"It's only a matter of time… I don't understand anything!" The merchant fell to her knees in despair, grabbing her own hair and crying endlessly.

Jin ignored her and continued observing his surroundings, arcs of golden lightning dancing around his eyes, sword, and body.

"As if I would die just like this!" Jin roared, his teeth shaking uncontrollably.

Daniel hesitated, unsure whether he had anything he could do.

What was he supposed to do in such a situation? Nothing made any sense.

Dante, on the other hand, was focusing solely on their misfortune, which was growing with every passing second.

"Why is this happening?" Dante asked, trying to calm himself.

He had finally reached the town, and the next moment, a damn catastrophe occurred!

Just like that time with the mysterious figure that could use invisible force, Dante was left powerless.

The people were just… dying. He couldn't "see" anything to fight against. He couldn't "see" any way to escape. He couldn't "see" any chance of surviving. He couldn't "see" the cause of all this.

The veil had left him in the darkness, more than just the literal meaning.

At this despairing moment, Dante couldn't help but laugh, remembering the message written in the chaos magic book by the other transmigrator:

``You have to grow stronger. Not money or fame, I mean literal strength.

There is no government or laws to protect you here.

There are no national agreements between all nations to keep the supernatural anomalies and the magical abilities hidden.

There is nothing stopping two higher beings from killing you by mistake if they fought close to your home.

I wish you good luck, you'll need it.``

Dante had no doubt that all this was the doing of a higher being.

He and everyone in this town were simply unlucky enough to encounter it.

'Is there anything we can do in this situation?'

With each second, the world around them turned into darkness.

The people who were illuminating the dark town with their magic disappeared, and the lanterns either broke when their holders disappeared or couldn't find anyone to change the candles or oil.

And soon after, the Ether Sphere disappeared, exposing Dante and the others to the darkness.

But they didn't care.

They knew that it wasn't providing them with any protection.

Dante's gaze landed on the veil covering the town. He lifted his hand up, pointing a finger at the sky, and used almost all his remaining Ether in one bolt.

BAM!

The bolt flew with an incredible speed toward the darkness. But the moment it made contact with it, it simply dipped into the veil, causing only some small waves, as though the darkness was made of liquid.

He failed completely.

'It's familiar…'

Dante strained his mind, searching for the source of that familiarity. Instantly, he remembered the last monster he had left in the ancient ruins.

It was a monster of pure darkness, a monster that he couldn't even damage, a monster with a 3-digit Spirit value.

With nothing else to do, Dante used the ability of his silver eye.

"Haha…"

He laughed.

What else could he do?

In his sight, all he saw was numbers.

194, 252, 123, 150, 170, 263, 99, 270, 163…

They weren't just tens or hundreds, and probably not even thousands.

The dark veil that covered the town was made of monsters, thousands or tens of thousands of monsters, all gathered together to surround the town.

As for their Wheels of Luck, they were probably too far away to be seen by limited vision.

"It was nice to meet you all…" Daniel smiled bitterly, dropping his staff as he looked at all the people disappearing around them: "Hopefully, it'll be a quick death."

"You're the only one dying here!" Jin yelled, biting his lower lip: "I won't die. I refuse to die like this. I can't die in this pathetic way without even knowing what killed me!"

Dante looked at Jin in surprise. Was that the same drunk man that he had accompanied for the past few days?

Dante decided to inform them of the truth of the veil, letting them know a part of their hopeless situation.

"So that's it? Simply a monster attack?" Jin threw his golden sword away and sat on the ground in surrender.

A moment later, the merchant disappeared, only her frozen tears remained on the white snow.

A few moments after that, Daniel disappeared as well, giving them a faint smile in his last moment.

"Do you… want a drink?" Jin opened his bag and offered Dante a bottle of wine.

Dante shook his head: "I hate alcohol."

"What a shame." Jin casually opened the first bottle.

Both him and Dante had calm faces, ignoring the screams and cries of the few remaining survivors.

What would they gain from panicking? No one was going to hear that and save them unless a miracle occurred.

"Why do you like alcohol that much?" Dante asked curiously.

Jin smiled: "The name of my class is Volt Brewer. It gives me the ability to turn the alcohol in my body into lightning, which I can use to enhance my body and reaction speed. I was used to stealing and drinking a lot of alcoholic drinks since my childhood, and this was my reward from the World Runes."

"This class isn't really that good, but I did my best to get used to fighting as a drunk man and learned how to resist the drunk state temporarily when I needed to, just like now. But after all that, I'm about to fucking die because I went to the wrong place in the wrong time."

Jin chuckled while drinking his wine, and Dante had no choice but to smile in amusement.

"So, you are a demon?" Jin asked, staring at Dante's shield.

"Yeah…" Dante admitted, raising his blindfold only enough to show his eyes: "I'm a hybrid, actually. My other half is a dragon."

"Pffft."

Jin couldn't hold his laughter: "We have been travelling with a demonic dragon? Ohh, I understand your physical power now. Well, as Daniel said, it was nice to meet you."

After a few minutes of drinking, Jin disappeared, leaving a bag filled with alcoholic drinks.

"...It was nice to meet you too." Dante stood up and scanned his surroundings.

"No one, huh?"

Pure darkness.

That was all that Dante could see. There were no other humans or sources of light.

Dante sighed and turned his centipede into a sword, pointing it at his own heart.

'I still have a few regression marks, right?'

Using the regression marks meant only two things.

Despair and surrender.

Dante couldn't "see" himself even struggling. For the first time, Dante intended to kill himself rather than fighting till his last breath. He had simply given up.

Without a hint of hesitation, Dante stabbed his own heart.

Stab!

The immense pain hit him immediately as the sword pierced his heart and emerged from his back. He vomited several mouthfuls of blood on the ground, but…

"...."

He wasn't dead.

"So the baron had a demonic heart, huh?"

Apparently, because of the demonic heart, he'd need to receive more than a stab to be killed.

Dante endured the pain and pulled the sword out of his chest, dyeing the white snow with his blood. Then he aimed it at his head.

That was likely his only remaining weakness.

Without hesitation, he pushed his sword forward…

"...!"

…Or at least that was his intent.

Because now, he couldn't "see" them. His sword and arms—he couldn't see any of them.

And the next moment, a shiver went down his spine, hearing a voice echoing through the darkness.

"Did you give up already? I was enjoying this."

This voice was dark, tough, and terrifying, strong enough to make normal humans faint upon hearing it.

Dante turned around, and then he "saw" it.

A tall human-like figure, over 2.5 meters tall, hiding in a cloak of pure darkness. The body shape resembled that of a man, and the face couldn't be "seen", even though nothing physical was covering it.

It was as though one of the living darkness monsters was inside the cloak, covering the man's entire body and hiding all his facial features.

The most noticeable thing about this dark entity wasn't the hidden appearance or the terrifying voice, but a crown.

Hovering above his head was a mighty crown of pure darkness, leaking an intense aura of authority and terrifying silence.

At this moment, Dante realized that something was wrong.

'How am I seeing him in the dark?'

There was no source of light here, and his demonic eye wasn't strong enough to see through this darkness. Why was that man the only visible thing here?

"Hmm? Obviously, because I'm allowing you to 'see' me." The dark entity spoke, causing Dante's eyes to shrink in disbelief.

'Can he hear my thoughts?'

"I can 'see' your thoughts. And I can 'see' more than that." The dark figure took a step forward: "I'm the darkness itself, which means you can't keep anything hidden from my gaze. Oh, and don't even think of regressing without my consent."

'Shit!'

Dante immediately channeled his silver Ether, demonic energy, and mana, focusing all of them on his own body. If he couldn't stab himself, then he could blow himself up!

But the next moment, Dante's jaw dropped as he lost the ability to "see" his energies. Upon deeper focus, he realized that it was the case for his arms as well.

They were there.

But his brain was incapable of "seeing" them.

'H-how?'

Dante took a step backward, then he stopped.

He couldn't "see" himself taking another step backward. He couldn't "see" himself running away. He couldn't "see" himself struggling against that entity.

His mind was being affected by that entity's power. Dante knew that, but he couldn't "see" any way to save himself and stop that.

It had been so long since he felt such despair, fear, and helplessness.

At this moment, Dante's voice echoed through his own mind.

'...You can't even blame your misfortune anymore.'

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