Dante is immortal, and he would never die or age. The immortality that everyone in the world had once sought and coveted, he already had. But that's where all the sunshine and rainbows end, and he came to realize that even as an immortal being, he could still get injured, feel pain, and suffer.
What if some horrifying abomination ate him? What if he was torn to pieces? What if he was thrown into flames? Would he perish? Even though he had no direct clue, he knew instinctively what would happen. He would never die and would just suffer until losing consciousness, and eventually, his body would fully reform.
At least he won't have to worry about dying from his current wounds, which made him feel that it was less urgent to get medical attention.
^Hold up, did someone really wipe my memory out, or did I just get my head bashed in?^ That was a real possibility now, and before Dante could think about it any further, they reached the other knights, who were currently engaged in a battle with several abominations while trying to protect the surviving merchants.
Blood and fire were everywhere, and corpses as well. Many of the merchants had already died, and there were even some knights bloodied on the ground, some still moving, but a few already looked cold, some even missing limbs. The remaining knights, all ten of them, were surrounded by more than twenty wolves, all Scarred Beasts.
"They are trying to protect the merchants… We can't just charge in to help with all of those abominations between us." Alexander growled, and Dante smiled by his side. "No, we can. Our job isn't to assist them, but to distract those wolves long enough for them to strike." There were ten armored knights there, and if they were as skilled as their looks suggested, Dante was certain that each of them could take at least one of the wolves with a single stab.
"It doesn't work like that. Six of those knights are like me, Mundane. They can't kill a Scarred Beast in one hit; four are Touched, including the commander; those should be able to handle Scarred Beasts…" Alexander gulped. "But they've been fighting for a while; who knows if they got the mana to mount such a sudden and quick attack or not?"
Dante shook his head. "That doesn't matter; they'll die either way. The wolves clearly want to slowly chip at them. If we charge in and scatter the wolves, that would be our best chance to survive." He then pointed at Alexander's sword. "I shouldn't be the one pointing this out, but stabs are better than slashes. I know you love to swing that big thing, but for now, avoid it. Let the wolves charge at you, then stab. Using their speed and your power, they'll skewer themselves on your sword with ease."
Dante smiled as he tapped Alexander on the back, and then stood, walking casually toward all of the abominable wolves. "What do we have here? A bunch of feral dogs." Opening his arms wide with the sword still in his right hand, Dante drew the attention of all the wolves back to him. "What? Did I interrupt something?"
Both the soldiers and abominable wolves glared back at him in shock. Who is this fool who just walks in like that? This is a battlefield, and none of those monsters would hesitate for a second to rip him apart. Even Alexander was horrified at Dante's bold approach.
Knowing that he was immortal, Dante was a bit more comfortable taking the risk. His ultimate goal was to survive this day and use the knights to reach a safe place. Helping them and even pretending to risk his life for them would land him the standing of a hero, and that would pay back in gold enough to make the pain of getting torn by wolves seem insignificant.
But he was still afraid of the pain, and trying to maintain this arrogant pose for any longer seemed impossible with how badly his arms and knees wanted to start trembling. So, he got to moving immediately.
It was at that moment that Dante burst forward at blinding speed, having used one droplet of mana to kick the ground and accelerate toward the abominable wolves. This didn't make him any faster, since to achieve that he would have to use a droplet of mana with each step, but it at least allowed him to reach his top running speed in that first move.
The sudden charge immediately triggered the abominable wolves' madness, and most of them turned around, rushing toward him like cats chasing a mouse. In that one instant, Dante had changed the flow of the entire battle, shaking the deadly stalemate the knights were stuck in, and their commander noticed immediately.
The knight's commander concluded in the blink of an eye that Dante wasn't suicidal, but coldly calculated. He was a weak Mundane and fully understood that his only value on the battlefield was to be bait for the abominations.
Due to the abominations showing very little care for animals, many factions used live humans as bait in their expeditions, a practice that the government had long since banned due to how inhumane it was. So to have forced a citizen, a weak guy who was on death's door just yesterday, to throw himself into the monsters like this to save them… the commander felt nothing but humiliated, enraged, and disappointed in himself and his soldiers for having failed this badly.
Alexander, as shocked as he was, swallowed his hesitation and jumped into the battle. Dante was risking his life to distract the abominations, so as a holy knight, he could not just sit back and wait. Stepping forward, the ground cracked beneath his steel boots as he lifted his zweihander above his head. "In the name of the LORD!"
When the knight's commander saw that it wasn't just Dante risking his life to distract the abominable wolves, but his newest disciple, Alexander, was also alive and throwing his life into the maws with cold determination, he snapped.
As a Touched, he shouldn't be outdone by two Mundanes, and so he erupted with flames. From beneath the steel plates of his armor, crimson tongues of fire burst out, and jets of flame propelled him forward at blinding speed.
The knight's commander's charge was even faster than Dante's, and he crushed two wolves on his path like a flaming truck. The man who was in his late thirties didn't even use a weapon, just his spiky gauntlets and Flame Blessing.
The other three Touched knights finally moved, having been a second late to react than their seasoned commander. And at the same time, they clashed with the wolves; Dante did so as well, using his second droplet of mana to precisely stab one of the abominable wolves in the heart, then used the third and last droplet to dodge being mauled by another six Scarred Beasts.
There was a total of twenty-two Scarred Beasts surrounding the knights, and Dante alone had managed to distract seven of them. He killed one, and six kept chasing him. Alexander didn't distract that many, but he got a solid five of them swarming him, four biting his armor, and one trying to snatch his zweihander away.
That had only left ten Scarred Beasts, two of which were already killed by the Knight's commander in his fiery charge. With only eight left, the Scarred Beasts' formation broke down, and the rest of the knights immediately went on the offensive. Even the merchants hiding behind the Knight's armored carriage didn't sit still; all of them were freed by Dante, and they couldn't sit still and watch him being devoured alive by six feral abominations.
The knights had given them several pistols to use in case one of the abominations slipped in, but now that didn't matter. The old merchant, who was already covered in bandages from getting attacked himself as he ran here, looked at his pistol and smiled. He pointed the gun toward the Scarred Beasts and started unloading.
Hearing the loud gunshots, the other merchants all did the same, aiming and firing at will. They weren't hiding anymore, and they weren't going to play defensive either. Even though the knights would rather the civilians not get mixed into the battle, having gunfire covering their backs was reassuring. The knights didn't even need to fear friendly fire, as the 9mm bullets those pistols had couldn't even dent their armor.
With the wolves scattered and being suppressed by gunfire, the knights charged right through them, stabbing and using their blessings to eviscerate them one by one. The commander himself rushed toward Dante, who was now getting mauled by five abominable wolves after killing a second one. The other three Touched knights went to save Alexander, who was in a less tight spot thanks to his durable armor.
The knights' commander grabbed two of the wolves with his hands and pulled them away, with whatever flesh they were biting, and burned their bodies to a crisp. At that very moment, the Scarred Beasts noticed that the commander was a bigger threat than Dante, and the remaining three of them let go of Dante and shifted their attention to him.
The commander turned around with a blinding flash of fire, and he was ready to burn the remaining Scarred Beasts with a single breath if he could, but to his shock and horror, Dante still moved. Bitten all over his body and with his stomach torn open, Dante made a single jump forward and stabbed one of the wolves through the ribs. "This is mine." He growled, falling unconscious beside the dead abomination.
The commander immediately jumped in and finished the remaining two Scarred Beasts before checking on Dante, who was still alive but mortally wounded and bleeding to death. "Crazy bastard!" He growled, and then glared back at the other knights. The sudden counterattack had worked, and they had eliminated all of the wolves.
"We're running back to the city! At once, leave everything and jump into the armored tank!" He was worried about more abominations showing up, so he didn't want to sit here any longer. The trained knights moved as one, picking up their injured and dead all the same, throwing them into the back of the armored tank, and in less than a minute, they were already driving away at top speed.
Looking at Dante as the knights patched him up while using healing magic, the knight commander couldn't believe that what the merchants told him was true. "He must live no matter what."