Chapter 168: BANG!

“Just… what was that?” Dante wondered, looking with a frown at the spot where Zoran had stood earlier.

He couldn’t kill him.

Somehow… that titan had disappeared!

“Damn it!”

He escaped. After this long fight and all of Dante’s risks, Zoran left without ending what they started.

Dante couldn’t help but feel hatred. However, that hatred was pointed at Zoran’s father.

Yes, his father.

Dante wasn’t stupid enough not to notice that Zoran himself wasn’t willing to escape. He had a strange artifact that was the reason he disappeared.

And from how Zoran called his father before disappearing, Dante felt that the father was the one controlling that artifact.

As for how exactly? Dante didn’t know. Maybe the father was observing everything through the artifact, and maybe that was just an automatic mechanism that relied on Zoran’s condition.

There were so many possibilities.

“Who is his father… anyway? Is he a Rank 3 titan? He should be far away from here then.”

There was no way a Rank 3 titan existed in such a place. Seeing a Rank 2 titan and a demoness was already a miracle, and miracles didn’t happen frequently.

After all, the beings with bloodlines were extremely important in battlefields, and they had high potential. A wise ruler would either keep them safe to grow up and become more useful or use them in more important battlefields.

Seeing two of them was already enough to show how serious they were regarding whatever they were doing here “secretly”.

’This has something to do with the Abyss gate. Did they open it somehow or are they just trying to use it to their advantage?’

Well, there was only one thing Dante could do to know the answer.

“There are some giants hiding there, right?” A smirk tugged at Dante’s face, however it immediately disappeared as he brought a cigarette to his mouth.

“But this will have to wait… I still can’t feel my lower part.”

“Fuck corruption… what was I thinking when I let myself get cut in half?”

Dante never got split in half. He didn’t know whether he’d survive this using reclaim or not.

He literally gambled on his life! There was a real possibility that he’d die from this!

However, the greedy people were infamous for taking risks without hesitation.

He didn’t risk his life only once in this fight. He didn’t forget that he had let Zoran stab his chest just to touch him.

“Well, I survived at least.”

¢¢¢

Under the Abyss gate.

“It’s been three hours already. Should we search for them?”

“And do what? Zoran might kill us himself this time! I swear that stupid guy became the leader only because of his father!”

“Shhh. If he hears you, you’ll have a few broken bones at the very least.”

The giants discussed their next nervously. Unable to hear the fight anymore, they were left in complete uncertainty.

Zoran was the strongest among them, and he was capable of killing them all by mistake. Trying to act like supporters to help him was complete foolishness.

He didn’t need anyone. They were the ones who needed him!

However, as the time passed, they couldn’t help but have some doubts and be concerned.

What if the black magic user won?

What if Zoran won, but he was injured and needed someone to save him?

What if they were waiting for someone who was also waiting for them?

What if the black magic user was dying and only needed the finishing hit?

There were so many possibilities. They didn’t know what to do and had to argue for hours.

“Wait! I feel something!”

A giant suddenly silenced everyone as he closed his eyes in focus.

“Something is coming toward us. It… it’s human size, and can teleport!”

The giants swallowed nervously. They all knew what that meant.

Either that mysterious person was a passing stranger who had Shadowstep by absolute coincidence… or Zoran had died.

“We will leave.” A giant stated with a serious expression: “Staying here is meaningless now. At least the gate is open now and it’ll expand slowly without our interference. We partially completed our mission, and anything beyond that is impossible to do while that crazy guy is there.”

A second giant smiled bitterly: “We have no time to escape. Our only option is using Raga’s relic. This means that one of us shall stay and use it for us. Then… we’ll lose that person alongside the relic.”

The giants sighed helplessly.

Not only did they lose the son of a mysterious person that was able to get the portal relic from Raga, but they were also going to sacrifice one of themselves and their most valuable relic.

“Ignore the relic. Lord Raga said that no one can destroy it, and he’ll dismiss it eventually. The real question is, who should stay?”

The giants exchanged glances and smiled.

“Let’s spin a bottle.”

¢¢¢

Dante walked toward the gate with ragged breath, using Shadowstep continuously to cut the distance.

He hadn’t completely healed yet. The fact that he could currently use his legs was already a miracle, but he couldn’t afford to rest any longer.

“They might escape.”

Dante teleported as fast as he could until he finally reached the hole.

“Huh?”

There, he saw a single giant sitting in a lotus position, his head severed off and… giving his middle finger to Dante!

“…”

Dante’s eyes twitched as he tried to find the other giants, but he couldn’t sense anything.

“Maybe they’re hiding.”

Dante looked at the ground before channeling his mana and spiritual energy.

Shadow Spell — Fire Cannonballs!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Dante showered the whole place with cannonballs, turning everything into dust and digging into the ground.

However, even after minutes, he didn’t see traces of anything hiding.

“If they escaped, why did they leave this guy behind? Did they use him to escape?”

The giant had a bloody sword in one hand, which suggested that he severed his own head.

He likely did that either to avoid becoming a black magic victim or he assumed that Dante had a method to extract information from him.

If it was the latter, Dante would have to admit that he was impressed by the giant’s loyalty. He couldn’t imagine himself doing something similar to hide some information.

“I’ll never understand you people. Why would you sacrifice your life for a piece of land or a ruler who doesn’t even know you exist?”

Dante sighed and scanned the headless corpse closely. At this moment, he noticed a small black necklace with a blue gem in the middle.

The gem was carved in a strange way that made it look like a slit eye.

“This looks like a dragon eye…” Dante frowned upon noticing this detail.

Most importantly… It was covered with misfortune spikes, the same spikes that Dante didn’t understand yet.

He immediately channeled his silver Ether and used Appraisal, causing tens of runes to form words in front of him.

However…

ᚷᚱᚨᛞᛖ : ᛃᚱᛖᛖᛞ

ᛏᛃᛈᛖ : ᚲᛟᚾᛏᚨᛁᚾᛖᚱṠ̷̺̪̬̱͛̒͠Ḯ̶̢͎̟̲̀̍̓N̸̖̩̤͑̈́̿͝S̴͉̜̯̘͗̾́̚Į̷̹͚̈́̐̏N̷̬̘̋͑̽S̶̥̞͇̰̽̍͝I̸̦̤͊̅N̴͎̿̇

ᛗᚨᛏᛖᚱᛁᚨᛚᛋ : ᛋᛁᚾ ᛋᛁᚾ ᛋᛁᚾ

ᛖᚾᚲᚺᚨᚾᛏᛗᛖᚾᛏ : ᚷᚱᛖᛖᛞ

ᛞᚢᚱᚨᛒᛁᛚᛁᛏᛃ : ᛋᛁṠ̷̺̪̬̱͛̒͠Ḯ̶̢͎̟̲̀̍̓N̸̖̩̤͑̈́̿͝ᚾ

ᚷᚱᛖᛖᛞ

ᛋᛁᚾᛋᛁᚾ

░░░

ᚷᚱᛖṠ̷̺̪̬̱͛̒͠Ḯ̶̢͎̟̲̀̍̓N̸̖̩̤͑̈́̿͝ᛖᛞ

ᛏᚺᛁᛋ ᛁᛋ ᚨ ᚲᛟᚾᛏᚨᛁᚾᛖᚱ

ᛁᛏ ᛁᛋ Ṡ̷̺̪̬̱͛̒͠Ḯ̶̢͎̟̲̀̍̓N̸̖̩̤͑̈́̿͝ ᚷᚱᛖᛖᛞ

ᛁᛏ ᛁᛋ ᛋᛁᚾ

“…”

…That wasn’t what he expected to see.

“This… this is…” the words stuck in Dante’s throat as he struggled to let them out.

He… he had seen this only once in his life.

It was when he…

“Shit!”

Dante used Shadowstep immediately, going as far as possible from the necklace.

As the unpleasant memories flashed through his mind, his breath became ragged, his heartbeat accelerated, and his body trembled.

That was fear, terror, and fright.

Subconsciously, he looked at his right arm.

“Don’t worry, I have nothing planned this time.” Greed suddenly appeared and sighed: “That’s the relic they used to teleport, and as you can guess, it’s a part of me. If you want, you can use me to link it to you instead of the original owner.”

“Yes, you’re basically going to steal the relic! It can do more than teleportation, but only the real owner of the relic can use the other features.”

Dante took a deep breath, calming himself and dismissing the memory of enslaving Ruby.

“This isn’t the same.”

This time, Dante wasn’t going to be controlled by Greed.

And this time… he had a solution to end everything.

Dante used Shadowstep again and appeared before the relic. However, instead of taking it, he retrieved an item from his ring.

It looked like a gun from Earth, yet it had a strange appearance. Half the gun was white, while the other half was black. It also had a core that glowed and flickered between black and white.

That was the Chaos Blaster, the weapon that the dark entity had given to him

It was also the weapon that could destroy Greed!

Greed warned with a serious tone: “I don’t recommend doing that. This relic might save your life someday. Not only you, even that candidate and your slave might be saved by it someday.”

“Maybe I’ll become a bit stronger from it, but I can assure you that it’ll be worth everything.”

“Hehehe…” Dante pointed the gun at the necklace with a wide grin, ignoring everything that Greed had said.

“Dante, listen to me.” Greed said softly: “If you destroy it, you’ll regret all the consequences. It’ll take only a few days before you realize that destroying it is a great mistake, and I’m not lying this ti—”

“—Can you shut the fuck up!” Dante cut Greed off, his eyes turning bloodshot.

That was it.

The opportunity he had been waiting for.

If Greed was arguing that much to stop Dante from destroying it, then it likely had a great value for him!

“Dante, this is your last warning—”

Click!

Dante pressed the trigger.

The time slowed down instantly.

BANG!

A small bullet flickering between black and white shot from the gun and disappeared.

The next thing Dante saw was a hole in the middle of the necklace. After a second, the necklace turned into dust.

There was no mess or an explosion. The only proof of using the gun was the sound he heard after pressing the trigger.

…The necklace was destroyed, just like this.

The necklace was destroyed!

“Ha… HAHAHA—”

Before Dante could complete his laughter, his smile froze as he fell onto the ground like a statue.

His thoughts stopped, his body stopped.

Dante could now feel only one thing…

Pain.

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