Chapter 242: The Protocol Intercepted, Time Runs Out

"Die, anomaly!" Silas screamed, lunging forward.

Silas didn’t use a standard movement skill. Because he was the Enforcer, he completely ignored the game’s physics engine. He didn’t run across the platform; he simply glitched.

He vanished from his position and materialized instantly in mid-air, directly above Dante’s head, bringing his silver broadsword down in a devastating, two-handed vertical chop.

The strike wasn’t a standard melee attack. The blade was glowing with intense, aggressive green deletion code. If it touched Dante, it would instantly execute his avatar, bypassing his massive health pool entirely.

Dante didn’t try to block it.

[Skill Executed: Phantom Waltz]

The purple, pulsating invulnerability frames enveloped his gold armor.

He vanished a fraction of a millisecond before the green blade connected.

Silas’s attack hit the obsidian platform. The deletion code completely vaporized a massive ten-foot chunk of the floor, leaving a gaping hole that looked down into the hollow interior of the Spire.

Crack.

Dante materialized directly behind Silas. He swung the [Dawn-Breaker Blade] horizontally, aiming for the gap in the Enforcer’s white armor.

The gold blade connected.

[-25,000! Critical Hit!]

The damage number popped up, a massive chunk of damage.

But Silas didn’t stagger. His health bar didn’t drop.

The system interface above Silas’s head flashed a bright, mocking green.

[Admin Privilege Active: Infinite Health Regeneration.]

The 25,000 damage was instantly, flawlessly healed before the number even finished rendering on the screen. Silas was mathematically immortal.

"You can’t hurt me!" Silas laughed hysterically, spinning around and unleashing a massive, completely un-telegraphed wave of green fire.

Dante used the remaining four strikes of [Phantom Waltz] to rapidly teleport backward, staying safely within his invulnerability frames, dodging the wave of deletion fire.

The animation ended. Dante materialized twenty feet away, his boots skidding slightly on the smooth obsidian.

"Infinite health," Dante murmured, his red eyes narrowing. "Okay. That’s annoying."

"It’s over, Dan!" Silas mocked, slowly walking toward him, his silver sword dripping with green code. "I don’t have cooldowns! I don’t have health pools! I am the game!"

Dante checked the timer.

[Time Remaining: 02:15]

He couldn’t win a war of attrition against an opponent who couldn’t take damage. He couldn’t burst him down with [Abyssal Cleave] if the system just instantly refilled the health bar.

He needed to bypass the administrative privileges entirely. He needed an attack that completely ignored the game’s standard healing and damage calculation logic.

He needed the lore-breaking blood pact.

Dante sheathed the [Dawn-Breaker Blade].

He didn’t draw [Voidsever]. The primordial greatsword’s true damage was useless if the target healed instantly.

He stood perfectly still, letting his arms hang casually at his sides.

"You think you’re the game, Silas?" Dante asked softly.

He opened a localized, purely mental channel to his pet interface.

"Erebus," Dante commanded quietly.

He didn’t summon the Half-Soul Celestial physically. He didn’t need her to point her finger and turn Silas into a backpack.

He accessed the absolute, ultimate passive ability he had inherited through their Master-Servant contract.

[Skill Activated: Death’s Duel]

The system interface completely glitched out. The red text of the continent-wide purge warning was violently overwritten by a blinding, pitch-black notification that pulsed with intense, primordial authority.

[Active Skill Triggered: Death’s Duel]

[Target Locked: Silas (Enforcer of the Zenith)]

The air on the platform didn’t just warp. Reality shattered.

The massive green eye in the sky didn’t matter. The administrative terminal didn’t matter. The entire physical world of the Zenith Protocol completely ceased to exist.

A massive, perfectly circular, completely enclosed dome of pitch-black energy erupted from the floor, entirely isolating Dante and Silas.

Silas gasped, his eyes wide in absolute horror as the sky, the Spire, and his glowing green terminal completely vanished, replaced by an empty, localized void of absolute darkness.

"What is this?!" Silas screamed, spinning around, frantically slashing his silver sword against the impenetrable black barrier. "What did you do?! You can’t trap me! I have admin access!"

Dante stood ten feet away from Silas inside the dark dome.

"I locked the door, Silas," Dante said quietly, his red eyes burning in the dark.

The system interface flashed the final parameters of the skill.

[Effect 1: User burns 50% of Maximum HP.]

[Effect 2: Grants a flat 100% damage boost.]

[Effect 3: Every successful strike lands a 1% chance to inflict True Death (Instant Kill), regardless of the target’s HP or immunities.]

[Condition: Duel ends when one participant dies. No outside interference permitted. Administrative Overrides Suppressed.]

Dante’s massive health bar instantly halved, dropping to a highly vulnerable state.

But the final line of the system prompt was the only thing that mattered.

Administrative Overrides Suppressed.

Silas’s glowing green eyes violently flickered, the static dying completely. The white celestial armor lost its brilliant hum. The Enforcer’s infinite health regeneration was forcefully shut down by the primordial authority of the duel.

Silas was mortal again.

"No," Silas whimpered, looking at his normal, finite health bar.

Dante held out his right hand. The black brand flared, and [Voidsever] materialized in his grip.

He checked the timer.

[Time Remaining: 01:30]

"You have ninety seconds to kill me, Silas," Dante whispered, gripping the dark bone hilt with both hands. "Let’s see if you actually know how to play the game."

The black dome of [Death’s Duel] completely isolated them from the rest of the server.

Dante stared at Silas. The Guild Master of Vanguard’s Legacy looked absolutely terrified. The glowing green static of his Enforcer privileges had vanished from his eyes, replaced by the frantic, wide-eyed panic of a man who suddenly realized he could die.

The system interface hovered in the dark air between them, counting down the continent-wide purge.

[Time Remaining: 01:25]

Silas didn’t charge. He backed away, pressing his pristine white armor against the impenetrable black barrier of the dome.

"You can’t do this!" Silas shrieked, his voice cracking. "The purge is active! If you kill me, you die with the continent! We both lose!"

"I don’t care about the continent," Dante said softly, stepping forward. "I care about you logging off."

Dante didn’t activate [Asura’s Descent]. He didn’t want to risk dropping his defense to zero inside the enclosed arena. Silas was terrified, but he was still a high-level player equipped with top-tier gear. A desperate, lucky swing could still kill Dante, whose health bar had already been halved by the duel’s activation cost.

Dante triggered [Velocity Paradox].

He didn’t use the intangibility to phase through an attack. He used the massive 5,000% movement speed multiplier to close the gap instantly.

He crossed the ten feet separating them in a blur of white-hot light.

Silas gasped, frantically raising his silver broadsword to block. He was a veteran player, and despite his cowardice, his reflexes were sharp.

CLANG!

Dante’s opening swing with [Voidsever] collided heavily with Silas’s broadsword.

The primordial greatsword’s [Absolute Severance] passive ignored the physical mitigation of Silas’s white celestial armor, but Silas had successfully parried the blade itself. The kinetic force pushed Silas backward, his boots sliding against the obsidian floor, but he didn’t take raw damage.

Dante didn’t pause.

He needed to trigger the 1% instant-death execution. He didn’t need massive burst damage; he needed volume. He needed to hit Silas as many times as mathematically possible before the purge timer hit zero.

Dante unleashed a relentless, blinding flurry of strikes.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

He swung Voidsever in a continuous, flowing sequence of horizontal slashes, vertical chops, and brutal thrusts. His [Asura’s Heart] buff was active, doubling his attack speed. The massive black blade moved like a localized blur.

Silas desperately backpedaled around the perimeter of the dome, frantically parrying and dodging.

"Get away from me!" Silas screamed, swinging his silver sword in wide, panicked arcs, trying to force Dante to retreat.

Dante didn’t retreat. He stepped inside Silas’s guard, aggressively maintaining point-blank range.

He landed a glancing blow across Silas’s shoulder pauldron.

[-15,000!]

The white armor sparked, the damage chunking a significant portion of Silas’s finite health bar.

[Instant Death Check: Failed.]

Dante immediately followed up with a thrust to the chest.

[-18,000!]

[Instant Death Check: Failed.]

The system rapidly rolled the cosmic dice. The 1% chance was small, even with Dante’s Max Luck stat skewing the probability.

Silas realized his health was dropping rapidly. Without his Enforcer regeneration, he couldn’t survive a war of attrition against the anomaly. He needed to create space.

Silas reached into his inventory, pulling a glowing blue vial from his belt.

"You’re going to die here!" Silas yelled, aggressively throwing the vial directly at Dante’s feet.

The vial shattered.

[Item Activated: Frost-Nova Flask]

A massive, localized explosion of absolute-zero ice erupted from the shattered glass, instantly freezing the floor and expanding outward to engulf Dante.

Silas grinned, expecting the high-tier crowd control item to perfectly encase his opponent in a block of solid ice, giving him time to chug a health potion and prepare a lethal counterattack.

Dante didn’t dodge. He just stepped through the explosion.

The [Frost-God Constitution] passive flared instantly. The incoming ice damage was reduced to zero, and the freezing effect was completely neutralized by his absolute immunity. The ice shattered harmlessly against his dark purple armor.

"My turn," Dante said smoothly.

He triggered [Phantom Dash].

The sonic boom detonated point-blank against Silas.

[Guaranteed Stun Applied. Duration: 1 Second.]

Silas locked up completely, his silver sword freezing mid-swing. The bright yellow stun icon flashed violently over his head.

Dante gripped the dark bone hilt of Voidsever with both hands and unleashed a devastating, rapid-fire combo directly into the stunned Guild Master’s unprotected chest.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

[-45,000! Critical Hit!]

[-45,000! Critical Hit!]

[-45,000! Critical Hit!]

[Instant Death Check: Failed.]

[Instant Death Check: Failed.]

[Instant Death Check: Failed.]

Silas’s health bar plummeted into the critical red zone. The one-second stun expired, and Silas stumbled backward, completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of damage. He dropped to one knee, coughing up digital blood.

[Time Remaining: 00:30]