Danilo watched Nzinga's beautiful face go through several emotions — from rage, to relief, and then to shock.
When he was decapitated, for a moment he despaired — but thanks to Supreme Regeneration and Immortality, he had not died.
Seeing the attributes of that fallen amazon, he knew he stood no chance.
He looked at the remaining time of Immortality: 53 seconds.
The survival test still had 43 minutes left. Still too long.
Danilo stared at the common sword in his hand, then at the magnificent sword in the hands of the fallen amazon. The disparity was crushing.
In the blink of an eye, she was already three meters away. Her hand closed around his throat with such force he felt his head would be torn off.
With another move, her sword slashed his abdomen. But this time, nothing fell.
When she realized he hadn't died, she snapped.
For Nzinga, that should have been a definitive death.
An immortality skill usually lasts very little — between 1.5 and 10 seconds at most.
By her calculation, more than 10 seconds had already passed.
She could have thought maybe it was his talent. But no. The process of the ceremony was so magical that all the hunter's and prey's data were visible to each other.
Nzinga looked behind her — there was the old idiot cat, lazily approaching, watching her and Danilo as if they were his new toys.
So, to finish it quickly and leave that place, she decided to attack with all she had. She activated the Domain of Darkness.
Danilo, whose eyes were about to pop out of their sockets due to the grip on his neck, was suddenly swallowed by darkness.
Inside it, he felt nothing. It was as if he had ceased to exist.
An absolute solitude, a suffocating dread. As if he were still there, but without feeling his own existence.
There was no difference between closing or opening his eyes.
He tried to speak, but no voice came out.
He was trapped inside the darkness — and it was suffocating.
He didn't know how long he had been there, but it felt like an eternity. His despair only grew.
He thought of his mother and sisters… but the darkness was so powerful it even erased their memory from his mind.
After an undetermined time — minutes, hours, days, years, he didn't know — a light appeared.
Danilo opened his eyes and found his throat held in a woman's hand.
A familiar woman, as if he had seen her somewhere before.
She was running with him in her arms, and she was outraged.
— Damn it! You don't die! — she shouted, her voice loaded with frustration.
Danilo's mind was confused, scrambled.
Instinctively, he looked at the panel.
Immortality: 00:09
Survival Test: (-19 min)(+41 remaining)
Then, he remembered.
He was still in that damned hunting ceremony.
He turned his face and saw the amazon bitch — that warrior holding him with such fury.
She was clearly outraged, and each strike she dealt was cruel.
Her sword slashed his chest, trying to pierce his heart.
Another strike tried to split him in half.
But nothing happened.
Still, Nzinga did not stop.
And between each attack, she looked over her shoulder, as if running away from something even worse.
Danilo's despair grew.
He looked again at the panel.
Immortality: 00:07… 00:06… 00:05…
Panic overtook him.
When that time reached zero… he would truly die.
There was no way to survive such cruel strikes without the protection of immortality.
When the timer reached 03 seconds, Danilo closed his eyes in despair.
He couldn't do anything else.
Except pray.
And, as if God had heard his prayers, a brutal blow struck them.
He and Nzinga were hurled an absurd distance away, separated by the impact.
Danilo flew so far his body slammed against a colossal rock.
He would have turned into minced meat… if the Immortality skill hadn't protected him at the last second.
The counter hit zero.
Immortality: Ended.
Swallowing the blood pouring from his mouth, he staggered to his feet.
He grabbed his broken sword in haste, ignoring the searing pain in every bone.
And ran.
He knew the cruel truth:
A random strike from any random creature in this place would now kill him a thousand times.
The sound of monsters approaching echoed through the dark forest.
A chorus of footsteps, roars, and hungry breaths.
Terrifying.
Horrible.
— I can't die here… not now… — he thought, almost screaming inside his own mind.
He ran aimlessly through the labyrinth of the forest dungeon.
Shadows appeared on all sides.
Each step felt closer to the end.
Until, like a flash, the darkness ahead rose.
A colossal creature appeared in his path.
Its claws were the size of Danilo's body.
Its body was covered in black scales that reflected the faint light like polished steel.
Two brutal horns rose from its forehead, emanating ancestral power.
The ground trembled.
The air grew heavy.
Danilo had no doubts.
A trembling voice escaped him in an almost inaudible whisper:
— …A dragon.
A real dragon.