This is the Bonus Chapter for reaching 150 Powerstones.
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After stripping the entire Nether Fortress clean, Zeke placed another Nether Portal, activated it, and stepped inside.
It was time to verify the viability of Nether travel.
As the teleportation concluded, Zeke found himself standing on a desolate wasteland. He looked into the distance, scanning for the Firemane's Fang.
Soon, he spotted the Firemane's Fang, which appeared as a mere speck in the distance.
He estimated the distance: the four or five hundred blocks he had traversed in the Nether corresponded to over three or four thousand meters in the Overworld.
Satisfied with his conclusion, Zeke returned through the Nether Portal.
Back on the wasteland, shortly after Zeke had departed...
A man clad in miner's gear was running wildly. He had followed the trail of the Firemane's Fang all the way here.
Behind him, death was hot on his heels; a Heldrake was in pursuit.
This Chaos creature was born from the corruption of a specific model of attack aircraft.
The Heldrake opened its maw, extending a Hades Autocannon to lock onto the fleeing figure below.
"Is this it? Is this where I, Dante, meet my end today?" Despair drowned Dante's heart.
As Dante rounded a crumbling wall, he glimpsed a sight that had no business existing in this place.
Just a few dozen meters ahead stood a rectangular gateway.
What is that? Some new altar of Chaos?
Pain shot through his right leg, causing Dante to stumble and nearly collapse.
The Heldrake had intentionally restrained its firepower, toying with its prey.
There was no time, no other choice!
Summoning his last reserves of strength, Dante charged towards the portal.
As his vision blurred, by the time Dante regained his senses, everything had changed completely.
–
Dante dragged his bloodied body to a kneel, staring at the hellish landscape before him.
Scorching heat waves rolled around him, yet his face felt icy cold, drained of all color.
Where is this? Dante tried to move, but his body felt incredibly heavy.
He looked down, and his pupils constricted. He realized he was resting on sand.
Being so close to the ground, Dante could clearly see the details of the grains.
Humanoid, white faces bobbed and sank within the sea of sand, pressing and squeezing against one another.
In those countless, silently screaming pale faces, Dante saw his own fate.
"No... let me go." Dante struggled desperately.
A-woo~~~~
An ethereal wail echoed through the air. Terrified, Dante looked up.
A white phantom was slowly drifting out from behind a pillar of rock.
It possessed a jellyfish-like umbrella body, with several trailing tentacles dangling beneath it.
The weeping demon spat a fireball at Dante. Terrified out of his wits, Dante did his best to roll to the side.
He had barely left his original spot when the fireball struck the rock he had just been on.
The shockwave slammed into Dante. He felt as if his internal organs had shifted. The blast lifted him off the ground, sending him plummeting off the side.
His hands flailed in the air, trying to grab anything to stop his fall.
His right hand snatched a vine.
Gasping for air, he looked down. Below lay an area glowing with an eerie, spectral green light, populated by plants resembling trees and fungi.
"Am I saved?"
In a daze of survival, Dante used the vine to descend, eventually landing on the slick, rocky ground.
Still shaken, he looked around.
The white demon was nowhere to be seen, but in its place, he spotted a black silhouette.
Standing there was a tall, lanky humanoid shadow with a pair of flickering purple eyes.
Dante's heart pounded. He narrowed his eyes, trying to make out the details of the shadow.
Just as his vision focused, the creature sensed his gaze and whipped its head around.
Dante immediately realized that his stare had provoked the monster.
The thought had barely formed when the tall shadow vanished. Dante froze. Did it run away?
Unfortunately, things went contrary to his wishes. The towering black figure materialized out of thin air right in front of Dante, its hands brushing against him.
Dante felt his life draining from his body. If it touches me a few more times, I am definitely dead.
Dante scrambled backward, crawling on hands and knees across the wet, slippery ground.
His back hit something rough. He turned his head and found he had retreated to the base of a fungus tree.
The tree had a broad cap, dark purple bordering on black, with many vein-like hyphae hanging down.
I'm dead. The life-stealing shadow was in front, and there was no retreat behind.
Dante pressed his back against the trunk of the fungus tree and curled up into a ball.
The anticipated touch never came.
Dante saw the tall, thin black shadow standing motionless about three paces away from him.
Its slender frame was just barely obstructed by the fungus tree.
It did not advance any further. A moment later, just as eerily as it had arrived, the shadow vanished without warning.
Dante's tight nerves snapped loose. It was as if his bones had been removed; he slid down the trunk of the fungus tree and sat on the ground.
"Heh... heh..." He let out a few dry gasps, unsure if he was laughing or crying.
A white demon that spat fire. A black demon that teleported and stole life.
Dante tipped his head back, staring blankly at this world.
There was no sky here, only a ceiling of rock.
"Oh Emperor, what sin have I committed to fall into such a purgatory?" Dante's voice was faint, like a dying man's whisper of confession.
He regretted it. He regretted coming to find the ship. Just as his coworker had said, hope is often the beginning of disappointment.
"So be it..." Dante's eyes gradually lost focus.
He stopped watching his surroundings; he was ready to accept his fate.
"What kind of new creature is this? I don't recall this monster being in vanilla Minecraft."
A strange voice came from above and to the side.
Using the last of his strength, Dante looked up.
A figure clad entirely in blue armor was standing on a protruding rock not far above him.
"It looks quite human. Is this a special mob added by some mod?" Zeke looked down, sizing up Dante.
He had just finished looting the Nether Fortress and was returning fully loaded to the Overworld when he heard a scream and followed the sound.
Zeke leaped lightly from the rock, reaching Dante's side in a few steps.
Only upon getting closer did he see that it really seemed to be a human. Zeke reached out and patted Dante.
Dante only managed a weak groan from his throat.
Looks like he's about to die. Zeke drew his Adamantine Shield and dispatched the Enderman attempting to ambush him from behind, which dropped a few more Ender Pearls.
Did he come through the Nether Portal I built? That certainly verifies the theory that ordinary people can survive in the Nether.
Hoisting the dying miner onto his shoulder, Zeke sprinted back along the path he came, returning to the Overworld through the portal.
Zeke didn't seek help from the Space Wolf, Bloodhowl. He felt the man on his back was too heavily injured; it didn't look like something standard medicine could fix.
Might as well test out the newly acquired Brewing Stand.
Zeke crafted a Brewing Stand using a Blaze Rod on the Crafting Table.
Next, he grabbed a few empty bottles. Based on the materials in his inventory—Magma Cream, Ghast Tears, and Blaze Powder collected from the Nether, plus a Spider Eye dropped by a Genestealer earlier—he got to work.
He brewed Potions of Fire Resistance, Regeneration, Poison, and Strength.
Then, using some Glowstone Dust, he upgraded the Strength Potion to Strength II.
Zeke propped up Dante's head, pried open his jaw, and poured the Potion of Regeneration down his throat.
The moment the potion entered his system, Dante's body began to recover.
The gruesome wounds started to knit together, and even his nearly severed right leg began to heal.
So this is the effect of Regeneration on others? It was even more exaggerated than Zeke had imagined.
If this was any indication, the other potions wouldn't be weak either.
Beside him, the unconscious Dante began to wake up.
"You're awake. The surgery was a success," Zeke said.
Dante looked at the Firemane's Fang beside him. I'm saved. That was his first reaction.
"Save my fellow workers," Dante implored Zeke, still remembering the promise he had made.
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Next Bonus at 300 Powerstones.
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