Chapter 14: First Relic

“….”

Again, Dante woke up above the blood formation.

He gave a hollow glance at his demonic arm that the centipede targeted and gritted his teeth: ’You disgusting bastard.’

Dante closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reabsorbing the knowledge in his head.

Without hesitation, he went to the gate and fell intentionally into the first trap. A moment later, he returned to the underground room.

With his gaze still hollow, he took out his black orb and notebook, then looked at the changes.

Demon Bloodline 5%→10%

Demonic Energy: 10→20

The first change was in his bloodline and demonic energy, which were doubled. But that shouldn’t have been possible. He would always regress to his old body after dying, so how did they increase suddenly?

Abyss Domain — Attunement: Normal→Greater

Another change was the attunement of his Abyss Domain, which had become Greater.

And if that wasn’t enough…

[Demonic Dragon]

⤷ Your bloodlines clash, slowing each other’s growth, but gradually fusing into something greater.

• Draconic Mutation: Right Eye

• Demonic Mutation: Right Arm, Left Eye

[Demon of Temptation]

⤷ A soul that embodies both desire and denial. You wield charm as a weapon, yet remain untouched by it.

✧ Passive Abilities:

⟨Demonic Charm⟩

⤷ Your presence weakens fragile minds and draw attention. Works better on females.

⟨Abyssal Mind⟩

⤷ Your mind has high resistance to fear, charm, and mind magic.

His left eye changed. He had noticed the difference just now. Instead of increased sight, it allowed him to see through the darkness slightly. It was great for his current situation.

In addition to that, he got a demonic trait out of nowhere. And its first ability made him… beautiful?

’What am I supposed to do with that, seduce girls…? I’m a minor…’

Thinking about that, a dark memory flashed in his mind, but he shook his head and continued reading.

That wasn’t the biggest difference. There was still the change that was possibly responsible for everything he got:

❖ Relics:

[###]

⤷ Killed in the Great War at the hands of ###, his essence was turned into a living relic, waiting patiently for its long-awaited perfect vessel. In the end, his greed led to a single miscalculation that ruined everything.

✧ Passive Abilities:

⟨Dance of Greed⟩

⤷ Your Greed Knows No Bounds. If one strike isn’t enough, starve for more and more!

⟨Greedy Soul⟩

⤷ Your Greed Knows No Bounds. When you slay an opponent directly with ###, you absorb a small part of their soul. The absorbed soul’s spirit value must be no less than 90% of yours. The unworthy aren’t accepted by your greed.

⟨Soul Weapon⟩

⤷ ### grows stronger with your soul.

✧ Active Abilities:

⟨Abyssal Slash⟩

⤷ ### absorbs 20% of your demonic energy and spiritual energy, fusing them with your Abyss Aspects to unleash a deadly abyssal slash.

Dante quickly rolled up his right sleeve, his face darkening.

A jet-black tattoo of a crimson-eyed centipede. It started with its head in his hand, coiling around his entire arm until it stopped with its tail at Dante’s neck.

Dante took a deep breath, remembering the pain that the centipede caused. Then, he followed the knowledge in his head.

The centipede’s crimson eyes gleamed then the tattoo moved as if it was still alive in his arm. The head moved to Dante’s palm, then a blade started to come out.

A moment later, Dante held a beautiful, double-edged, one-handed longsword.

The hilt was jet-black and smooth, with an unremovable grip that was attached to Dante’s hand.

The onyx-black blade was slender and thin, yet it looked durable. The blade’s edges were thin and sharp, with two crimson lines on the middle of each side of the blade. The crimson lines ran through the blade vertically from the hilt until the tip.

On the sides of the sharp tip, two curved, menacing, small horns rose like deadly fangs.

The overall length of the deadly yet beautiful sword was 1.1 meters, with the blade alone being more than 0.9 meters.

At least that was in the current form.

With one thought, the blade extended slightly, turning into several segmented blades connected by a sharp chain.

With another thought, the sword returned to Dante’s arm as a centipede tattoo, and with one more thought it rose again like a silent, beautiful sword.

’I hate to admit it, but… this is cool.’

Dante stared at the sword in a daze. For a boy who had no knowledge of fantasy, all that was beyond his wildest imaginations.

Shaking his head, he reread the runes, puzzled by the strange description and name.

’This name… why isn’t it showing?’

The name wasn’t written in runes—it was left like a bunch of scratches in the air. And the description was what made him more worried.

Seemingly, there was a war, someone with an unknown name killed another one also with an unknown name, and the one who was killed turned into something called a relic.

That relic, somehow, broke everything Dante knew about regression and time and followed him to the past…

Yeah, that was really strange, and the next part puzzled Dante even more.

’Perfect vessel? Did that bastard try to… possess me?’

Remembering how it kept trying to enter his arm, and how it screamed with him in his last moment, it seemed believable.

After rereading everything, he closed his runes.

’What made me a *perfect vessel*?’

Well, it wasn’t hard to guess two reasons when he thought about two noticeable things about the sword.

Obviously, the first noticeable thing was the fact that this sword was demonic. It raised his demon bloodline percentage, gave him a demonic trait and had an ability that needed demonic energy.

Now that he saw them together, didn’t the lines in his arm look too similar to the centipede’s shell?

’I won’t turn into a centipede later, right?’

The second noticeable thing was also about the active ability—it ignored his other domain and focused on only one, which was Abyss.

Thus, he assumed that being a demon and having the Abyss Domain were parts of being a perfect vessel.

But why did he fail? What was that miscalculation?

Here, it was complicated.

It might be his fateless soul, his Ether, his Destiny Domain and Misfortune Aspect, or his dragon bloodline. All of them were what made him special.

Dante assumed that because of the miscalculation, he was meant to die with the centipede. But because of the regression ability he got the centipede as his relic, which he didn’t completely understand yet.

That was satisfying, actually. A creature that could defy time tried to possess his body only to turn into his weapon. Maybe it was affected by Dante’s bad luck.

’I need to test this sword first.’

As Dante scanned his surroundings, he saw a skeleton with a rusty sword. Unconsciously, he glanced at his shadow as well.

“….”

Dante’s lips trembled slightly.

If not for his current cold state, he’d have smirked.

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