The flight of Dante back to Ironhold was uneventful.

The [Mantle of the Void-Dragon] allowed him to completely bypass the treacherous terrain of the open world.

He soared high above the clouds and rode the thermal drafts at supersonic speeds.

When the towering industrial-steampunk walls of the Veridian Alliance capital finally appeared on the horizon, he cut his altitude.

He dropped into a quiet grove just outside the city gates.

He walked through the massive steel gates and blended seamlessly into the heavy foot traffic of the frontier city.

He opened his system interface and sent a quick message to Seraphina.

[Dan: I am back in Ironhold. My inventory is completely full of Bronze and Silver-tier boss drops from the Steppes. I need to offload it.]

[Sera: Perfect timing. The market is starving for mid-tier gear right now. I am tied up in a guild negotiation, but I sent Lila to meet you at the central auction house. Hand the inventory over to her.]

Dante closed the interface.

He navigated the wide cobblestone streets and moved deeper into the commercial heart of Ironhold.

The central auction house was a massive domed building forged from polished white marble and brass gears.

Thousands of players were swarming the grand staircase. They loudly haggled over prices, organized trade caravans, and shouted for guild recruits.

Dante stood near a massive bronze statue of a griffon. He kept his [Mantle of the Void-Dragon] pulled tight to obscure his glowing Gold-tier armor.

He spotted Lila a few minutes later.

She was wearing basic low-tier cloth robes that marked her as a standard support class.

Her bright blue hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, and she held a simple wooden staff.

She looked completely unassuming. She looked like a fragile healer who had just barely survived the beginner zone.

Dante stepped out from the shadow of the statue to meet her. But before he could close the distance, a group of players cut through the crowd and intercepted her.

There were four of them.

They wore matching dark green leather armor tailored for mobility. Their player IDs hovered above their heads and all rested comfortably around Level 25.

Below their names, a jagged stylized snake emblem flashed aggressively.

[Guild: Iron Vipers]

Dante stopped walking. He leaned against the bronze base of the griffon statue and crossed his arms.

He didn’t immediately intervene. He wanted to see how this played out.

The leader of the group was a rogue twirling a pair of serrated iron daggers. He stepped directly into the path of Lila and forced her to halt.

"Well, look what we have here," the rogue sneered. He offered a sleazy and entirely uninvited smile. "A squishy little support player all alone in the big city."

Lila didn’t look up from her system interface. "I am waiting for a business partner. Excuse me."

She tried to step around them.

The second player was a bulky brawler with iron knuckles. He casually shifted sideways and formed a wall with his body.

"You are not going anywhere, sweetheart," the brawler laughed and crossed his thick arms.

"The auction house district is Iron Viper territory. We manage the flow of trade. And right now, you look like you are carrying a lot of valuable cargo in that inventory of yours."

"I do not have anything for you," Lila said. Her voice tightened with obvious frustration. She took a step back and gripped her basic wooden staff.

"Do not lie," the lead rogue said. His smile dropped into a cold threat.

"We saw your guild tag. Astral Vanguard. You guys are merchant runners. Tell you what. We are offering a localized protection service."

"You transfer twenty thousand silver coins to my account, and we make sure you do not accidentally trip and fall on your own staff in the alleyway."

It was a classic low-level extortion racket.

The Iron Vipers preyed on support classes and crafters who didn’t have the offensive stats to fight back.

Lila let out a heavy and annoyed sigh. She looked around the crowded plaza.

Dozens of neutral players saw what was happening. But they quickly looked away and did not want to draw the ire of a notorious mercenary guild.

"I do not need protection," Lila stated. She looked the rogue dead in the eyes.

"Wrong answer," the rogue hissed. He raised his dagger and fully intended to slash her shoulder to prove a point.

Lila didn’t cower. She didn’t scream for help.

Her bright blue eyes narrowed into a cold and hard glare.

The shy and anxious girl who had practically hyperventilated when she saw Dante sleeping in his VR capsule completely vanished.

She didn’t raise her wooden staff. She didn’t begin a long and complex chanting animation typical of standard mage classes.

She simply snapped her fingers.

The system interface above her head didn’t display a standard baseline class. It flashed a brilliant and deep cosmic purple.

[Hidden Class Revealed: Astral Arcanist]

The eyes of Dante widened slightly from his spot by the statue.

A Hidden Class.

[Skill Executed: Gravity Well]

There was no warning. There was no casting circle.

The localized physics of the cobblestone street violently inverted.

A massive and invisible cylinder of concentrated gravitational force slammed down from the sky. It landed directly over three of the Iron Viper mercenaries.

The atmospheric pressure inside the cylinder didn’t double. It multiplied by a factor of one hundred.

The sound was absolutely horrifying.

The three heavily armored Level 25 players were instantly and violently crushed against the cobblestones.

They didn’t fall to their knees. Their digital bones shattered simultaneously.

The sheer and overwhelming gravitational weight flattened them against the street like insects under a massive boot.

[-15,000! Critical Hit! OVERKILL!]

[-15,000! Critical Hit! OVERKILL!]

[-15,000! Critical Hit! OVERKILL!]

The damage numbers exploded in bright red static.

The three mercenaries zeroed out instantly.

They exploded into clouds of blue pixels. Their dropped iron weapons were completely deformed and flattened by the lingering gravitational pressure.

[Target Eliminated: Iron Viper Rogue x3]

The surrounding crowd of players screamed. They violently scrambled backward to get away from the terrifying and un-telegraphed magic.

Lila let out a slow breath and lowered her hand.

She had wiped three mid-tier players in a fraction of a millisecond without chanting a single syllable.

But she missed one.

The fourth attacker, a high-level stealth assassin, hadn’t been standing in the cluster.

He had activated a shadow-step skill the moment the confrontation started. He slipped entirely out of the visible spectrum.

The air directly behind the back of Lila suddenly distorted.

The assassin materialized out of stealth with his poisoned dagger raised high. He completely bypassed her frontal line of sight.

He lunged forward and aimed a lethal guaranteed-critical backstab directly at her unarmored spine.

The eyes of Lila widened. Her instant-cast gravity magic was powerful, but it had a cooldown. She couldn’t react in time.

She didn’t have to.

The Iron boots of Dante didn’t even make a sound.

[Skill Executed: Blink Step]

He vanished from the bronze griffon statue and materialized directly behind Lila.

He inserted his massive and gold-armored frame perfectly between her and the lunging assassin.

He didn’t draw the [Dawn-Breaker Blade].

He simply held out his right hand.

The black brand on his wrist violently flared.

Thick and light-absorbing smoke erupted from his palm. It instantly condensed into the massive shape of [Voidsever].

The poisoned dagger of the assassin slammed into the broad and flat side of the primordial greatsword.

CLANG!

The iron dagger instantly shattered into a dozen pieces against the indestructible cosmic metal.

The eyes of the assassin widened in absolute shock.

He stared at the towering Outworlder in glowing Gold-tier armor. He realized he had just made a catastrophic error in target selection.

Dante didn’t give him time to retreat.

He activated the Master-tier skill he had looted from Gluttony.

[Skill Executed: Phantom Dash]

Dante didn’t teleport across the plaza.

He teleported exactly two feet forward and phased directly into the personal space of the assassin.

BOOM.

The localized sonic boom of his materialization detonated point-blank against the chest of the assassin.

[Guaranteed Stun Applied. Duration: 1 Second.]

The assassin locked up completely. His avatar flashed with the bright yellow stun icon. His arms froze, and his momentum died instantly.

Dante casually reversed his grip on Voidsever.

He drove the massive and jagged black pommel of the primordial greatsword directly into the center of the faceplate of the paralyzed assassin.

The 100% armor-piercing passive of Voidsever applied even to blunt-force strikes.

[-12,000! OVERKILL!]

The neck of the assassin snapped backward with a sickening crunch. His health bar vanished.

He exploded into a cloud of blue pixels and left a small pile of silver coins on the cracked cobblestones.

[Target Eliminated: Iron Viper Assassin]

Dante dismissed Voidsever. The black blade dissolved into thick smoke and retreated seamlessly back into the brand on his wrist.

The entire plaza was completely and utterly silent.

Dante turned around and looked at Lila.

The blue-haired support player was staring at him. Her wooden staff clutched tightly to her chest.

The cold and dangerous aura of the [Astral Arcanist] faded and returned her to the nervous and flushed girl from the apartment.

"You missed one," Dante said flatly.

Lila let out a shaky and incredibly relieved laugh. "I have terrible peripheral vision. Thank you."

"Do not mention it," Dante said. He gestured to the flattened cobblestones where the first three mercenaries had died.

"Gravity Well. Chantless casting. That is a serious burst-damage mechanic you have got hiding under those beginner robes."

Lila flushed bright red and rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah. It is... it is a thing."

"A Hidden Class is a pretty big thing," Dante noted. "Astral Arcanist. I have not seen that one on the forums."

"Please do not tell Sera or Nyx," Lila pleaded. She looked around the plaza nervously to ensure no one was eavesdropping. "They do not know."

Dante raised an eyebrow. "Your roommates do not know you have a Hidden Class? Why?"

"Because they run a corporate gaming studio!" Lila stressed. She kept her voice in a hushed whisper.

"If Sera knows I have a combat-focused Hidden Class, she will pull me off the logistics team and force me onto the frontline raiding squad."

"I hate raiding. It is stressful, people yell at you for missing crowd control, and the bosses are terrifying."

"You just crushed three people into digital paste," Dante pointed out logically.

"They were being creeps!" Lila defended herself indignantly. "That is different. I only use the class for self-defense while I am doing market runs."

"The Astral Arcanist class lets me manipulate space and gravity instantly without chanting, but it drains my mana pool incredibly fast.

I cannot sustain a long fight. I am practically useless against a boss with a massive health pool."

"Instant casting," Dante repeated, genuinely impressed.

In the Zenith Protocol, magic was heavily balanced around casting times.

A mage could drop a nuke, but they had to stand perfectly still and chant for ten seconds to cast it. This made them incredibly vulnerable.

A class that bypassed casting times completely broke the action economy of the game.

"It is a good secret to keep," Dante agreed.

"Vanguard’s Legacy or the Legion of Blades would kidnap you and force you to sign a mercenary contract if they knew what you could do."

"Exactly," Lila nodded frantically. "So, you will not tell?"

"Your secret is safe with me," Dante promised. "Come on.Let us get off the street."