From his place on the scorched earth, Dante watched the end arrive.
The Orc Champion, a seven-foot-tall behemoth of scarred hide and blackened iron, had broken past Eric's guard.
Its massive axe rose high in the air. Poised to descend and crush their frontline defender. Their shield.
His team was fighting with the desperate courage of cornered animals. But they were losing. Being systematically dismantled.
And he, their strategist, their god, was bleeding out. Helpless to stop it.
It was the sight of the corpses that saved him.
Three dead orcs lay on the field. The hard-won prizes of Jin and Talia's desperate efforts.
Faint wisps of mana, the life essence of the slain, shimmered above them.
It was a resource. A feast waiting to be claimed.
In their previous battles, the team had shared this bounty. A communal act to strengthen the group.
But now, in his moment of weakness, empathy was a luxury Dante could not afford.
'Survival is a zero-sum game.'
His Necromancer skill, hungry and parasitic, lashed out with an instinct born of his own will to live.
He reached out. Not to raise the dead—his five puppet slots were already filled by the ghosts of Derek's team but to feed.
He focused on the mana energy flowing or precisely leaking from the body.
He pulled.
A jolt of cold, raw energy flooded his system. Not a gentle warmth. A chilling, unholy power. The stolen vitality of the dead.
His team felt it too.
He saw Jin flinch. Masha's head snap in his direction.
They had been expecting to absorb that mana themselves after the fight. They were watching him hoard it. Watching their leader steal the spoils of a war they were still dying in.
The energy surged to the gash in his side. It did not heal with gentle care. It cauterized the wound with cold, dark force.
The flesh knitted together with faint black smoke. Leaving a puckered, ugly scar.
The bleeding stopped. The blinding pain receded to a dull, manageable throb.
His vision cleared. His mind, once sluggish and reeling, snapped back into sharp, analytical focus.
He was back.
The Orc Champion's axe began its descent.
"Eric!" Dante's voice, though raspy, cut through the din of battle with absolute authority. "Drop to one knee, angle your shield up, forty-five degrees! Brace!"
Eric, who had been preparing to meet his end, reacted instantly.
He dropped. His shield formed a solid, angled ramp just as the axe came down.
Instead of a direct, crushing impact, the blade struck the angled shield and skidded upward with a deafening shriek of metal. Its momentum carried it harmlessly over his head.
The champion roared in frustration. Thrown off balance by the unexpected maneuver.
"Masha!" Dante commanded. "The ground beneath its feet! Not a wall, a slick! Now!"
Masha, her face a mixture of relief and new, subtle apprehension, slammed her palms down.
The scorched earth beneath the champion's massive boots instantly coated over with a sheet of black, treacherous ice.
The orc, its footing already compromised, slipped. Its massive weight working against it.
"Talia! Jin! Hamstring it!"
They moved as one.
Talia's rapier was a silver flash. Her Kinetic Eye guiding her blade to the vulnerable spot behind the champion's knee.
At the same time, Jin drove his glowing sword deep into the other leg.
The Orc Champion let out a bellow of pure agony and rage as its legs gave out.
It crashed to its knees with a heavy, earth-shaking thud.
The king of the horde was crippled.
The tide had turned.
"Listen to me!" Dante called out to his team. His voice regaining strength with every passing second. "Stop trying to kill them with single attacks! It's inefficient!"
"Your new objective is to feed me. Create corpses. I will do the rest! Just feed me enough so that i can summon the big guy and scare them off"
A new, terrifying understanding dawned on their faces.
They were no longer just fighting for their lives. They were his harvesters. And this clearing was their field.
They would do the bloody work. And he would reap the rewards.
A cruel, but necessary, division of labor.
The orcs, however, were not mindless beasts.
The champion, kneeling but still very much alive, saw what was happening. It saw the faint threads of mana connecting Dante to its fallen warriors.
It let out a series of guttural, barking commands. The horde's strategy shifted instantly.
They were no longer focused solely on killing the heroes. Now, whenever one of their own fell, two other orcs would immediately turn on the corpse.
Their axes and clubs smashed it into an unrecognizable pulp of flesh and bone. Destroying it before Dante could claim its spirit.
They were denying him his power source.
"They're adapting," Edgar yelled. His eyes wide. "The leader is intelligent!"
"So am I," Dante replied coldly. "This is no longer a battle. It is a race. Kael!"
The Mimic, who had been providing cover fire with weak but distracting lightning bolts, looked at him.
"The spear-throwers on the ridge," Dante pointed. "You saw them. You saw how they aimed. Copy it. You are now our sniper."
"Your job is to kill the orcs who try to destroy the corpses. Protect my food."
Kael's eyes glowed silver.
He scooped up a sharpened piece of shrapnel from the ground. His posture changed. His arm cocked back with an unnatural, practiced grace he had not possessed seconds before.
He hurled the metal. It flew with the speed and accuracy of a bullet. Embedding itself deep in the eye socket of an orc about to smash a corpse.
The orc dropped dead. Its own body now ripe for the taking.
Dante absorbed its mana instantly.
"Erica!" he commanded. "Stop the fireballs! Condense it! I need lances, not explosions! Pierce their armor! Give me clean kills!"
Erica, her face set in a grim mask of concentration, nodded.
The swirling orb of fire in her hands compressed. Becoming a searing, white-hot spear of plasma.
She unleashed it. The spear tore through the air, punching a clean, molten hole through the iron breastplate of an orc brute. Killing it instantly.
Another thread of mana flowed into Dante. Each one a jolt of power that made his head swim with intoxicating strength.
The battle became a brutal, efficient engine of death.
Masha controlled the field. Her ice slowing and tripping the enemy.
Jin and Talia acted as a single entity. Their blades a blur of precision, creating openings for Eric's raw power.
Kael, from the backline, became a deadly marksman. Picking off the "clean-up crew" with thrown debris.
Erica's plasma lances neutralized the heavily armored brutes.
And with every orc that fell, a new thread of cold energy would flow into Dante. Healing his wounds. Replenishing his mana. Making him stronger.
While his team grew more and more exhausted.
They were fighting harder than ever. But they were not reaping the rewards.
He was.
The Orc Champion, still on its knees, watched in horror as its disciplined army was torn apart.
It let out a final, defiant roar and tried to push itself up. To rejoin the fight.
But its time was over.
What followed was a masterpiece of coordinated slaughter.
Masha encased the champion's lower body in a block of solid ice. Immobilizing it completely.
Talia and Jin darted in. Their blades targeting every exposed joint, every weak point in its armor. Crippling its ability to fight back.
Eric, his shield held high, acted as a mobile wall. Blocking the champion's desperate, flailing swings.
Kael, having seen the champion's own strength, felt a flicker of Berserker rage and used it to hurl a massive boulder. Staggering the beast.
And then, Erica stepped forward.
She took a deep breath. All the fire in the burning forest seemed to dim, drawn toward her.
She created not a spear this time, but a blade. A long, incandescent sword of pure, white-hot plasma.
She walked up to the immobilized, wounded, and surrounded Orc Champion.
It looked at her. Its intelligent red eyes filled not with rage, but with a warrior's grudging respect for a superior power.
Erica swung the plasma blade.
The cut was clean. Silent. Absolute.
The Orc Champion's massive, tusked head slid from its shoulders and fell to the scorched earth with a heavy thud.
As its body collapsed, a tidal wave of potent, rich mana, far greater than any of the others, washed over the clearing.
A king's ransom.
Without hesitation, Dante opened himself to it. Drinking it all in. His own power swelling to levels he had never imagined.
The last of the orcs, seeing their leader fall, broke and fled into the burning woods. Their morale shattered.
The team let them go as they didn't know if they can go for more.
The clearing fell silent. The fires began to die down.
They were standing in the center of a field of more than thirty giant corpses.
Wounded. Exhausted. Covered in blood and ash.
But alive.
The team looked at Dante. Their faces a mixture of awe and a new, unsettling fear.
They had won the battle.
But he had won the war.
He stood taller. His wounds completely gone. His body thrumming with stolen power.
They, on the other hand, were leaning on their weapons. Gasping for breath. Their own energy spent.
The harvest had been bountiful.
And he had kept it all for himself.
He collected all those with lies, actually he didn't lie it was just the plan he thought didn't reach the end he had plotted. He thought he would summon that orc champion and scare them off but things get quite easy with him teammates.
And now,
Dante was thrumming with foreign power.
The sheer volume of mana he had absorbed from the orc horde was a heavy, intoxicating weight in his soul. A feeling of profound density. As if his very bones had been reinforced with lead and lightning.
'In the novels I read, characters in my situation would be greeted by a glowing blue screen. A "system" that would neatly quantify their gains with stats and skill trees.'
'Here, there is no such convenience.'
'This world is analog. Its power raw and unquantified. I am a blind man suddenly gifted with a new sense. I have to learn its language through touch and feel alone.'
The pain from his wounds was gone. Replaced by restless energy. The bruises and shallow cuts that littered his body were trivialities. Fading reminders of a weakness he had already surpassed.
He was excited. Hungry to test the limits of this new strength.
His eyes fell upon the corpse of the Orc Champion.
It was the centerpiece of this gruesome tableau. A monument to his team's desperate struggle and his own cunning victory.
It was also the most valuable resource in the clearing.
He used his skill on him, the hands reached the Orc and then in struggle shattered.
Dante hissed 'tssk, still not enough to just increase my slot of summons or maybe it increased its just this needs 2 or maybe 3 slots alone'
His five puppet slots were full. Occupied by the spectral echoes of Derek and his lieutenants. They were useful, versatile tools.
But they were shadows of men.
This orc was a beast of pure, physical power.
'I need an upgrade.'
He walked toward the massive corpse. His boots leaving prints in the blood-soaked ash.
He dismissed the weakest of his current summons. The shadow of the Graviton user. Its spectral form wavered for a moment, then dissolved into a wisp of black smoke. Returning its borrowed energy to him.
A slot was now open.
He knelt beside the champion's severed head. Its tusked face locked in a final expression of defiant rage.
He closed his eyes and reached out with his will. Not just to reanimate, but to dominate.
'Your war is over,' he commanded in the silence of his mind. 'Your strength is now mine. Your soul will join me. You will be my slave.'
He could feel its spirit. A raging, incandescent thing. A bonfire of pride and warrior fury.
As he tried to pull it into his grasp, it fought back with a violence that dwarfed even Derek's resistance.
A psychic scream of pure, primal rage slammed into his consciousness.
It was the roar of a king refusing to bow. The fury of a warrior whose afterlife was being desecrated.
Images flooded his mind. Epic hunts under a blood-red sun. Brutal duels for dominance within the pack. The taste of blood and the thrill of battle.
A lifetime of savagery, all of it now directed at him. The intruder. The defiler.
He growled in pain. A real, audible sound. His head throbbed. A fresh trickle of blood dripped from his nose.
'The orc's will is like a mountain. And I am trying to move it with my bare hands.'
'But I am a tyrant. And mountains are meant to be broken.'
He poured every ounce of the new, stolen power into his command. His own will becoming a black hole. Cold and absolute. Pulling the orc's raging fire into his void.
"You have no choice," he hissed through clenched teeth.
For a moment that stretched into an eternity, their wills clashed.
Then, with a final, defiant roar that only he could hear, the spirit shattered.
The resistance broke.
A massive, dark shadow, far larger and denser than any before, flowed into him. Settling into the empty slot in his soul with a shuddering finality.
He opened his eyes. Panting. The process had left him drained, but triumphant.
The corpse of the Orc Champion remained still. But he could feel its powerful new echo tethered to his will. Ready to be summoned.
When he finally turned, it was to face the terrified stares of his team.
Rina was in the center of the group. Her healing light moving from Jin to Eric. But her work was mechanical.
Her eyes, and the eyes of everyone else, were fixed on him.
They weren't looking at their leader anymore. They were looking at a monster who had feasted on the dead while they bled.
'I don't mind. Fear is a far more reliable tool than loyalty. Fear will not question my methods. Fear will not hesitate when I give an order.'
'It is better this way.'
Then, a figure stumbled out from the group. Breaking the stunned silence.
Erica.
Her clothes, already damaged in her previous fight, were now little more than strategically placed rags. The explosive force of her final attack had shredded the fabric.
She rushed to his side. Her eyes wide with frantic, possessive concern.
"Dante, are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Her gaze shot over to Rina. "Hey! Rina! Leave that new boy, what's his name. Come here! Heal Dante immediately!"
Dante waved a hand. Stopping Rina before she could move.
"It's okay," he said. His voice steady. "I'm fine. In fact," he allowed a small, confident smile to touch his lips, "I've never been this fine."
"But these bruises," Erica insisted. Her hand reaching out as if to touch a cut on his cheek. "You need to patch them up, or they'll scar forever, you know."
"It's okay," he repeated. His gaze pointedly dropping to her state of undress. "Kael looks more beaten up than me. I'll wait. And can you please... step back? You're almost naked."
The bluntness of his statement finally registered. She looked down at herself. At her torn clothes. At her exposed skin.
A deep, crimson blush spread from her neck all the way to her ears. She let out a small squeak and quickly crossed her arms over her chest. A futile gesture of modesty.
"I... I didn't know," she stammered. Moving aside. Her previous ferocity completely gone. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. Please, forgive me."
"Just chill," he said. His voice softening. He knew how to handle this. "I know you care about me. And for that, I am thankful. So don't ever say sorry to me."
"But..." she started. Her eyes shining with gratitude and adoration.
Before she could say more, Masha stepped forward. Placing a firm hand on Erica's shoulder.
"Erica, just stop already. There's no need for that."
Her expression was a mixture of concern for her friend and simmering frustration. She turned her sharp gaze on Erica.
"Besides, what in the hell got into you? Do you have any idea what you just did?"
"Your attack on Rhonda... it wouldn't have just killed her. It would have killed me. And not to forget, it would have killed Dante, too, if Kael hadn't intervened."
Masha then turned to Dante. Her eyes demanding an answer.
He simply nodded in agreement. Her assessment was correct.
Erica looked chastened. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Looking at the ground. "I was just... so angry. I don't know what happened. To be honest, I couldn't control my mana at that time. It was like a reflex."
"No worries," Dante said. Cutting off any further scolding from Masha. He offered Erica a reassuring smile. "We are all safe, and that's the thing that matters."
"Plus, becoming strong doesn't mean you have to be sad about it. Now, glow up, girl. You were magnificent."
A radiant, happy smile bloomed on Erica's face. Her previous shame forgotten. Her mood completely lightened by his praise.
"Yeah, yeah," Masha said. Her voice dripping with sarcasm as she crossed her arms. "The only person who is happy, or who should be happy, is you, Dante."
Her gaze hardened. The simmering resentment finally boiled over.
"You stole all our rewards. Every last drop of mana. We fought, we bled, we nearly died, and you took it all."
"We would have been much stronger if we had shared that power."
Dante feigned a look of surprise and regret.
"I'm sorry," he said. His voice laced with carefully crafted sincerity. "I was just... I was close to a corpse, and I was losing my sight."
"In a desperate attempt to get back into the fight, I consumed it. It gave me a boost, and I was back. Then the idea of summoning that orc came to my mind and for that I needed those energies but yeah even before that you all managed it by your own. But looking at it now, Isn't it good for our team? Now I'm stronger, which means the whole team is safer."
"And," he added, playing his trump card, "we have access to one more shadow. A very powerful one, at that."
"Just a correction," Masha shot back. Her eyes narrowing. "You have access. Not 'we'."
"Come on," he said. Affecting a wounded tone. "We're a team. So technically, we are one."
"If we were a team," she said. Her voice dangerously low. "You wouldn't have hoarded all the power for yourself while the rest of us were still fighting for our lives."
"Now you're at it again," he sighed. Playing the part of the misunderstood leader. "Look, I said I was sorry. And it was for our own good. My strength is the team's strength."
Erica, her loyalty absolute, jumped in.
"Enough, Masha! Don't tease him anymore!"
She glared at her best friend. Her protective instincts completely overriding their history.
"And as for the rewards, if I hadn't used my spell and caused all that destruction, the orc horde wouldn't have even come here! So technically, it was my mess, and my reward to give."
"And I don't hold a single grudge against him for taking it. In fact," she looked at Dante, her eyes shining with fanatical devotion, "I never will."
Masha stared at her. Speechless.
She looked from Erica's zealous face to Dante's own calculated, calm expression.
She saw the new hierarchy forming. The cracks in their old bonds widening into a chasm.
She opened her mouth to argue. Then closed it again.
A look of weary resignation settled over her.
She had lost. She knew it.
The team was no longer a democracy.
It was a tyranny.
And its subjects were too afraid, or too in love with the tyrant, to rebel.