Chapter 23: Dimensional Tear

The movement upward through the next few levels went completely uninterrupted. The twenty-seventh, twenty-eight, and twenty-ninth floors were entirely empty of human presence.

Marcus had pulled every single guild worker back to the safety of the upper sectors. The only movement inside the halls was the steady thudding of the giant alligator’s legs as it carried Dante and Yenna closer to the thirty-first level.

Every single hour, the text on Dante’s status screen updated as Marcus’s stolen treasury continued to dissolve inside his private cosmic world.

[System Notification: Resource Assimilation complete.]

[300x Calamity Cores dissolved across the last three levels.]

[You have permanently gained: +30 Strength, +30 Agility, +30 Vitality, +30 Intelligence.]

Dante stood on the reptile’s head. The physical pressure vibrating off him was now so dense that the air around his shoulders seemed to warp, blurring the view behind him.

The lift finally reached the thirtieth floor, the panels sliding open to reveal a massive transformation of the environment.

This level was not made of stone or corporate offices. It was a giant, hollowed-out dome where the ground was covered in dust. A vertical rip stretching twenty feet high hovered in empty space, glowing with an oily, toxic energy. This was the dimensional tear Marcus had opened using his ancient contract tokens.

From the center of the purple fluid, an alien entity slowly crawled out onto the ground.

It was an Abyssal Stalker—a non-human warrior from a parallel dimension that had been swallowed by the tower centuries ago. The entity stood four meters tall, its body covered in layered scales that were harder than any earth mineral. It had four arms, each holding a long spear that buzzed with black fire fluid, and its head was lined with rows of jagged teeth that dripped with acid.

The alien entity looked at the approaching alligator, its yellow eyes pulsing with a cold, predatory intelligence. It did not roar like a mindless monster. Instead, it sent a wave of mental pressure across the room, intending to crush the minds of the intruders.

"Human trash," a grating voice come "Your Guild Master paid fifty thousand high-grade crystals to my clan to clean this sector. Your soul signature ends here."

Dante didn’t answer. Through the shared mind matrix, his thoughts moved instantly to Yenna.

’Is your mind stable?’

Yenna sat behind him, her black cat ears straight, her hand resting flat against the alligator’s scales. Thanks to Dante’s Sovereign’s Mental Domain, the alien’s mental wave broke against her brain like water hitting a rock. She did not feel a single ounce of fear or stress.

’My mind is completely clear, Zero,’ Yenna transmitted back. ’The alien entity has zero cooldowns on its spears. Its movement speed is three times faster than an A-Rank hunter. But its core mana channel is exposed right behind its neck scales.’

Dante stepped off the alligator’s head.

"Fifty thousand crystals," Dante muttered, his voice flat as he walked toward the four-armed alien. "Marcus really is getting desperate."

The alien entity lunged forward with extreme speed, its four arms moving in a rapid blur as it drove all four spears straight toward Dante’s head and torso simultaneously. The black fire fluid on the tips cut through the air, ready to incinerate his life force.

Dante did not dodge the spears. He did not draw his invisible weapon. He simply took one calm step forward, letting the four obsidian tips slam directly into his black clothing.

A massive shockwave of black fire and grey dust exploded outward, filling the center of the dome. The ground beneath Dante’s feet cracked from the kinetic impact.

But inside the smoke, the alien entity’s yellow eyes violently shrank. The sharp obsidian tips had stopped exactly against the fabric of Dante’s hoodie, unable to penetrate a single millimeter.

Instantly, the SSS-Rank reflection ability initialized. The total combined force of the alien’s four-armed S-rank lunge was doubled to 200% and sent right back into its own frame as unblockable true damage.

The four obsidian spears violently shattered into pieces. The amplified force traveled up the entity’s four arms, instantly snapping its metallic arm bones and ripping its gray scales off its flesh. The alien let out a sharp gasp of agony as its own massive physical strength blasted inward, shattering its internal rib cage and throwing its four-meter body backward across the grey floorboards of the dome.

It hit the ground hard, spitting green acid fluid from its mouth, its metallic scales cracked and broken.

Dante walked through the clearing smoke, his posture completely relaxed, his hand looking empty as his fingers wrapped around the leather grip of his invisible blade.

"You should have asked Marcus why he was hiding on the fiftieth floor before you took his contract," Dante said, stopping right above the fallen alien warrior.

With a quick vertical movement of his hand, the invisible blade sliced down, cutting cleanly through the exposed core behind the entity’s neck scales. The alien’s body stiffened for a second before its entire life force was violently drained into the hilt.

[System Notification: S-Rank Alien Entity eliminated.]

[Sovereign’s Tax has collected 5% of the target’s attributes.]

[You permanently gained: +15 Strength, +15 Agility.]

Dante wiped his empty hand against his clothes and looked toward the dimensional tear, which was now flickering and losing its energy because its anchor was dead.

"Floor thirty is cleared," Dante said, turning back toward the giant alligator where Yenna was waiting. "Let’s use the transport elevator. Marcus’s alien allies can’t save him anymore."