Dante’s Immortality – Chapter 96

Dante couldn’t help but think that Eric was a bit much. The way he stood on the stage looking down on everyone didn’t make him look magnificent, if anything, he just looked annoying.

Eric did seem to place a great amount of importance on the way others viewed him though. Which would only make this more enjoyable.

While the other combatants visibly hesitated after receiving Eric’s challenge, Dante stepped onto the stage. He maintained a calm demeanor and smiled as though he was meeting an old friend. “If no one else wants to, I’d be more than happy to go first. Some of the other competition is tough, so I could use the warmup.”

There was a brief moment of silence as everyone in the Combatant’s Hall looked at him in disbelief.

“Get off the stage!”

The loud shout from the audience was met by a chorus of muttered agreement. Those people were in the minority though. They were the ones who came to the Combatant’s Hall solely for the enjoyment of watching fights. The rest were running to the gambling booths that were stationed periodically throughout the stadium.

Eric gave him a look of incredulity. “You can’t be serious. A fight between us would end in mere moments.”

Instead of answering directly, Dante looked up at the viewing booth that Leah was in. It was obvious that she was uncertain of what she should do. He gave her a single nod and she quickly disappeared.

He was going to be rich.

Dante looked back down at Eric and waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry so much, I’ll go easy on you.”

Eric’s eyes bulged as though he couldn’t believe how audacious Dante’s words were, then his face became a mask of anger.

“Don’t bother with the fool Eric, I’ll handle him.” Of the three that walked into the arena with Eric, the one that looked to be the youngest spoke up. Unlike Eric, there was nothing delicate about him. If anything the violent air surrounding him was similar to Arron’s.

Eric glared at the person who spoke before looking back at him. “Do you really think that you even have a chance?”

Dante gave him a look of bewilderment. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Eric jabbed a finger at the combatants that hesitated earlier. “They wouldn’t even step on this stage. Yet the person who couldn’t win a single fight thinks that he is my match? How preposterous.”

Eric was truly annoying.

Dante smiled mockingly, and spoke down to Eric in a way made his voice carry to the crowd. “They don’t want to fight you because they don’t wish to offend your father, not because of your strength. Do you think that everyone would let you win if you didn’t have the backing of someone powerful? Everyone talks about how much of a joke you are.”

His words, and the implications behind them, were met with snorts of disdain from the audience and several of the other combatants. It was obvious that they thought he was speaking nonsensically.

The words struck a chord with Eric though. Even though his words were empty, the slander was something Eric wouldn’t tolerate with the importance he placed on his public image. He was irate, and his calm and confident demeanor disappeared completely as he menacingly stepped forward.

Dante forcefully held his hand out. “Hold it.”

Eric took another step, completely ignoring him while simultaneously spreading mana through the ground at his feet. “There is no way I am letting you go now.”

Dante ignored Eric’s cold tone as he checked out the situation. A quick glance told him Leah wasn’t back yet. It was possible that she still hadn’t placed his bet. “I would prefer to wait, since my mana hasn’t completely recovered. But if you need to start now so that you’ll have a better chance of winning, I completely understand.”

Eric froze, the mana currently spreading through the ground halted. He stood like that for several seconds before he grit his teeth and spoke. “Fine, we will wait.”

While Eric was fuming, Dante nonchalantly stood on the other side of the stage like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. By now, almost every eye in the audience was on their stage, and more than one of the other stages was vacant as the other combatants prepared to watch him get the shit beat out of him by Eric.

Leah appeared back in the viewing booth only a few seconds later, and the nod she gave him indicated that she had done as instructed. He still didn’t start the fight though, there might be others that had yet to bet.

The way gambling worked in the Combatant’s Hall was interesting to say the least. Unlike most other places, the rates weren’t posted beforehand. Instead, gamblers would go in blindly. If your bet won, the amount you bet would be returned along with a certain percentage of losing side’s total bet, which was calculated after the fact. It was a bit of a mess, but it stopped the Combatant’s Hall from ever incurring a loss since they just took a flat fee from the losing side. And a portion of that fee always went to the winning combatant.

It was one of the reasons that manipulation was such a large problem in the Combatant’s Hall. Since the hall couldn’t lose, they didn’t monitor the fighters closely to make sure they weren’t throwing matches. They just didn’t care, and it became an aspect of the Combatant’s Hall that those who gambled could only accept.

And since basically the only person betting on him was himself, almost everyone’s money would soon belong to him.

The fight itself was slightly worrying though. Winning shouldn’t be a problem, but judging by how frightened the other combatants were of Eric, doing so with only his footwork might be challenging. If push came to shove he would use his skills. But he would prefer not to.

After waiting for a few minutes, Dante channeled world essence into his legs and smiled at Eric. “I’m ready when you are.”

Mana spread from Eric into the floor, this time far faster than before. “I’ve been ready.”

The stone floor beneath Eric completely shattered, creating stone shards out of the stage. The mana seeped into the shards, rushing inside of them as they began to float in the air around Eric and press themselves against his body.

Dante watched in amazement. It was armor, stone armor.

It only took a few seconds for Eric’s entire body to be completely covered. A few of the finer pieces of stone even coated the Eric’s head. They didn’t really cover his hair or face, but they framed his face in a way that actually looked pretty badass.

Eric finished his ‘transformation’ and stood magnificently in the center of the stage in a very antagonizing manner. He no longer looked delicate, that was for certain.

Eric basked in the amazed gazes of the crowd as he stared at Dante. “What’s the matter, getting cold feet?”

Arron was right, Eric definitely liked to show off. The skill was pretty cool though…

Throughout the entire process, Dante maintained his nonchalance. “Why do I feel like you’re just antagonizing me because you can no longer move with all that additional weight?”

Eric snorted as he held out his hand. One of the stone shards in his armor fluctuated with mana before shooting out at a blinding speed.

Dante laughed as he reached out with his right hand and caught the rock in a relaxed manner. “So I was right. You really can’t move.”

No only was Eric shocked, but several members of audience muttered in surprise after seeing the ease in which he dealt with the attack. Truthfully, the impact put more strain on his shoulder than he would have thought. It wasn’t enough to do any damage with his level of Constitution though, and it would take more than just a rock to damage his hand.

More stones on Eric’s armor charged with mana, and Dante leisurely dodged them as they blasted past him. He slowly walked toward Eric’s unmoving form as though he was in complete control of the fight.

He was beginning to think that Eric really couldn’t move, which would only make this even more hilarious.

As Eric shot stones, the ones at his feet floated up and filled the gaps in his armor, and as Dante looked closer, he realized that the mana sent into the floor earlier was still active. Dante slammed the world essence in his legs into the ground as he shot to the side. Then he landed and immediately shot himself toward Eric.

Two stones flew at him, one was dodged, the other was batted to the side with the back of his hand as he arrived before Eric. Then, using the force of his momentum, Dante balled his right hand into a fist and slammed it against Eric’s protected chest.

The sound of stone being crushed was clearly heard thougout the Combatant’s Hall as Eric grunted in pain and blasted backward. Dante remained unmoving in the same spot as Eric slowly stood up, shaking his wrist in a relaxed manner as he theatrically sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Damn, I didn’t think that your armor would be so tough.”

The crowd was completely silent, no one could believe what they were seeing.

Despite being in such an advantageous position, Dante didn’t lower his guard. He was almost positive that Eric had at least one more skill that he hadn’t seen if not more.

As Eric finally got to his feet, the crowd could clearly see the gaping hole in his stone armor. Eric’s pale face was also a sight to see, and the rage on it was almost comical at this point. He began to walk forward, and there wasn’t a shred of doubt on his face, meaning Dante’s earlier conjecture of him having other skills was likely correct.

It was somewhat surprising to see Eric on the move. Dante looked at the ground and noticed that the mana was still actively moving through and around the stone shards on the floor. Then he looked up to the stone armor on Eric’s chest that wasn’t patching itself up like it had earlier when he shot the rocks. It was possible that the skill was heavily reliant on staying in the area it was cast in.

Dante stepped forward, whether his conjecture was correct or not, there was no point in letting Eric step back into that area. As he stepped closer, he noticed something unusual. The air surrounding Eric was unnaturally warm, and getting warmer every passing second.

Far warmer actually. It was getting blazing hot. The time for playing around was definitely over.

Dante dashed to the side, then straight at Eric, smashing him in the side with his right hand. This time when the stone armor was struck, shards of hot rock exploded everywhere. Several of them landed on him, and this time the sharp intake of breath wasn’t faked. The rocks were fucking hot.

Eric was blasted backward from the impact yet again. He looked to be in quite the sorry state, but he definitely wasn’t out of the fight. The rock armor surrounding him was beginning to glow red.

Three of the rocks on Eric’s body began to fill with mana before shooting at him. Dante had no intention of blocking them this time, and chose to narrowly dodge to the side instead.

He thought he was in the clear when a fluctuation of mana in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Dante reacted without thinking, shooting himself across the arena to get away as those three rocks exploded, sending molten rock everywhere.

Dante grimaced. That could have ended badly. He looked back at Eric, more than a little bit jealous. Every skill that Eric had used was too complimentary.

Dante exploded toward Eric, narrowly avoiding Eric’s flailing lava arms as he drove his fist into Eric’s head. The force caused Eric to stagger, but he quickly recovered by filling ten rocks with mana and blasting them in his general direction.

Forced to retreat, Dante sprang sideways as he avoided the exploding rocks.

Dante looked down at his hand as he regained his bearing, cursing at what he saw. The temporary combatant’s glove he had been using was burning, and sections of his hand and the tattoo like symbols could be seen underneath.

He looked at Eric to get a feel for his condition. A section of his face was definitely going to be badly disfigured for at least a month where he punched him, and he likely broke at least one rib from the body shots earlier. It was unfortunate, as he was planning on roughing him up a bit more, but continuing the fight wasn’t much of an option at this point.

Dante picked up a stone and shot toward Eric, zipping side to side as he avoided the exploding rocks that were launched at him. The erratic movement put a massive strain on his ankles, but resulted in Eric being unable to touch him even slightly.

Dante appeared before him, smiling cheerfully as he brought the stone in his hand down and watched the helplessness in Eric’s eyes. The stone clashed into Eric’s head, and the light in his eyes went out as he slumped to the floor. Still alive, but he wouldn’t feel too great when he woke up.

Which wasn’t something he was going to miss out on.

After a moment of stunned silence several gasps of disbelief could be heard echoing throughout the arena. A few people in the crowd even fainted, and a majority those who didn’t were glaring daggers at both Eric and him. They clearly had gone a little overboard on their bets, and many of them voiced their discontent.

The rest of the spectators just stared in shock, especially the combatants that had fought Eric in the past. They were rubbing their eyes in disbelief.

Dante ignored the uproar and crouched down next to Eric as he rummaged in his own pockets and pulled a vial out of his storage.

“Get away from him you bastard!”

Dante ignored the familiar voice, it was Eric’s friend that spoke up earlier.

With one hand covering his nose, Dante pulled the cork of the vial off with his teeth and then waved it in front of Eric’s face.

There was a loud shriek as Eric awoke, silencing the audience as their attention was drawn to the torture that was taking on the stage. Eric looked retched and hungover as he weakly tried to escape the vials range.

Dante replaced the stopper and put the vial in his pocket before storing it. “Sucks doesn’t it?” He smiled as he looked up at Eric’s three friends. They were now surrounding him and didn’t look too friendly. “Sorry, I’m feeling quite tired. If you all want to fight, I’m sure Eric would be happy to oblige.”