Metamorphosis (Part One)

The skeletal creature's body had stopped moving entirely. After a closer look at it, Dante's eyes could notice some details more clearly now.

White-stained red bones, more precisely, bone-like plates that remind one an exoskeleton. However, he could now clearly see that there was a real skeleton just under the exoskeleton. A skeleton that consisted of black-lined red bones.

*Kaa*

Dante heard a crackling as he observed the skeleton with an absentminded gaze. Then the bones of the creature began to crumble in front of his eyes. Within a few seconds, the only thing left of the creature was a small red-white dust mountain.

"Looks like... it's over," said Dante and then took a deep breath.

Even though everything had ended, Dante was not happy. There were unfamiliar feelings in his heart and unanswered questions in his mind. Also, for some unknown reason, towards this strange creature, there was a sense of pity in him that he was unable to ignore.

Dante looked at the remains of the creature for a long time with vacant eyes. Then, he took another deep breath and turned his eyes to Ulfred.

"Who would've thought that one day, even the stoic-faced Ulfred would have such an expression on his face?" Ulfred was still in the same position with a dopey expression and a stiffened body.

"Come on, old man. It's all over now," said Dante and shook Ulfred's shoulder with a hand.

The only reaction of Ulfred to Dante's voice was the involuntary movement of his Adam's Apple. Then the old man's head was tipped over sideways, and a considerable amount of sticky saliva poured on Dante's sleeve from Ulfred's mouth.

"Ugh! Disgusting!" Dante's expression instantly turned sour, and he pulled back his hand from the shoulder of the old man with the lightning speed. He even went a few steps backward as if he was running from the disease.

Then Dante raised his arm to the level of his eyes.

*Plop*

A large drop of saliva that his outfit's sleeve could not yet absorb crashed to the ground 'with a loud bang', while Dante's eyes were still in follow of it.

After a few moments of silence, the disgusted expression on Dante's face gradually disappeared, only to be replaced by a menacing blankness.

'You'll pay for this!'

He wasn't feeling any disgust towards all these broken bodies around him. He also had a bath in blood with Ulfred a while ago. None of these were disturbing for him.

But a little amount of saliva…

Dante grabbed the old man -who once had a stoic expression on his face- from the shoulder, raised his slobbery arm, and under the confused gaze of Iona...

*Paa!*

Iona, "…"

*Paa!*

*Paa!*

...

'Dammit! This is so fun! I had originally intended to stop with just a slap, but I couldn't stop myself.'

'OK, that's enough.'

*Paa!*

After a few minutes, this genuine skald's face was as red as a monkey's butt.

Dante put aside Ulfred just like that. Somehow, he was feeling refreshed now.

He walked over to Iona's side as he adjusted his messy clothes. As for the earlier euphoric expression on his face... it was now replaced by a solemn one.

The strange thing was that Ulfred was still in the same condition. He didn't wake up!

Dante never even looked at Nathaniel. Even Ulfred was like... that. It was obvious that Nathaniel was in a much worse condition. Also, he was sure that the look on Nathaniel's face was much more pathetic. That was something Dante wouldn't want to see.

Dante looked at Iona and saw for the first time that her face had no expression. It was also a little pale.

Iona, "…"

"What? I've tried. He's not waking up. They were exposed to the creature's ability from a very close distance. Naturally, I had to make extra efforts in order to wake him up, but he didn't wake up in the end. There is nothing else I can do." said Dante with a helpless look. He also secretly narrowed his eyes from the inside.

Of course, he remembered that Iona wasn't influenced by the creature's ability, just like him. He had a few ideas about why he wasn't affected, but Iona was different. Thus, Dante was quite curious about her case, but it was impossible to get an answer from Iona.

The creature was dead, but there were still some things that must be done.

Dante opened the System Menu with a thought. Despite the creature's death, the system was still not responding to him. Also, the death of the creature gave him no EXP.

Dante had no choice but to scratch his head in the face of this situation. His knowledge about the Labyrinth was too superficial. In addition, the information provided to him by the Guardian of the Elevator was only related to the general structure of the dungeons and The Lower Catacombs. So they didn't contain any information that could explain what happened here.

Dante pushed the unnecessary thoughts to the back of his mind, and a determined expression appeared on his face. He had one last thing he must do.

The skeletal creature has always been acting strange when it came to Dante. This situation had continued until the last moment. However, now Dante knew the mystery behind the behavior of the creature.

The creature's intention wasn't to kill Dante. It has never been.

It had only one purpose. Making Dante come to contact with the metallic skull. Everything it did was for this cause.

The reason for all these deaths was nothing but to eliminate the potential obstacles and to earn itself some more time with the remains of the newcomers, with their blood.

It had some worsening issues. Apparently, these issues were related to time. It had a limited amount of time.

These were also the reasons that the creature attacked Dante.

Regardless of whoever, he or she would instinctively run away from those attacks. Naturally, there was no way that Dante wouldn't escape from a heavy metal object that was falling straight on him.

However, perhaps, those attacks wouldn't harm Dante. Until now, he had thought that this giant skeleton was what had his memory fragment, but maybe it was the skull-flail.

Of course, there were things Dante couldn't make sense of, but the gist of today's events was roughly like this.

In order for him to pursue his quest of finding himself, he needed to clarify these uncertainties, and there was only one way.

To touch the skull-flail!

Regardless of the outcome, it was definitely something Dante had to do!

In fact, as soon as he realized what he had to do, he could have touched the skull-flail during the fight, but the uncertainty of the outcome had worried him. After all, there was a five meters tall, extremely dangerous giant skeleton in the crater. He wasn't worried about himself. He was worried about his companions.

Now that these obstacles have disappeared, it was the time for Dante to touch the skull-flail.

Dante's eyes fell on the metallic skull, and he walked towards it. However, after he had taken a few steps, Iona grabbed him by the arm.

A gentle smile appeared on Dante's face before he had yet to turn his head toward the girl. He had always been a little abusive towards this strange girl, and he had never seen her as more than a burden. He had even thought of getting rid of her a couple of times.

However, no matter how badly Dante treated her, she's always chosen to stay with them. It wouldn't be wrong if one said that she hadn't any other choice, but the fact that she had come to the aid of Dante in the earlier fight, and worried about him, was enough to change his thoughts about Iona a hundred and eighty degrees.

Someone like Iona who had an impossible personality should have made a huge effort to do something like that, and Dante was aware of this fact.

That's why Dante made a decision at this very moment. He would treat Iona nicely from now on, as a real party member.

"You don't want me to touch that skull, right?" said Dante gently.

Iona nodded fiercely.

"Don't worry. Nothing will happen to me. You must have seen what Nathaniel saw, so you're worried about it. However, since I wasn't affected by the roar of the creature, touching the skull-flail also shouldn't affect me. You can relax." said Dante while looking into the eyes of Iona and gently lowered the girl's hands.

He wanted to do this quickly. This ominous crater was not a good place to stay for a long time.

Iona didn't stop Dante again, but her worried expression didn't disappear either.

A few seconds later, Dante was standing right next to the metallic skull. All the bad results that could have taken place were acceptable things for him. So he put both of his hands on top of the skull without waiting a second.

"Show me who I am!" exclaimed Dante.

As soon as his hands touched the metallic skull, the skull began to vibrate. Tendrils that formed from black colored mana slowly grew from the skull upwards.

It wasn't a good scene at all, but Dante was determined not to pull his hands back and resolved to see how would it all end.

It was like the metallic skull was vibrating from joy, and this vibration was getting stronger with each passing second. Other than that, Dante had not yet felt anything else.

Then suddenly the vibration of the metallic skull came to a stop. A moment later, that familiar blackish-gray glow exploded out of the metallic skull!

Tens of times of the amount of gray glow that was covering the creature's body had gotten out of the metallic skull as if it actually came out from multiple geysers.

Soon, a huge blackish-gray cloud formed and completely cut off the moonlight descending into the crater. On the other hand, the smell of death surrounding the four corners of the crater had risen in a disturbing way.

The possibility of something like this happening hadn't even crossed Dante's mind. As a result of a momentary fear falling into his heart, he wanted to pull his hands from the metallic skull but failed. A power he could not resist was preventing him from moving his hands.

The gray cloud began to spin at an increasing speed. As the speed increased, the density of the cloud also increased. After a while, the density of the cloud and the speed of its rotation increased so much that its color changed from gray to pitch black.

Dante was in a slight regret of touching the metallic skull because what was happening here now was excessively exceeding the level of a newcomer.

Then the pitch black cloud suddenly collapsed towards Dante! Something immediately started to burn his skin. All he could see was black color.

Everything was black.

Before long, he was swallowed by a concept that he didn't even know.

This dense, black, tar-like thing… was also Mana? Or was it something else?

Iona was watching with a terrified look on her face and fear in her heart. Then she heard a bitter, traumatic cry that was coming from the darkness ahead.

"Argh… Aahhh! HEAHHH… AHHH!"

This tar-like thing was entering Dante's body from the pores of his skin and also making his breathing very hard. He quickly began to feel unbearable pain all over his body, especially in his bones, and this pain became increasingly intense, unbearable. Soon, he was screaming non-stop in agony.

However... if he were able to see that his flesh was flowing out of him like black-colored butter, then the dread Dante was currently feeling, would undoubtedly be much greater.