Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 39

As soon as the key touched his wraith collar, all of the emotions that had been repressed slammed back into him. Kayla had warned him it would happen, but nothing could have prepared him for the raw emotions that seemed to penetrate his soul.

First came the sadness. It smashed into his chest like a sledgehammer, forcing him to take massive gulping breaths. Uncontrollable tears welled up in his eyes, almost instantly spilling to the floor with a constant patter.

He fell to his knees, bracing himself against the floor with his hands as he wept.

Then came the regret. It was painful, stabbing directly through his self-worth. The feeling of doing everything wrong, of being incompetent, of hurting the first person he cared about. The feeling of killing Mia.

After that came the loneliness. Being alone had never bothered him, but he didn’t know what it was like to have someone care about him, to care about someone else. Losing that felt like a part of himself that he didn’t know he had was suddenly ripped away from him.

He collapsed to the floor, unable or unwilling to hold himself up any longer.

Then came the disgust. Disgust in himself. Disgust in his actions. Disgust in the way he allowed others to walk all over him. Disgust in the way he allowed Mia to be killed.

His jaw clenched, and his fist tightened.

And finally came the anger. Anger at himself. Anger for not being better. Anger for being used by everyone. Anger for his Naivety.

His anger changed. Refocusing itself on others, blaming them for killing Mia. The archers, Sir Andres, the Calmans. His blood boiled, filling him with the uncontrollable desire to kill…

This feeling… is wrong…

His desire to spill blood became overwhelming, seizing control of his other emotions, consuming them and fueling itself. No longer did he just want to kill, he desired to conquer. To prove that he was supreme and indomitable.

What is this…

He could feel himself losing control. Even his anger was beginning to be consumed by the bloodlust. He felt… pride. Unwilling to surrender to anyone, and satisfaction at the thought of losing himself to the perverse bloodlust.

It felt… foreign.

Without hesitating, he began to purge it from his body. Forcing it back, then expelling it from his other emotions.

As the bloodlust was expelled, the raw emotions came back in full force. Completely wreaking havoc on his mentality, but at the same time he was gaining back control. He lost the pride, the will to do battle, and the desire to kill. Replacing it was weakness, but it was his weakness, not something that was being forced upon him.

Dante could see the bloodlust being channeled out, secreting from every pore on his body, and coalescing around him. It was a barely visible red mist, but he could feel the baleful aura coming from within it.

It swirled around him for a moment, then drifted towards his combatant’s glove and was absorbed by it.

His mind felt so… clear. He was still overwhelmed by his emotions, but his anger no longer burned hot. It was far colder, and more calculating.

It took him a full hour to regain focus after that. His emotions were still ravaging him, but as more time passed, those feelings slowly dulled.

He let out a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

I will never go through that again.

He needed to change. He had been naïve to allow others to manipulate him, he had thought that there would be mutual gain, but that was flawed logic. He had been far too trusting. Allowing others to completely take advantage of him… like Kayla. She had drugged him but now expected him to fully comply with her wishes.

That was something that he needed to think over carefully. On one hand, he didn’t trust Kayla at all. On the other… she had helped him remove the wraith collar.

Dante glanced down at the wraith key. The once a blue orb was now completely black, as if it had just absorbed the wraith collar from his body and integrated it into itself.

He looked toward his glove. It had always just seemed like an item to be used, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It had invaded his mind, twisting his thoughts, controlled him.

How many of my decisions did the glove influence?

He thought back to all of his actions that were done through anger. Killing the guards after Mia died for one, then with Bridget in the arena, it was possible that it even impacted his fight with the wolves.

Did it help me kill Greggory too?

Killing Greggory felt good, but there was no bloodlust, no anger.

But was it even anger that fueled the bloodlust?

His anger always seemed to trigger it, but it didn’t make sense that his anger would be consumed like his other emotions if it was the cause of the bloodlust.

Was it truly my anger, or something else entirely…?

Even more importantly was the question of whether or not the glove was safe to wear. Losing his mind to bloodlust was an excellent way of getting himself killed.

But could he really afford not to use a magical artifact? He still was unsure of its uses, but it was an invaluable item… For the time being, it would be best to find a replacement glove until he could control it.

Dante took a deep breath, calming himself. He could reconsider his glove later. Before that, he needed to escape the academy.

He opened the Classification tab in his Status.

World Essence waiting to be assigned: 7,296

Chronomancer lvl 3/10 (0/300 world essence)

Blademancer lvl 4/10 (0/400 world essence)

Blader lvl 5/10 (0/500 world essence)

Revenant lvl 5/10 (0/500 world essence)

Recent World Essence gain:

3,322 World Essence for killing: Warrior x 23

3,235 World Essence for killing: Ranger x 7

246 World Essence for killing: Mage x 2

148 World Essence for killing: Pyromancer

128 World Essence gained for killing: Hedge Wizard

125 World Essence gained for killing: Gladiator

The amount of world essence was completely staggering… and unexpected.

The four Rangers and two Warriors that had carried Mia must have been specialized. Otherwise, the numbers didn’t add up. He was unsure if he killed the last Warrior, but knew he killed the other five.

The other Rangers and Warriors he had killed were likely the regular guards that he attacked before Sir Andres captured him.

The rest of them were far more interesting though. Bridget and the other magic Classification noble both gave him world essence for each Classification. The new revelation made killing nobles far more rewarding…

It was something that he didn’t notice when he killed Greggory and only got a measly 49 world essence from his Warrior Classification, likely because the Hunter Classification was a non-combat Classification.

He wasted no time leveling his Chronomancer Classification, his Blink skill would be the difference between life and death when escaping the academy; so the increased Intelligence, Wisdom, and Blink range would all be beneficial.

Chronomancer has reached level 10

Attributes have been added:

+7 Intelligence

+7 Wisdom

Skill description for Blink has been updated

He reexamined his Classifications tab, eager to try and specialize his Classification now that it had reached its max level.

World Essence waiting to be assigned: 3,096

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

Blademancer lvl 4/10 (0/400 world essence)

Blader lvl 5/10 (0/500 world essence)

Revenant lvl 5/10 (0/500 world essence)

It was hard to hold back his groan, but he managed. 10,000 world essence to specialize seemed… excessive. It made sense though, if it were just 1,000 like he predicted, there would be far more specialized combatants.

He was tempted to hold off on assigning the remaining world essence and save it to specialize his Chronomancer Classification, but the world essence wouldn’t do him any good if he were dead.

Blademancer has reached level 7

Attributes have been added:

+3 Dexterity

+3 Wisdom

Skill description for Create Blade has been updated

Blader has reached level 7

Attributes have been added:

+2 Dexterity

+2 Agility

Skill description for Blade Dancer has been updated

Revenant has reached level 6

Attributes have been added:

+1 Strength

+1 Constitution

Skill description for Rebirth of the Revenant has been updated

Finally done, he checked his Classifications tab one more time.

World Essence waiting to be assigned: 96

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

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

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

Revenant lvl 6/10 (0/600 world essence)

All in all, not bad. He needed to make specializing Chronomancer a priority in the future. Dante pulled up his skills tab, checking to see Blinks new range.

Blink: Manipulate the power of space to teleport yourself or an object a short distance away.

Cost: 30 Mana

Range: up to 15 Feet

Create Blade: Create permanent bladed weapon of choice with an average quality.

Cost: up to 55 Mana

Blade Dancer (Passive):

Increase Dexterity by 13%

Increase Agility by 13%

Increase ability with bladed weapons +3

Rebirth of the Revenant (Passive): Heal up to 13% of max HP every time you kill.

15 feet wasn’t a massive jump from the original 10, but it should still make a large difference. Dante opened his Attribute tab to check his Mana regeneration rate.

Name: Dante

HP: 160/160

Mana: 240/240 (+2.9/sec)

Strength: 16

Constitution: 16

Dexterity: 25 (+3.25)

Agility: 16 (+2.08)

Intelligence: 24

Wisdom: 29

Charisma: 9

So, his limit at the moment was one Blink in a little over ten seconds, not bad at all. His Strength had finally caught up to his Constitution, which he was happy with. It was also nice to see that Instructor Misa’s lessons had paid off, the Charisma boost was sorely needed.

Dante stood and walked to the stone door. After four days of captivity, he was finally ready to make his escape.

Sam Everard

Sam tapped his foot on the floor, more than irritated at Varik’s orders. He and his men had been forced to stay hidden since they arrived at the academy. Now a war was taking place, and they didn’t even know why.

There was a knock at the door, and one of his men opened it.

“Sir Sam, I have brought news.”

Sam turned toward Varik’s agent. “New orders?” He was more than ready to finally leave the confines of the small manor they were staying at within the academy.

The agent shook his head. “No, my lord, I have just come to report that Dante is still safe within Housing District 1, and has been unaffected by any fighting thus far.”

Sam didn’t hide his groan. Since they had arrived at the academy, the agents seemed to have left them in the dark. “Very well, keep me updated if anything changes.”