A Rusty Journey

“What? Where are we going?” Dante along with the animals that accompanied him flew upwards at a rapid speed. A bright light shone upon the three. White magic curvy strings floated up with them along the walls. Strange symbols appeared over and over. 2 animal horn symbols with 2 crowns on top of both appeared as they went up into the unknown. “Ice Cage! Sapphire! Hang on!” They broke through the top into the barren night of sand, dust, and bones. “Where are we? Are there monsters?!”

Dante looked into the sky. 10 different colored moons lit up the sky. ‘Is this still Deceased Paradise? Come to think of it, I never looked up at the sky. Maybe it was always like this.’ The celestial dragon came out of Dante’s clothing and looked up at him.

“Wait. Sapphire? Where are you?” Sapphire neighed a little in the distance. “Hey! Sapphire! Come over here! How did you get over there? Come on!” Sapphire began to run towards them when the ground started to shake, making Dante freak out. ‘N-No…no…please no. I made a promise to Toshiro that I would protect you.’

Dante: “Sapphire! Run!”

A familiar shape emerged from the ground. The giant skinless worm approached the three of them. However, it was a little different. The back end of the worm seemed normal. A tenth of the worm contained skin and it wasn’t completely made of bones like before. Although, Dante couldn’t think of that right now. He only thought of what the situation was in front of him.

“No! Agh…Martyr King’s Resolve!”

Large pillars of ice shot at the worm and stunned him for a moment, but he continued on his path. “Ice Cage!” A cage of ice circled around Sapphire as she ran, along with one above the worm’s head that formed and fell onto him. The worm fell wounded, but got back up and closed the distance. The bones reshaped his head back to normal. Dante fell to his knees crying with broken eyes. ‘Stand up Dante. Please. Stand up! Do something…Anything…’

Dante’s sword rattled and lit up in a massive amount of mana. A voice called out loud, “Shadow Teleportation unlocked. New sword level 102. Dante along with his dragon and Sapphire all fell through the ground instantly.

‘W-What happened? This is…This is like when I was in the cave. I’m like an astral projection. A ghost. A shadow? Kind of similar to what I was like in the cave and similar to Astro’s technique.’

Dante looked up and saw the body of the worm bolt right through him, quicker than Dante could think or move. He opened his eyes to find out nothing had happened and the worm continued on his path somewhere else. ‘Was he able to see me or was that off instinct? Did he even know I was here? How does this power work?’

“Hey! Sapphire! Try to move towards me.” She tried to, but he wouldn’t budge. Dante then used his hand to pull Sapphire’s astral projection towards him. He smirked. “I can control this. Hah! Give me some time Ak, kids, Goro…Lucky. I’ll find you all.”

Dante used his new ability to travel underground avoiding the worms and whatever else was on this land. He was quicker underground than on the surface anyways. “I can control where we all go. Although, it doesn’t help if I don’t know where I’m going. I’ve been doing this for 15 minutes now.”

Dante’s body started to go cold. The horse neighed in pain as well with the dragon. “What?! What’s going on? I feel like I’m going to freeze to death…S-Sap-phire…Are y-you okay? We need to get to the…s-surface.”

Dante undid the shadow teleportation. They laid on the land of bones before them coughing up blood, but their bodies started to warm up again. “What the hell was that?”

‘My body is back to normal now. Is the underground frozen at night? No, that can’t be right. We were underground for 15 minutes and in a shadow form. Cold and heat shouldn’t affect us if it’s anything like Astro’s. Was it the effect of my ability?’

Looking at his sword's stats, underneath the ability there was a small note. It read, “Cooldown alert. Transaction ability available. Would you like to use it?” Dante didn’t know what it did, but decided to test it.

“Yes, use transaction ability.”

The symbols on his sword lit up in a mix of black and white almost like a ying and yang symbol. “Transaction ability successful,” the voice called out again. Dante looked at the top right corner of the sword’s stats as the levels started to decrease. It shifted from 102 to 94. The shadow technique dragged them all into the ground again. ‘Huh? My level went down. What happens if my sword goes to level 0. Interesting. I need to find this stupid garden fast.’

He took to Toshiro’s words and followed the way he had told him to in hopes of finding the garden that night. However, Dante’s luck encountered something worse than the worms. He wandered into an area no different than what he had seen, but floating figures began to circle them.

“What the hell is this now?! Give me a freaking break!”

3 human-like bones attached to each other, floated around almost like a snake in the air. They had 2 black eyes at the front and a human-like tongue. They continued to duplicate over and over. In the distance, tornadoes formed, but not like in Dante’s original world. A collection of bones and sand swept the sky.

“5? No, 10? And they are heading here…Sapphire! We gotta go.” He hopped on her back. “You can fly right? Move, now!” Sapphire kicked the ground and flew into the sky. Her torso lit up with gold mana and a golden armored mask appeared over her head along red mana lines decorating it. She flew up as high as she could go and quickly took off away from the disaster heading towards them.

Out of sight from this, they decided to stay in the air to look for The Garden. The whirl of the winds stayed back in that area lucky enough for them.

“Thanks, Sapphire. You really saved us back there…Why don’t you ever do anything? Dante asked, looking at the dragon on his shoulder. “Come to think of it. I never named you. It’s getting too complicated at this point. Let’s name you…Chihiro. I like that.”

Dante looked down at the ground of bones again as they crossed over a giant pit. He hadn’t been checking his surroundings and didn’t realize it until they got there, but a huge black hole covered the surface for at least a mile.

“What is that? It’s just…nothing. A huge black hole in the ground? Sapphire, let’s get away from this. I have a bad feeling about it. Black smoke is coming out from some of the ends. That can’t be good. Let’s trail back and head west and then back north when we are out of its sight.” Sapphire neighed in approval. Dante, Chihiro, and her backtracked around the giant hole out of sight. He apologized saying, “Sorry you two. I know we are in a hurry. I’m in as much of a hurry as anyone, but I’m gonna trust my past this time. Not knowing something dangerous should be avoided.”

Black holes similar to the one they saw, but smaller, started to appear on the ground ahead of them. “Hold it, Sapphire. Tch! These things aren’t gonna let us pass.” Black rain fell directly in line of the holes on the ground. “Sapphire, do your best to avoid the holes. They are probably going to keep spawning though. Be careful. Chihiro, stay in my clothes…Ice Cage.” This should help if we get hit by anything. Black lightning rained down along with the rain that had already been hitting the cage. Sapphire maneuvered around the small black holes in the ground, but couldn’t avoid them all. Black rain started to pierce the ice cage as it slowly melted, and lightning struck the side of the ice and opened a huge hole in its barrier.

“Go! Go! Go! Go! Sapphire! Head towards the ground! We can use shadow transportation. Go! Quickly!”

Sapphire navigated through the attacks, but couldn’t hold up. She flew through to a nearby valley of bones, but didn’t avoid all the hits before getting to the ground. The cage dispelled. Dante flew off the horse tumbling across the ground. He slowly got up in aching pain. “S-Shadow T…Trans…portation.” The voice called out from the sword, “Low Level. Insufficient mana zone. Mana blocked.”

Dante stood, but quickly fell back on one knee in agony. “AGHHHH!!!” He screamed in immense pain. His mana lines wouldn’t light up either.

“My leg…It’s broken. My stupid leg! Work! Get up!”

The black lightning had hit Dante as they fell. His leg was crushed in half that stung throughout his whole body. The rain and lightning continued without heed towards the exact spot where they all laid on the ground suffering. Sapphire rushed over and scooped up Dante and flew back into the sky right away. Despite being hit, she was still able to get up and help all three of them.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. That was a mistake. We should have just found a different route. I wasn’t paying attention. Agh! I shouldn’t have put that strain on you.”

‘My leg definitely won’t work,’ he thought. ‘This isn’t good. I need that stupid magician to heal me again. Astro, please make it in time.’

Giant skull heads emerged from the holes and chased after the three as Sapphire still tried her best to navigate through the rain and lightning still. Their eyes lit up in anger as if Dante had entered into their territory. They got faster towards them. He needed this like he needed a hole in his head.

“Sapphire. I know I’ve been selfish, but I need you to push with everything you got left straight ahead. Give me 1 minute. I’ll get something done.”

She neighed in approval, pushing as much as she could back into the large valley of bones that erected upwards on both sides as if they were heading into a deep canyon. Dante stood up on his broken leg in pain on Sapphire as she flew. With his sword, he tried with everything he had left.

“Come on! Work mana! Give me everything I have left! Martyr King’s Resolve,” but he was weak from his injury and depleted mana, and couldn’t control the direction of the ice. The skulls easily evaded and darted towards them. One rammed into Sapphire as she screamed out in pain.

“No!”

Dante waved his sword in desperation. 3 of them converged on them, trapping them in place. Dante stabbed one in the eye, but it had no effect at all. One of the skulls came from above and rammed into Sapphire, knocking the three down into the valley. The ground of bones opened from the middle with dust flying everywhere. The skulls floated in mid air and just looked down at them, halting themselves in place. 5 figures in all white stood on the giant skulls with their swords in their heads. One figure floated in front of all of them glowing with yellow mana. Dante could barely make out what he looked like. He had pink hair with red horns and red eyes. He didn’t know who this man was, but as he fell into the murky waters with Sapphire and Chichiro, the man smiled and laughed before darkness encased the three of them and death approached the doors of each of them.