"Why did you kill the Throne Vine?"
Why couldn't he kill one? Dimitri looked at Eris in doubt. She wanted to facepalm if not for the looming movement sounds.
The vines came in waves.
One moment, silence.
The next—hissing, rustling, snapping from all sides. The walls groaned, stones trembling under the onslaught. Shadows surged beneath the ruins, dozens—no, hundreds of slithering, coiling, hungry Throne Vines closing in.
"Move!" Eris screamed, dragging Dimitri with one hand while signaling her brothers with the other. Darvin and Lux bolted behind her, the chubby boy wheezing in panic.
Dimitri didn't resist, though his gaze flickered over his shoulder at the crawling darkness. The hum in his blood turned deafening. A thousand warning pulses, like alarms in his bones.
But he didn't feel fear.
He felt… an opportunity. His fingers twitched. His three cards shimmered faintly in his hand.
"Don't even think about you can fight them," Eris warned. "They are parts of the Great Parasitic Throne. If their main body is here, we are done for…"
Parasitic Throne was a last stage Feral. There was rumours that it had total five Violet rings. What kind of godlike existence was that? Eris shivered.
Her brother only had two violet rings and he already became Overlord in Westward Ruins. This was the monster even her brother couldn't fight.
While Eris was searching for a way to escape, Dimitri gazed back in yearning. What kind of card would he unlock if he just… died again?
'Perhaps dying constantly may have side effects.'
But.
One more death never hurt, right? One more gruesome death was all he needed. Trapped and shredded by vines, or eaten by their roots sounded promising for him to get a card like Iron Binding Veins or Crimson Chain Roots.
Perfect. His eyes brightened as the vines appeared in his sight. The ruin was perfect for their slithering, but for humans to run in….well, hands down. It wasn't a great choice.
And humans could only run.
"Guys," Dimitri said, pulling his hand from Eris's grip, "go ahead without me."
So that he could die peacefully. Other people knowing he could return from death was not something he wanted to happen.
"What the hell are you saying?" Eris turned sharply, eyes wide. The path they were running now reached a huge hall.
There was only a small opening above the roof. If someone stopped the vines for a few minutes, three of them could escape.
That meant one had to stay behind, making sure none of the vines caught them escaping.
"I'll hold them off," he said calmly. "I'm the strongest here, right?"
Despite Dimitri acting calm, his mind was nowhere near that emotion. He was practically cursing for the trio to leave him quickly.
'Just leave please…' he screamed in his mind. Sadly, his actions seemed to be created a misunderstanding among the trio.
"You're really gonna sacrifice yourself…?" Lux froze, his eyes moistening as he stared at Dimitri.
"Even after we treated you like a monster..?" Darvin gasped with tears streaming down his face.
Dimitri blinked. Wait, what?
"No, that's not what—"
"You're a hero," Lux sobbed, grabbing his arm. "I take back everything I said about you being a blood-sucking demon."
"Blood-sucking demon? Y-you—"
"Bro…" Darvin suddenly lunged into him with a hug. "I never saw someone benevolent like you. May your corpse…"
"Shut up." Eris suddenly pulled the two clingy boys from Dimitri. She sharply glared at him. "You are too young to make that decision."
"I am twelve… TWELVE."
"That's young…" the trio spoke at the same time. Dimitri looked at them, then to the appearing barrage of vines, then back at them.
"Do you guys want to die?"
"Obviously not," the trio shouted again. Dimitri rubbed his forehead in headache.
"Then run away while I hold them back."
"T-that… that can't be. There h-has to be another way." Eris bit her lips with a struggling expression. "How about we fight together?"
No way. He didn't want them to find out about his secrets. And he absolutely didn't want any of them to die.
Unlike him, they had no death cheat. He cried without tears seeing their misunderstandings. It's not that he was sacrificing himself to save them.
He was just trying to obtain new cards, and thus increase his strength further.
"There is no other way," Dimitri muttered, annoyed. "Let me die…"
"WE WON'T LET YOU DIE!" the three shouted at once, voices layered with raw emotion.
Dimitri stared at them like they'd all grown horns.
"Can't an independent person decide when to die? Am I in a fascist world?"
"Face… what?"
"I meant let me die, please…"
But it was too late. The vines had reached a few feet before them. They rose into full height. If not for the obvious wooden patterns, they appeared to be a thousand-headed snake.
Not only that…
More and more slithering sounds arrived from every part of the room, hammering down the fate of the group.
They burst through the stone like spears, snapping down in curved arcs, striking with blinding speeds. Eris flung up her arm, a red card materialising before her as a cage of metal surrounded them.
It couldn't block the vines from attacking them, but it limited the number of vines that could strike at once. Darvin took a knife out of his pocket and started to cut down the vine that came his way.
Lux was more noisy, as countless sharp metals shot from him, severing the vines attacking him. Dimitri was protected by the trio, not allowed to move, so he could only watch his card-donators dying in pained heart.
However, this wasn't going to last long as he saw cracks starting to appear in the cage.
"How long can they last?" he asked.
"Fifty seconds…"
Every card had different and unique ways of activation. Dimitri's cards allowed him to instantly activate from the deck, while Eris had to take them out of her deck.
His cards were called Instant Cards and her was called Summon Cards. While Instant Cards used essence stored inside the body, making them activate until one's essence ran out, Summon Cards absorbed essences from the air, making them last as long as there was a constant supply of essence.
The downside of them was, like what was happening now, outside forces could impact the application of the card.
Dimitri stretched his limbs. He merely glanced at the trio, then took a step forward. His entire body turned to blood. Because of five times more blood, they were huge enough to fill the floor of the cage.
Then he activated 'Blood Arc', severing the vines surrounding the cage. And then activated 'Vicious Maw'…
Countless mouths suddenly appeared around the cage, creeping out the trio, all while devouring the sweeties around.
'Ah… it's so fun…'