Chapter 271: Pursuit, Refracting the Moonlight

Grandmaster Jian-Yu's ancient eyes narrowed slightly at Dante's words.

"Bait?" Jian-Yu repeated, his voice barely a whisper, yet the sheer, concentrated sword intent carried the word perfectly across the quiet, foggy marsh. "You believe you have orchestrated a trap, anomaly? Against the Spirit Sword Sect?"

Dante didn't answer. He simply smiled, a cold, predatory expression that didn't reach his glowing red eyes.

The twelve Level 70 Super-Divine Elders surrounding Dante didn't wait for permission. They moved with absolute, terrifying synchronization. They didn't lunge forward with sweeping, telegraphed strikes. They executed a highly coordinated, localized spatial lockdown.

All twelve Elders raised their glowing silver swords simultaneously, pointing the tips directly at the center of the clearing where Dante stood.

[NPC Mechanic Triggered: Spirit Sword Spatial Lock]

[Warning: Absolute Dimensional Quarantine Initiated.]

A massive, shimmering dome of translucent white energy slammed down over the immediate area, completely encasing Dante, the twelve Elders, and the Grandmaster.

The system interface aggressively flashed a harsh, warning red.

[Debuff Applied: Spatial Severance.]

[All teleportation, localized fast-travel, and spatial displacement skills are permanently disabled within the quarantine zone. The [Spatial Stone] artifact is nullified.]

Dante immediately felt the oppressive, restrictive weight of the array. The localized space around him felt incredibly dense, as if the air itself had turned into solid glass.

"You rely too heavily on your teleportation mechanics, Outworlder," Jian-Yu stated calmly, stepping forward, his blinding white longsword humming aggressively. "My disciple, Aurelius, failed because he allowed you to manipulate distance. We will not afford you the same luxury. You are mathematically bound to this arena."

Dante didn't panic. He had fully anticipated a hard lock. A high-tier lore faction wouldn't ambush the server's most notorious anomaly without disabling his primary method of evasion.

"You locked the door," Dante noted, glancing around the shimmering white dome. "That was incredibly considerate of you."

Jian-Yu frowned. The Outworlder's absolute lack of fear was deeply unsettling, even for a Level 80 Celestial entity.

"Execute him," Jian-Yu commanded softly.

The twelve Super-Divine Elders moved instantly.

They didn't charge in a chaotic mob. They utilized a flawless, localized martial discipline. Four Elders rushed the front, their swords a blur of silver light, aiming to aggressively strip Dante's massive defense stats with rapid, overlapping strikes. The remaining eight Elders flanked, preparing to deliver devastating, synchronized backstabs the moment Dante committed to a parry.

It was a mathematically perfect execution sequence.

Dante didn't try to block four Super-Divine strikes simultaneously. He didn't draw [Voidsever].

"Let's go for a run," Dante said.

He didn't use a spatial skill.

He activated the primary passive on his Celestial-tier boots.

[Item Passive Activated: Evil Spirit Boots (Phantom Tread)]

He chained it instantly with the flight passive of his Saint Destroyer-tier cloak.

[Item Passive Activated: Mantle of the Void-Dragon (Limitless Flight)]

He didn't teleport. He didn't bend space.

He used raw, unadulterated, mathematically absurd physical speed.

Because [Phantom Tread] granted a 40% movement speed buff, and [Limitless Flight] allowed him to manipulate localized gravity to achieve sustained, high-speed flight scaling off his massive Agility stat, Dante didn't just run.

He became a literal, physical blur of dark purple armor.

He launched himself vertically, completely ignoring the four charging Elders, shooting straight up toward the top of the shimmering white dome.

"He's flying!" an Elder shouted, adjusting his stance to aim his sword upward.

"The dome is impenetrable!" Jian-Yu declared confidently. "He will simply bounce off the ceiling. Strike him when he falls!"

Dante hit the top of the spatial lock.

He didn't try to smash through it with a sword. He didn't use a massive Zenith-tier skill.

He simply planted his iron boots firmly against the solid energy of the ceiling.

He inverted his localized gravity using the cloak's passive, treating the ceiling of the dome as the floor.

He sprinted.

He ran across the absolute top of the dome at terrifying, supersonic speed, completely bypassing the twelve Elders standing on the ground below. He looked like an inverted, localized missile, his dark purple armor tearing across the translucent white energy barrier.

"What in the system is he doing?!" an Elder yelled, completely bewildered as the entire squad was forced to crane their necks upward to track the incredibly fast anomaly running upside down on the ceiling.

Dante didn't stop to admire the view. He sprinted until he reached the absolute edge of the dome, right where the energy barrier met the muddy, fog-covered ground of the marsh.

He dropped the gravity inversion.

He plummeted toward the dirt, spinning mid-air, landing flawlessly on his feet just inches inside the perimeter of the spatial lock.

He was out of the immediate encirclement, but he was still trapped inside the dome.

"He is fast, but he is still confined," Jian-Yu stated, completely unfazed. "He is merely delaying the inevitable. Close the distance. Do not let him gain momentum."

The twelve Elders immediately pivoted, tracking Dante's new location, and charged again.

Dante didn't plan on staying in the dome.

He pulled the small, intricately carved silver hand mirror from his inventory. The [Mirror of the Moon] pulsed with deep, starry cosmic energy.

He didn't crush it. He didn't aim it at the Elders.

He aimed the mirror directly at the shimmering white energy barrier of the spatial lock holding him in.

"I told you I wasn't the bait," Dante said, looking directly at the charging Grandmaster.

Dante activated the Divine Emperor-tier artifact.

[Skill Executed: Lunar Evocation]

The Zenith Protocol's combat engine violently hitched.

The small silver mirror didn't fire a destructive beam or a massive AoE spell.

It forcefully, violently ripped a hole in localized reality.

The artifact didn't care about the Spirit Sword Sect's spatial lock. It completely bypassed the systemic quarantine, overriding the 'Spatial Severance' debuff with absolute, indisputable administrative authority.

A massive, towering portal forged from pure, blinding starlight tore open directly in front of Dante, completely shattering a ten-foot section of the supposedly impenetrable white dome.

The twelve charging Elders skidded to a halt, their localized AI completely unable to process how the anomaly had just bypassed a faction-level lockdown array with a hand mirror.

Grandmaster Jian-Yu's ancient eyes widened in absolute shock.

"What is that?" Jian-Yu whispered, his immense cosmic weight suddenly feeling incredibly small.

Dante didn't wait around to answer the question.

He didn't step into the portal. He took a massive step backward, slipping cleanly through the shattered gap in the dome, completely escaping the trap.

He stood outside the barrier, safe in the thick, gray fog of the Illusionary Mist Marsh.

He watched the starlight portal violently expand inside the dome.

The portal didn't close after Dante exited. It flared aggressively, vomiting pure, unadulterated cosmic energy into the confined arena.

A figure stepped out of the portal, landing heavily on the muddy ground inside the Spirit Sword Sect's spatial lock.

It wasn't a player. It wasn't a standard NPC.

It was a towering, massively muscled man. He didn't wear delicate silk robes or pristine silver armor. He wore heavy, jagged armor forged from deep blue, corrupted moonstone. He carried a massive, two-handed battleaxe that looked like it had been carved directly from a fallen meteor.

His eyes burned with an incredibly intense, aggressive silver light.

[Entity Identified: Xiong Batian, The Lunar Vanguard]

[Faction: Super-Divine Defender (Moonlight Lake)]

[Level: 85]

[HP: 25,000,000 / 25,000,000]

The Level 85 Super-Divine entity had been forcefully yanked directly from the absolute heart of the Fey Continent and dropped perfectly into the middle of the Spirit Sword Sect's kill-box.

Xiong Batian didn't look confused. He didn't look disoriented by the sudden, massive geographical displacement.

He looked incredibly, violently angry.

The massive Defender had been summoned by the Sovereign's personal artifact. He was operating under a strict, localized directive: annihilate any hostile entities threatening the bearer of the Mirror.

He looked around the enclosed white dome. He saw the twelve Level 70 Elders and the Level 80 Grandmaster standing with drawn weapons.

Xiong Batian let out a deafening, booming roar that physically shook the entire marsh. The concussive force of the roar was so intense it actually cracked the remaining sections of the white energy dome.

"You dare raise blades against the Sovereign's ally?!" Xiong Batian bellowed, lifting his massive, meteor-forged battleaxe. "I will grind your lineage into cosmic dust!"

Grandmaster Jian-Yu stared at the towering, twenty-five-million HP monstrosity currently occupying the center of his inescapable trap.

The Warlord realized he had made a catastrophic, localized mathematical error.

He hadn't trapped the anomaly. The anomaly had trapped them in a cage with a localized apocalypse.

"Elders," Jian-Yu commanded, his voice trembling slightly. "Break the dome! We must retreat! We cannot fight a Super-Divine Guardian!"

"The localized anchor is jammed!" an Elder panicked, frantically tapping his system interface. "The celestial energy from the portal corrupted the dismissal code! The dome won't drop!"

They were locked in.

Dante stood outside the dome, the thick gray fog swirling around his dark purple armor. He casually sheathed the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] and crossed his arms.

"Have fun in there," Dante muttered, turning his back on the glowing white dome.

He didn't stick around to watch the fight. He knew exactly how it was going to end. A Level 85 Super-Divine entity possessing a massive health pool and overwhelming burst damage was going to absolutely massacre a squad of squishy sword-masters trapped in a confined space.

He had successfully delegated the assassination attempt to an incredibly over-qualified NPC.

Dante pulled the dark gray [Spatial Stone] from his inventory, fully intending to crush it and finally return to the Citadel. He had cleared the threat, verified his new passives, and humiliated the Emperor's hit squad.

It was time to log out.

Before he could crush the stone, his private message interface pinged aggressively.

[Incoming Transmission: Wu Chen]

Dante paused. Wu Chen. The hyper-energetic, illusionist teenager who had scammed the stable master in the Capital.

He opened the message.

[Wu Chen: BOSS! You need to get back to the Citadel right now! I was trying to sneak into your massive, awesome new castle to ask for an autograph, but someone beat me to it!]

[Dan: Clarify.]

[Wu Chen: It's an army, Boss! But they aren't players! They are massive, terrifying NPCs wearing dark red armor, and they are literally marching out of the Sky Demon Forest right toward your front gates! They have siege engines that are shooting literal fireballs! I'm hiding in a bush, but there are thousands of them!]

Dante stared at the message.

NPCs. Dark red armor. Siege engines shooting fire.

The Heavenly Fire Sect.

Silas hadn't just tipped off the Spirit Sword Sect in the Capital. The bankrupt, desperate Guild Master had likely scoured the entire server's dark-web API for any high-tier lore faction with a vendetta against Outworlders and leaked Dante's coordinates to all of them simultaneously.

The Spirit Sword Sect was meant to catch him in the open world.

The Heavenly Fire Sect was meant to burn his Citadel to the ground while he was distracted.

Dante crushed the [Spatial Stone] in his gauntlet.

The swirling gray vortex enveloped him, instantly tearing him out of the Illusionary Mist Marsh.

"This guy is incredibly persistent," Dante sighed as the spatial transition initiated, hurling him back toward his newly established headquarters.