Chapter 238: The Vault of the Earth Core, Slicing the Code

The jagged black blade of [Voidsever] touched the first glowing green thread of the Administrator Deletion Code.

Dante didn’t hold his breath. He didn’t brace for the instantaneous, permanent deletion of his account.

He knew exactly what the weapon in his hand was capable of.

The moment the dark metal made contact with the admin-level trap, the system interface violently glitched.

SCREEECH.

The sound wasn’t an explosion or a magical detonation. It was the horrific, ear-piercing sound of digital static violently tearing itself apart.

The glowing green thread didn’t trigger. It didn’t send a lethal disconnect signal to Dante’s VR capsule.

It simply snapped.

The green light fizzled and died, leaving a small gap in the impenetrable laser grid.

[Passive Activated: Systemic Override (Anti-Virus)]

[Administrative Hazard Neutralized.]

Dante smiled. It was a cold, incredibly satisfied expression.

He gripped the dark bone hilt with both hands and stepped fully into the corridor.

He didn’t tiptoe. He didn’t carefully navigate the maze of lethal tripwires.

He just started walking, casually swinging the massive, one-hundred-pound primordial greatsword back and forth in wide, lazy arcs like he was clearing tall grass with a machete.

Screech. Screech. Screech.

Every time the black and white blade touched a green thread, the admin code instantly failed.

The deletion traps were systematically, effortlessly dismantled. Voidsever’s newly awakened anti-virus properties completely ignored the Arch-Administrator’s authority, treating the lethal hazards as nothing more than mild annoyances.

At the far end of the corridor, Silas stopped reaching for the [Primal Earth Core].

The Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy stared at the anomaly walking down the hallway.

The smug, triumphant smile completely slid off Silas’s face, replaced by absolute, unfiltered horror.

"What are you doing?!" Silas screamed, his voice cracking with panic. He frantically tapped his glowing wrist interface, trying to trigger the traps manually.

"Those are hard-coded deletion barriers! You can’t just walk through them! The system forbids it!"

"The system doesn’t make the rules down here anymore, Silas," Dante called back, slicing through a thick cluster of green lasers near the ceiling. "I do."

Dante cleared the final fifty yards in seconds.

He stepped out of the corridor and into the massive, sprawling royal vault.

The chamber was breathtaking. It was a massive cavern paved with smooth, polished obsidian.

Towering pillars of raw, unrefined gold supported the ceiling. Mountains of high-tier loot chests overflowing with platinum coins, racks of glowing weapons, and shelves of rare crafting materials lined the walls. It was the accumulated wealth of an entire continent.

Dante ignored all of it.

His eyes were locked entirely on the center of the room.

Resting on a massive, intricately carved pedestal of solid diamond was the objective.

It was a large, heavy orb, roughly the size of a bowling ball. It didn’t glow with the toxic purple light of the Void-Blight.

It pulsed with a deep, rich, earthy brown and vibrant gold energy. The ambient gravity around the pedestal was visibly warped, pulling dust motes into its center.

[Item Identified: Primal Earth Core]

[Tier: Cosmic Fragment]

[Description: The second missing Chaos Orb of the primordial executioner’s blade. Radiates massive gravitational authority.]

Silas stood right next to the pedestal. The Enforcer was trembling, his pristine white celestial armor shaking.

"You can’t have it," Silas hissed, stepping between Dante and the Core. "I need this. If I don’t fuse this with my admin crystal, the proxy is going to liquidate my real-world brain stem."

"That sounds like a personal problem," Dante said flatly, resting [Voidsever] on his shoulder.

"I won’t let you ruin my life!" Silas roared, drawing his silver broadsword.

Dante didn’t even drop into a combat stance. He was Level 72. Silas, despite his Enforcer privileges granting him infinite health regeneration, was mathematically incapable of dealing enough burst damage to bypass Dante’s massive defense and the [Source of Recovery] cloak passive.

"You’re not going to fight me, Silas," Dante said, his red eyes completely dead. "You’re going to hand me the orb, and then you’re going to log out and face your board of directors like a man."

Before Silas could swing his sword, the massive obsidian floor of the vault violently shuddered.

The localized gravity in the room didn’t just shift; it aggressively spiked.

Dante stumbled slightly, his heavy iron boots firmly planting against the stone to maintain his balance.

The sheer, overwhelming atmospheric pressure wasn’t a magic spell. It was raw, unadulterated cosmic weight.

"I told you," a deep, booming voice echoed from the shadows behind the diamond pedestal. "The delivery is canceled."

Silas panicked, scrambling backward away from the pedestal.

A massive, hulking figure stepped out of the gloom.

It wasn’t a Royal Guard.

It was a towering, quadrupedal beast that looked like a terrifying cross between an armored rhinoceros and a snapping turtle. Its body was completely encased in incredibly thick, jagged plates of hardened earth and glowing gold ore. It didn’t have eyes, just a smooth, featureless visor of solid diamond.

[Boss Spawn: Earth-Shatter Behemoth]

[Tier: Celestial]

[Level: 55]

[HP: 20,000,000 / 20,000,000]

"The vault guardian," Dante murmured.

The Beast-Emperor hadn’t just stationed the Blood-Mane Legion to guard the hallway. He had stationed a Level 55 Celestial entity directly inside the vault.

The beast was heavily infused with the ambient gravitational power of the [Primal Earth Core], making it a localized natural disaster.

The Behemoth didn’t roar. It didn’t charge.

It raised one of its massive, trunk-like front legs and slammed a heavy, diamond-plated hoof directly into the obsidian floor.

[Boss Mechanic Triggered: Gravitational Well]

The system interface flashed a harsh, aggressive yellow.

Dante instantly felt the impact. The localized gravity inside the entire vault multiplied by a factor of one hundred.

It wasn’t like Lila’s spell, which simply pinned targets to the floor. The boss’s mechanic was absolute.

Dante was violently slammed down to his hands and knees. The [Sun-Forged Cuirass] whined loudly under the immense structural strain. His massive 35,500 health pool immediately began to plummet.

[-2,000 HP!]

[-2,000 HP!]

[-2,000 HP!]

The crush damage was ticking every single second. The gravity was so intense it was actively bypassing his physical mitigation. He couldn’t stand up. He couldn’t lift [Voidsever].

Silas, standing near the edge of the room, was also pinned to the floor, gasping for air as his Enforcer armor buckled. But Silas had infinite health regeneration. The crush damage didn’t matter to him.

"Perfect!" Silas laughed hysterically from the floor, his face pressed against the obsidian. "Kill him! Crush the anomaly!"

The Earth-Shatter Behemoth slowly marched toward Dante, completely unhindered by its own gravity field.

It raised a massive, diamond-plated hoof, preparing to deliver an execution stomp that would instantly zero out Dante’s remaining health.

Dante gritted his teeth, struggling against the crushing weight.

He couldn’t trigger [Meteor Stride]. The Zenith-tier teleport required a physical casting motion, and he couldn’t lift his arm.

He couldn’t use [Asura’s Descent] because dropping his defense to zero in a high-damage aura would instantly kill him.

He was mathematically pinned.

"Aura," Dante choked out, his voice barely a whisper.

The tiny silver fox materialized instantly from her pet-space. She wasn’t affected by the gravity. She hovered directly over Dante’s head, her three starlight tails weaving rapidly.

[Skill Activated: Resurgence Wave]

A massive pulse of concentrated Aether washed over Dante. The percentage-based heal instantly restored 50% of his maximum health, wiping away the crush damage and topping him back up to 35,500 HP.

But the heal didn’t lift the gravity debuff.

The crush damage immediately started ticking again.

[-2,000 HP!]

[-2,000 HP!]

"She can keep me alive," Dante realized quickly, watching the boss slowly close the distance. "But she can’t free me. I have to break the field."

He opened his infinite inventory using a purely mental command.

He needed a counter-measure. He needed something that manipulated gravity or altered physics.

He scrolled furiously past his weapons and armor. He was looking for the low-tier utility skillbooks he had completely ignored.

He found a thin, dull gray tome.

[Item Appraised: Skillbook - Float]

[Tier: Novice]

[Description: A basic utility spell. Reduces the user’s physical weight by 10% for 5 seconds. Primarily used to negate minor fall damage. Cooldown: 30 seconds.]

It was a garbage skill. It was usually given to low-level mages so they didn’t break their legs jumping off small cliffs.

Dante absorbed it instantly.

[Skill Learned: Float (Novice)]

The Earth-Shatter Behemoth loomed directly over him. The massive, diamond-plated hoof was raised high, perfectly positioned to crush Dante’s skull into the obsidian floor.

Dante didn’t try to roll away. He focused his intent on the new skill.

[Skill Executed: Float.]

The anomaly in his code triggered.

[Talent Activated: 10,000x Multiplier.]

[Registering 10,000 flawless executions.]

The combat enlightenment was entirely different from his previous skills. He didn’t learn how to manipulate atmospheric pressure or thermal dynamics.

His neural link was flooded with the absolute, fundamental mastery of gravitational physics.

He learned how to completely sever his digital avatar’s connection to the server’s mass-calculation algorithms. He understood how to generate a perfect field of absolute zero-gravity.

[Float has reached Adept tier.]

[Float has reached Master tier.]

[Float has reached Grandmaster tier.]

The crushing pressure pushing Dante against the floor vanished instantly.

[Float has reached Zenith tier.]

[Skill Evolution Triggered.]

[Float has evolved into: Null-Space Domain.]

The system interface flashed a brilliant, blinding white.

[Null-Space Domain (Zenith)]

[Description: The ultimate expression of gravitational denial. The user projects a 100-foot aura of absolute zero-gravity. All hostile gravity-based debuffs, crush mechanics, and environmental hazards within the domain are permanently nullified. The user and designated allies gain unrestricted aerial mobility within the aura. Duration: Sustained (Drains Mana). Cooldown: None (Chrono-Shift Active).]

Dante didn’t just stand up.

He floated.

The localized gravity in the massive vault was completely overwritten. The 100-foot aura of [Null-Space Domain] expanded outward, instantly shattering the boss’s [Gravitational Well] mechanic.

The crushing pressure vanished. The ticking damage stopped.

Dante hung effortlessly in the air, ten feet off the ground, completely unbothered by gravity.

The Earth-Shatter Behemoth brought its massive hoof down, fully expecting to crush the pinned player.

The hoof slammed into the obsidian floor, missing Dante entirely. The boss stumbled forward, its Gold-tier system completely confused by the sudden loss of its primary combat mechanic.

Silas, freed from the crushing weight near the edge of the room, scrambled to his feet. He stared at the floating anomaly in absolute disbelief.

"You literally just turned off gravity," Silas whispered.

"I’m tired of being grounded," Dante said smoothly, hovering in the air.

He didn’t draw the [Dawn-Breaker Blade]. He didn’t need to chip away at the boss’s massive health pool.

He had [Voidsever] still materialized in his right hand.

The primordial greatsword hummed aggressively, the white veins of the anti-virus code pulsing with authority.

"My turn," Dante said.