Chapter 177: Awakening

“HEHEHEHAHAHAHAAHA!!”

Michael stopped crying for a moment as he looked at Dante with wide eyes.

’Did… did he lose his mind?’

Dante had started speaking to himself all of a sudden. Everything after that was chaos.

His head started glowing.

The World Rune appeared and covered him.

And that… that being.

There was now something covering Dante’s body. Every few seconds, a strange black being would appear and turn invisible again.

Its body looked like liquid over Dante’s body, moving with dozens of tendrils that coiled around Dante’s body like an outfit rather than a living being.

It had countless eerie eyes that blinked frequently and stared in all directions. One of them stared at Michael for a moment longer than usual before disappearing, making him flinch uncomfortably.

Lastly, it had a big mouth that seemed to be smiling, sending a shiver down Michael’s spine.

✧IMG✧

Unknown to him, that was the parasite that had been trapped in Dante’s Wheel of Luck since Dante’s birth. And finally, it regained its freedom, allowing it to flicker between the physical realm and the luck realm.

It was merged with Dante’s soul before, which allowed it to grow stronger with his soul, just like Greed had done. But now, it was taking a step further to merge with Dante’s body willingly.

Dante was gambling with his life on the line. If the parasite had bad intentions, even Dante didn’t know what it could do.

But it was a gamble he was willing to take.

He had grown tired of not growing rapidly. Why wouldn’t a greedy person gamble if they had a chance to gain a lot of profit? That was Dante’s opportunity to accept his true nature that he had been avoiding for so long!

At this moment, Dante was looking at the centre of his own Wheel of Luck, finally seeing what had been trapping the parasite.

It was a small centipede. The centipede had its head ripped off, which was likely holding the parasite and preventing it from running without Dante’s help.

Now that the centipede had died, its body began turning into crimson sparkles.

“Centipede, huh?” Dante glared at Greed, and all the parasite’s eyes turned in the same direction.

“Hehe… of course a centipede. Out of all possible things, it’s a fucking centipede! So it was truly you, huh? It has always been you!” Dante’s body was trembling with anger and hatred.

The parasite suddenly covered his lower body and supported him, preventing him from falling down.

By seeing the parasite’s eyes, one could say they held the same emotions as Dante, but the one who was receiving those emotions was unfazed.

“Yes, it’s me.” Greed admitted: “How else could I have given you the silver Ether? I needed something that could cause an incident that would give you one of two types of Ether. This creature was the best thing that I found at that time.”

The parasite’s slimy body trembled as Greed continued: “However, that was a gamble. You noticed, right? I can’t predict anything related to luck perfectly and I have other limits. I might consider a thousand possible outcomes only for none of them to occur. If I knew everything, I wouldn’t have died to begin with.”

“You and that parasite aren’t completely predictable. I admit that I didn’t expect something like this to happen this early. But that doesn’t matter. What I wanted happened regardless. Congrats for accepting yourself, brat.”

Dante’s face twitched in disgust.

That centipede… it was the parasite that ruined his life.

Someday…

’I’m too weak to make any changes.’

[The World Runes congratulate the Abyssal Doombringer.]

All of a sudden, a line of dark-violet runes appeared in front of Dante. Those runes were special, they were the World Runes.

“Oh, right, they appeared while I was pulling you.”

From what Dante learned, the World Runes would appear whenever someone was acknowledged for achievement.

Did Dante do such a thing?

If yes, then he could gain something to strengthen him, right?

His eyes shifted quickly toward Michael and Elizabeth’s corpse, then toward the corpse of the dead soldier that Dante had killed himself, his teeth chattering.

If he could now become stronger, he’d accept that gift gladly!

Feeling the parasite merging slowly with his body, Dante read the runes.

[You have met the requirements to awaken your Crown’s first ability.]

[1. Reach 50% comprehension of the Misfortune Aspect.]

[2. Cause an abyssal calamity upon the world.]

[3. Merge with a calamitous entity.]

[Give an order whenever you want to receive the knowledge about the ability.]

Dante read the runes slowly, his eyes sparkling brighter with every word he read.

Every Crown of Existence had at least one ability, or so the books said.

However, those abilities weren’t always usable. Some of them were dormant, waiting for some requirements to be met before awakening.

Unfortunately, it was hard to know what those requirements were. But they were always things that the owners of the Crowns were able to do and would eventually do.

For example, Zaragoza simply had to die to awaken his ability. Despite being so simple, it was hard to achieve.

After all, how many Crowned Existences were dying that easy, not to mention a prince.

But somehow, he did it!

It was as though he was fated to die at a young age and awaken that ability. He awakened a mysterious ability that revived him, which he called Resurrection!

Though, the rumours said that he wasn’t killed by a stranger… it was a suicide attempt, but nothing was confirmed.

And here Dante was seeing the same thing.

The misfortune part was understandable, but what about the other two?

How many people could cause an abyssal calamity that required a fragment from the Sin of Greed to be destroyed in front of an abyssal gate?

What were the chances of Dante uniting with the parasite instead of keeping it sealed or killing it?

He didn’t believe that he was “fated” to do this. Dante was fateless, which meant that something else caused this coincidence.

“I’ll think about that later. What I need now is that ability!”

That was the thing Dante needed the most.

An ability from the Crown that caused a war.

Not to mention, it seemed to be related to misfortune! If there was anything Dante needed now, it’d be this!

“Give it to me! Give me everything you have!!” Dante shouted and let the dark-violet runes swarm toward him.

Dante laughed crazily as the knowledge of his new ability filled his mind.

Oh, and he had to admit, it was worthy of being an item that kingdoms would fight for. That ability was basically better than anything Dante could have wished for!

Under Michael’s gaze, the runes covered Dante’s head completely and reduced in density over time, implying that they were being absorbed.

’What is happening?’

At this moment, he finally noticed something strange hovering above Dante’s head.

It looked like a divine artifact made in the Abyss, an upside-down ragged black crown with dark-violet gems decorating it.

Finally, Michael understood a part of what was happening.

Dante was a Crowned Existence!

[Royal Ability Awakened: Royal Calamity]

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