Dante descended like a meteor.

The [Mantle of the Void-Dragon] flared behind him, functioning as an aerodynamic brake as he dropped out of the sky.

The sheer velocity of his landing shattered the thick permafrost when his iron boots finally hit the ground.

He stood up, brushing a flurry of snow and ash off the gold plating of his armor.

The Frostfire Steppes were a geographical nightmare. The environment was a sprawling expanse of sheer, freezing glaciers that constantly cracked and shifted.

But winding directly through the glaciers were massive, deep fissures filled with rapidly flowing, superheated magma. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

The system interface popped up, the text glitching between a freezing blue and a burning orange.

[Zone Alert: Frostfire Steppes]

[Hazard Detected: Extreme Temperature Fluctuation.]

[Warning: Participants will suffer alternating bursts of Frostbite (-50 HP/sec, 10% Slow) and Scorch (-50 HP/sec, Stamina Drain).]

Dante didn’t even flinch. He reached into his inventory and pulled out the [Lord’s Elemental Talisman] the City Lord had given him. He crushed the wooden token in his gauntlet.

[Talisman Active. Environmental damage reduced by 50%.]

Combined with his [Aetherial Nectar] granting absolute immunity to the localized debuffs, and his massive 9,130 health pool easily absorbing the remaining 25 points of chip damage, the hazard was completely negated.

"Perfect weather for a hike," Dante muttered, drawing the [Dawn-Breaker Blade]. The polished gold broadsword gleamed in the chaotic light of the Steppes.

He needed to test the limits of his new, SSS-grade innate talent.

[Chrono-Shift] had completely removed all mana and stamina costs for his abilities, while permanently cutting all cooldown timers in half.

The concept was absurd, but applying it in real-time combat was an entirely different beast.

He didn’t have to wait long to find a target.

A pack of massive, heavily armored wolves emerged from behind a spire of black ice about forty yards away.

[Monster Spawn: Frost-Wolf]

[Level: 25]

[HP: 8,500 / 8,500]

There were six of them. They were significantly larger than the wolves he had seen in the beginner forest, their fur composed of thick, razor-sharp icicles.

They moved with predatory synchronization, instantly fanning out to surround him.

Dante didn’t wait for them to charge.

He triggered [Meteor Stride].

The 5-second cooldown on the Zenith-tier teleport had been slashed to 2.5 seconds.

He vanished in a flash of white-hot light, completely bypassing the pack’s formation, and materialized directly in the center of the six wolves.

He didn’t swing his sword. He didn’t need to.

The massive, ten-foot-wide trail of superheated plasma he left behind completely bisected the pack.

Three of the Frost-Wolves were caught directly in the path of the Zenith-tier fire. The plasma instantly vaporized their icy armor, dealing thousands of points of elemental damage.

They shattered into blue pixels before Dante even fully materialized.

The remaining three wolves shrieked, their aggro snapping toward him. They lunged simultaneously.

Dante immediately triggered [Shatter-Chord].

The 10-second cooldown on the Zenith-tier sonic shout was now 5 seconds.

He didn’t yell. The omnidirectional earthquake of pure concussive force exploded outward from his avatar.

The three lunging wolves hit the invisible wall of sound. Their entire skeletal structures instantly pulverized.

They didn’t even get pushed back; they simply vibrated apart into dust.

[Target Eliminated: Frost-Wolf x6]

[Experience Gained.]

Dante stood in the center of the pulverized ice, checking his status bar.

[Stamina: 1,200 / 1,200]

[Mana: 450 / 450]

He hadn’t spent a single drop of energy.

"Oh, this is genuinely broken," Dante laughed.

He didn’t stop. He turned and sprinted deeper into the Steppes, deliberately pulling massive trains of high-level mobs. He rounded up dozens of Frost-Wolves, Magma-Bears, and Ice-Golems.

He didn’t fight them conventionally. He just spammed his Zenith-tier skills.

He dropped [Cyclone of Ruin] every ten seconds, trapping massive groups of thirty enemies in inescapable, localized hurricanes.

He blinked between the tornadoes using [Meteor Stride], dropping [Abyssal Cleaves] into the trapped mobs.

He was single-handedly operating like a forty-man raid group, but he possessed the mobility of an assassin and the infinite sustain of a god.

The entire quadrant of the Frostfire Steppes was rapidly reduced to a pulverized, burning crater.

[Level Up!]

[Level Up!]

His level ticked up to 57. The sheer volume of Level 25 mobs he was deleting offset the massive experience curve required to progress at his current tier.

After twenty minutes of absolute, unmitigated slaughter, Dante finally stopped his rampage.

He was standing near the edge of a massive, bubbling magma river that cut through the center of a glacier.

His Intuition stat flared.

It wasn’t a standard mob. It was heavy, concentrated aggression.

A massive plume of liquid fire erupted from the magma river, roughly fifty yards down the bank. Out of the fire stepped a massive, heavily armored boar.

It looked similar to the Crag-Boars from the beginner zone, but it was easily the size of a dump truck, covered in glowing, hardened slag.

[Zone Boss Spawn: Magma Boar]

[Tier: Bronze]

[Level: 30]

[HP: 25,000 / 25,000]

A Level 30 Bronze boss. It was a solid, mid-tier localized threat.

Dante raised the [Dawn-Breaker Blade], fully intending to casually execute the beast and claim the loot.

Before he could trigger [Meteor Stride] to close the gap, a loud shout echoed from the opposite side of the magma river.

"Hold the aggro! Don’t let it charge!"

Dante paused.

Three players sprinted out from behind a massive chunk of black ice on the far bank.

They weren’t wearing random, mismatched beginner gear. They wore sleek, unified dark green armor. Their player IDs hovered above their heads.

[ID: Arthur] (Level 28)

[ID: Morgan] (Level 26)

[ID: Lancelot] (Level 27)

Below their names, a bright green guild tag flashed proudly.

[Guild: Apex Coalition]

"Apex," Dante noted, lowering his sword slightly.

He recognized the guild name. They were the premier, top-tier guild of Oakhaven, a rival Veridian Alliance territory.

They were incredibly well-funded, highly organized, and notoriously aggressive when it came to territorial claims.

If Vanguard’s Legacy was a corrupt political machine, the Apex Coalition was an elite private military company.

The three Apex players didn’t even notice Dante standing on the opposite bank. They were entirely focused on the Level 30 Bronze boss.

Arthur, a heavy tank carrying a massive kite shield, lunged forward and slammed his shield into the ground, triggering a taunt skill. The Magma Boar roared, its glowing red eyes locking onto him.

"I’ve got the lock!" Arthur yelled over the bubbling lava. "Morgan, drop the suppression! Lancelot, start your cast!"

Morgan, a rogue, threw a series of glowing blue traps onto the ground in front of the charging boss. Lancelot, a mage standing safely in the backline, began loudly chanting a complex frost spell.

They were executing a textbook, highly coordinated boss pull. They were over-leveled for the zone, heavily geared, and clearly possessed excellent communication.

Dante watched them for exactly two seconds.

He didn’t care about their coordination. He didn’t care that they had claimed the boss first. In the Zenith Protocol, a boss wasn’t claimed until it was dead.

Dante activated [Meteor Stride].

The white flash of light completely blinded the three Apex players.

Dante materialized directly in front of the charging Magma Boar, completely ignoring Arthur’s taunt mechanic. He didn’t use a flashy Zenith skill. He just gripped the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] with both hands.

The Gold-tier weapon’s massive 1,200 base attack power, combined with his own absurd 3,270 Strength stat, was more than enough.

He swung a brutal, upward vertical strike perfectly timed to catch the massive boar right under its heavily armored chin.

The kinetic force of the impact was staggering.

The Level 30 Bronze boss was physically lifted off the ground, its massive body flipping entirely backward in the air.

[-22,000! Critical Hit!]

The boar’s health bar instantly dropped to a microscopic sliver.

Before the massive beast could even hit the ground, Dante activated his secondary skill.

[Skill Executed: Execute]

[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]

The skill evolved in a fraction of a millisecond, shifting into the Zenith-tier [Gaze of the Abyss].

Because the boar’s HP was technically below the 20% threshold from the initial strike, the execution parameter triggered flawlessly.

Dante teleported instantly to the falling boar’s exposed underbelly and drove the golden blade straight through its heart.

[-1,500,000! OVERKILL!]

The Magma Boar violently exploded into a massive shower of blue and silver polygons before it even touched the dirt.

[Target Eliminated: Magma Boar]

Dante landed perfectly on his feet, sheathing his sword in one smooth motion. He didn’t even look at the three Apex players standing ten feet away.

He casually activated his [Band of the Void-Walker] and vacuumed the massive pile of dropped loot into his inventory.

He turned to walk away.

"Hey!" Arthur roared, completely breaking his professional composure. "What the hell do you think you’re doing?!"

Dante stopped. He slowly turned his head to look at the massive tank.

"I’m farming," Dante said flatly.

"You just kill-stole our boss!" Morgan, the rogue, yelled, pointing a pair of daggers at him. "We had the aggro lock! That was an Apex Coalition claim!"

"The boss is dead," Dante replied, genuinely bored by the interaction. "The claim is closed. Move on."

Arthur’s face turned an ugly shade of red. He gripped his massive kite shield, stepping forward.

"You’re in Oakhaven territory now, buddy," Arthur snarled, completely ignoring the fact that Dante was wearing Gold-tier armor.

"You don’t just walk up, steal a boss from the Apex Coalition, and walk away. Drop the loot right now, or we drop you."

Dante fully turned around to face the three players.

He looked at their Level 28 nameplates. He looked at their coordinated, matching green armor.

He didn’t sigh. He didn’t argue with them.

"Oakhaven," Dante repeated softly, his eyes turning incredibly cold.

Oakhaven was his real-world home. It was the exact city where Silas was currently paying Enforcers to hunt down his physical body. It was the city where Garrick was miserably chasing his cheating wife on a bicycle.

"You guys really think you own this map," Dante said.

"We own this region," Arthur corrected, raising his shield. "Lancelot, freeze him! Morgan, hit the joints!"

The three Apex players didn’t hesitate. They were a coordinated hit squad, and they fully believed their numerical advantage and high levels were enough to burst down a single, arrogant solo player.

Dante didn’t draw his sword.

He just smiled. It was a terrifying, hollow expression.

"Let’s see how good your coordination really is," Dante said.