Chapter 82: Esabella sacrifice ?

Yenna lay face down. She wasn’t moving. Dante stood between them with empty hands.

’She’s breathing. I can see her back moving. Keep her breathing.’

Marcus came for him. The grey eyes burned, and the red sword flew back from across the arena and landed in his palm. Dante turned his shoulder, and the blade went past his ear. He drove his fist into Marcus’s stomach, and the cracked plates gave way.

The entity didn’t even grunt.

"The seal is broken," it said. "Did you think that was my heart?"

A knee came up. Dante blocked it with his forearm, and the bone shook. He hit Marcus in the face, once, twice, three times. Each punch landed. Each one did less than the last.

’Fuck, i am –no–’

He thought of the Yenna suffering and betrayal.

His next punch broke Marcus’s nose. It didn’t matter. Blood ran, and the entity smiled through it.

Esabella was on her knees. She had Elena’s blood on her hands and her own blood in her mouth. The backlash was tearing her apart from inside. Her scales burned. Her horns felt like they were splitting her skull. When she breathed in, her ribs creaked.

’Get up.’

Her fingers were shaking so hard she couldn’t close them. The dragon-sword lay half buried in the glass-sand beside her.

She had been a queen for hundred years, and she had never felt this weak.

’Father, I used it all. I’m sorry. Let me stand one more time. just give me power one more time’

She put both hands on the hilt. Her arms trembled. She pulled the blade out and pushed herself up on it, and the ground tilted.

Across the crater, Elena was crawling toward Yenna.

Esabella’s eyes saw her moving.

’No, Wait.’

She watched the way Elena moved. Her good arm dragged. Her head bobbed. But her legs, the broken ones, were curled under her in a strange, careful way. And her eyes weren’t on Yenna.

They were on Dante’s back.

"Ughh, no. It–It’s a lure," she whispered. "It’s not for Yenna."

She gather every last strength and power in her body and ran forward.

...

Dante hit Marcus in the throat, and the entity staggered. He saw his chance. He stepped in, grabbed Marcus’s head with both hands, and drove his knee into the face. Something cracked. Marcus went down on his back.

Dante stood over him, gasping, with his fists dripping.

"You are dead now "

Dante raised his hand. But Suddenly –Behind him, in the corner of his eye, he saw Elena’s crawling body stop.

The female entity lifted her head. Her eyes were bright. A long dagger of rot formed in her hand like ink pulled out of water.

"Now, brother," she whispered.

Marcus’s eyes open. His arm swung up from the sand with the red sword in a sideways thrust straight at Dante’s chest.

At the same instant, Elena rose off the ground behind him and drove the dagger at his back.

Frok Front and back. Both at once.

Dante felt it before he saw it. The air on his skin changed. He turned his head, and the world slowed.

"Arrghh, You–"

He couldn’t block both. His arms were still raised for the neck. And now red blade was coming for his heart, and the black dagger for his spine, and there was nowhere to go.

’I’m sorry, Yenna, esab–’

Something hit him from the side. It was fast and hot, and it knocked him off his feet. He stumbled, and for a moment he saw wings, huge and black, spread between him and the blades.

There was a sound like a wet cloth being torn.Then another.

Esabella stood in front of him. The red sword had gone through her stomach. The black dagger had gone through her chest from the back. Her arms were thrown wide, and the dragon-sword fell from her fingers and stuck point-first in the sand.

For a heartbeat, nobody moved.

"Es..." Dante started.

She turned her head slowly and looked at him over her shoulder. Her gold eyes were soft. Her mouth was full of blood.

"I–i—Rule... three," Esabella said. Red ran down her chin. "I... broke it again."

She coughed. A stream of blood came out and ran down her neck.

"No,no,no" Dante said. His voice cracked. "Why why? I told you–"

"I know." She tried to smile. It was crooked. "Is it... too late to say... I’m sorry?"

Marcus pulled the sword out of her stomach with a wet sound. Elena pulled the dagger from her chest. Esabella’s knees buckled. She fell sideways into Dante’s arms.

He caught her. She was lighter than she should have been. Her skin was cold. The fire in her scales was going out, one patch at a time. Her blood soaked through his and ran down his wrists.

"Esabella." He said it again, and he didn’t recognize his own voice. "Esabella. Look at me."

"Y–yes I’m... looking my king"

"Please, Stay awake."

Her head fell against his shoulder. He felt her breath on his neck, short and shallow.

Behind him, Marcus laughed. It was a quiet, ugly sound.

"Hoho very Touching," the entity said. "She saved you. For a moment."

Dante didn’t turn around. His whole body had gone very still. His hands didn’t shake anymore. He felt something inside him go cold .

’They did this, Both of them,’

’I’ll take it out of them. Every piece. I will tear them apart.’ dante thought, a line of blood coming from his eyes.

He lowered Esabella gently to the sand and turned around. Marcus lifted the red sword. Elena stepped up next to him, the black dagger dripping.

They struck together. Dante stepped into them with his bare fists, blood everywhere on his body.

He caught Marcus’s wrist and broke it. He ducked under the dagger and slammed his elbow into Elena’s face. He hit Marcus in the throat, and the stomach, and the jaw. He took the sword across the shoulder and felt his collarbone snap. He grabbed Elena by the hair and slammed her head into the sand twice.

He didn’t feel any of it. His body kept moving. His mind was somewhere else, somewhere narrow and red, where only two faces existed.

"Die. Die. Die."

Marcus’s fist came out of nowhere. It caught him on the temple.

The world rang. His legs went out from under him, and he hit the ground on his back. Black spots swam in his vision. He tried to push himself up, and his arm folded.

The decay had reached his chest. He could feel it, crawling across his heart.

A shadow fell over him. Marcus raised the sword in both hands, with a broken wrist and a bleeding face.

"Goodbye, Dante," he said, and for a second, there was no entity in his voice at all. Only Marcus, tired and bitter.

’No, i will kill you both ’ he try to get up his eyes burning with pure rage , blood coming from his eyes and mouth, but he was still not giving up.

"Fuck, fuck , fuckkkkk! Ahhhhhhhhh, get up, you Fucking piece of shitt " he try to get up with strength he had, his body burning with pure rage.

"It’s not going to work " The entity in marcus body said and drove the sword.

But it stopped halfway. A small hand had caught it, bare and shaking, red to the elbow.

Esabella had pulled herself up on her knees. She held the red sword by its edge, and blood poured between her fingers.

"Do–Don’t," she whispered. "T–Touch My–my king ."

Marcus stared at her. The entity inside him hissed.

"Shit, she again?!. why are you sacrifice yourself for him, whatever Just die, "

He ripped the blade free, and her fingers opened. He kicked her in the chest. She flew back across the sand and landed in a heap, and didn’t move.

"E–Esabella!"

Dante’s voice broke. He tried to stand, and the black spots swallowed his vision. His arm gave out. He fell on his face.

The sand was warm against his cheek. Far away, he heard Marcus’s boots coming closer.

He watched Esabella through half-closed eyes. She lay on her side, ten meters from him, with one hand stretched toward him in the sand. Her fingers moved. She was trying to crawl. Trying to stand up for him again.

She dragged herself forward half a meter. Then another. Her blood left a long red line behind her.

" No, please Stop," he said while looking at her with bloody eyes. "Don’t. You’ll die."

Her lips moved. He couldn’t hear it. But he knew what she was saying.

"Wai–Wait for me, m–my king!"

....

It was dark, and Dante was ten years old again. He remembered the sirens. The gate had cracked open over the city in the middle of the night, and things had poured out that nobody had a name for. His father had pushed him into the cellar and told him not to make a sound. His mother had kissed his forehead. The door closed, and he sat in the dark counting seconds.

He counted to nine hundred. When the door opened again, it wasn’t his parents.

’That’s when I decided,’ he thought. ’I would climb the tower. I would kill every monster inside it. Nobody else would sit in a cellar counting.’

He had kept that promise for fifteen years. He had bled for it and carried strangers out of dungeons. He had never asked for anything back.

’And they left me anyway.’

Marcus, walking down the corridor with his back turned. Kenneth, who said calculation. Nelon, holding the shield. And the girl who had said good morning to him every day for two years, and who had smiled while she laughed at his funeral.

He had given them everything. It hadn’t been enough.

’Why does everyone who stands near me end up like this?’

His mother. His father. The squad. Yenna, three weeks in a cage. And now...

Esabella, Her hand stretched toward him across the sand.

She had apologized. She had been dying, and she had said sorry to him.

’I’m the one who should be sorry.’

A god had given him a second life. Two systems, a hundred times the power. He had walked up thirty floors without a scratch, and told himself he was strong.

’What did it matter? I couldn’t even keep two people alive. They cared about me, help me, and willing to do everything for me . They are even sacrificing there life for me, and me ?... What did i do for them?’

His fingers moved in the sand. He felt it under his nails, wet and warm.

’I’m a curse. Everything is my fault ’

"My–my kin–"