God of Zero Cost

The last fragments of the spectral titan dissolved into the damp floorboards, leaving the massive subterranean amphitheater in absolute, suffocating silence.

Ethan dropped onto his knees in the thick, bone-white sacrificial ash, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gaps through his teeth. His right arm was completely numb from the raw kinetic shock of the final melee clash, his shoulder muscles burning with a heavy, throbbing ache. He didn't stand up to claim victory. He simply lay his battered glass mace-cudgel onto the dirt, reached into the grey dust pool before the circular stone stage, and wrapped his fingers around the cold, heavy edge of the main boss drop: The Bronze Footstool of Zaphon.

The moment his skin pressed against the green-patinated metal, a dense column of ancient text unrolled across his vision. He leaned his head back against a limestone rock spur, his eyes drinking in the tragic, deep history caked inside the shield's description:

Ethan let out a long, quiet whistle, the sound echoing hollowly against the vaulted stone ceiling. It was a spectacular piece of ancient metallurgy. But because his artisan class rules strictly prohibited him from equipping or using processed metal gear, the legendary shield was functionally dead weight for his own loadout.

He didn't care. To a high-level corporate vanguard tank player, a historical bronze body shield of this caliber was an absolute jackpot.

Moving with the clinical efficiency of a marketplace scrapper, Ethan unslung his rawhide scout pack. He carefully wrapped the massive bronze shield and the carnelian-socketed sub-boss helm in thick layers of leftover canvas, cinching the rawhide straps tight until the heavy load was completely balanced against his spine.

He rose to his feet, grabbed his torch, and turned back toward the exit trail. He didn't leave a single clue behind. Driving his bronze trowel into the scree line at the cave mouth, his extraction speed allowed him to instantly loosen the density of the loose wadi shale behind his heels, letting a natural slide of dry limestone flakes collapse over the entrance to completely bury his footprint data. He shuffled backward along the rocky ridge-lines, checking his blind spots twice through the caper bushes to ensure no corporate tracking teams were tailing his movement metrics back to the fault.

Two hours later, he climbed over the final basalt ridge of the mountain pass.

Ethan halted in the cool night wind, his eyes widening slightly as the terrain rendered a breathtaking view across the valley floor. Looming under the cold desert stars, the massive, fortified citadel of Megiddo rose like a mountain of solid stone. Its colossal, triple-layered limestone walls shone pale white in the moonlight, completely dominating the ancient crossroads of the Via Maris highway. Long lines of flickering torch-fires marked the battlements where the royal guards marched, and the faint, chaotic hum of thousands of players, merchant caravans, and local frontier factions drifted up through the dark mountain air. The trading floors of the great city were open, and his pack was loaded with raw capital.