Dante's Immortality: Beginnings

by Antonio Terzini

  Or what were once humans. Dante grimaced as he looked at them, the dungeon’s monsters were nightmarish. Their skin was deathly pale, and they all looked starved. Which might not have been so bad, but something about their lack of any hair and the loud screeching sound made them even more terrifying. They screamed ferociously as they ran toward Jared and Arron.

  He was more than happy to allow the two of them to handle all of the monsters.

  Ignoring Arron, who he had already fought, Dante observed Jared and his fighting tendencies.

  He was right to have been wary of him, unlike Arron, who seemed to rely on both speed and strength, Jared solely focused on offense. Every time he swung his weapon, a monster died.

  That wasn’t what made Jared so scary though, what made him scary was the distance between him and the monsters he killed.

  None of them were even in range. Jared swung his sword through the empty air, but something across the room would be cut in half anyway.

  If he were fighting Arron alone, his chances wouldn’t be that bad. In fact, he was confident that he could kill Arron, he just needed to do it before he recovered with his healing ability. But Jared was a different beast altogether. His one saving grace was that the two of them had to capture him alive, which was probably what had led to his success so far… If Jared had used that skill on him while he was fleeing, things would have ended badly.

  After all of the monsters died, Arron swaggered over to Jared. “This is the eighth room since we entered. Given the location, the next room likely holds the dungeon boss.” He patted Jared on the shoulder. “It is somewhat likely that we already missed the boy.”

  Jared looked somewhat peeved at Arron’s close proximity. “Yes, as I said three rooms ago, we should have gone back to check under the corpses.”

  Arron threw his hands up in mock surrender, a cocky smile still on his face. “What can I say? You were right of course. I think that the best thing for us to do would be to split up. You head back to take care of the boy, I’ll kill the dungeon boss.”

  Dante perked up. If the two of them split up, his chances of success would increase exponentially.

  Jared snorted. “As if. You go and look for Andrea’s pet, this entire mess is your fault. I’ll take care of the dungeon boss.”

  Arron’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t be such a stingy bastard, you already have an active dungeon skill.” He motioned down to Jared’s sword.

  That grabbed his attention. He didn’t even consider that the skill Jared had used was from a monster crystal, it was so powerful.

  Instead of replying, Jared tightened his grip on his sword and jumped away from Arron. Just narrowly managing to dodge a surprise attack from Arron’s sword.

  As Jared flew through the air, he flung out his sword in a vertical slash. Slicing the air and directly attacking Arron from a distance.

  Arron seemed to be ready for the attack though. He spun, coming away from the unseen slash unscathed, then lunged at Jared. His surprising speed seemed to take Jared off-guard because he effortlessly slipped in and cut a deep slash into Jared’s side.

  Dante’s eyes narrowed as he watched the two, beginning to pump his swords with world essence. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but was more than willing to take advantage of it.

  Jared hissed in pain, then viciously punched out with his free hand, attacking Arron with an unarmed fist.

  It had to have been a skill from his Classification, because the damage he inflicted on Arron was massive. Arron’s entire chest crumpled, and the sound of bones breaking filled the room as Jared’s fist connected and Arron coughed out blood.

  The residual force of the blow flung Arron’s body back like a ragdoll, toppling end over end until it finally came to a rest on the cavern floor.

  Amazingly, not only was Arron still alive, but he was even laughing shallowly. “Fine… you get… the damn boss.”

  Jared was silently glaring at Arron, holding the deep wound in his side to stop the bleeding.

  Dante took a deep breath. If there was a time to act, it was now.

  Chapter 51

  Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 51

  Dante tightened his grip on his two swords. Using all of his concentration to form an edge on one, and filling the other so that it was ready to explode.

  As soon as they were filled, he Blinked. Appearing directly behind Jared, and stabbing toward his unprotected back with the edged sword.

  Jared’s ability to dodge Arron’s sneak attack must not have been pure intuition, because as soon as he Blinked behind him, Jared whirled, spinning away from the approaching blade while turning to face Dante.

  Still, he lacked Arron’s speed, and his sword was still able to cut a new wound into Jared’s left side, causing him to elicit a hiss of pain.

  As Jared spun, he began to swing his blade through the air, trying to kill his attacker, but as soon as he saw Dante, he hesitated and stopped the death blow.

  Taking advantage of Jared’s hesitation, Dante blinked behind him, stabbing again. This time Jared was ready for it. As soon as he disappeared, Jared spun, bringing his sword up to block Dante’s strike.

  Not only did Jared’s sword block his strike, but he had so much strength that it continued almost undeterred toward Dante, forcing him to Blink away to avoid it.

  As soon as he Blinked away, the sword he teleported behind Jared exploded, sending shrapnel through him.

  The damage wasn’t extensive enough to actually kill Jared, his Constitution was too high, but it did inflict enough damage to make him fall to one knee.

  Creating another sword in his now free hand while maintaining the world essence edge on his other, Dante positioned himself so that he could see both of his opponents.

  Both of them were struggling to stand, but Arron was looking healthier every passing second. “I think-” Arron grunted as he stood. “That if we don’t get serious here, he may actually kill us.”

  Jared nodded. “Yes, we may actually-”

  Dante didn’t give them the opportunity to rally. He Blinked back to Jared while he was distracted, maintaining his focus on the more substantial offensive threat.

  While continuing to pump his new sword with world essence so that it would be ready to explode, he swung at down with all of his strength, forcing Jared to parry the incoming swing.

  Dante feinted, avoiding Jared’s superior strength. Then Blinked as Arron attacked him from his blind side with impressive speed. If he hadn’t been waiting for it, Arron likely would have taken him by complete surprise.

  His two opponents were now grouped together, and he used a majority of his remaining mana to Blink his armed sword between them.

  To their credit they both reacted instantaneously, jumping away from the sword before it exploded. But they weren’t fast enough to dodge it entirely.

  Jared received the brunt of the blow, not making it nearly as far away as Arron, and the force of the shrapnel mixed with the momentum from his jump sent him sprawling through the floor.

  Arron didn’t fare much better. He made it further away than Jared, receiving less of the force, but he lacked the overall Constitution that Jared had and the shards of metal tore through him.

  Dante took a moment to recover. His mana was nearly drained, but so far, the fight was going better than he could have hoped.

  “Damn it!” Jared slammed his fist against the ground, then glared at him. “If you think that I’ll let you kill me, you are a fool.” Jared reached over to the sword that had fallen by his side, then immediately swung it horizontally at him.

  Dante hit the floor, unsure if the skill was actually used, but he was thankful that Jared projected his intentions before attacking all the same.

  He checked his mana, enough left for two Blinks.

  Not wasting any time, he Blinked to Arron, placing himself directly between the two and hopefully stopping Jared from using his ranged attack with the threat of friendly fire.

  It didn’t. As soon as
Dante Blinked over to Arron, Jared attacked him again. Wasting his remaining mana, Dante Blinked away and narrowly dodged the strike.

  Dante looked back to the corpse, stunned. Arron was too weak from his injuries to avoid Jared’s invisible slash and was cut into two separate pieces.

  He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He was more than happy that Arron was dead, but seeing that the skill was that powerful on an actual combatant, and not just monsters, was terrifying. Even if Arron’s Constitution was mediocre.

  Slaughtering his comrade didn’t seem to faze Jared in the slightest, as soon as Dante appeared again, he swung his sword through the air toward him diagonally. Then, as Dante rolled to the left to avoid the blow, he slashed horizontally at his rolling form. Jared was kneeling on the ground, but still managed to give him a menacing smile. “Finally out of mana?”

  Dante cursed, then pushed against the ground mid-roll and managed to get a few feet in the air. He could feel the force of Jared’s slash pass below him, causing a shiver to crawl up his spine.

  Thankfully, his dodging had bought him enough mana to reuse Blink, but he needed to make it count.

  As soon as Dante reconnected to the floor, he immediately regained his footing, just in time to see Jared start to swing his sword yet again. Jared’s mana seemed limitless, and instead of dodging the attack, he jumped toward it. Praying that his timing was correct, he Blinked when he thought the attack was coming toward him.

  Dante appeared in front of Jared as he finished the swing, catching him completely off-guard and rammed a sword through his gut.

  He gave it a twist, causing Jared to scream in pain while swinging his sword down in retaliation.

  Thankfully, due to the short range, the direction of his cut was far easier to judge. He effortlessly got out of the way, at the cost of leaving his sword in Jared’s gut.

  As he dodged backward, he broke up the sword. It left him completely defenseless and without a weapon with his low mana, but Jared would bleed out far faster with a gaping hole in his stomach.

  Jared released a guttural scream as he swung his sword toward Dante. His sword moved far slower than before, about half its previous speed, and he moved out of the way smoothly.

  “Bastard…” As soon as Jared heaved out the last word, he fell forward, losing his grip on his sword and passing out.

  Dante walked forward, then picked up Jared’s sword and plunged it into his neck. He was likely already on death’s door, but after his experience with Arron, he wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving such a large threat alive for a second longer than necessary.

  Dante slumped to the ground. The fight went far better than he expected, he had come away completely unscathed.

  He actually regretted not killing Arron himself. The world essence gain would have been nice, but he wasn’t really in a position to complain about it. Still, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t benefit from Arron’s blood.

  He pulled his glove out and walked over to Arron’s corpse, then dipped it in his blood and examined it. Surprisingly, there was no change.

  It didn’t really make much sense, Arron clearly had a Classification that he had never even seen before. Curious, reached over to remove Arron’s combatant glove and was surprised by what he found. Not only were there twoClassification symbols that he had never seen before, but there were also two crystals lodged inside of his skin. Both of the crystals were located opposite to the symbol of the Goddess, and on the underside of his wrist.

  He waited for a bit more of his mana to recharge, then created a new weapon and began digging the crystals out of Arron’s arm. It was hard to see when they were lodged in his skin, but after he held the crystals up to the light he saw that one had a slight tinge of brown and the other was red. They looked exactly like the monster crystal he had attained from the goblin dungeon boss.

  Sam had told him that he wouldn’t be able to use a monster crystal unless he killed the dungeon boss himself, but it wouldn’t stop him from trying. He opened up his Status’ Monster Crystals tab, but there were no monster crystals that could be infused.

  After making that discovery, he tried to crush them to get the world essence, but he couldn’t. No matter how hard he squeezed, they wouldn’t break. It was in stark contrast to the last monster crystal he broke, which shattered as easily as glass. Releasing a sigh, he pocketed the crystals. It was likely that they would have some use in the future.

  After that, he looked back to the corpse. There were definitely Classifications that his glove didn’t have, but for some reason, it wouldn’t absorb them. Dante took off the spare combatant’s glove that he had been wearing, then replaced it with his own. He then dipped it into Arron’s blood experimentally and watched what happened. As the glove absorbed the blood, two new symbols came into existence.

  Dante stared at the glove for a moment, pondering the implications of his new discovery. If the glove needed him to wear it in order for it to absorb Classifications, what did that really mean?

  For the time being, he dismissed the thought and moved on to Jared’s corpse. This time he immediately checked under the combatant’s glove. He was somewhat shocked that Jared only had one Classification and two monster crystals, but he quickly got over it and carved the crystals out of Jared’s wrist.

  After checking his Status again, and being disappointed, he tried to crush the monster crystals for the world essence. Surprisingly it worked. The crystals were crushed in his hand easily, barely any effort was needed.

  Did ownership of the crystals transfer when I killed him?

  That was a possibility, but ownership of Arron’s crystals didn’t seem to transfer to when he killed Jared, who would have been the new owner of Arron’s crystals. The thought made Dante curse himself. Not killing Arron had just gone from a small loss to a massive one if that were the case. The amount of world essence he could have gotten from two monster crystals was probably enormous.

  Still, he was now itching to check his Classifications tab and see his recent world essence gain. Calming himself back down, he dipped his glove into Jared’s body and acquired his single Classification. Then he walked around the cavern and crushed the essence crystals from the monsters that were killed earlier.

  That done, Dante gave a silent prayer to the Goddess and opened his Classifications tab.

  World Essence waiting to be assigned: 31,955

  Chronomancer lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

  Blademancer lvl 7/10 (0/700 world essence)

  Blader lvl 9/10 (0/900 world essence)

  Revenant lvl 8/10 (0/800 world essence)

  Recent World Essence gain:

  521 World Essence for killing: Warrior x 5

  248 World Essence for Killing: Ranger x 2

  930 World Essence for Killing: Bruiser

  16,284 World Essence from: Essence Crystal x 276

  13,340 World Essence from: Monster Crystal x 2

  He struggled to breathe after looking at the total world essence that he had. It was… absurd. Then he glanced down to his recent world essence gains and wanted to bash his head in.

  Over thirteen thousand world essence from two monster crystals… and there were two others that he couldn’t use because he hadn’t killed Arron.

  The gain he got from the essence crystals was equally staggering. The group he had done his last dungeon with had complained that about getting 5 world essence per crystal from the goblins, but he didn’t think a regular dungeon would give so much.

  Then again… this wasn’t a regular dungeon. Jared and Arron had called it a predatory dungeon, it was possible that the world essence he got was well above average.

  Everything else was pretty standard, the seven other guards he killed were non-specialized and basic Classifications, and Jared seemed to be something called a Bruiser. Thinking back to how he collapsed Arron’s chest, the name seemed to downplay the Classification a tad bit.

  He also regretted not finding out the name of Arron’s Classifications, bu
t it wasn’t such a big deal.

  Without hesitating in the slightest, Dante leveled all of his Classifications to 10. Then completely ignored the notification messages, he had more important things to focus on, namely which Classifications to specialize.

  World Essence waiting to be assigned: 27,587

  Chronomancer lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

  Blademancer lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

  Blader lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

  Revenant lvl 10/10 (0/10,000 world essence)

  He glanced over his Classifications and weighed his options carefully. Chronomancer was an obvious choice at first glance. His Blink skill was by far his most useful skill, but at the same time, it was his only non-passive skill other than Create Blade.

  In any other situation, he wouldn’t have hesitated to specialize Chronomancer, but from what Arron had told him earlier he needed to kill the dungeon boss before he could escape.

  The biggest problem he was having in his fights at the moment was his killing power. With Blink it wasn’t hard to stay alive, but making killing blows was especially difficult with his mediocre ability in world essence manipulation or lack of offensive skill.

  That line of thinking done, he chose to first specialize his Blader Classification.

  With a heart that was beating rapidly, he fed his world essence into his Blader Classification and specialized it.

  For a split second, nothing happened. But then his Status flickered and disappeared.

  Confused, he immediately tried to reopen it, but couldn’t. As soon as he tried to manipulate world essence into the symbol of the Goddess, it dissipated. It was like his wrist had turned into a chaos stone, sucking all the world essence from the surrounding area into his glove.

  At first, he thought that it was a part of specializing. But as more and more world essence was being sucked in, he noticed that his glove was beginning to heat up.

  As quickly as he could, he tried to tear the glove off of his hand. But it wouldn’t budge, it was stuck to his skin as if it was infused with it.

  All he could do was watch the glove as it sucked in even greater amounts of world essence, the symbols on it beginning to shine brighter and brighter.