Chapter 5 Sacrifice

A few more weeks passed, and Dante felt that he couldn't possibly get stronger; he still had no idea how to utilize magic and had only physically strengthened himself. But without knowing how to even get stronger in this world, he decided to force his teacher to teach him about it.

Ryota was calmly reading a book in the kitchen when he was approached by Dante.

"How do I get stronger? I've been sitting here doing nothing I feel like, and I hate wasting my time." Dante had many virtues, but patience wasn't one of them.

"You're still a child; why the rush?" Ryota was genuinely confused.

"I hate feeling like I'm stagnating, and I know for a fact that Ariel would beat me. I want to improve, but I feel mediocre." Dante had a lot of peeves, but mediocrity was one of his biggest. When he met people who clearly had talent or the means to get stronger, they just wasted away. He only felt contempt and disgust towards them.

"Why can't a kid just act like a kid?" Ryota thought to himself before rubbing his temples, which was becoming incredibly common.

"I'll only teach you if your mother agrees." Ryota said.

"Done." Dante immediately grabbed his sword and rushed off before he remembered his mother had left recently since she was called by their "captors".

He immediately ran out and darted through the forest, hoping he could intercept his mom. Very quickly, though, he realized the forest had a different aura than usual; usually it was very calming and tranquil, but now it felt very dark, with palpable bloodlust in the air. After a few more seconds, Dante decided that it would be best if he returned home, but before he could, he heard a loud explosion that came from the direction of his home. He quickly ran back but was met by a gruesome sight: the entire cabin was completely obliterated, along with a severely injured Ryota and an unconscious Aiko.

Dante looked closer and saw that Ryota had a missing hand and was profusely bleeding from his chest. At that moment, he knew that he had no chance in this scenario and that hiding would be best.

Ryota managed to sense Dante and immediately yelled.

"TAKE AIKO AND DON'T LOOK BACK!" He roared before charging back into the dust of his old home.

Dante hadn't even seen what had attacked them, but clearly it was out of his league.

He quickly grabbed Aiko and started running as fast as he could down the road in the direction his mother had left earlier.

After a few minutes of running, he suddenly felt an incredibly dense aura of bloodlust behind him, and he immediately threw himself and Aiko into the ground.

But what met him wasn't the ground but a hard white floor all of a sudden.

"You look like you're having a problem, no?" Said Lucifer.

Dante looked up and was confused.

"How the hell am I here? And where's Aiko?"

"Don't worry about it; nothing's going to happen." Lucifer waved off his concern.

Dante got up and slowly composed himself again.

"So why am I here? I mean, I'm probably seconds away from dying." Dante wasn't sure if he could escape, but he always had a good time trying to pull something crazy out of his ass.

"Oh, you won't die just yet; we I just wanted to go over some stuff since you'll be seeing more of us." He said it with a devilish smile on his face, completely ignoring the fact that Dante was at death.

"First off, those nasty corrupted have finally started scouting Aevis, which is why you're in this shit predicament." Lucifer walked over and patted Dante on the back.

"But since they're here now, we can finally start interfering." Lucifer sat down at the same table he and the other gods were at when Dante first met them.

"Have a seat; tell me your woes." Lucifer playfully remarked.

"What do you mean you can just now start interfering?"

"We gods are bound by a set of rules; we've assumed that whoever created the corrupt is also a god, but he's found a way to circumvent these rules."

"How much can you interfere?"

"Right now, we can only do things like this and give you an assortment of things. We can't materialize yet, but if it comes to that, then you didn't do your job." Lucifer began tracing an infinity symbol into the table for no reason.

"Can you give me stuff?" Dante didn't bother putting up some facade.

"Of course I can."

"Then give it to me."

"I knew you'd have no decorum, but geez." He slowly snapped his finger, and all of a sudden Bahamut appeared, but he was battered beyond belief. His left wing was completely missing, while the left side of his body looked like it had gotten caught in a blast of some sort. Dragons had incredibly tough bodies, and Bahamut was a god, so the fact that something could put him in that condition was fear-inducing.

"What the hell happened to you?" Dante thought gods were invincible existences, but clearly something had beaten the dragon down.

Bahamut just looked at Dante for a few seconds before settling his eyes on Lucifer.

"I got the damn book." Bahamut tossed a platinum-colored book on the table before sitting down and fully relaxing himself.

The book was made of a type of metal that Dante had never seen before, and it radiated a weird aura.

"You look terrible," Lucifer said while inspecting Bahamut.

"You try fighting those damn overlords." Bahamut said this while closing his eyes and ignoring the devil.

"Here's the gift I gave you." Lucifer said shamelessly before sliding the book across the table to Dante.

It had weird etchings on it that he couldn't decipher and gave off a sense of danger now that it was close.

"What do I do?"

"Read it, you idiot."

"I'm not touching that."

Silence descended into the room, but after a few seconds, Lucifer began to laugh hysterically.

"I knew I liked you." He said this before throwing out a ball of white magic straight at the book.

The magic began to coat the book, and slowly the sense of danger Dante felt earlier began to drop.

"That book was cursed by a long-gone god, and you almost died just then. Funny, right?" Lucifer said this while wiping the tears from his eyes.

"For such a charismatic guy, I fucking hate you." Dante said it angrily.

"Me too," Bahamut said while not even opening his eyes.

A few seconds later, the aura surrounding the book vanished, and Dante immediately grabbed it and tried to open it, but to no avail.

"Drop blood on it," Bahamut said.

Dante nodded and bit the tip of his finger before dripping blood on the cover of the book.

Immediately after he did that, the book began to float up and turn into a ball of blue coalesced mana, then it immediately shot into his chest.

Suddenly, a searing pain began to envelop his entire body, and after a few seconds, he collapsed to the ground, clutching his chest.

"AGGHHH." Dante screamed while barely maintaining his consciousness.

Bahamut slid one eye open and began to inspect Dante. Inwardly, he was surprised the kid was awake.

Lucifer looked over to Bahamut and received a head nod.

After two minutes of constant searing pain, Dante completely blacked out.

"That's a record!" Lucifer said while clapping.

"I'm beginning to like him more." Bahamut said this before walking over and putting his hand on the kid.

"Oh?" Lucifer knew what Bahamut was doing and couldn't be more surprised.

"What sparked this?" Lucifer asked inquisitively.

"He does have some dragon blood flowing through his veins, so here's a gift for being a part of my family. I can't say I did nothing in helping out herald stop the corrupt." Slowly, a silver and blue aura began to cover Dante, and it dissipated after a few seconds.

"You're putting all your eggs in one basket," Lucifer said.

"You know I'm next." Bahamut said as he began to look up into nothingness.

Slowly, the joking attitude of Lucifer completely disappeared for the first time.

"I know, we all thank you for your sacrifice." Lucifer said this after he put his head down to conceal his face.

"Never would I have thought that little Luci would make this group with the intention of saving this part of existence." Bahamut said as he began to reminisce about how he was approached by Lucifer all those years ago.

"You stubborn fucking dragon..."

"Why couldn't you just keep quiet like I asked?" Lucifer was truly upset now.

"That's against my title as Bahamut; we both know that." Slowly, Bahamut began to smile and walk towards Lucifer, who had tears threatening to fall from his eyes, and slowly he just patted him on the back.

"You'll bring me back, yeah?" Bahamut said.

Silence filled the room.

"I'll do what I can," Lucifer muttered.

Bahamut just smiled at this response before shifting his attention back to Dante.

"I gave him what I could; show him the ropes when he wakes up." Then Bahamut began to slowly turn into particles of darkness.

Right before he completely vanished, he looked back at Lucifer.

"I'll see you later." He said this before fading from existence.

The only noise in the room now was the low breathing of the unconscious Dante.

"FUCK!" Lucifer yelled before smashing his fist into the table and completely snapping it in half.

"Where the hell are you?" Lucifer began to sob quietly.