Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 54

Mia continued to stare at him with a smile on her face.

He couldn’t handle it; the entire situation was going to make him lose his mind. “What are you?”

Mia’s head tilted to the side slightly in confusion. Then she pointed at herself. “What are you talking about? It’s me.” Then her smile widened as if the entire thing were some joke.

She wasn’t even trying to act like the real Mia anymore.

Instead of answering her, he reached forward with his sword and cut off her head. He didn’t even know what he was feeling anymore, the bombarding emotions were completely numbing. Instead of forcing his emotions back down, he was trying to shut himself off from them altogether, shut himself off from everything.

Mia liquified again, but instead of melding into the ground, she merely reformed again. She was completely unfazed by his attack and rolled her eyes. “For an archaic, you’re somewhat emotional…” Mia gestured towards his bile, which was splattered on the floor. “And here I thought that this would actually be difficult.”

An archaic…?

Mia snorted. “You are actually far more emotionally unstable than most of my prey… I almost wonder what you did to this poor girl that would make you so fragile.” She looked down at herself then shrugged. “Bad luck always seems to follow your kind, but I suppose that it’s for the best in this situation.” Mia smiled again, but it looked inhuman. “You will be a spectacular treat actually, it has been quite some time since I’ve had anything but regular humans.”

He didn’t know what it was talking about, but the way it was using Mia’s appearance as a puppet was nightmarish. Any control he had over himself or his frame of mind was slipping. He felt a need to escape, escape from reality itself.

“Hmm, rather unstable, even without my influence you likely would have lost your mind eventually.” Mia stepped closer to him, and the mere act of her approach applied pressure to his mind until it felt like it was going to crack.

“Just relax. Let everything go and this will all be over.” She took another step, and they were now standing face to face, the pressure was so unbearable that he could feel his mind begin to splinter. It was like his mind was being strangled with so much force that it was going to shatter.

“I’m not sure why you are still fighting the inevitable, just let it happen.” Mia whispered the last words to him as she reached up and touched his face.

The world shattered.

Nothing after that made sense. Thoughts became incoherent, they were something he grasped at, but ultimately slipped away. He could feel his body collapse against the ground as he lost control of it, but only moments later he didn’t even know what the ground was.

He laid there, somewhere, but he didn’t know where.

He didn’t know what was happening, or even who he was.

It was eerie, things were recalled, then vanished. Nothing was permanent… and nothing mattered. Why would it?

Even time seemed to stop altogether. Every passing thought was gone entirely, destroying any anchor he had in reality.

Everything was meaningless. It only existed for a brief moment in his head, then was completely gone.

Thoughts, feelings, emotions, even pain. It was all fleeting.

But he was getting… weaker. It was the only thing that was constant aside from the emptiness. He could feel the energy draining out of him. Every breath he took was becoming weaker, like his life itself was being sucked out.

That was when the attack came.

Not from the outside, but from within. Something vicious was seizing everything as it slipped away. All of his fleeting thoughts, feelings, and emotions were being captured by it, then forcibly shot back into his mind and stuck together.

The pain was maddening. It was like those returning thoughts were being shot into his mind like nails, then hammered down so they couldn’t escape again.

But with the abhorrent pain, came coherent thought.

It was slow, and at first subtle. The thoughts stayed, but there was no connection between them. He could feel, but had no idea what it was he was feeling. He saw, but had no idea what he was seeing. The pain was no longer fleeting, but he didn’t know why he was in pain, he had no understanding of it.

Then the alien presence surrounded him. Wrapping his mind and compressing it, utterly unyielding as it retied the bonds between his thoughts. He began to resist subconsciously, unwilling to continue to experience the pain or the suffering that his emotions brought him. But no matter how hard he struggled, the indomitable will that radiated off of the presence was unyielding, it began to put him back together, piece by piece until he regained control over his mind and body again. Slowly, he regained himself.

Dante’s eyes snapped open, only to see Mia standing over him, mouth gaping as she inhaled a strange white mist from his body.

His body itself was incredibly weak, and growing weaker each passing second. Every breath becoming more shallow, as if he was at death's door.

He acted on impulse. Throwing his gloved hand into Mia’s face, causing her to elicit a raspy scream that was completely unlike the one earlier. Then, he Blinked across the chamber to where his swords were ready to be used and hurled three of them toward her with Manipulate Blade.

Mia reacted to his attack instantaneously, turning toward where he Blinked, but otherwise unmoving as she took the three swords in stride. After liquifying, she reformed and frowned. “What did you do?”

Mia began to walk toward him, and he could feel the pressure squeeze down on the new barrier that surrounded his mind, but it was unyielding.

Somehow his glove had saved him. Instead of consuming his thoughts and emotions like it usually did, it surrounded and reinforced them. Protecting him from whatever mental attack the dungeon boss was inflicting on him. It continuously sent more of its essence to strengthen and repair his mind.

Dante took the brief respite of Mia slowly walking toward him to try and recover as best he could. His entire body felt like an enormous weight, just standing up after he Blinked across the room had him heaving shallow breaths. It didn’t seem like he could take in enough air to sustain himself.

“That is a first, and somewhat interesting, but I would very much appreciate it if you didn’t interrupt such a delicious meal.” Mia licked her lips in an overly exaggerated gesture.

In answer, he threw yet another sword at her, catching Mia in the chest and causing her to reform. Her steps didn’t even falter as she moved toward him.

Surprisingly, he felt nothing from attacking the copy of Mia this time. All of his emotions were stabilized, causing him to think rationally.

No, he was no longer unwilling to kill it, he was happy to do it. Happy to completely destroy someone who would tarnish the memory of someone who did so much to help him, who gave up so much for him… even if it was his fault that they did so.

The problem was the dungeon boss itself, it didn’t seem killable. It may have been possible if he completely destroyed it, maybe with some sort fire attack so that the dungeon boss could no longer reform. But every slice or cut seemed easily mendable.

The only thing that seemed to have any real effect on it was his glove…

Throwing sword after sword at dungeon boss, he began to concentrate on the glove’s presence, not allowing any of the new essence access to his mind and pushing it outward instead.

The red mist began to coalesce around him, drifting slowly back down to reenter his glove, but he didn’t allow it. He began throwing loose mana out around his glove, manipulating it gently to stop the gloves essence from seeping back in. By the time he was done, his hand was shrouded in blood red mist.

Mia was only a few feet away, every step she took forced more pressure down onto his mind’s weakening barrier, and instead of waiting for her, he made his move.

He threw yet another sword at her, causing her to reform. Then, just as she appeared, he Blinked in front of her, not giving the dungeon boss any time to react and shoving his glove with the red essence into her face.

The two of them screamed together. Mia from the power of his gloves essence, and him from the pressure she exuded. As soon as he Blinked to her, the barrier that had been protecting him began to crack, sending stabs of pressure inside to his barely mended mind.

The pain made him want to shut down, but he resisted. Using what was left of his willpower he pulled all of the swords in the room toward Mia, corrupting them just as they impaled her.

As soon as the swords slammed into the dungeon bosses body, the screaming stopped, and the pressure in his mind abated.

No longer able to function, Dante fell unconscious.