Chereads / Reborn As Dante / Chapter 38 - Heavy Handed Negotiations

Chapter 38 - Heavy Handed Negotiations

In an instant, alarms began blaring across the entire mega-structure of islands, countless troops began to file out of buildings, hundreds upon hundreds of genetically perfect clones, bred solely for warfare. If Dante were to find out they were clones, he would undoubtedly make an untimely Star Ears joke.

Confronted with a mass of bodies, no discernable beginning and end to them, Dante did what he did best. He started swinging, and he did not stop. Bodies upon bodies began to fall around him, missing limbs or simply bisected at the hip as he dodged and wove between hundreds of bullets aimed at him.

Eventually, Dante became sick of such treatment, and set forth his Summoned Swords in a grinding wheel, throwing it around him in a circular motion, turning any clone around him into half the man they were before.

As this happened, Dante kicked his foot down onto the ground, causing the platform as a whole to shake violently, sending several gunmen tumbling to the ground.

Finally, with the first wave of men dealt with, Dante set about walking further towards the central compound, having only just now passed the gates. Around him there was only slaughter, and the thick stench of blood would only grow as time drew on and more men hopelessly walked into his butchery.

While walking through the gate, Dante muttered something under his breath, chuckling slightly at his own words.

"The time has come, and so have I."

To punctuate his words, another onslaught of men and women of varying purpose within the Germa Military began a second assault. He dismissed the Devil Sword after seeing the next wave, array of spectral blades following suit as he did so.

As the soldiers began to rapidly approach him, Dante adjusted his gloves and summoned the Nevan into his arms, strumming the guitar and unleashing several bolts of lightning all around, jolting everything in his radius and frying any who seeked to harm him.

He mentally commanded the Devil Arm to alter itself to the scythe form, shifting his stance to compensate for such a change as he began to Trick across the battlefield tens of times a second.

With every re-emergence, blood was spilled, screams were heard and none could find a hint of Dante's location. He then began to teleport slowly, picking off the gunmen one by one as he shredded bodies with frightening speed.

Afterwards, Dante Tricked directly into the mass of combatants beneath him, holding Nevan outwards in his arm as he began to revolve in a circle continuously, meeting no resistance at all as his scythe decimated any and all who stood in his way.

He blinked, and there was nothing left. None stood around attempting to fight him, no men shot at him, nor did he see any coming towards him. Either he truly was playing some twisted wave based defense game with these soldiers and this was simply a 'break', or something was happening.

He was fine with either option, he thought to himself as he dismissed the Nevan and pushed his now crimson hair, bloodied to the roots, back so as to not have his vision blocked. Dante brushed the sleeves of his jacket and took stock of the scenery now.

If he were to muscle the Vinsmoke family into submission, this would sure as shit be a good show of power. Slaughtering several hundreds of men and women in a short period should frighten them at the very least.

He stopped. Something felt wrong. His Haki was alerting him that there were tens of life signals in his vicinity, yet he couldn't see any in his field of vision. He sighed, and wondered how long it would take for these people to stop throwing troops at him.

Clearly, this was a sorry attempt at some form of sneak attack. Dante summoned Beowulf onto his arms, and jumped up into the air momentarily, pushing all of his body weight into his arm as he slammed his gauntlet clad fist into the foundation, turning the stone platform to nothing more than a fine powder as it shattered entirely.

The people beneath the platform, who had planned to tilt it over and let Dante drown to exploit his supposed Devil Fruit weakness were left nothing more than bloody sacks of flesh, hopelessly floating in the water. Even the snail holding the platform was not saved.

He continued his calm stride towards the central building of this island, deciding to take a gamble. 'Can't be a war crime if you aren't at war', he told himself. Sound logic.

He dismissed the Beowulf and cupped his hands against his arms announcing for any in the vicinity to hear.

"I surrender! My body is exhausted, your military is far more powerful than I had thought! You have me beat!"

Of course, the plan didn't quite go how Dante expected. His idea was to bait a surrender and ruthlessly tear through those who came to capture him, however now he found himself face to face with many more men than he anticipated, and a much more important looking man behind the mass.

Green hair, an odd mix of jumpsuit and ninja suit, and a pair of curly eyebrow exposed to the world. Yup, he screamed 'important'. Had the same brow as Sanji too. Dante now had a new plan. Offer a chance to surrender, if not, decimate the opposition, capture Greenie and start some... biased negotiations.

────────────────────

He was growing bored of these endless masses of troops being thrown at him. They seemed to have some odd physical augmentation, an increased strength and speed. That was about it, really. No weapons given either. They seemed real disposable.

"You guys gonna get the memo and surrender already? Getting kinda bored here."

Greenie's impassive frown turned to a sneer within an instant, his eyes burning holes into Dante as he withheld himself from attacking the Red Devil directly.

"Unfortunately for you, the Germa Kingdom does not know surrender, nor does it know defeat. You simply sealed your fate today."

Greenie waved his hand, and once more Dante found himself surrounded by men who wanted nothing more than to see him dead, and being shot at continuously for his troubles. He sighed.

"Just don't say I didn't try."

And just like that, Dante reignited his growing blood feud with the Vinsmoke family, using nothing but his bare hands to violently obliterate anything that crossed his view.

────────────────────

AN:

Yup, its me, the author here. Shit is kinda getting real in my life right now, some uni exams that I gotta knuckle the fuck down and focus on if I want an actual career, all that jazz. Because of that, uploads originally were gonna slow down a hell of a lot, but I think I've come up with a plan.

I do want to keep doing this story, but spending an hour and a half every night before sleeping just writing it is fucking with me heavy, so I'm gonna try doing some shorter chapters for now, around half the usual, so ~1000 words.

Hopefully, this'll mean daily chapters. And 1000 words daily is more than 2000 every 4 days so technically I'm doing better off like this too, if all goes well that is.

We'll try this for a while and see how it plays out, if you don't like the short chapters and prefer some meat on your bones then we can see about finding some middle ground. If y'all like the short chapters then I ain't got much reason to go back to 2000 word averages.

Let me know how you feel, hell let me know damn near anything about the story, be it like or dislike. I just enjoy reading feedback, makes me happy knowing people even read it in the first place.

Speaking of which, thanks for reading in general. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far.

See you next chapter.