Chapter Seven

As Dante would learn, Crystal wasn't just insane; she was batshit crazy. Sure, it didn't seem like that initially, but he knew deep down that something was off with her. She didn't react to things as he expected her to; she didn't even show a sign of being pulled along in the whole charade.

But before all that happened, Dante followed Crystal into what seemed to be her hideout, if it could be called that. It was a closed-off space in what appeared to be a cave at the edge of a cliff.

"How good is your mountain climbing skills?" She'd asked. Dante didn't understand what she was talking about earlier, but standing right in front of the colossal mountain, he did a double take.

"We are not going to climb that, are we?" He asked, looking in the direction where Crystal was.

"Oh, but we are. Do you need a rope?" He was confused; the flow of events seemed more than his poor heart could bear. And who could blame him? He'd been thrust into a world without rhyme or reason.

"I'm not climbing that," he said, indignant.

"Oh? What, are you scared of heights?" Crystal teased, and he almost reddened at the implication of her words.

"You are? That explains it." She barreled on without giving him the chance to reply or defend himself.

“No, I’m not scared of heights. I’m scared of.. that!” He pointed in the distance, and Crystal strained her eyes to see. It was like before, the dust clouds taking form. And now, they morphed into men on horseback, brandishing swords and spears.

“What’s this, the Dark Age?” Crystal rolled her eyes.

“What will you do about them? I don’t have anything else up my sleeves.” Dante hated how forlorn he sounded, but he’d never been one to lie to himself. He believed in doing his best, and well, whatever happens, happens.

“Okay, I guess this is my chance to show you what I can do,” Crystal said conversationally, and Dante wondered if she had a screw loose in her head. The soldiers were approaching at an unbelievable speed, and Crystal looked deeply in thought.

“Fuck, am I going to die here?” Dante wondered aloud.

“Not on my watch,” Crystal said, winking at him. And then she was gone. He couldn’t understand what had happened; his eyes could not follow her speed. She was there one second, and then she wasn’t.

The soldiers were almost upon him when something curious happened. They began to scatter like flies, their numbers thinning before his eyes. It wasn’t like what he did earlier, when he blew them all away, no. There was a refinement to the way they were being picked off one by one; it was like watching a masterful artist’s brushstrokes.

And just as soon as it began, it ended. Crystal was standing in front of the clearing, holding a purple crystal that glowed with a dim light.

“A mana stone. The low grade would only fetch a price out there. But there are also other uses,” Crystal chucked the stone at him, and he hastily caught it.

“You have something known as the Assimilator’s Codex. And it lies dormant for a while. You can break the seal with the mana stone. All you need to do is place it in the empty slot on your arm. It’s shaped like a diamond. But be warned, the first time can be a little… tricky.”

Dante understood zilch about what Crystal said, and he wondered if she was pulling an elaborate prank on him. But seeing her in action, he couldn’t deny that she could destroy him before he even took a step. It was a humbling experience.

“Okay.”

She smiled up at him. He swallowed his inhibitions and inspected his arm. His body looked like something straight out of a nightmare. The red welts close to his armpits and the contraptions on his arms. He didn’t bother to inspect the legs; he wasn’t ready to pass out from nausea yet.

The cut Wicked gave him was clean, even though he was put together without decorum or respect; that’s why it seemed like a hack job. He inspected his arm some more. A circuit ran down both sides of his prosthetic arms, unlike the ones he’d expected. It was just meant to be a piece of functional equipment, nothing more.

But Dante could tell that his new body wasn’t what he thought it was. Zero spoke about it like a raving lunatic, and they wouldn’t need to go through all that trouble just for the sake of it.

The arms felt alien, and looking at it, he could tell why. The nerve endings of his arms controlled the prosthesis, guiding them where he wanted them to go. But something was off. It wasn’t just his arms controlling them; it was different parts of him.

Let’s see what this does.

Dante held his hand before him and gingerly placed the mana stone on the slot as Crystal asked him to. He wasn’t sure what would happen, but he waited with bated breath anyway.

“See? Nothing happened.” He said to Crystal, a little miffed that she wasted his time on such nonsense.

“Wait,” Crystal said, and he just rolled his eyes.

Suddenly, his arms began to glow.

“What’s going on?” He screamed at Crystal, panic welling up from within.

“Relax, and whatever happens, don’t lose your mind.”

Her words sounded so ominous he wondered what exactly she meant by that. But he didn’t have time to think; his cybernetic arms glowed, following the lines of the circuit, and he watched in awe as everything met at the point where the mana stone was placed.

[CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CONSUMED ONE MANA STONE]

[IN DIRE SITUATIONS, YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE OF THE WORLD]

[CONGRATULATIONS, YOUR STATS INCREASED BY ONE]

[STR: 13 AGI: 17

[DEX: 5 INT: 3]

These words flowed into his head while the mana stone flowed, and as suddenly as it began, it ended.

“What the fuck was that?” He asked Crystal, thoroughly shaken.

“I did tell you that you’d experience something tricky.” She shrugged, and he wondered if everybody else was as insane as her or if she was a special breed.

“Not that; why is my intelligence so low? At a measly 3 points!” He harrumphed, and she stared at him for a few seconds before bursting into laughter.

“That’s what you are concerned with? Well, it just means you’re stupid. Don’t let it get you down,” Crystal replied flippantly and pointed at the mountain in front of them.

“Now, we climb.”

Dante was still reeling from everything that’d happened, but he wasn’t sure overthinking the situation would yield any results. He had to be wise and listen to Crystal more.

“What exactly are you? What are we?” He asked, tying a rope around his waist as they prepared to climb the mountain.

“You haven’t guessed yet? This is why we can’t go out there. We are a threat to everyone, even the elites. It’s an upheaval.” Crystal laughed, showing teeth. She looked feral, as though she’d consume him whole.

He kept shut as he stared at the mountain and deep down he knew;

His problems had only just begun.