Dante’s Immortality - Chapter 53

Lugging the swords, Dante walked through the last corridor with a now dark blue mana manipulated light source following by his side.  It seemed that the glove didn’t just affect world essence.

The corridor to the final cavern seemed to be far longer than all the others, but he wasn’t complaining. He would have preferred not fighting the dungeon boss of a ‘predatory dungeon’ at all.

There wasn’t much time to consider the origins of a predatory dungeon while he was preoccupied with Jared and Arron, but the more he thought about it, the more frightening the implications became.

If regular dungeons were just areas of dense world essence that were found by creatures, what did that mean for predatory dungeons? He was holding on to the hope that it was just discovered by a more aggressive creature, but it seemed unlikely.

After walking almost twenty minutes down the corridor, he came upon the entrance to what was hopefully the last cavern. His mana manipulation light source could just barely penetrate into the darkness, showing the outline of a solitary figure in a large and empty chamber.

Hesitant, but more than ready for the upcoming fight, Dante took a deep breath then stepped forward.

As soon as the light crossed the threshold of the cavern and illuminated the chamber within he paused. It was a girl. The shoulder length black hair was a dead giveaway. He couldn’t see her age, but she looked completely human.

Still, he kept his guard up. He was in a dungeon, and a predatory one at that. No girl would just be wandering around in the last cavern. Throwing down his bundle of swords, Dante picked one up and began pumping it with world essence.

The girl seemed to finally notice him when the swords clattered to the ground, and she turned.

Mia…

It was Mia… or looked exactly like her. The sight of her was so unexpected that his concentration faltered and he had to Blink his sword away before it exploded in his hand.

Her same raven black hair, the same beautiful features, and the same mature charm. Seeing her, alive, made all of the emotions that he had struggled to repress when he took off the wraith collar resurface.

He had buried them so deeply. Any time he had even thought of Mia, he would distract himself with… anything. But that wasn’t a possibility anymore, it was like he was confronting his inner demon.

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He knew it wasn’t Mia. It couldn’t be, she was dead… Something was toying with him.

Mia glanced up and smiled at him. “Hello, Dante.”

It was almost a perfect copy... almost. She had the same demeanor, the same look, the same voice, but something was missing. Her reaction wasn’t quite right, and for some reason, that made it even worse. It was like his memory of her was being corrupted.

Dante reached down and picked up a new sword, his fist subconsciously tightening until his knuckles were white. His breathing had become uneven, and he was having a hard time focusing. Taking a few deep breaths, he tried to regain composure.

Whoever, or whatever was responsible for this would pay. Dearly.

Instead of attacking blindly, he decided to test the waters with his new Manipulate Blade skill. Stepping forward until he was within range, he lifted a sword out of the pile with his mind.

Mia looked at the floating sword with genuine confusion. “What are you doing?”

Even if it wasn’t really Mia, looking at her confused expression while he was about to attack her was heart-wrenching.

I’m sorry.

He forced the sword forward. Hurling it at Mia with maximum speed and corrupting it just as it impaled the center of her chest.

The scream that rang out was sickening. It was exactly how Mia had screamed when she was being leashed by Sir Andres.

The sound of it, and the memories it brought up seemed to tear apart his soul. Penetrating through him and making him want to vomit. Just the thought that he had been the one to cause the scream was mentally incapacitating.

Mia made no move to attack him, she just fell to her knees and clutched the handle of the sword that was buried in the center of her chest as she screamed. Blood seemed to gush out of the wound, but the screaming wasn’t slowed in the slightest.

Closing his eyes, and trying to block out the horrific scene in front of him, he mentally lifted two more swords from the pile and sent them speeding towards Mia.

He had aimed one of the swords directly at her neck, trying to cut off the screams. But when they impacted, her screaming only grew louder and even more guttural.

He couldn’t take any more. The screaming had to stop. He could feel the emotions that he had been holding back start to tear out from deep inside of himself despite his efforts to suppress them. The screaming had to stop.

Dante ran forward, charging across the cavern with a sword in hand. As soon as he got to her, he cut Mia’s head from her defenseless body like he was some savage executioner.

The act of actually slicing off Mia’s head, even if it wasn’t really her, seemed to hurt physically. He immediately turned to the side and retched up the bile that was in his stomach. There was no way that he would ever forget the scene in front of him, the way it felt to actually kill Mia with his own hands. But it was finally over.

Dante glanced down at her body, which caused him to retch even harder.

Mia’s face had the exact same slack look on her face when she truly had died.

Thank the Goddess it’s over…

Her corpse began to liquify, completely falling apart before seeping back into the ground.

Dante fell to his knees, uncontrollable tears welling up in his eyes as he stared at the spot that she disappeared from. The regret that he felt was overwhelming. It felt he had just lost a part of himself, a part of his humanity.

Killing Mia, even if it was just a copy, was by far the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

“Why are you crying?”

Dante spun around, the voice he heard thoroughly shaking him to his core. Standing there, with a smile on her face, was Mia. There wasn’t a single scratch on her body.