Started with a 10,000x Multiplier in a Game World

The steel spikes rained down from the canyon walls like artillery fire.

Dante didn’t try to block the barrage with his broadsword. He didn’t want his new mount getting turned into a digital pincushion.

He triggered [Blink Step].

He vanished from the saddle and teleported thirty feet backward.

The steel spikes slammed into the red stone where he had just been sitting.

They completely missed the armored warhorse as it instinctively bolted away from the impact zone and galloped further down the canyon.

Dante landed lightly on his boots, and his [Mantle of the Void-Dragon] settled around his dark purple armor.

He looked up at the canyon walls.

There were at least thirty Slaughter-Weavers clinging to the rock face roughly fifty feet above him. They were completely out of standard melee range.

If this were any other zone, Dante would simply use [Meteor Stride] or [Phantom Waltz] to teleport directly to them and carve them off the wall.

But the Path of Gods and Demons was an endgame forbidden zone.

His Intuition stat permanently buffed to 100 was actively warning him against aerial combat here.

The swirling crimson sky above the canyon felt heavy. It was laden with hidden anti-air suppression mechanics.

If he jumped up there, he risked getting swatted out of the sky by an unseen environmental hazard.

He needed to fight them from the ground.

"I need range," Dante said and opened his infinite inventory.

He didn’t pull out the [Bow of the Eclipse].

The Mythic-tier bow was an incredible weapon, but [Eclipse Volley] was a massive indiscriminate area-of-effect attack.

Firing a hundred tracking arrows into the canyon walls might trigger a rockslide. He didn’t want to get buried alive on his first day in the forbidden zone.

He needed precise targeted ranged damage that scaled off his massive physical Strength stat.

He scrolled through his unread skillbooks and found a thin dull orange tome.

[Item Appraised: Skillbook - Weapon Buff (Aura)]

[Tier: Novice]

[Description: The user channels a small amount of mana into their equipped weapon, extending the physical reach of their strikes by 1 foot for 5 seconds. Cooldown: 30 seconds.]

It was a basic practically useless quality-of-life skill meant to help new players compensate for poor spacing during melee combat.

Dante absorbed it.

[Skill Learned: Weapon Buff - Aura (Novice)]

He drew the [Dawn-Breaker Blade].

The Gold-tier broadsword hummed softly. It cast a warm light against the dark red canyon floor.

The Slaughter-Weavers on the walls finished reloading their internal mechanics.

They opened their mandibles and prepared to fire a second synchronized volley of steel spikes.

Dante raised his sword and activated the new skill.

[Skill Executed: Weapon Buff - Aura.]

The anomaly triggered.

[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]

[Registering 10,000 flawless executions.]

The combat enlightenment was fundamentally different from his mobility or parry skills.

He didn’t learn how to move faster or predict kinetic trajectories.

His neural link was flooded with the absolute mastery of energy projection.

He understood exactly how to bind his raw physical Strength stat to ambient atmospheric particles.

He learned how to force physical kinetic energy to exist completely independent of the metal edge of the weapon.

[Weapon Buff - Aura has reached Adept tier.]

[Weapon Buff - Aura has reached Master tier.]

[Weapon Buff - Aura has reached Grandmaster tier.]

The [Dawn-Breaker Blade] didn’t just glow.

The physical blade was violently enveloped by a massive blinding shell of compressed physical energy.

[Weapon Buff - Aura has reached Zenith tier.]

[Skill Evolution Triggered.]

[Weapon Buff - Aura has evolved into: Aether-Blade Projection.]

The system interface flashed a brilliant searing gold.

[Aether-Blade Projection (Zenith)]

[Description: The ultimate expression of projected kinetic force. The melee strikes of the user are transformed into localized armor-piercing projectiles traveling at extreme velocity.]

[Range extended to 15 meters (50 feet). Deals 100% of base physical damage. Projectiles do not suffer damage falloff. Cooldown: 0 Seconds (Chrono-Shift Active).]

Dante smiled. A cold and incredibly satisfied smile.

He wasn’t restricted to melee range anymore.

He could launch his massive 5,100 Strength stat across the battlefield with the speed of a bullet.

The Slaughter-Weavers fired their second volley. Thirty steel spikes shot downward.

Dante didn’t dodge.

He stood his ground, gripped the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] with both hands, and swung a rapid horizontal arc through the empty air in front of him.

The physical blade hit nothing.

But from the edge of the sword, a massive crescent-shaped blade of pure compressed golden energy erupted.

It wasn’t a magic spell. It was raw projected physical force.

The Aether-Blade Projection shot upward at terrifying speed.

It collided with the incoming volley of steel spikes.

The Zenith-tier projectile didn’t shatter. It cleanly sheared through the steel spikes in mid-air.

It completely destroyed the enemy attack and continued its upward trajectory without losing a fraction of its momentum.

The golden crescent slammed into the rock face directly across the cluster of Slaughter-Weavers.

[-15,500!]

[-15,500!]

[-15,500!]

The damage numbers exploded.

The projection carved a deep perfectly smooth trench into the red stone canyon wall. It sliced cleanly through four of the massive steel-plated spiders.

The Gold-tier mobs shrieked in agony as their health bars were instantly halved.

"Oh, that feels good," Dante laughed.

Because of [Chrono-Shift], the skill had zero cooldown. It wasn’t a temporary buff that expired.

Every single time he swung his sword, he fired a massive armor-piercing projectile.

Dante didn’t wait for the spiders to recover. He unleashed a relentless blinding flurry of strikes.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

Dozens of golden crescent blades shot from his position on the canyon floor. They crisscrossed the air like a anti-aircraft battery.

The projections slammed into the canyon walls. They systematically carved the Slaughter-Weavers into pieces.

The spiders tried to scuttle higher up the wall to escape the barrage.

But the projectiles tracked flawlessly and moved far faster than the massive mobs could climb.

Within ten seconds, the entire pack of thirty Gold-tier monsters was completely obliterated.

They shattered into blue and silver polygons and rained a massive shower of high-tier loot down onto the red canyon floor.

[Target Eliminated: Slaughter-Weaver x30]

Dante slowly lowered the [Dawn-Breaker Blade].

The air around him was completely still save for the localized dust settling from the carved canyon walls.

He didn’t even break a sweat.

He had just wiped a pack of endgame mobs from fifty feet away using basic melee swings.

"I am a ranged class now," Dante smirked and sheathed the gold broadsword.

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

Because he possessed the [Zenith Incarnate] title, the spiders dropped thousands of gold coins and massive stacks of ’Refined Steel Silk’. It was a high-tier crafting material.

He didn’t check the specific armor drops. He just stored them to sell at the Astral Emporium later.

He needed to keep moving. He was looking for Grandmaster Jian, and the canyon was sprawling.

He jogged down the path and easily caught up to his armored warhorse. It was calmly grazing on a patch of tough red canyon scrub brush.

He mounted the horse and continued his ride deeper into the forbidden zone.

The red canyon gradually widened, and the steep claustrophobic walls fell away. The environment shifted from jagged rock to a sprawling desolate wasteland.

The ground wasn’t dirt or sand. It was entirely composed of shattered ancient bone.

Skulls the size of houses, massive ribcages that formed localized archways, and crushed femurs littered the landscape.

A thick blood-red mist hung low to the ground and obscured the horizon.

The system interface updated, and the text pulsed with a deep ominous crimson.

[Zone Alert: The Mists of Carnage]

[Hazard Detected: Echoes of the Fallen.]

[Warning: The localized environment is heavily saturated with the lingering bloodlust of ancient armies. Passive health regeneration is completely disabled. All entities suffer a 10% reduction to total armor mitigation.]

Dante read the prompt.

The 10% armor reduction was annoying, but his base defense was so incredibly high it barely registered as a threat.

The lack of passive regeneration was a bigger problem, especially since the overall zone already reduced all healing by 90%.

If he took a massive hit here, recovering from it would be incredibly difficult.

He rode the warhorse slowly through the bone-littered wasteland. His Intuition stat worked overtime to pierce the thick red mist.

The silence of the Mists of Carnage was absolute. It was far quieter than the canyon.

Then, he heard the marching.

It wasn’t the chaotic disorganized scrambling of beasts.

It was the heavy, perfectly synchronized, and rhythmic thud of hundreds of iron boots hitting the bone-covered ground simultaneously.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Dante stopped the warhorse. He didn’t dismount. He drew the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] and waited.

The thick red mist directly in front of him slowly parted.

Marching out of the fog and arranged in a flawless and perfectly locked phalanx formation was an army.

They weren’t the ghostly Wraith-Knights from the Necropolis.

They were heavily armored and fully corporeal Undead Hoplites.

They wore tarnished bronze breastplates, heavy crested helmets, and carried massive overlapping bronze tower shields that completely locked together.

They formed an impenetrable wall of metal. Long jagged spears protruded from the gaps between the shields.

[Monster Spawn: Undead Hoplite]

[Tier: Gold]

[Level: 30]

[HP: 45,000 / 45,000]

There were easily two hundred of them.

They moved as a single, massive, and coordinated unit. They completely blocked the path forward.

Dante didn’t see a commander. The phalanx was operating on a flawless localized hive-mind AI.

"A shield wall," Dante noted and evaluated the formation.

He couldn’t just casually stroll up and hit them with a basic attack.

The overlapping shields would mitigate the majority of the damage, and the spears would skewer him.

He needed to break the formation or bypass it entirely.

He decided to test his new ranged toy.

Dante swung the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] horizontally.

[Skill Executed: Aether-Blade Projection]

The massive golden crescent of compressed kinetic energy shot forward. It aimed directly at the center of the bronze shield wall.

The Zenith-tier projectile closed the distance instantly.

The projectile slammed into the locked tower shields.

CLANG!

Dante expected the golden crescent to shear cleanly through the bronze. He expected it to shatter the front line and open a massive gap in the formation.

Instead, the golden energy shattered.

The entire phalanx glowed with a sudden violent burst of red light.

[Mob Passive Triggered: Phalanx Reflection]

The localized system interface flashed a warning.

A massive identical golden crescent of energy erupted from the bronze shields. It reflected the exact attack of Dante directly back at him at terrifying speed.

Dante didn’t have time to use [Blink Step]. The reflection was instantaneous.

The reflected Aether-Blade slammed directly into his armor

[-6,500 HP!]

The impact knocked Dante clean off his armored warhorse. He hit the bone-covered ground hard and skidded backward.

The warhorse was terrified by the sudden explosion of light and noise. It bolted away into the red mist and completely abandoned him.

Dante groaned and pushed himself up off the crushed bones. He checked his health bar.

[Participant: Dan]

[HP: 19,000 / 25,500]

"Well," Dante winced and rubbed his chest piece. "That is a new trick."

He looked at the Undead Hoplites.

They hadn’t broken formation. They hadn’t even staggered. The red light faded from their shields and returned them to dull bronze.

The phalanx resumed its slow and perfectly synchronized march toward him.

Dante analyzed the brief interaction.

The system hadn’t mitigated his damage. The passive of the monsters had actively absorbed the kinetic force and weaponized it based on their combined maximum HP.

Because there were two hundred of them sharing the defensive load, their reflection cap was massive.

If he used [Voidsever] and hit them with an unmitigated strike, the resulting reflection would instantly vaporize him. He couldn’t burst them down.

"You want to play defense," Dante said and gripped his gold broadsword tightly. "Fine. Let us see how you handle getting kited."