick.

The middle-aged man didn’t cower. He didn’t look terrified. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Garrick stepped forward, completely exposing himself to the three thousand players. He raised his massive, Silver-grade kite shield.

"I’ve got the aggro!" Garrick bellowed again, his voice carrying an absurd level of confidence.

The system interface suddenly flared directly above Garrick’s head.

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

Dante raised an eyebrow.

The massive, synchronized barrage of magic and arrows hit Garrick.

BOOM.

The impact was deafening. The sheer volume of overlapping explosions kicked up a massive cloud of dust and pulverized rock, completely obscuring the arrival platform.

Silas stood behind his shield wall, a smug, victorious smile spreading across his face.

"Target deleted," Silas muttered to his lieutenant. "Tell the cleanup crew to move in and secure his dropped gear. I want the Aegis Blueprint back."

The dust cloud slowly began to settle.

The Gilded Syndicate vanguard lowered their shields, preparing to march into the crater and collect the loot.

"Hey! Watch the paint job!"

The voice sounded from the center of the smoke, completely unharmed and incredibly annoyed.

Silas’s smile vanished.

The dust cleared.

Garrick was still standing. He hadn’t been vaporized. He hadn’t even been knocked backward.

The middle-aged man was standing perfectly upright, holding his silver kite shield. But the shield wasn’t just metal anymore.

It was glowing with a dense, incredibly hostile, dark red aura. The aura expanded outward, forming a massive, forty-foot-wide translucent dome that completely covered Dante, Lila, Mei, Casanova, Sera, and Nyx.

Every single arrow, every single fireball, every single frost lance had struck the red dome and completely harmlessly dissipated.

Garrick’s health bar was sitting perfectly at 100%.

"What?!" Silas screamed, his eyes wide in absolute shock. "How did he tank that?! He’s Level 8!"

Dante looked at Garrick, genuinely impressed.

"Garrick," Dante asked. "What does that talent do?"

"Oh, this?" Garrick beamed, tapping the glowing red shield. "It’s my Spiteful Bulwark! It completely negates incoming damage! The only catch is that it scales off my emotional frustration instead of my mana pool."

Dante stared at him. "Emotional frustration."

"Yeah!" Garrick nodded enthusiastically. "The madder I am, the stronger the shield gets! And let me tell you, buddy, I am incredibly frustrated right now!

Do you have any idea how much a replacement inner tube for a mountain bike costs in this economy?! It’s extortion! And the customer service bot literally hung up on me!"

Nyx, sitting on the dirt behind Dante, slowly lowered her dark glasses.

"His innate talent converts his absolute, oblivious denial about his cheating wife into an unbreakable kinetic barrier," Nyx whispered in sheer disbelief. "He is literally weaponizing his own divorce."

"It’s brilliant," Sera noted, rapidly tapping her ledger. "He has an infinite source of rage that completely bypasses the game’s combat math."

"Hold the line!" Silas roared, panicking as he realized the initial barrage had failed completely. "Infantry, charge! Break his guard! He can’t block three thousand swords!"

The heavy infantry of the Gilded Syndicate poured over the iron barricades. Over a thousand warriors and paladins charged down the slight incline, their boots shaking the ground.

They intended to swarm the red dome, bash the low-level tank into the dirt, and massacre the squishy players hiding behind him.

"They’re coming!" Lila panicked, gripping her Dark Demon staff.

"Don’t panic," Sera ordered, her professional, commanding voice cutting through the noise. The studio head stood up, brushing the dirt off her merchant robes.

She didn’t draw a weapon, but her eyes were locked onto the charging army.

"We don’t need to break their line," Sera stated, rapidly analyzing the incoming formation. "We just need to break their coordination. Nyx, where are their healers positioned?"

Nyx tapped her datapad, her analytical skills perfectly translating the battlefield. "They staggered their support.

The primary healing cluster is fifty yards back, perfectly centered behind the vanguard. They’re prepping localized AoE heals for the impact."

"Lila," Sera commanded. "Do not hit the frontline. I want a [Gravity Well] dropped directly on that healing cluster. Pin their support."

Lila didn’t hesitate. She trusted Sera’s tactical calls.

The Astral Arcanist stepped up right behind Garrick’s glowing red shield. She didn’t chant. She slammed the butt of her staff into the dirt.

[Skill Executed: Gravity Well]

Fifty yards away, perfectly centered over the Gilded Syndicate’s backline, the invisible cylinder of concentrated atmospheric pressure slammed down.

Dozens of high-level clerics and support mages were instantly crushed into the dirt, their healing casts violently interrupted as the gravity pinned them to the grass.

"Their heals are down!" Nyx called out.

"Mei!" Sera ordered. "Break the vanguard’s momentum. Hit the center of their charge."

"Batter up!" Mei cheered.

The Brawler didn’t step outside the safety of Garrick’s dome. She triggered her ultimate skill.

[Skill Executed: Colossal Manifestation]

The cast-iron frying pan violently expanded, transforming into a thirty-foot-wide, indestructible monolith. The sheer physical size of the weapon completely eclipsed the front of the red dome.

Mei gripped the massive handle and swung the colossal skillet in a brutal, low, horizontal sweep directly into the charging front line.

CLANG!

The impact sounded like a train derailment.

The front three rows of the Gilded Syndicate vanguard were violently launched horizontally across the field.

They didn’t just stagger; they were batted away like flies, crashing heavily into the players charging behind them.

The organized, terrifying charge instantly devolved into a chaotic pile-up. Heavily armored players tripped over each other, their momentum completely shattered by the massive blunt-force trauma.

"Keep holding it, Garrick!" Dante said, watching the flawless synergy of his mismatched squad.

"I can hold this all day!" Garrick yelled, his face turning red with genuine frustration. "Brenda said the bike shop manager was a ’really close friend’! Who goes to a bike shop at three in the morning?!"

The red dome glowed even brighter, thickening visibly as Garrick’s oblivious rage fueled the innate talent.

Several Gilded Syndicate rogues managed to bypass Mei’s massive pan. They skirted the edges of the chaos, activating stealth skills, hoping to slip behind the dome and assassinate the squishy casters.

"Stealth targets on the left flank!" Nyx warned, pointing her datapad.

"I got ’em!" Casanova laughed.

[Player ’Casanova’ has activated Innate Talent: Titan’s Physique.]

The flamboyant bard instantly transformed into a seven-foot-tall, vascular bruiser. He didn’t wait for the rogues to enter the dome.

He stepped out, completely ignoring their stealth passives, and blindly threw a massive, bare-knuckle clothesline into the empty air.

His massive fist connected with a stealthed rogue’s jaw.

The rogue’s stealth broke instantly as he was violently clotheslined, his health bar dropping by half from the sheer physical scaling of the bard’s mana pool.

Casanova grabbed the stunned rogue by the ankle and swung him like a club, knocking the other two stealthed assassins out of the air.

"You guys need to work on your footwork!" Casanova boomed, tossing the rogue into the pile of Vanguard players struggling to stand up.

Silas watched the entire engagement from his elevated position in absolute horror.

He had brought three thousand heavily armored, highly coordinated players to execute a seven-man party.

Instead, a middle-aged man with a rusty helmet was completely negating his artillery. A girl with a giant frying pan was batting away his heavy infantry.

A support player was instantly pinning his healers, and a bard was physically beating his elite assassins to death with his bare hands.

And Dan hadn’t even drawn his sword yet.

"Sir," Silas’s lieutenant, a heavily scarred warrior named Sam, stepped forward. "They are mocking us. The entire server is watching this stream. If we don’t break them now, the guild is finished."

"I know!" Silas snapped, his composure completely gone. "The dome is impenetrable. We have to break the tank’s connection."

Sam drew a massive, glowing black broadsword. It radiated a localized, oppressive aura.

"I will handle it," Sam stated.

The lieutenant activated a high-tier movement skill, blurring across the battlefield.

He didn’t charge the front of the dome. He flanked far to the right, completely bypassing Casanova and Mei.

He closed the distance to the red dome.

"Nyx!" Sera yelled, spotting the flanking lieutenant.

"I see him!" Nyx shouted. "He’s using a stat-siphon! If he hits the dome, he’s going to drain Garrick’s shield!"

Sam raised the black broadsword, aiming directly for the edge of the red barrier.

"You die here, glitch," Sam snarled.

Dante finally moved.

He didn’t use [Blink Step]. He just took a single step forward, standing directly behind Garrick.

"You guys did great," Dante said calmly, resting his dark purple gauntlet on Garrick’s silver shoulder. "I’ll take it from here."