Chapter 73: it’s all my fault

"Those disgusting, low-life cowards," Esabella snarled, her voice dropping to a growl that shook loose dust from the tunnel ceiling."To inflict such a filthy, underhanded curse on a warrior... Dante, give me their names. I will erase their presence"

Dante didn’t hear her. He stared at the damp stone floor, his hands trembling.

"It’s all my fault," Dante said, his voice hollow, cracking slightly under the weight of the guilt. "If I hadn’t trusted Marcus... if I hadn’t left you behind , you wouldn’t have suffered like this. This is my all my fault, I am sorry Yenna, i am sorry, it’s all my fault"

Yenna slowly reached out, her small hand gently resting on his knee. She looked up at his face, and despite the absolute horror of her condition, a pale, remarkably soft smile stretched across her red lips.

"It’s not like that, Dante, it’s not your fault" Yenna said quietly, her voice steady. "You came back for me. You climbed out of the dark. As long as I am alive, and as long as we are safe together now... nothing else in this world matters to me. I just want to stay with your side forever now."

That pure, forgiving smile cut through Dante’s chest worse than any S-rank physical blade ever could. It was an unbearable pain that completely ruined his deadpan armor. Even though she tell him that but dante think this was all because of him , because of him someone innocent and pure had to suffer like this.

Dante dropped his head down, his dark hair falling forward to completely shadow his eyes from the lamplight. He ground his teeth together so violently that his jaw muscles strained, and he bit his own bottom lip with absolute, ruthless force.

Drip. Drip.

A line of bright red blood welled up from his split lip, sliding down his chin and dripping onto the black sand floor. He didn’t wipe it away. The quiet, deadly blood debt against the Radiant Dawn guild had just multiplied a thousand times over, and he was going to collect it in full.

Before Dante could even stand up or wipe the blood from his split lip, a succession of synchronized impacts vibrated through the stone walls. The narrow tunnel entrance at the top of the incline suddenly flared with blinding light as a massive magic barrier locked down the entire exit route, sealing the underground grid completely.

Footsteps echoed down the stone steps—hundreds of steps and the deep, guttural growls of armored companion beasts.

Dante didn’t move. He kept his head lowered, his dark hair casting a shadow over his eyes as he held Yenna against his chest. His baseline physical density was hummed silently, his reconnected system interface rapidly registering the massive influx of hostiles flooding the sector.

Walking out of the smoke at the front of the line were three familiar figures. Marcus walked in the center, his gold-trimmed guild armor plate catching the dim light of the oil lamps. To his left stood Nelon, the third traitor, holding a tower shield and a short-sword. And to his right was Elena. Her long daggers were already drawn, her face twisted into a frantic, malicious grin.

Behind them, the tunnel structure expanded into the wider grid junctions, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with at least a thousand elite Radiant Dawn hunters and massive, iron-scaled drakes.

"Look at this," Elena laughed, She pointed her dagger straight through the bars of Cell 9, looking down at Yenna’s torn trousers. "The dead man actually crawled out of the trash pit to find his little cat. Yenna~ did you enjoy my artwork? Look at her, Marcus! She can’t even stand up straight on those legs anymore!"

The moment those words left Elena’s mouth, the temperature inside the underground tunnel violently dropped to absolute zero.

Esabella, who had been sitting quietly on the stone ledge, slowly stood up. As she realized that the crazy woman standing in front of her was the exact monster who had permanently crippled Yenna, her eyes violently shifted into a brilliant, glowing gold. The vertical pupils stretched into razor-thin slits.

A growl vibrated deep within her chest scales, a sound so terrifying it made the front line of a thousand hunters instantly freeze their steps.

Her true transformation triggered with absolute, ruthless power. The two massive black-and-purple horns on her forehead fully extended, curving backward into two jagged crowns. Her giant black-and-crimson wings snapped wide, filling the narrow tunnel space as the hot fire along the inner lining scorched the ceiling. She slowly uncoiled the thorn-vein whip from her hip, her long black claws locking onto the handle as her face went completely empty of any human emotion.

She looked at Elena, "You disgusting piece of trash. Your soul belongs to the furnace."

Marcus let out a loud, confident laugh from the front of the vanguard line, completely ignoring Esabella’s aura. He raised his hand, signaling the thousand hunters behind him to raise their golden magic catalysts and long-range elemental staves.

"We know all about your tricks, Dante!" Marcus shouted down the corridor, his eyes narrowing in pure malice. "Elena told us how you cleared the lower cavity. You have a passive skin that reflects physical strikes. That’s why we came prepared today! Look around you! Every single hunter in this army is a high-tier mage or a companion tamer! There are zero physical weapons in this tunnel! You’re going to be vaporized by pure, raw magic!"

Marcus thought he had solved the cheat code. He thought that by removing physical kinetic force, Dante’s absolute defense would be completely useless.

But Dante didn’t care. He slowly stood up, keeping his face expressionsles as he carefully placed Yenna down behind a pillar near the back of the cell. his fingers settling smoothly onto the invisible grip of the Seven-Sins Asura Blade. The air around his right arm went silent, a freezing density gathering along the unseen edge.

He didn’t look back as he gave his final, absolute command.

"Esabella," Dante said "Today, nobody leaves this tunnel alive. Protect her and if anyone dare to come close, kill everyone whoever they are ."

Esabella’s eyes flashed with a fanatical flash of joy as she received his direct command. She raised her whip, her wings twitching happily behind her back as the entire underground vault fell into a silence right before the bloodbath dropped. "As you command, my King."