Dante continued his march across the Frostfire Steppes, his iron boots crunching through the mixture of fresh snow and cooling volcanic ash.

The global announcement of Oakhaven’s massive 10% EXP penalty was still fading from the sky. Dante had his regional chat muted, but he could imagine the sheer, apocalyptic rage currently consuming his home city’s player base.

The Apex Coalition was likely mobilizing every single available member to hunt him down.

"They’re going to be busy," Dante muttered, checking his digital map.

He was approaching the deepest section of the Steppes, a massive, cratered valley where the tectonic plates actively clashed.

This was the marked spawn zone for the SSS-Rank Beast King.

As he crested a high, jagged ridge of black ice overlooking the valley, he stopped.

His Intuition stat wasn’t just pinging; it was blaring a chaotic, confused warning.

Dante looked down into the valley.

He expected to see the Beast King. He expected to see a massive, terrifying monster waiting for a challenger.

Instead, he saw a massacre.

The valley floor was completely littered with dropped beginner and mid-tier loot. Hundreds of broken swords, shattered shields, and low-level skillbooks were scattered across the frozen dirt.

And standing among the loot were the ghostly, fading blue pixels of nearly two hundred deleted player avatars.

"Did Silas send another army?" Dante whispered, frowning.

He pulled a small spyglass from his inventory and looked through it.

He immediately recognized the dark green tabards of the players who had just been slaughtered. It was the Apex Coalition.

Oakhaven’s top player, a massive, heavily armored paladin named Gawain, had apparently mobilized an entire army and marched them straight into the Steppes the moment the penalty announcement hit.

They had come here to kill Dante and take their regional quest back.

But Dante hadn’t killed them. He had been miles away.

So what did?

Dante panned the spyglass across the valley floor.

Standing in the absolute dead center of the slaughter, surrounded by the fading blue pixels of Oakhaven’s finest players, was a girl.

She looked entirely out of place. She wasn’t wearing massive, glowing armor or dark, edgelord robes. She was wearing a simple, bright red combat tunic and baggy trousers.

She had dark hair tied up in twin buns, and she was currently hopping from foot to foot, humming a cheerful tune.

Hovering right next to her head was a tiny, floating dragon. It was roughly the size of a cat, with bright crimson scales and large, expressive yellow eyes.

But the most bizarre detail was the weapon she was holding.

She wasn’t wielding a broadsword or a magical staff.

She was resting a massive, oversized cast-iron frying pan casually on her shoulder.

The pan was easily four feet wide, completely disproportionate to her small frame, and it was currently smoking slightly.

Dante lowered the spyglass.

"What the hell is that?" Dante asked the empty air.

He didn’t use a Zenith-tier teleport to initiate combat. He didn’t want to accidentally trigger a massive explosion before he figured out what he was looking at.

He simply activated the [Cloak of the Void-Walker], slowly drifting down from the high ridge using the Limitless Flight passive, landing silently on the valley floor.

He walked toward the girl.

As he got within fifty feet, the tiny red dragon hovering near her head suddenly snapped its attention toward him.

It let out a sharp, high-pitched squawk, pointing a tiny clawed finger directly at Dante’s glowing Gold-tier chest piece.

"Incoming, Mei!" the dragon yelled. Its voice sounded exactly like a hyperactive teenager.

The girl, Mei, stopped humming. She spun around, resting both hands on the handle of her massive frying pan. She looked Dante up and down.

"Wow," Mei said, her eyes widening. "You look expensive."

Dante stopped walking. He kept his hands away from his weapons.

[ID: Mei (Hua Nation)]

[Level: 32]

[Class: Brawler]

She was from the Hua Nation, a massive regional block known for highly unconventional builds and chaotic guild structures.

But being Level 32 was impressive. It meant she had been grinding non-stop since the server launched.

"Did you do this?" Dante asked, gesturing broadly to the massive field of dropped loot and fading pixels surrounding her.

"Oh, them?" Mei asked, casually poking a discarded iron shield with her boot. "Yeah. They came running down the hill screaming about some guy named Dan and a stolen quest scroll. They were incredibly rude. They didn’t even say hello. So I hit them."

"You hit two hundred heavily armored players," Dante clarified.

"I hit them very hard," Mei corrected cheerfully.

"With a frying pan," Dante said, pointing at the massive iron cookware resting on her shoulder.

"Hey! Watch your tone!" the tiny red dragon snapped, flying a few feet closer to Dante. "This isn’t just any frying pan. This is the legendary God-Slaying Skillet! We have crushed entire pantheons with this culinary masterpiece!"

Dante stared at the tiny dragon.

In the Zenith Protocol, pets didn’t talk. They communicated through chimes, roars, or system prompts. Aura was an incredibly advanced, Grade 9 cosmic anomaly, and even she couldn’t speak English.

"Your pet talks," Dante noted.

"I am not a pet!" the dragon shrieked indignantly, crossing its tiny arms. "I am Pip! The ultimate, supreme familiar of the Hua Nation! I am a manifestation of draconic authority!"

"Pip is a legacy carry-over," Mei explained casually, resting her chin on the handle of her pan.

"We cleared the last Zenith Protocol game world together. The system let me bring him into Overture as a starter bonus."

Dante’s eyes narrowed slightly. Legacy carry-overs were extremely rare. It meant Mei wasn’t just a high-level brawler; she was a veteran who had survived an entire previous cycle of the death game. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

"Right," Dante said. "Well, good job on the extermination. You saved me a lot of time. Have a nice day."

He turned to walk around her, heading toward the deeper section of the valley where the Beast King was supposed to spawn.

"Wait a minute!" Pip yelled, flying directly into Dante’s path, hovering right in front of his face.

Dante stopped. He looked at the tiny red dragon. "Move."

"Did you not hear Mei earlier?" Pip demanded, putting his tiny claws on his hips. "You look incredibly expensive.

That gold armor is practically blinding me. And that dark cape? Super edgy. I love it. It probably sells for a fortune."

"It’s soul-bound," Dante lied smoothly.

"I don’t care," Pip smirked. "You’re walking into our farming zone. This valley belongs to the God-Slaying Skillet duo. If you want to pass, you have to pay the toll."

Dante looked past the tiny dragon to Mei. "Are you seriously trying to mug me?"

Mei shrugged, a completely innocent, hyper-energetic smile on her face. "Hotpot isn’t cheap in the capital city, man. And Pip eats a lot. Like, a lot a lot. We need the funds."

"I am a growing cosmic entity!" Pip defended himself. "I require massive amounts of protein!"

Dante sighed. He didn’t want to fight a quirky brawler and her talking pet. He just wanted to kill the boss and leave.

"I’m not paying a toll," Dante said. "I’m passing through. If you want to fight me, you’re going to regret it."

Pip gasped, clutching invisible pearls on his chest. "A threat! Did you hear that, Mei? The shiny edgelord threatened us!"

"I heard it," Mei said, her cheerful demeanor dropping instantly.

She didn’t use a flashy movement skill. She didn’t announce her attack.

Mei simply blurred.

Her Level 32 Agility stat was highly specialized. She crossed the fifty-foot gap in a fraction of a second.

She didn’t swing a sword. She brought the massive, four-foot-wide cast-iron frying pan around in a brutal, two-handed baseball swing, aiming directly for Dante’s ribs.

Dante’s Intuition stat flared.

He didn’t use [Blink Step]. He didn’t think a frying pan warranted a Zenith-tier evasion.

He drew the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] with lightning speed and brought the Gold-tier broadsword up in a standard, heavy block, fully intending to shatter her gag weapon and knock her on her ass.

CLANG!

The impact was absolutely staggering.

The [Dawn-Breaker Blade], a Gold-tier weapon with 1,200 base attack power, hit the cast-iron frying pan.

Dante expected the pan to shatter.

Instead, Dante was violently launched backward.

The kinetic force of the frying pan hitting his sword completely bypassed his physical mitigation. It felt like he had just been hit by a freight train.

He skidded backward across the frozen dirt, his iron boots digging deep trenches into the ground, sliding a full twenty feet before he finally arrested his momentum.

He looked at his health bar.

[-0 HP]

He hadn’t taken any actual damage, thanks to the 50% damage reduction from the [Scale of the Goddess] and his massive defense stats. But the raw knockback physics were absurd.

He looked at his Gold-tier sword.

The blade was visibly vibrating from the impact.

"What?" Dante whispered.

"Ha!" Pip cheered from the air. "Told you! The Skillet is unbreakable! Now empty your pockets, shiny boy, before Mei gives you a concussion!"

Mei didn’t wait. She charged again, dragging the massive frying pan along the dirt behind her, kicking up a shower of sparks and ice.

"You hit hard," Dante admitted, straightening his posture. "But I don’t really have time to play baseball with you."

Dante didn’t raise his gold sword again.

He held out his right hand. The black brand on his wrist flared with a violent, white-hot intensity.

Thick, light-absorbing black smoke erupted from his palm.

"Let’s see if your frying pan can block this," Dante said.