Chapter 241: The Enforcer’s Despair, Protocol: Server Wipe

Dante stood in the center of the ruined plaza of Theria, gripping the hilt of [Voidsever].

He was sitting at exactly 17,750 HP. He had exactly half of his maximum health pool remaining after Aura’s emergency heal.

It wasn’t a disadvantage. It was the mathematical requirement for his newest skill.

[Skill Executed: Calamity - Wrath]

A continental data wipe. The Arch-Administrator wasn’t trying to send bosses after him anymore. Silas had failed. The system was just going to forcefully crash the entire localized server node, permanently deleting everything—players, NPCs, and geography—currently located on the Beast-Kin continent.

He reached into his inventory, gripping the dark gray [Spatial Stone].

He could crush it. He could instantly teleport back to the absolute safety of the Astral Emporium, completely bypassing the wipe mechanic. He would survive.

But Thane and the Shadow-Stalkers were still in the smuggling tunnels. The Blade-Saint’s descendants were still trapped in their fortress. Millions of innocent Beast-Kin players and NPCs were completely unaware that the sky was about to fall.

Dante didn’t crush the stone.

He looked back at the unconscious Beast-Emperor lying in the dust.

The massive, golden-furred entity groaned softly, slowly pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. The green static was entirely gone from his eyes, replaced by a deep, profound confusion and a lingering, throbbing headache.

"My mind..." the Emperor rumbled, his voice shaking. He looked down at his own massive, armored hands, then looked up at Dante. "The chains are broken. The voice... the Enforcer is gone."

"He’s not gone," Dante corrected grimly, stepping closer to the massive boss. "He just flipped the board. The system is initiating a continental data wipe in ten minutes. We are all going to be deleted."

The Beast-Emperor’s golden eyes widened in horror. "A localized purge? The Arch-Administrator would not authorize the destruction of an entire realm simply to erase one anomaly!"

"Silas has Enforcer privileges," Dante explained rapidly. "He likely initiated the protocol manually in a panic when you failed to kill me. He’s trying to take me down with him."

"Where is he?" Dante demanded, gripping the Emperor’s massive pauldron. "Silas. The Enforcer. Where is his physical avatar located?"

The Beast-Emperor pushed himself fully to his feet, swaying slightly. He looked up at the sky.

The bright, golden sky of Theria was rapidly darkening. It wasn’t turning a bruised purple or a stormy gray. It was turning a harsh, blaring, aggressive blood red.

"The command terminal," the Emperor stated, pointing a massive, armored finger toward the absolute center of the capital city.

Dante followed his gaze.

Towering high above the royal palace, piercing the red clouds, was a massive, impossibly tall needle of smooth black obsidian. It looked completely out of place among the stone and timber architecture of the city.

"The Spire of the Heavens," the Emperor explained, his voice thick with dread. "It is an ancient, administrative access node left behind by the First Cycle architects. The Enforcer claimed the pinnacle as his localized command center. If he initiated the purge, he did it from the terminal at the absolute top of that tower."

Dante looked at the Spire. It was easily a mile high.

"Can you stop the purge from down here?" Dante asked.

"No," the Emperor shook his head. "Only the entity who initiated the command can abort it. Or... if the entity’s connection to the server is violently, permanently severed before the timer expires, the protocol will automatically fail."

"I need to kill him," Dante summarized.

"You have less than ten minutes, Champion," the Beast-Emperor warned, looking at the rapidly descending red clouds. "And the Spire is heavily warded. The interior is a labyrinth of administrative traps."

"I’m not taking the stairs," Dante said flatly.

He didn’t wait to discuss tactics. He didn’t have time.

Dante opened his inventory and equipped the [Mantle of the Void-Dragon]. The heavy, starry fabric draped over his dark armor.

He triggered the [Limitless Flight] passive.

Dante didn’t just jump. He launched himself vertically into the blood-red sky, the sheer kinetic force of his takeoff cracking the remains of the crater.

He flew directly toward the towering black needle of the Spire of the Heavens, rapidly accelerating to supersonic speeds.

He checked the system interface hovering in his peripheral vision.

[CRITICAL SERVER EVENT: CONTINENTAL PURGE]

[Time Remaining: 09:45]

"Nine minutes," Dante whispered, the wind roaring in his ears.

As he approached the base of the massive black tower, the system recognized his aggressive approach.

The Arch-Administrator wasn’t going to let him just fly to the top unhindered.

Massive, swirling portals of bright green digital code tore open in the air surrounding the Spire.

They didn’t summon standard monsters or corrupted beasts.

Dozens of massive, heavily armored entities flew out of the portals. They looked like heavily armored angels, but their wings were forged from jagged green glass, and their faces were entirely featureless.

[Entity Identified: Administrative Sentinel]

[Tier: System Construct]

[Level: 75]

There were dozens of them. They didn’t wield weapons. They simply raised their hands, preparing to fire concentrated beams of pure deletion code directly at Dante.

Dante didn’t slow his ascent. He didn’t swerve to avoid them.

"I don’t have time for this," Dante muttered.

He didn’t activate [Asura’s Descent]. He couldn’t risk dropping his defense to zero while flying a mile above the ground through a gauntlet of level 75 system constructs.

A single glancing blow would vaporize his health pool, and he didn’t have Aura to resurrect him.

He needed to clear the airspace instantly.

He raised his left hand, pointing his open palm toward the largest cluster of descending Sentinels.

[Skill Executed: Singularity Collapse]

Because of his [Chrono-Shift] talent, the Zenith-tier gravitational skill triggered instantly.

A massive, perfectly spherical black hole erupted into existence directly in the flight path of the Sentinels.

The gravitational pull was absolute. The massive, heavily armored system constructs didn’t stand a chance. Their localized flight mechanics were completely overwhelmed by the crushing vacuum. They were violently ripped off their trajectories and sucked directly into the singularity.

[-150,000! OVERKILL!]

[-150,000! OVERKILL!]

The red damage numbers flooded the sky. The Sentinels were instantaneously crushed into digital dust, their health bars completely zeroed out by the True Damage.

Dante didn’t stop. He maintained his supersonic flight, soaring right past the collapsing black hole, ascending higher up the sheer black face of the Spire.

More portals tore open. More Sentinels poured out, desperate to intercept the anomaly.

Dante didn’t even aim.

[Skill Executed: Aether-Blade Storm]

One hundred glowing silver broadswords materialized in the air around him, forming a massive, swirling metallic halo. He triggered the phantom swords, directing them to aggressively seek out the incoming constructs.

The silver blades shot outward like localized missiles. They slammed into the Sentinels, detonating with 1,000% True Damage.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The sky around the Spire turned into a blinding, deafening warzone of overlapping explosions. Dante flew straight through the carnage, a blur of gold armor and dark purple light, treating the lethal, high-tier anomalies as mere speed bumps.

He checked the timer.

[Time Remaining: 05:22]

He had burned four minutes clearing the airspace.

He reached the absolute pinnacle of the Spire.

The top of the tower wasn’t a pointed needle. It was a massive, open-air, flat circular platform forged from the same smooth black obsidian as the rest of the structure.

Dante landed heavily on the platform, his iron boots cracking the stone. He dismissed the [Mantle of the Void-Dragon] flight passive, dropping into a low combat stance.

He looked across the platform.

In the absolute center of the obsidian circle stood a massive, glowing terminal made of floating green code.

Standing in front of the terminal, frantically typing on a holographic keyboard, was Silas.

The Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy looked completely unhinged. His pristine white celestial armor was actively glitching, sparking with aggressive green static. His eyes were wide, bloodshot, and completely consumed by the madness of the Enforcer crystal fused into his spine.

"Silas," Dante called out, his voice entirely flat and devoid of emotion.

Silas spun around. He stared at Dante in absolute, unfiltered horror.

"You!" Silas shrieked, his voice cracking violently. "How are you here?! The Beast-Emperor was supposed to crush you! The vault was sealed!"

"The Emperor woke up," Dante said simply, resting the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] on his shoulder. "He told me you were up here throwing a tantrum."

Silas panicked. He scrambled backward away from the terminal, drawing his glowing silver broadsword.

"I have developer tools!" Silas roared, his voice amplified by the system, echoing across the blood-red sky. "I am the Enforcer! You cannot beat me, Dan! I control the combat math!"

"Then why are you running?" Dante asked, taking a slow step forward.

Silas didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

He knew he had lost his strongest pawn. The Beast-Emperor was free, the Earth Core was gone, and the anomaly had bypassed the deletion traps. Silas’s real-world corporate backers were currently watching the live stream, watching him fail spectacularly. The Arch-Administrator’s proxy had warned him: if he failed, his physical consciousness would be permanently liquidated.

In absolute despair, Silas had turned to the terminal. He had activated a suicidal admin-command.

[Protocol: Server Wipe]

He was attempting to forcefully crash the entire Beast-Kin continent, intending to permanently delete everyone logged in—including himself—just to ensure Dante was caught in the blast radius. It was the ultimate, pathetic act of a sore loser flipping the board because he was in checkmate.

"I am going to erase this entire continent," Silas sneered, his fear rapidly mutating into manic, desperate pride. "I am going to permanently delete you from the Zenith Protocol. And then I’m going to log out and buy your apartment building."

"You’re not logging out, Silas," Dante stated coldly.

Dante didn’t activate [Asura’s Descent]. He couldn’t risk dropping his defense to zero. Silas might be a coward, but he possessed raw admin privileges. He could theoretically hit Dante with an un-dodgeable, instant-kill execution command if given the opportunity.

He needed to fight perfectly. He needed to rely purely on his mastery of the game’s mechanics to overwhelm the Enforcer before the timer hit zero.

[Time Remaining: 03:00]

Three minutes.