The sensations of having one's head unexpectedly ripped off, and one's consciousness plummeting to the ground, just waiting to fade into complete darkness, should at least be an unfamiliar sensation for anyone who hasn't experienced it.

A dead person obviously can't provide reports, or even confirm or deny a fact.

But Dante now didn't feel like he was truly dead. When his consciousness finally recovered, he quickly tried to open his eyes, but found it quite challenging.

However, with greater effort, accompanied by a strange pain he hadn't felt in a long time, he was finally able to reopen his eyes. He realized that he wasn't in the same village anymore. Instead, it appeared to be night, and he was lying in what seemed to be the cabin he and Amelia had entered before.

Fortunately, it seemed he was back in his own body, which appeared to be functioning nearly perfectly, except for the pain that permeated every part of his being.

With a bit of effort, he managed to sit up on the hard bed, gaining a better understanding of his surroundings.

Amelia appeared to be sleeping on the floor, and for some reason he couldn't recall, he was somehow alive, to the extent possible, and completely intact.

However, when he saw the three heads Amelia had kept for him, he finally remembered what might have happened.

These were strange memories because they didn't seem to trigger physical sensations like sight and sound, but he simply began to remember what had occurred. Somehow, on that day, he had come closer to understanding his condition as this strange type of zombie.

He realized that just a few seconds after his mind simply went blank, he felt as if he was expanding his own body to a size thousands of times his natural size, and with each passing moment, it seemed he was coming into contact with spheres, energetic spheres that seemed to bring him more and more vitality until, in an instant, everything went dark again, and he finally awoke in this place.

Dante didn't know what had happened, but he knew the blame probably lay with his strange species, which, with its unusual vitality levels, allowed him to escape death.

This wasn't the first time Dante had definitively awakened from the dead, but at least this time it wasn't as dramatic as the first.

After painfully moving his body, which, aside from the pain, felt much harder and stiffer, he realized that the mask he had worn until now had been removed, but the ring still appeared to be with him.

Perhaps after this event, Amelia had found him, maybe finished off the other bandits, and brought him back to the old cabin.

Dante, however, didn't worry about the fate of those villagers, because if they weren't in the village now, it certainly couldn't have been good.

Exerting even more effort, and feeling hungrier with each passing minute, he finally decided to feast on the brains Amelia had kindly saved for him.

As he got up, he almost stumbled but, with great effort, managed to avoid stepping on the sleeping Amelia, who was too close to Dante's bed due to the cabin's size.

After a short walk, he was finally able to easily open those heads and began to feed on the first brains he would consume in this new world.

This world operated in a completely different way from his previous world. Of course, if he were found killing an innocent person, he would be hunted down just as before, and maybe here, with legendary beings, it could be even worse. But crime and war ran rampant throughout the world, as far as he knew.

Criminals not only existed in large numbers but were also easily found, completely different from ordinary people. Dante was well aware that from now on, he could have a much greater abundance of brains.

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After finally starting to feed, that same sensation he had always tried to savor as much as possible returned, but now he was so hungry, probably from nearly dying again, that he didn't wait for it to pass before eating even more. In just a few minutes, he devoured the entire brain, bite by bite, and the more bites he took, the more that sensation seemed to intensify.

It wasn't something an ordinary human could feel, and in fact, it was quite different from the feeling of freedom that meditation brought to the human consciousness. This, however, was like pure happiness. If this sensation was the same as what other zombies felt, it was natural to think that they devoted their entire existence to maintaining this addiction.

At this moment, he had basically just devoured something like a kilo and a half, and he hadn't even noticed that he had finished when he finally started to feel his own fingers in his mouth.

Afterward, it seemed that he was able to return to reality, and he finally began to think about the current situation.

He was certainly not going to be hungry for a few more days, and he already had two delicious brains waiting for him. Unfortunately, he had no way to keep them well-preserved, but he could easily find more bandits on the way to the nearest city, which they shouldn't take more than two days to reach.

At this point, Dante began to observe Amelia more closely.

She seemed somewhat different. It was strange that he had woken up, and she hadn't noticed the movements around her. If she were a normal person, that would be understandable, but she was definitely an entity constantly manipulating the forces of life, so these should have nearly merged with her senses.

Thinking about it, he realized that perhaps the situation he imposed on her had been too difficult, to the point where she was simply exhausted.

If that were the case, it would be best to let her sleep as long as possible. Dante believed that he had already created several problems for this young woman, yet she seemed to save him or help him in every possible situation.

He would think again about how to repay her kindness, but nothing came to mind. Realizing that now, after eating, his body seemed as normal as possible, he decided he would leave the cabin for a while to continue practicing that spell, which, if complete, would have prevented all that had happened. With his own reserves, he believed that, with a few minutes of preparation, he could have bombarded several meters of bandits without them even noticing.

Outside, he was finally able to witness something he had no information about until now.

This planet, or at least what he believed to be a planet, had not only three grand moons but also seemed to be in a location so privileged in its galaxy, probably at its extreme, that during the night, a significant portion of the magnificent star formation occupied much of the sky.

Perhaps, like the Large Magellanic Cloud, this planet could be in some micro-galaxy orbiting a much larger one.

On Earth, such a sight would be impossible, but here, in addition to the magic that blessed them daily, they were able to live to see such beautiful scenes.

However, he quickly pushed that to the back of his mind, as he finally resumed training his control over his internal aether.

At least now, some results were becoming truly visible to him. He wasn't just constantly wasting aether but was actually generating tiny sparks in the air. And that indicated he was on the verge of complete success in creating his first spell.

Only the rest was left, but for magic, that rest seemed to be the simplest part.

Strangely, when he was almost done with his preparations and already beginning to believe he was close enough to perform his first spell, he started to hear something approaching.

Without even knowing what it was, he quickly hid behind one of the massive trees, and before he knew it, he saw, deep in the forest, what appeared to be an entire battalion of knights.

These knights rode on strange six-legged horses that seemed phenomenally agile for moving through a forest that wasn't as dense as this one.

There were hundreds of people on horseback, and realizing that if he stayed where he was, he could easily be detected, and since he didn't know exactly who these people were or what they were looking for, he decided to climb the nearest massive tree as quickly as possible.

After the first horses started passing very close to him, the tree itself seemed to start shaking, and after a few moments, the deafening noise of hundreds of galloping horses passed rapidly beneath his feet.

Fortunately, none of them appeared to care about the desolate cabin a few hundred meters away, much less the nearly two-meter-tall albino perched on a branch as if he were at a gala event.

And before he knew it, they were finally dispersing in the distance.

Not wanting to stay in that place any longer, Dante decided he would get Amelia and try to leave as quickly as possible.

He didn't know what he had done, but he knew it probably wasn't a good thing.

After running for less than a minute, he finally entered the cabin, only to find Amelia already awake and ready, but she seemed unable to look Dante in the eye.

"Did you see the battalion of knights too? They seemed to be in a hurry to reach the village. I think the best thing we can do now is to continue our journey, or rather, our run, preferably."

Amelia silently agreed, and they finally set off toward their new, and hopefully, definitive destination.