Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 82

With sweat on his brow, Dante carefully poured the oil from the eldrisa leaf into the glass vial that contained the mixture of srite, hasse, dream brier, and aiclerry. When it didn’t explode, he let out a sigh of relief. He had used the correct amount of srite.

Dante then looked at the recipe that was resting in front of him. The next step was to carefully infuse world essence into it while heating the mixture. What that achieved, he had no idea.

He held the vial over the controlled flame in front of him. The ‘raw fire’ was fed into a strange cylinder, which let out a constant flame through the top. It was enchanted, the pink flame was indication enough, but he hadn’t bothered to ask Victoria why, there was already enough that he needed to know without worrying about something that didn’t really matter.

As soon as the heat touched the world essence filled vial, the mixture began to bubble. Dante grit his teeth, and slowly lessened the amount of world essence he added to it. He didn’t do it quickly, from past experience, he knew that doing so would completely ruin it.

The excess liquid began to evaporate, leaving an almost syrupy residue in the vial. He took the vial off the fire and allowed it to cool off. Dante took a few deep breaths. It had to cool, but ever so slightly, if the temperature dropped too much he would have to restart.

Mentally preparing himself, Dante condensed the world essence that was already inside of the vial, then he began to wrap his mana around it. He slowly pressed on the mixture, allowing the world essence to destroy the rest of the moisture as he formed the pill. So close.

“What are you doing.”

Dante flinched, it was slight, but even that could ruin everything. He sent a feeling of disappointment and rebuke through the bond to let Shade know that he was pissed off. The fox took a break from its nap, raised its head, then lowered it back to the ground as it continued to rest.

Useless.

Victoria continued to watch from the side as he finished forming the pill. He had finally succeeded. Dante pulled the finished pill from the vial, it was a bit clunky and discolored, but it would still do something. Probably.

Victoria looked over his shoulder to see the recipe book that was open in front of him. “Your performance was passable, I suppose, but I don’t see why you wasted your time on that.”

Dante looked at the ‘Ever Night’ recipe in front of him, a smile forming on his face as he held the finished product. Not only did the pill slow down one’s metabolism, but it also put them to sleep for days. It was a lesser form of the hibernation pill, a tier three pill that he had no hope of creating. “That might be your opinion.”

Victoria rolled her eyes. “If you use that, you might fall asleep for a few hours at the absolute most.”

Dante looked at his lumpy pill, half of his excitement was now gone. “Why are you back so early, did you actually find something?” Every break he got from Victoria, he had tried to make the Ever Night pill. His plan was to take it before she returned when he finally made it, but his plans had been ruined. All because of one negligent fox. He needed to find some form of punishment for the stupid thing.

“Actually, yes. It’s the largest caravan so far.”

That made him perk up. “Oh? How far away?” They hadn’t found a caravan in over five days, he was beginning to think that they had completely given up. He had even suggested to Victoria that they let a few through to build up their confidence, but she completely rejected the idea.

Victoria walked over to the fox and began to pet it. “About three hours away.”

Dante stored away the alchemy equipment, as well as the plants he had partially processed. Then, he stood and stretched himself out. That single pill had taken four hours of arduous work. He glanced at Victoria and his fox in dissatisfaction. It had purposefully kept quiet, it definitely would have sensed Victoria’s arrival. The two of them had grown increasingly close for some reason. He had known having a female fox would be problematic, it was two against one. “Do you need to encourage mutiny with my bonded creature? How would you like it if I did the same with your bird?”

Victoria laughed, it seemed that she found the thought amusing. “Go ahead and try.” She stood, and irritatingly enough, the stupid fox jumped on her shoulder.

Dante glared at it, he had been trying not to order Shade around, as she didn’t like it, but the fox was trying his patience. Dante looked up at Shadow, who was flying overhead. After thinking it over, he let out a sigh of defeat. “Lead the way.”

The caravan might have been three hours away when Victoria had found it, but they moved their camp so it was somewhat close to Warlord Karabell’s main stronghold, so it only took them a bit over two hours to find it slowly crawling down the road.

Warlord Karabell led the invading force, or the refugee force, depending on how you looked at it. He had been slowly marching his army south, ever closer to Warlord Vidal’s forces.

Like every caravan, he scouted it first. Victoria had stopped helping him almost a month and a half ago. The caravan was massive, twelve wagons pulled by two horses each, and two dozen mounted troops beside them. Marching alongside those mounted troops were melee combatants, roughly thirty. And on each of the wagons was between three to four archers. There were also five unarmed men, and one unarmed woman. From past experience, he knew that they were magic Classifications.

Victoria had said it was a large caravan, that was laughable, it was a small army.

Dante nudged Victoria, and the two of them receded back into the forest.

“Too much?” She had a look of mock satisfaction on her face. He had been complaining that the caravan fights were too easy.

Dante rolled his eyes. “The mages might give me a bit of trouble, but that’s not why I pulled you back here. I don’t want to ambush them.”

Victoria didn’t seem overly surprised. “Don’t you think that you’re getting a bit too confident?”

He nodded. “Probably. But we both know that there aren’t going to be many more caravans, if any. Other than when we spar, I haven really had a chance to practice my movement in an actual fight.”

Victoria reached her hand up to scratch Shade’s ear as she thought it over. “I suppose you can, but make sure you keep enough mana in reserve to Blink. Even if I were to intervene in this fight, I can’t guarantee your safety if things get out of hand.”

Dante created a spear. Victoria’s warning wasn’t needed, there were too many variables. If he got caught out without Blink, she wouldn’t be able to block every attack that came at him. Well, she might be able to. He hadn’t seen her use a single skill yet, and she seemed to purposefully hold back. “I’ll still set up, just in case.” He then created a few daggers and slid them in his boots. They would be easily accessible with manipulate blade, and something he would’ve had in a standard fight. He would have used poison coated weapons, but they were too unwieldy, and he would likely poison himself if he kept them in his boots.

After breaking away from Victoria, Dante ran alongside the road, spreading out the tiny poison covered knives as he pulled them out of his storage. ‘Knives’ was a relatively loose term, they were more like tiny razors that had the smallest handle possible, just large enough so he didn’t accidentally poison himself. He also intermittently scattered larger weapons. Standard swords and spears. They were eye catching, and made to be that way, used as a distraction so that his enemies wouldn’t see the tiny blades coming.

After using this tactic, there wasn’t any need to actually take part in the fights, he could just sit in the forest and lob weapons at the caravans until they were all dead. If they found him, which was unlikely when he didn’t shoot any weapons that were close to his hiding place, he just blinked further down the road and repeated the process. It was effective, but made the rest of his training seem somewhat useless in comparison.

After he finished setting up, Dante waited until the caravan was in place, then nonchalantly walked in front of the small army, spear resting over his shoulder and world essence pumping through his legs.

“Halt!”

As soon as he stepped onto the road, everything jerked to a stop. One the men on the horses moved a single step forward to single himself out, while the rest switched between scanning the forest and staring at him, looking for a potential threat. “We are men of Warlord Karabell. Retreat, or be cut down.” The man on the horse uncurled a whip that was made out of several pieces of jointed metal.

Dante watched the combatants in front of him, ready for any attack. ‘Cut down’ was an interesting choice of words when he wielded such a strange whip. It was clear that they didn’t take him to be a real threat, at least alone, none of them watched him carefully, their eyes only rested on him momentarily before shifting back to scan the forest. He would have attacked, but doing so before they were ready would defeat the purpose of not ambushing them in the first place.

“Form ranks!” At the command from the whip wielder, all the men on horses dismounted as one, unsheathing their weapons as they did so. As if controlled, their horses moved on their own, retreating behind the last wagon of the caravan. The rest of the troops squeezed in, taking a protective stance while the archers and mages took aim. Mana shields went up, and world essence filled weapons. Surprisingly, only four of them had arrows trained on him, and none of them fired.

Dante didn’t move, didn’t say a word, just watched. Those with the caravan stood at the ready, waiting for an attack but not initiating one. Those few seconds stretched on, and the tension increased. He was surprised by how much his calm countenance seemed to unnerve them, it was something that he marked down to experiment with later.

Now that they were thoroughly prepared, it was time to fight.

Dante activated his gauntlet and slammed the world essence that was filling his legs into the soles of his feet, then yanked it back into his legs as he shot forward with an overwhelming force. Shouts of alarm rang out as the first volley of arrows and a bolt of lightning shot at him. Intent on fully utilizing the second level of the spectral attunement during the fight, he didn’t blink, but shoved his feet back into the ground. The abrupt change in direction made the muscles in his ankles feel like they were tearing apart, but he got the desired effect, shooting himself sideways and into the ranks of the enemy combatants.

His arrival was too fast, and his enemies’ reaction was delayed, making it easy for him to swipe at two of their throats before he felt a slight shift under his feet and sensed an arrow coming at him. Dante shot backward diagonally, making a hasty retreat as the stone spikes erupted from the ground. The spikes were slightly unnerving, if his reaction was even slightly delayed that wouldn’t have ended well.

He watched, a bit depressed as that single arrow curved through the air and came back toward him. He had experienced the skill in another ambush, and it was more than a bit annoying.

Dante scanned the caravan for the source of the skill, if he let that archer get going, there could be dozens of trajectory changing arrows targeting him as they flew through the air. He was unable to identify the source, but was able to see two mages use a bestial manifestation skill. One of them was a snake made of fire, and the other was a bird created from lightning, both sentient, and annoying.

They had definitely brought out the most spectacular troops for this caravan. Dante grit his teeth, he hadn’t used his mana yet, but his enemies would still roll over him if he didn’t eliminate the big threats. The strain on his legs was also a potential problem. Victoria said it would lessen as his control increased, but for now there were limitations to the amount he could use the second level of the spectral attunement.

Dante shot alongside the wagons until he was next to the second, putting himself in front of the troops that were guarding it before coming to a stop and Blinking just before the bestial manifestations reached him. Exclamations of shock rang out as he vanished, and everyone seemed to realize the gravity of the situation that they were in.

Dante appeared on top of the second wagon, taking the unsuspecting archers and magic combatant with his spear while manipulating all the daggers in his boots and shooting them into those in the adjacent wagons. He no longer randomly hit his targets. Instead, every dagger lodged inside an eye, heart, or throat.

The move had cost him a decent amount of mana, but almost half of it was recovered with his passive, and the lightning bird manifestation was now gone with its caster. Gathering his daggers with a thought, Dante jumped off the second wagon, moving down to the forth.

His daggers shot out, taking the archers as he landed on the fourth wagon, but the sole mage was ready, and a wall of mana blocked his dagger as the mage threw himself off the wagon and into the melee combatants that were just becoming aware of his presence.

With his gauntlet’s awareness, he felt the fire snake enter into close proximity. Dante’s knuckles tightened on his spear as he went for an all or nothing attack on the mage that fell off the wagon, piercing him through the heart just before the fire snake reached him.

The manifested creature dissipated, and Dante Blinked out as those surrounding troops stabbed down at him. Fortunately, or unfortunately, only one blade pierced his skin. A deep slash on his left arm that pierced to the bone. He checked for any signs of fast acting poison as he escaped from their reach.

Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be anything on the opponent’s blade that would be an immediate concern, and anything that was slow acting would be resolved by Victoria.

Dante shot forward, moving down the line of wagons, and bringing a rain of arrows and a bolt of lightning with him. His strategy for the time being was simple. Use his overwhelming speed to stop himself from being ganged up on, any time the enemies looked like they would surround him he would move on.

Annoyingly, there were now four trajectory changing arrows that flew at him, one coming from the back of the caravan instead of the spot he had just moved from, likely where the shots originated from. According to Victoria, there were three ways to stop the arrows from chasing him after they locked onto the mana inside his body. Kill the skill’s caster, escape its range, or deplete his mana completely. Only one of those was a real option, escaping their range was too challenging when they flew so fast.

Dante moved to the back of the caravan, and began to systematically slaughter all of the archers. He only needed to finish off two wagons worth before the arrows relented their chase. He then shifted his focus, moving along the wagons until he was next to one of the female mages, the one who shot bolts of lightning at him. He blinked behind her, then shoved his spear through her heart from behind. The action cause him to wince, he usually left the women for Victoria, but the bolts of lightning were too fast for him to be certain that he could dodge them.

After that, things were far easier. He killed the mage that was creating the earth spikes under his feet, finished off the archers, then moved on to the regular combatants. He tore through them, spear flashing as it sliced throats, daggers flying through the air as they tore through eyes and lodged themselves into hearts. He even corrupted each weapon when he thought it necessary. Killing them had almost become too easy, and with the constant kills, he was able to keep two blades flying through the air and his gauntlet activated without losing any mana. Even the minor cuts he received as the fight progressed healed almost immediately.

The fight devolved into a massacre, and several of the combatants tried to flee before they were taken by the poison razors that were waiting in the forest. They all died with a mere thought.

There were a few left, all of them were the ones previously mounted on the horses. They seemed to be of a higher caliber than the rest of the melee combatants, but none of them could block his spear and the two daggers at the same time.

The last combatant who was alive was the one with the metal whip, each segment moving independently to block each part of his three-pronged attack. The man looked crazed, hollowly laughing as his eyes glanced over his fallen comrades. “We wondered why you fucking cowards rejected our contract. It was because-” Dante Blinked behind him, corrupting his spear and stabbing him through the heart. It seemed that the man knew that he was with the guild, his movement probably gave him away.

“That was rather well done.”

Dante stopped staring at the dead man’s corpse and looked back to see Victoria. She scanned the battlefield, no hint of emotion on her face. In contrast, his emotions were in turmoil. Killing was beginning to get easier, but massacring the last few combatants so easily felt… wrong?

Dante picked up the strange metal whip that the man had dropped. It was etched with lines that looked similar to his gauntlet, clearly made by an artificer. He stored it. It wasn’t something he could use, but he could always sell it later.

Victoria moved to the wagons and began to uncover them. She looked pleasantly surprised. “No wonder they sent so many combatants.”

Dante ignored her momentarily and tended to the horses. He cut away the ones that were still tied to the wagons and dispersed the few that where still huddled behind the caravan. They all ran off, their chances of survival weren’t good, but there was always the possibility that someone would find them.

Then, he helped Victoria with the wagons. She was still working on the first one, now going through the containers. “What is it?”

Victoria sniffed one of the jars, as if confirming her suspicions. “Algrite powder, and a lot of it. Quite literally worth its weight in gold.”

He didn’t appreciate the vague statement. It was as though she wanted him to ask. “What does it do?”

Victoria smiled mischievously, something she rarely did, then threw a handful at him. Covering him in the green powder, the stuff she said was worth its weight in gold. It quickly became apparent why she had identified it by the smell, it smelt like mold. Dante glared at her. “Was that really necessary?”

The smile didn’t slip from her face. “Try to gather world essence.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed. “No.” He had been in this exact situation with Archie, and it had ended with a healer.

Victoria shrugged. “Pity.”

Her reaction was surprising. “That’s it?”

Victoria checked another wagon. “If you want to know what it does, gather world essence.”

He definitely wasn’t going to do that. Putting his curiosity to the side, Dante systematically began to check the bodies of those he downed, mostly just taking their coins, and blood. He had become far pickier after looting so many caravans, and no longer just took everything.

Victoria checked the rest of the wagons, three of them had algrite powder, one had alcohol, and the rest were full of food – mostly grain. The amount of alcohol was surprising, as it was the first time they found any, and he quickly stored it before Victoria said anything. He also took the powder with him, but left the food. He already had a wagonload full of grain in his storage. He had tried to store other types of food, but he found out rather quickly that his storage didn’t stop them from going bad.

Looting done, he helped Victoria burn the wagons and they quickly left. It wouldn’t take long for Warlord Karabell’s troops to arrive when such a large caravan was burned this close to his stronghold.