Dante chose to take a seat on one of the bigger pieces of rubble and kneaded his forehead with one fist. He had no desire to retrace his steps, but the fact that everything was showing more signs of battle as time went on was not encouraging. An opinion that was supported by the increasing frequency of explosions.

At least he wasn’t too badly out of breath. Before, he wasn’t sure he could have kept up this pace for this long. Now, he was just winded. At least the exertion had somewhat dried the inside of the clothes, though the stench remained. That didn’t mean that he was in perfect condition, he remained unable to even move his injured arm. He could feel that his ill-fitting boots had already caused blistering and was beginning to feel the opening twinges of hunger as well. The journey back was likely to make all of these worse.

Perhaps there is an alternative way?

Dante scanned his memory of the last hours, though he was not hopeful. The best route he could think of had been that collapsed tunnel a bit back. If he spent some time moving the rocks, then perhaps he could reveal the passageway. Though he wasn’t too confident about traveling in a tunnel that had already collapsed once. Besides, it was likely it was blocked on the other end.

Dante was beginning to suspect that all of the collapses had been at least somewhat intentional. After all, why would you want the trenches you lost to connect to the ones still under control? Why would you want to provide safe shelters to the enemy? They could even be used as staging grounds against their builders.

He eyed the pile of rubble that blocked him from further progress. Perhaps he was too quick in discounting going over that. Dante just needed to know if what lay on the other side was worth the risk of exposing himself to everything that raged above. If only he had a way to hide himself.

Wait a minute.

Dante summoned his status with a thought and gazed at the only ability he had not used yet. [Chameleon]. He had no idea how to use it of course. Though if his experience was anything to judge by then as soon as wanted to use — it was as if he had suddenly discovered how to breathe again. An entire new sensation opened to him, one that encompassed all of his skin. Something triggered and when Dante looked down at his hand, saw that a distinct grey-brown tinge had crept into his skin.

Well, that had been about what he expected. Dante noted that the change was quite slow. Maybe about half a minute until he could see no further change. He was displeased to see the change stopped at his skin and did not affect his clothes. All he had managed to do in the end was make his face and hands a little less obvious.

Fortunately, they were already the omnipresent brown that this entire world seemed to be made of. He held up one hand to the water rushing in the small channel in the middle of the trench and concluded that it was a few shades off. Dante just couldn’t help but think that he could have accomplished a better transformation with a generous coating of mud. Maybe it would get better at higher levels?

With a start, he realized that his breathing had started to get heavy again and released the ability. Unlike before the ‘trigger’ lurked in the background of his mind, ready to be activated again with but a thought. In maybe a minute of use that ability had tired him out just as much as the entire hike had, which wasn’t great.

He slammed his fist against his thigh and tried to keep his frustration contained. Guess it would have been too much to hope that it would be useful. Regardless, It would have to work.

Dante gave himself a short break to steady his breathing before getting up and beginning to climb the pile of stone fragments that blocked the trench. He stumbled a few times as handholds gave away — honestly, the entire pile seemed less stable than he liked — but eventually made it near the top where he paused. Bracing himself he activated [Chameleon], gave it a dozen seconds until it mostly finished darkening, and then climbed the rest of the way up while keeping low. Once his head peaked above the ground, Dante gave the area a brief scan and cursed.

This area of wasteland was even more devastated than before if it was possible. The terrain was pretty much nothing but craters overlapping craters. The barrage of spells was even thicker here, pretty much constant. Worst of all, there was no continuation to the trench in front of him, just a line of disturbed mud and stone that disappeared into the rain.

But … There was a long ditch just in front of him that pierced the trench and ran to the barrier shield — which he excitedly realized that he was rather close to now. At the end of the ditch, pressed up against the shield, was the biggest crater that he had seen yet. From all of this, he concluded that one of the more exotic spells had over-penetrated the trench until it had smashed into the barrier and detonated.

It was distinctly different from the other craters he had seen. For one, the dirt in this one had been turned into an opaque whitish material that reminded Dante of quartz. It seemed rather hard, as it had escaped the relentless pull of the mud so far and its cross section was nearly perfectly circular.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He was just about to climb back down to safety to reconsider his options when a bolt of inspiration struck him.

Perhaps he could use this to finally get to the shield? It was the most direct pathway and it was somewhat shielded by being below the ground level. Besides, what were the chances that they would aim at the same place twice?

Mind made up, Dante used the slight cover from the rubble filling the trench to climb the rest of the way up in relative safety. He dropped into his stomach and began crawling towards the intersection of the collapsed trench and the crystal ditch. It was an uncomfortable journey over jagged stones and he was grateful all over again for the coat from the dead soldier. It was a longer journey than Dante would have thought, especially given that he stopped multiple times whenever one of the apocalyptic spells passed a little too close for his comfort.

By the time he reached the crystal ditch, he was breathing pretty hard and covered in grime. Alarmingly, the earth next to the channel was warm to the touch and he questioned just how long ago the channel had been made. Dante forcibly put those concerns aside, he was simply too far to back off now. Dante sat up and swung his legs over the side, then let himself drop.

He skidded on his rear and hands down the dozen or so feet towards the bottom. As Dante was struggling to keep straight, he slammed his uninjured hand down and felt something catch on his palm right before reaching the bottom. He had been doing pretty well at keeping his balance until he encountered the nearly invisible pool of water that was at the bottom. Caught off guard at the unexpected resistance, he found himself pitching forward and slammed into the surface of the pool.

Dante resurfaced sputtering and climbed back to his feet. Where he had landed the water had turned brown but farther away, where it was not yet tainted, it was hard to tell that water even was there. It was crystal clear. So clear that he had not noticed it from the top.

A splotch of red in the water caught his attention and he followed the trail to where it was dripping from his hand. He raised it to his eye and saw that he had a pretty deep gash across the palm. It seemed like this crystalline material had some sharp edges, he would have to be careful about that.

As if I didn’t have enough problems.

He tucked the bleeding hand under his armpit and took a step, then nearly jumped when there was a tinkling crack. It was a lot louder than he would have liked, echoing off the hard walls into the distance. Another step, another crack.

This plan was going swimmingly so far.

Dante began to splash through the water as quickly as he was able, disregarding any noise that he was making. It wasn’t like he had any chance of being stealthy anyway, what with the constant sound of shattering crystals. The entire time, he kept his vision locked on the dimly glowing magic shield that was not that far off like a drowning man straining for the surface. He felt so incredibly drained moving through that thigh-high water while keeping up the … oh right.

Once he turned off [Chameleon], it immediately became much easier.

He continued his uncomfortable journey with slightly renewed vigor, only a few dozen steps away from his goal when he heard a faint whistling noise. The hair on the back of his neck prickling, Dante turned around just in time to witness a ball of fire the size of a truck hurtle over the channel close to the trench. It passed so close that it left red hot rock in its wake.

Time slowed and Dante hurled himself forward and dived into the water, reaching the bottom in an instant. Then there was a mighty boom and all volume ceased as intense pain wracked his ears. The world lit up around him and he watched through the water as a sheet of fire descended into the channel. The liquid separating them instantly flashed to steam. He opened his mouth to scream as he began to be boiled alive.

Then he was flying through the air, head over heels, for a concerning amount of time. It was brought to an end when his back impacted something with a sickening crunch that he more felt than heard. Shortly after, gravity reasserted itself and he fell to the ground with only a slightly less painful impact.

Dante attempted to take a deep breath and came up coughing, then spit something up. By the metallic taste of it, he was fairly confident that it was blood. All he could hear was a slight ringing sound, but he felt an intense vibration somewhere behind him.

Opening his eyes, he saw that just above his head only a scant few feet away was the barrier. He reached out with one hand to touch it. It was like ice, slick and slightly electric. But utterly solid. Because of course it was.

Dante let the arm fall to the ground and focused on trying to breathe deeply as whatever he was currently doing didn’t seem to be working.

A blur of movement caught his attention and he blinked his eyes back into focus to see an armored hand emerging from the barrier. It was quickly followed by a shield attached to a forearm and a sword, a horned helmet, and then a black armored humanoid body. Dante could swear that in the depths of that armor lay stars, though may have been delirium speaking.

The figure circled to his side and crouched down next to him, its large shield positioned to cover both of them. With one cold hand, it cupped his head and angled him towards it. In its face lay two large lenses that gazed back at him like the open holes of a skull.

Dante tried to speak, but only a faint grown emerged from his lips. The figure bent further and tilted its head so that its ear was but a few inches away. He tried again.

“Please … help —”

A fit of coughing interrupted him, taking the last of his strength from him and he went limp. When something was pressed to his lips, he nearly choked as a trickle of fluid ran into his mouth. He quickly adapted and did his best to drink it down, though a good portion had run out of the corners of his mouth.

What had made into him felt like fire in his stomach, and brought with it a profound feeling of drowsiness which he yielded to gladly. He only stirred briefly as two cold metal hands picked him up. His last sensation was a gentle rhythm that he thought might have been walking.