The Sky Demon Forest was dead silent.

Over four thousand players surrounded the massive fifty-foot crater Dante had just carved into the earth.

The sheer scale of the mobilization was absurd.

Three rival armies normally at each other’s throats for territory and resources had formed a unified and heavily armored perimeter.

To the north, the Gilded Syndicate held the line behind heavy iron barricades.

To the east, the Black Dragon Syndicate occupied the dense canopy. Their archers and rogues perched on the thick branches of the ancient twisted trees.

To the west, the Apex Coalition formed a massive wall of heavy infantry.

At the very front stood Gawain, the Paladin Guild Master, gripping a massive glowing holy hammer.

Dante stood in the dead center of the crater.

He didn’t have his weapon drawn. He didn’t look like a player trapped in an unwinnable scenario. He looked completely bored.

Beside him, the tiny barefoot girl in the gothic dress stared blankly at the surrounding armies.

"Erebus," Dante had said and pointed a dark purple gauntlet at Gawain. "Squish them."

Erebus blinked her solid blood-red eyes.

She raised her pale tiny hand fully intending to use her reality-warping Celestial telekinesis to turn the entire Apex vanguard into a localized smear on the dirt.

Before she could close her fist, the air pressure above the western flank violently shifted.

"Kill him!" Gawain roared and was completely oblivious to the half-soul entity standing next to his target. "Apex Vanguard, charge!"

Three hundred heavily armored paladins and warriors roared in unison.

They broke from the tree line and charged down the slope of the crater. Their iron boots shook the earth.

They raised their shields fully intending to trample Dante into the dirt and chain-stun him until his health bar zeroed out.

Dante didn’t move. He didn’t even activate [Blink Step].

He felt a familiar surge of mana.

[Skill Executed: Gravity Well]

It didn’t come from Dante.

A massive invisible cylinder of concentrated atmospheric pressure slammed down from the sky. It landed squarely on the charging Apex vanguard.

The front line of the army of Gawain didn’t stagger. They didn’t slow down.

They were violently and instantaneously crushed into the dirt.

The sound of three hundred sets of heavy iron armor buckling under absolute gravitational force echoed across the clearing like a train crash.

The players hit the ground so hard their avatars glitched. Their health bars dropped by massive chunks as the chantless magic pinned them entirely to the floor.

"What?!" Gawain shouted and stumbled backward to avoid the invisible boundary of the well. "Who cast that?!"

A figure stepped out from the shadows of the southern tree line.

Lila walked forward. Her blue hair was pulled back, and she gripped her basic wooden staff.

She was wearing her beginner cloth robes to completely hide the Dark Demon chest piece and Silver-tier greaves underneath.

She didn’t look terrified anymore. Her eyes were locked onto the pinned Apex players with absolute cold focus.

"I told you to stay in the tavern," Dante called out over the groaning armor of the trapped players.

Lila kept her staff raised to maintain the gravity well.

"Yeah. I lied. Sera told me to make sure you did not accidentally destroy the local economy by getting yourself killed."

Up in the eastern canopy, the Black Dragon Syndicate reacted instantly.

They saw the squishy support player step into the open.

The stealth squads didn’t care about the gravity magic. They saw a free kill. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"Archers! Drop the mage!" a Black Dragon lieutenant screamed from the branches.

Over five hundred bows were drawn simultaneously.

A massive synchronized volley of iron-tipped arrows blotted out the violet sky. It rained down directly toward the unarmored position of Lila.

Dante reached for [Voidsever] ready to teleport and intercept the barrage.

He didn’t have to.

"Batter up!" a cheerful and hyper-energetic voice yelled from the tree line behind Lila.

[Skill Executed: Colossal Manifestation]

A massive black iron shadow completely eclipsed the incoming volley.

The four-foot-wide cast-iron frying pan didn’t just enlarge. It exploded into a thirty-foot-wide monolith of indestructible metal.

Mei stepped out of the brush and gripped the tree-trunk-sized handle with both hands.

She swung the colossal pan upward in a brutal and sweeping arc. She perfectly intercepted the localized rain of arrows.

CLANG!

The impact rang out like a massive church bell.

The five hundred iron-tipped arrows shattered instantly against the [Perfect Block] passive of the [God-Slaying Skillet].

The kinetic force of the swing didn’t just stop the arrows. It created a gust of wind that blew the shattered wooden shafts right back into the trees.

It forced the Black Dragon archers to duck for cover.

Mei rested the colossal pan effortlessly on her shoulder. She was grinning from ear to ear.

"You did not really think we were going to let you fight three armies without a vanguard, did you, Boss?" Mei laughed.

Pip, the tiny red dragon, swooped out from behind the head of Mei.

The familiar flew around the massive pan. His yellow eyes scanned the thousands of players surrounding the crater.

"Look at all these walking loot bags!" Pip shrieked happily. "Mei, we are going to need a bigger backpack!"

Dante shook his head and a genuine smile broke his stoic expression. He lowered his hand to signal Erebus to hold off on her execution.

"I explicitly told you to stay in the city," Dante said.

Before anyone could answer, the sky above the northern barricades tore open.

It wasn’t a spell.

Something massive dropped straight out of the cloud cover and plummeted toward the shield wall of the Gilded Syndicate like a ballistic missile.

BOOM.

The figure crashed into the earth directly between the front line of Malric and the crater of Dante.

The impact shattered the ground and kicked up a massive cloud of dust and pulverized rock.

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

The dust cleared.

Standing in the center of the impact zone was a hulking and seven-foot-tall wall of heavily vascular digital muscle.

The ruffled silk shirt of Casanova was completely shredded and barely hung onto his massive broadened shoulders.

He wasn’t holding his lute. He was cracking his oversized knuckles.

Casanova turned his head and looked over his massive shoulder at Dante.

The bard flashed a brilliant arrogant grin.

"You did not think we would let you hog all the fun, did you, Boss?" Casanova said. His voice rumbled three octaves deeper than normal.

Malric stared at the towering bard in absolute disbelief. The Enforcer took a step back and raised his broadsword.

"What is this?" Malric demanded and projected his voice across the clearing.

"You brought a party? Three people? You think three random players are going to stop four thousand of us?!"

Dante didn’t answer Malric.

He looked at his squad.

Lila, the Astral Arcanist, had the entire western flank pinned to the dirt without chanting a single syllable.

Mei, the Brawler, was holding an indestructible thirty-foot-wide frying pan capable of batting away synchronized artillery fire.

Casanova, the bruiser, was currently flexing muscles that completely bypassed standard class parameters.

And standing right next to Dante, tightly clutching the side of his heavy iron greave, was Erebus.

The Level 25 Celestial boss was casually chewing on the last bite of her meat bun. She was completely unfazed by the hostile armies surrounding them.

Aura popped out of her pet-space.

The Grade 8 Doom Harbinger floated happily above the head of Dante. She pulsed a soft silver light that blanketed the entire party in absolute status immunity.

They weren’t an army.

They were a squad of complete and system-breaking anomalies.

"They are not random players, Malric," Dante finally said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried perfectly across the silent crater.

Dante reached out with his right hand.

The black brand on his wrist flared violently.

Thick and light-absorbing smoke erupted from his palm. It instantly condensed into the massive and jagged shape of [Voidsever].

The primordial greatsword hummed aggressively and devoured the ambient light in the clearing.

Dante gripped the dark bone hilt with both hands.

"They are my party," Dante said.

Gawain struggled to break free from the edge of the gravity well of Lila. He pointed his holy hammer directly at Dante.

"Kill them all!" Gawain roared. "Do not let them group up! Casters, unleash everything!"

The three armies finally snapped out of their shock.

The Gilded Syndicate charged from the north and their heavy infantry rushed Casanova.

The Black Dragon Syndicate dropped from the trees and their rogues activated stealth to rush toward Mei and Lila.

The Apex Coalition mages in the backline began rapidly chanting. They formed massive and overlapping magic circles in the air prepared to glass the entire crater.

Dante didn’t retreat.

He looked at his team.

"Lila, keep the frontline stacked," Dante ordered quickly. "Mei, cover the airspace. Casanova, break their shields."

Dante activated [Chrono-Shift]. His cooldowns halved. His resource costs zeroed out.

"What about me?" Erebus asked and looked up at him with solid red eyes.

"Just point at anything holding a glowing stick and make it stop," Dante said.

Erebus nodded.

Dante stepped forward and raised Voidsever.

He didn’t just smirk. He let out a dark laugh.

The true battle of the Sky Demon Forest had officially begun.