Chapter 109: The Assembly of the Seven, A Preemptive Ambush

Dante stood at the edge of the central fountain in Ironhold, his finger hovering over the glowing blue ’Confirm’ button on his fast-travel interface.

The rest of the squad was gathered around him, looking remarkably out of place. Sera and Nyx were busy double-checking their inventory capacities, preparing to haul massive amounts of high-tier loot into the Capital’s economy.

Lila was gripping her Dark Demon staff so tightly her knuckles were white.

Mei was casually doing stretches with her indestructible pan. Casanova was loudly complaining about the humidity.

And Garrick was currently trying, and failing, to properly buckle the chin strap of a rusty iron helmet.

"Okay, everyone group up," Dante ordered, pulling up the party menu.

He was just about to initiate the teleport sequence when his regional chat interface violently flared.

It wasn’t a public message. It was a highly encrypted, direct ping from a localized spy network.

[Encrypted Sender: Oracle_Broker]

[Message: Dan. They know you’re moving. Silas has spies planted in the Ironhold merchant district. He just purchased the exact transit logs for your localized party ID. He knows you’re taking the portal to the Aethelgardia outskirts.]

Dante stopped his hand. He stared at the message.

Oracle. The same theory-crafter who had mathematically reverse-engineered his [10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier] on the public forums was now sending him encrypted intel.

[Dan: Why are you telling me this?]

[Oracle_Broker: Because Silas is a corporate suit trying to monopolize a free market, and you are the most fascinating data anomaly I have ever analyzed.

I want to see what happens when an unstoppable force hits a localized brick wall. Be warned. He didn’t send an Enforcer squad this time. He deployed the main roster.]

Dante dismissed the chat window.

"Boss?" Casanova asked, noticing the sudden silence. "What’s wrong? Did the portal glitch out?"

"No," Dante said smoothly, his eyes scanning the seven-man squad. "But we’re going to have a welcoming committee when we step out on the other side."

Sera looked up from her ledger, her professional demeanor instantly hardening into localized panic. "Vanguard’s Legacy? How many?"

"Silas sent the main roster," Dante relayed the intel. "Aethelgardia is a massive zone. He’s likely setting up a hard blockade at the arrival point. We’re looking at a ambush of at least three thousand players."

Lila dropped her staff. It clattered loudly against the cobblestones.

"Three thousand?!" Lila shrieked, backing away from the portal. "Dante, we are seven people! One of us is a Level 8 guy wearing a bucket on his head!"

"Hey!" Garrick protested, finally snapping his chin strap into place. "I have excellent localized aggro mechanics!"

"We can’t walk into a meat grinder," Nyx stated flatly, adjusting her dark glasses. "Even with your stats, Dante, a three-thousand-man synchronized barrage will cause massive latency and chain-stunlocks.

If we enter that portal, we are dead."

"We aren’t dead," Dante corrected her. He didn’t look panicked. He looked completely, utterly bored by the prospect of fighting another army.

"I know they’re waiting for us. That means it’s not an ambush anymore. It’s a delivery service."

"A delivery service of what?" Casanova asked nervously.

"Loot," Mei grinned, slamming the cast-iron pan against her shoulder. "Three thousand players drop a lot of silver coins."

"Exactly," Dante nodded.

He didn’t want to cancel the transit. Aethelgardia was the capital city of the Veridian Alliance. It was the absolute hub of end-game progression, high-tier auction houses, and massive quest lines.

If Silas thought he could just blockade the city and keep Dante trapped in the frontier towns, he was fundamentally underestimating the destructive power of the anomaly squad.

"We are going through," Dante ordered, his voice taking on a heavy, commanding edge. "But we are not going in blind."

Dante opened his infinite inventory.

He didn’t pull out [Voidsever]. He wasn’t going to vaporize the entire arrival point.

He pulled out the heavy, Gold-tier [Dawn-Breaker Blade] and strapped it to his hip. He ensured the [Mantle of the Void-Dragon] was securely fastened, the new [Source of Recovery] passive silently humming in the background.

He turned his attention to the rest of the group.

He looked at Garrick. The middle-aged man looked entirely ridiculous. His armor was literally rusted, offering maybe twenty points of physical defense.

"Garrick," Dante said.

"Yeah, buddy?" Garrick beamed, saluting awkwardly.

Dante reached into his void ring. He bypassed the Gold-tier gear and the Dark Demon armor. He grabbed a complete set of heavy, Silver-tier [Ash-Walker] armor he had looted from the Frostfire Steppes.

It wasn’t end-game gear, but it provided thousands of points of physical defense.

He dumped the entire set onto the cobblestones in front of the oblivious tank.

"Put that on," Dante commanded. "And throw that bucket away."

Garrick stared at the glowing silver armor in absolute awe. "Wow. That is... that is really shiny. Are you sure, man? I haven’t even paid my guild dues yet."

"Just put it on," Dante sighed.

He turned to Sera and Nyx. "You two stay in the back. Do not engage. Nyx, I want you analyzing their backline casting rotations.

Call out any synchronized magical artillery strikes before they launch. Sera, you monitor our health pools. If anyone drops below fifty percent, you shout."

"Understood," Sera nodded briskly, her business instincts overriding her fear.

"Lila," Dante said, looking at the blue-haired support player. "You are our primary crowd control. Do not use [Singularity].

A black hole will suck in too many targets and drain your mana instantly. Stick to wide-area [Gravity Wells]. Pin their frontline so they can’t charge us."

Lila gripped her Dark Demon staff, her knuckles turning white. "I’ll hold them down."

"Mei," Dante said, looking at the brawler. "You are the wall. If anything gets past the gravity wells, you put that frying pan between them and the support."

"I am the wall!" Mei saluted cheerfully with the massive skillet.

Pip fluttered out from Mei’s tunic, landing on her shoulder. "And I will provide vital financial extraction!"

"Perfect," Dante said.

He looked at the squad. It was a complete disaster of a party composition. But it was his party.

"Alright," Dante said, turning back toward the swirling blue fast-travel portal. "Let’s go say hello to Silas."

Dante raised his hand, pointing his dark purple gauntlet at the center of the blue vortex.

[System Prompt: Localized Transit Initiated.]

[Destination: Aethelgardia (Capital Outskirts)]

He stepped into the portal.

The transition was instantaneous.

Dante didn’t stumble or fall. He appeared flawlessly, his iron boots hitting solid ground with a heavy thud.

He opened his eyes.

The environment wasn’t a pristine, glowing arrival plaza inside the city walls. The transit network dropped players in a massive, open field just outside the towering, white marble walls of Aethelgardia.

The sky above was a bright, flawless gold, radiating a peaceful, serene energy.

But the field wasn’t peaceful.

It was completely packed.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a massive, sweeping half-circle around the arrival point were three thousand heavily armored players.

They all wore the gleaming gold and white tabards of the Gilded Syndicate.

They had set up heavy iron barricades. They had positioned hundreds of archers on elevated dirt mounds. Mages stood in tight clusters, their staves already glowing with primed, localized magical energy.

It was a perfectly executed, overwhelming military blockade.

And standing directly in front of the massive army, wearing Supreme-tier armor and a smug, victorious sneer, was Silas.

"Welcome to the Capital, Dan," Silas’s voice resounded across the massive clearing, amplified by a system item.

Dante didn’t move. He stood completely still, his dark purple armor and pitch-black cape completely contrasting the bright gold surroundings.

A second later, the rest of the party materialized behind him.

Lila gasped as she saw the sheer scale of the army. Sera and Nyx immediately stepped backward, trying to minimize their hitboxes.

Mei happily rested her pan on her shoulder, completely unbothered by the three thousand hostile targets.

Garrick materialized last. The middle-aged man was now fully clad in the glowing Silver-tier [Ash-Walker] armor. He looked like a legitimate, high-level heavy tank.

"Wow, that is a lot of people," Garrick noted enthusiastically, peering over the edge of his new silver kite shield. "Are we crashing a parade?"

Silas ignored the rest of the party. His eyes were locked entirely on Dante.

"I told you," Silas sneered, stepping forward. "You can’t hide from me. We tapped the data streams the second you queued the transit. You walked right into the kill-box."

Dante lowered his hand. He looked at the three thousand players completely surrounding his seven-man party.

"You brought three thousand people to guard a spawn point?" Dante asked, his voice entirely flat.

"I brought an army to execute a glitch," Silas corrected, his voice dripping with venom. "You embarrassed me in Ironhold.

You ruined my economy in the Sakura Nation. But you aren’t going any further, Vanguard. You die here."

Silas raised his hand, pointing directly at Dante.

"All units!" Silas roared. "Synchronize fire! Glass the arrival point! Do not let them move!"

Three thousand players raised their weapons. Hundreds of magical circles flared to life in the air.

Dante didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t cast a Zenith-tier skill.

He didn’t even look at Silas.

Dante took a half-step backward, completely exposing his frontline.

"Garrick," Dante said calmly. "You said you had the aggro mechanics figured out."

Garrick beamed, slamming his silver sword against his massive kite shield.

"Don’t worry, buddy!" Garrick yelled, completely serious, completely oblivious to the fact that they were facing an overwhelming military force.

"I’ve got the aggro!"