Erold and his companions continued on their way. Jasmin was the weakest link in this race against time; her steps faltered repeatedly until she stopped completely, gasping for breath. She spoke in a tone overwhelmed by exhaustion: "Please, I am tired."
Luce said calmly: "I'm sorry, little one, but we must move."
At that moment, a voice came from behind, cold and steady. Gilgamesh, observing the scene, said: "There is a shortcut toward the sea. We will arrive there much faster than expected, so let her rest."
A sudden silence fell. Argus turned toward Gilgamesh and said in amazement: "In the end, I think he does have a heart!"
As for Jasmin, her face lit up with a smile of gratitude despite her exhaustion. She shouted joyfully while looking at Gilgamesh: "Thank youuu!"
Stillness enveloped the surroundings of the cave. Nothing could be heard except the crackling of wood in the fire Gilgamesh had lit, and the groans of fatigue from his companions as they tightened their tent pegs. Gilgamesh sat in his usual isolation, like a statue of stone watching the flames, before Jasmin approached him with hesitant steps.
Jasmin stood before the Prince and said in a respectful tone: "You can sleep inside, and I will sleep outside."
That mocking smile appeared on Gilgamesh's face, and he replied without shifting his gaze from the fire: "Just because I am a prince doesn't mean I spent my life sleeping on silk and under roofs, little one... The earth has been my bed and the sky my cover on battlefields more than you can imagine."
Jasmin did not retreat; she moved closer until the firelight gleamed in her wide eyes, which were filled with overwhelming childish curiosity. Gilgamesh was flustered by her gaze and leaned back slightly, as if trying to avoid an invisible attack. He said with suppressed alarm: "What?! Why are you looking like that?"
Erold's voice came from afar, mixed with a light laugh as he watched the situation: "You've got yourself into trouble! That look means only one thing... you must tell her your story now."
Gilgamesh's features turned to absolute seriousness, and his tone cooled suddenly: "No, I won't. Go to sleep."
Jasmin approached him and pleaded: "Please... please. Just tell me a little."
Gilgamesh's expression did not change as he said with a final word: "Go to sleep."
Jasmin exploded in anger, stomping the ground as she walked away, shouting bitterly: "It doesn't matter! Even the moron Argus wouldn't do this."
Argus raised his head, looking at her from afar in total shock, and cried out complainingly: "What the hell did I do?!"
Jasmin entered her tent and closed it violently, while Argus retreated to his tent with a sorrow overflowing with misery, whispering to himself as he closed his eyes: "This world is not fair to me."
As for Luce, he sighed and said quietly: "I'm going to wander around for a while."
Erold headed to his tent, and Gilgamesh lay down in front of the fire.
Erold lay on his bed, trying to close his tired eyes, but the tranquility did not last long. Suddenly, he felt a sharp contraction in his chest, as if an invisible hand were squeezing the breath out of him. Deep in his consciousness, Arthur's voice rang out; it was not mocking or cynical this time, but a choked voice, trembling with terror and pain: "E... Erold!"
Erold jerked upright, panic dripping from his forehead. He whispered with burning intensity: "Arthur! What happened to you?"
The response did not come in words, but in a strange phenomenon that froze the blood in his veins. From the center of his chest, a "thin thread" began to slowly form—a thread shining with a faint, bluish light, extending into the air. Erold stared at the trembling thread and asked in a shaky voice: "What is this? Is this from you, Arthur?"
Erold followed the thread out of the tent, looking around to find it leading him toward the cave. Erold muttered: "I swear I know what's going to happen. Karl... Arthur... are these games from you? Stop playing, I want to sleep!"
Erold entered the cave and went deep into it, following the thread, until he found it leading him to a room inside the cave with a wooden door. He opened the door and said: "Haha! How amusing you all are!"
Erold's eyes widened with a shock he had never known before, and he took a step back until his back hit the wooden door he had just opened. He found Dante manifested in his own form before him. Dante said in a deep voice: "I am not playing. I am the one who brought you here."
Erold shouted in a trembling voice, filled with confusion and fear: "What are you?"
Dante interrupted him with a faint laugh and stepped forward, making the thin thread connected to Erold's chest tremble. With a mocking smile, he said: "I am Dante. Have you forgotten me?"
Fire ignited in Erold's eyes, and he shouted with a voice that shook the cave walls: "You are that bastard who took control of my body!"
Dante did not flinch; he eyed him with a cold look like an ice blade and replied coldly: "Control? I am the owner of this body. Do you call reclaiming my body 'control'?"
Erold laughed with bitter sarcasm, despite the terror beginning to creep into his depths: "Are you delusional, you idiot? I am the owner of this body."
At that moment, a mysterious ring began to glow above Dante's head, spinning with lightning speed before stopping suddenly to emit energy. Dante replied sharply: "You, mind your manners when you speak to me. You do not realize who you are talking to."
Erold asked with contempt: "And who might you be but a pretender?"
Dante raised his head with pride that rivaled mountains and said in a deep voice that echoed in Erold's mind: "I am Dante Yursha, Prince of the great Kingdom of Yursha, the one who will bring back the kingdom's glory once more."
Erold replied in a tone carrying spite: "To your misfortune, buddy, the kingdom has been destroyed."
Dante's confidence did not waver; he answered with a terrifying certainty: "I know this, but after taking my body, I shall do it."
Erold's eyes widened in shock: "Did you just say you want to take my body? Wait! Where is Arthur? What have you done to him?"
Dante slowly opened his right fist, and from it emerged a faint purple light that quickly took Arthur's form, who was trembling with rage and exhaustion. Arthur shouted as soon as he regained his voice, his gaze burning with resentment toward Dante: "Erold! This bastard has imprisoned me!"
Erold lunged forward, his voice trembling with rage: "You! How dare you imprison Arthur?"
Dante ignored Erold's shouting completely and began moving around the room with measured steps, placing his hands behind his back with royal dignity that did not fit the darkness of the cave. He stopped and turned toward Arthur, asking in a tone carrying cold and suspicious curiosity: "I have always wondered about you, Arthur. Since when have you been with this person who calls himself Erold?"
Arthur exploded in a fit of rage, no longer caring about the gravity of the situation: "What business is it of yours? And by what right do you ask?.. But wait!" Arthur fell silent suddenly as if old memories were beginning to surface, then continued in a sharp tone: "I remember.. I have been with him since the first moment; since the moment of his imprisonment. I saw everything, but I was unable to speak, only an observer."
Dante's smile widened—a smile carrying many dark meanings—and he said, raising an eyebrow in admiration: "Impressive."
Arthur did not back down; he flew up to Dante's eye level and shouted: "Stop the riddles! Won't you tell us who you are?"
Dante answered him calmly: "I told you. I am the owner of this body."
Erold replied sharply: "Empty words... you have nothing but lies."
Dante fixed his deep gaze on Erold's eyes and asked him in a quiet voice: "Do you remember the day of your birth, you?"
Erold replied mockingly: "Of course not. Who remembers the day of their birth?"
Dante shook his head slowly to reply: "I remember it.. I remember every detail. I saw my mother's corpse, then blackness. I remained in that blackness until I was merged with it."
Erold ignored him and said: "What is this nonsense?"
Dante said with a terrifying calmness: "You know what? To hell with this! I have had enough talking."
Erold and Arthur felt tense. Dante lunged like a shadow emerging from nothingness. He delivered a heavy punch that shattered Erold's defenses and knocked him to the ground, his body slamming into the cold rocks of the cave. Arthur shouted: "You bastard!"
Arthur prepared to say: "Obey me, Ti—...me," but before he could finish, Dante placed his hand over Arthur's mouth and pointed his finger to his own lips in a shushing gesture, saying: "Shhh... shhh... boy, let us not make the situation more difficult than this."
Arthur looked into Dante's eyes. For the first time, he felt something: Internal Fear, as if Dante had manifested to be the terror inside Erold.
Erold stood up angrily, looking at Dante, only to see a light radiating from his chest—the Mark. Then Arthur and Dante vanished from before him.
Everything around Erold went still, but the true noise began inside. Dante was no longer standing before him; instead, he inhabited him. Erold's consciousness was shaken by Dante's voice, which slid like a snake through the coils of his mind—a cold voice dripping with poison: "Kill yourself. The world would be a purer place without a freak like you. You are nothing but an error in the records of existence, so do the last favor.. and end your life."
Erold clutched his head with both hands, trying to silence that voice that had begun to gnaw at his will, only to be surprised by a real voice coming from behind the wooden door: "Erold!"
The voice drew closer and turned out to be Luce. Luce entered the room and said: "There you are!"
The door opened, and Luce entered with his quiet, balanced steps. Luce froze in his place seeing Erold kneeling on the ground, his clothes torn, and his face bearing the marks of blue bruises as if he had fought a fierce battle with an invisible opponent. He asked him with surprise mixed with suspicion: "What happened to you? Did someone attack you?"
Erold wiped the blood from his lip and tried to stand heavily while drawing a false and exhausted smile, answering in a tone he tried to make natural: "No, no. I was talking to Arthur and we fought a little. What are you doing here?"
Luce replied: "I was wandering around, and on my way back I found you entering the cave, so I followed you so that what happened with that Jinn wouldn't repeat."
Erold's strength collapsed under the weight of the violent internal conflict, and he fell to his knees on the cold cave rocks, while the echo of Dante's angry shouting rang in his skull like a storm, trying to break his will. But in the middle of that blackness, Luce's voice was the only rope tying him to reality.
Luce leaned down calmly and extended his palm toward Erold—that hand which began to look to Erold like the only harbor amidst the waves of madness hitting him. Luce said in a warm and steady tone: "Come on, Erold.. let's go back. There is no time to stop here. There is a nearby city where we can take to the sea to head North."
Erold raised his head and looked at Luce's outstretched hand. At that moment, Dante's voice dimmed a little. Erold gripped his hand, leaned on him to stand, and said in a shaky voice filled with gratitude: "Thank you, Luce."
Luce smiled a tender, brotherly smile and said, patting his shoulder: "No need for that. We are friends, Erold."
Erold smiled sincerely for the first time since meeting Dante, and felt a sense of tranquility returning to his heart: "You're right. Let's go."
Erold and Luce returned to the camp with heavy steps. While Erold's body walked on the ground, his mind was drowned in calling that friend hidden in his depths. Erold called anxiously for Arthur, only to hear a faint voice—Arthur's voice saying: "Don't worry, he can't touch me here. There is a barrier between us." Erold felt relieved.
Erold breathed a sigh of relief, but that reassurance was an external crust hiding a greater disturbance behind it. As soon as they arrived, Luce retreated to his tent weighed down by fatigue, while Erold fell onto his back, letting his eyes travel through the night sky. He closed his eyes to find himself between two sides: a radiant side and a dark side.
The place was divided with terrifying precision into two halves: the right side was overflowing with warm white light, a light like the true dawn, and there Arthur stood in his familiar form. The left side was the embodiment of absolute blackness, but it wasn't completely dark; rather, it was a deep blackness studded with cold bright points, like distant stars in deep space. In the heart of this beautiful and frightening void sat Dante.
Erold was stunned, his gaze moving between the radiance and the darkness, muttering in amazement: "What the hell is this?"
Arthur shouted tearfully, hugging Erold and crying: "Erold! How are you going to keep me with this lunatic? Please don't leave me, Erold!"
Erold looked at Dante in wonder: "Can he not cross over here?"
Arthur said tensely: "He tried, but he can't. I don't know why."
Dante looked at them with disdain, then turned away and immersed himself in the darkness. Erold headed toward him and called: "Dante! Let's talk."
Dante stopped for a second, and with a condescending flick of his hand, he waved in the air without turning back, and said in a tone as sharp as a sword: "Get out of my sight."
At that moment, Erold felt a massive surge of energy ejecting him from the depths of his own self, as if his body had spat him out. Erold jerked awake in reality, opening his eyes in terror, shouting madly amidst the camp's quiet: "You bastard, let us talk!"
A heavy silence prevailed throughout the camp, and nothing broke the stillness of the night except Erold's rapid breathing. Cold sweat covered his forehead, and his heart beat violently in his chest. Arthur's voice came from within, calm this time: "Don't mind him. You have drained your energy enough today. Go to sleep, Erold."
Erold relaxed his tense shoulders, wiped his face with his hand, and exhaled a long breath that let out all the tension from his lungs: "Yeah, you're right."
Erold headed to his bed and lay down, finally closing his eyes, letting the light and darkness clash behind his eyelids.
Before sunrise, Jasmin woke up full of energy. She came out of her tent to look at Gilgamesh sleeping before the fire, which had become ash, without a cover. She went to get a blanket to place over him while he slept.
Then Jasmin went to prepare breakfast; she found nothing but fish. With disgust, she said: "Fish for breakfast?! This reminds me of Mr. Karai!" Then she smiled and said: "For your sake, Mr. Karai, I will prepare the fish."
Jasmin prepared the grilled fish. Erold and Argus woke up to the smell of fish. Argus ran out of the tent quickly: "Where is the breakfast?"
While Erold followed him quietly, saying: "Calm down, buddy, each of us has his share."
Jasmin replied, carefully flipping the fish over the embers: "Don't get too excited, Argus, we don't have much."
Erold ran toward the food, while Jasmin took half a fish and went to Gilgamesh to wake him up, saying: "Mr. Gilgamesh, wake up."
He opened his eyes for his gaze to blend with the sun, and sat up to find himself covered. He said: "Where did you get this from?"
Jasmin smiled and replied: "I am the one who placed it on you, sir." She handed the plate to him immediately and said: "Breakfast."
Gilgamesh took the plate, and Jasmin turned to leave, but he said: "Wait a moment." Jasmin was afraid. Gilgamesh said in a low voice: "Don't say 'sir,' just call me Gilgamesh."
Jasmin smiled: "Alright, Gilgamesh."
Jasmin went to wake up Luce, saying to herself: "If he doesn't wake up, there won't be anything left for him." Jasmin entered the tent to find Luce drowned in deep sleep, as if the noise of the world outside did not concern him, and she shouted at the top of her lungs: "Luuuuce! Wake up, breakfast!"
Luce stirred in his bed, and with a voice overcome by sleepiness and absence from reality, he whispered while his eyes were still closed: "Not now, little angel, I don't want to go."
Jasmin froze in her place, her cheeks flushing with sudden embarrassment. She slapped the air and said in a shy voice: "I will bring the food here for you."
Jasmin emerged from the tent like a hurricane and headed straight toward Argus and Erold, who were eating with unparalleled voracity. With a swift and sudden move, she reached out amidst their shock and snatched a whole fish from before them. The two stopped chewing and shouted in unison, shock filling their faces: "Give it back! That's our share! There's none left!"
Jasmin turned to them, her eyes sparking with rage, and shouted at them with a voice that shook the place: "Shut up, you bastards! This is for Luce, and none of you will dare touch it!"
Argus wiped his mouth with his hand and asked in a tone filled with jealousy and protest: "And why this special treatment for Luce?"
Jasmin replied angrily: "He described me as a little angel! As for you two... you are only good at calling me a shrunken demon every time you see me! So, die of hunger!"
Argus tried to salvage the situation, changing his tone to a forced gentleness that ill-befitted him, and drew a miserable smile on his face as he extended his hand: "Can I have it, oh angel?"
Jasmin turned to him, drew a wide smile on her face, and made a childish sound: "Hehehe," and suddenly, her face turned into absolute coldness like ice and she said one word: "No."
She went to give the breakfast to Luce. At that time, Gilgamesh stood up to say: "Come on, finish your food. We must head to the city; it is about two hours away at your speed."
Jasmin stopped moving and tilted her head curiously, asking: "And at your speed, Gilgamesh, how long would it be?"
Gilgamesh looked toward the distant horizon and answered in a deep, confident voice that did not hesitate for a moment: "Ten minutes."
The silence of the camp was split by the sound of a gasp coming from inside the tent, and Luce came out quickly while still trying to process what he heard, his eyes wide with a shock the team had never seen on him before, and cried out in shock: "Impossible!"
Amidst everyone's shock, Erold said: "Whoa! It's the first time I've seen Luce this surprised!"
Luce replied quietly: "Of course, because this is illogical."
Gilgamesh looked Luce in the eye and said: "Since when has there been anything logical in this world? Besides, I don't have to prove to any of you what I am capable of doing."
Everyone felt tense, even Utma, who was eating grass, stopped eating, surprised, staring silently as if he understood the situation. Argus stood up and said: "Calm down! Calm down, buddy, we didn't want a fight between us."
Luce retreated with dignity and said in a sincere apologetic tone: "Forgive me, Your Highness, I didn't mean to belittle you."
Gilgamesh walked off, crossing his arms, and said: "Come on, I will wait for you ahead."
Jasmin shouted to move everyone from their daze: "Let's go guys! Let's pack our things and move!" Everyone began loading the luggage onto Utma's back to all move out.
After an hour of exhausting walking under a sun that had begun to intensify, Jasmin leaned toward Erold and asked him in a low voice filled with curiosity: "Do you think he can get there in ten minutes?"
Erold replied: "From his reputation and what I see from him, there is a great power coming out of him that he is trying to suppress. So yes, I think he can."
Jasmin's eyes widened in amazement: "Waaah! Is there anyone that strong?"
Erold's mind drifted far away, and the phantom of Ashura passed before his eyes; that power which cannot be described in words, and which makes even storms bow before it. He answered in a mysterious tone: "Yes, and perhaps stronger."
Silence prevailed for a while, broken only by the sound of their footsteps on the dirt road. Suddenly, Jasmin turned to him and asked with clever curiosity: "True, where did you go yesterday, Erold?"
Erold picked up Jasmin and placed her on his shoulder and began telling her what happened with Dante—about the Prince who claims his body, and about the confrontation. Jasmin gasped while clinging to his shoulder and said emotionally: "My God, it's as if there's a war inside you."
Erold nodded heavily and replied in a shaky voice: "In truth, yes. Arthur and Dante are fighting all the time, but there is something that has changed in Arthur."
Jasmin: "He has found another rival, right?"
Erold shook his head in confusion: "I don't know."
Gilgamesh said loudly: "We are approaching the city."
Erold moved forward and said to Jasmin: "We will continue the conversation later," and placed her on Utma's back.
After half an hour, Gilgamesh said that the city was after this slope.
The scene was revealed before them after crossing the slopes: the city was a quiet haven on the edge of the sea, as if it were born from the womb of nature. No walls or towers surrounded it; instead, it was embraced by thick green meadows that stretched endlessly, embraced by swaying palm trees waving their branches with every breeze.
The houses here were simple, made of white wood bleached by sea salt and carefully woven palm fronds, giving them a warm scent of wood, smoke, and salt. The roads were not paved, but paths of clean golden sand leading directly to the beach. In every corner, you could see wild flowers blooming in bright colors, as if refusing to submit to the barrenness of life.
As for the inhabitants, they were like part of this peaceful scene, wearing simple robes in the colors of the earth and sea, their faces carrying the wrinkles of wisdom and contentment. Their eyes were characterized by a strange calmness...