Dante lay on the ground without causing any sound. His body trembled from ti to ti, but he did nothing more than this.
Even his mind struggled to think.
The reason was simple and unfortunate.
"You... feel... pain, right?" Greed mocked him and laughed, but his voice showed sothing else.
Greed himself was in pain, and it was enough to make even him struggle to talk.
The Sin of Greed, the creator of the Greed Bloodline, a being whose na was told only in books, a being whose original power surpassed the compression of most people, a being who surpassed the dark entity who could erase a town from existence... he was struggling to talk because of pain!
"You... just... destroyed... a part of ." Greed explained with a shaky voice: "Even though... we are... separated... it’s still... a piece of ."
Greed paused for a few minutes and continued with a less shaky voice: "That part is still spiritually a part of . We’re the sa soul, we’re tied together despite everything."
"Even after death, we’re essentially the sa relic but incomplete. And what you did is directly hurting all the separated parts at the sa ti."
"Not only , every single part of my existence felt that pain. It’s like severing soone’s head off and brutally cutting his hand, the forr kills instantly and the latter causes intense pain that lasts for a while. What you did just now is the latter."
"The difference is that this pain isn’t physical..."
Greed paused again. After so ti he laughed: "That’s soul pain, and your soul is directly tied to !"
"The ability that bonded our souls together is what’s causing this to you! You caused that pain to yourself! And it’s not the first ti, doesn’t it feel familiar?"
Dante was barely registering what Greed was saying, but at this point, he rembered the first ti he felt sothing similar.
It was when Greed tried to invade his body for the first ti.
Back then, sothing happened to Greed and they both died because of it. That was the most painful experience for Dante since he existed.
It was so painful that even after he regressed and the pain stopped, he still didn’t move, which led to him being killed again by Beatrice without reacting.
However, that lasted for only a few seconds.
Now, minutes had passed and Dante could still feel it!
He wanted to stop it, he wanted to kill himself, he wanted to regress and stop himself from doing this, he wanted to just rest.
But he couldn’t.
The pain stopped him from channeling his energies and blowing himself up.
The pain stopped him from thinking clearly and moving his body to cut off his own head.
The pain stopped him from even screaming, not to ntion responding to Greed.
Greed shook his head, looking at Dante with pity: "I hope you rember this pain next ti you try to destroy a part of with that dirty gun. The soul pain is 100 tis worse than any imaginable physical pain, and you won’t simply lose consciousness and wake up after it ends. That’s how brutal this kind of pain is."
"But as soone who had been split in half just a while ago and died several tis, I think you have no doubts about that, hehehe."
He paused for a few minutes to keep his voice confident and stable. After a while, he added: "And don’t worry, this isn’t the regret I was talking about. That’s just the start of what you have just caused."
"I might have died long ago, but I have considered a lot of possibilities that may or may not happen. You better recover soon, as you don’t have a lot of ti."
After saying that, Greed disappeared, leaving Dante alone in silence.
Fafnir was panicking as he tried to do anything to make his master feel less pain, knowing that Dante shared his senses.
He acted like a funny clown to make him laugh.
He ate delicious food to make him taste it.
He slled the best flowers to make Dante’s mind rest.
But Dante showed no reaction... until half an hour passed.
At that mont, his face was pale and drained of all emotions. If his mask were removed by a stranger, the stranger would think they were seeing another mask that just wasn’t blank.
"I..."
That was the only word Dante could mutter before returning to his silence, a word of only one character.
However, his thoughts were a bit clearer now.
The pain didn’t stop, but it was becoming more manageable, and his mind was also adapting to the pain to resist it.
It was like how a soldier with experience could fight with a bullet in his shoulder while a new one would cry and scream from that bullet. The pain was the sa for both of them, but one just had experienced it for long enough to resist it.
However, that didn’t an Dante could be completely indifferent to pain. His mind was just trying to find a way to live with that pain.
’Should I kill myself?’ Dante suddenly had that thought.
Greed wasn’t wrong. Not even an hour had passed and Dante was already regretting everything. Destroying the relic was the worst decision he had ever done in his life.
In the ancient ruins, he had lost his fear of death, but when pain was added to that, the idea of killing himself just to avoid pain beca more tempting.
’Why am I even living?’
He didn’t have a reason to go back to Earth.
He didn’t have a reason to keep living in this hell.
He didn’t have a reason to struggle and keep fighting.
He didn’t have a reason to find and destroy every single part of Greed.
He didn’t have a reason to fix his misfortune just for so strangers who never knew how much he had to sacrifice.
He didn’t have a reason to grow stronger like all the people with great ambition and perseverance.
He had no great dreams like the heroes or the villains in the stories. The only big dream he ever had was to enter a good college and beco a doctor, but even that was shattered after his education stopped.
Now, he only wanted to have fun and live in luxury, didn’t he?
All he wanted was a sweet ho, good food, nice health, and maybe even a pet if he could.
All he wanted was to live like that while having no enemies, no pain, no regrets, and no sorrow or guilt.
Maybe that changed a bit due to his growing greed, however it was essentially the sa. The differences was slim like getting a big house instead of being satisfied with a small one.
But was achieving that even possible now?
He had a parasite that seed to know everything about the future and always controlled everything.
He had the son of a lunatic woman promising to return and kill him.
He had a mighty entity that was watching him.
He had a slave who always wanted to serve him and would never let him live without guilt.
He had two bloodlines that would imdiately be exposed if he ever got rid of the parasite. Without the mask, he wouldn’t be able to hide anything.
What was the point of fixing his misfortune if everything was already unchangeable?
If he destroyed Greed, he’d feel more pain. If he didn’t, he’d risk getting possessed by Greed.
Growing stronger? Both the dark entity and Greed himself wanted Dante to grow stronger, and their motivations were the complete opposite.
If he beca stronger, he’d either just be a better vessel for Greed or get used by the dark entity. If he didn’t, he’d be killed by the dark entity due to being an easier target for Greed or get possessed by Greed.
With all that happening to him, why was he even living? Just to beco soone’s body? Just to beco soone’s toy? Just to always be controlled? Just to suffer for more ti?
’That’s not fair...’
Nothing in his life was ever fair. Even his birth could be a part of Greed’s plan. Maybe Greed intentionally manipulated Dante to destroy the relic and cause himself all this pain.
So many possibilities, so many sches, so few choices, almost no hope!
"I will... just... return to... the camp." Dante started crawling toward the camp. His mind was now clear enough to let him think about so simple ideas, but not enough to let him control his own body.
Thus, he did what he could, and it was crawling.
Slowly, gradually, he cut the distance with just so crawling.
There was only one thing left for him.
He still had so... friends, didn’t he? Elizabeth, Michael, and Mira were still there.
He didn’t know two of them closely, but Elizabeth was indeed a good friend. She listened and cared when no one else did. That was what a friend is, right?
Maybe his only reason to live now was to make sure they were okay. He didn’t need any other reason.
He also had Ruby to take care of. Despite the guilt, it was his responsibility now. He had to make sure she was safe or his guilt would only increase.
He also had Fafnir. Dante didn’t know if that funny guy would survive or not if Dante died, but he was sure that he’d be extrely sad without Dante.
As he crawled, minutes turned into hours, and hours turned into days.
The pain didn’t stop, it never did, and that only made his ntal state worse. Even if he was trying to adapt, the continuous pain exhausted his mind.
In his path, several beasts interrupted his journey. They attacked him and tossed him around like a doll. However, they either gave up after noticing his defense, or he killed them after using all his willpower to cast a simple spell.
Eventually, after two whole days, he reached the hill where the camp existed.
The soldiers noticed him imdiately and reported his condition. After so consideration, the commander decided to send so help alongside Elizabeth who had the ability to detect lies and see if he was the real person.
When Dante saw Elizabeth coming with a look of concern.... a simple smile tugged at his face.
What he didn’t notice was that a small change occurred to the abyssal gate after he left.
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