[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Outskirts]

He ripped and tore through them.

A wall of Deseruit Beasts stretched across the plains—thousands, perhaps more—standing in an almost protective formation around Echidna. Their shapes varied: lupinus shapes with too many eyes, hulking bear-shapes with veins glowing, chitinous creatures that were far too large. Together they formed a barricade, almost blotting out the plains.

But before Echidna, there was blood.

Thick, arterial blood sprayed upward in violent fountains, the sky momentarily becoming a blur of red. One beast burst apart. Then another. Then another. A rapid rhythm—burst, burst, burst—like someone was punching holes through the world.

Dozens detonated

then a hundred

then more.

Limbs, viscera, and chunks of flesh spiraled through the air like confetti. Something tore through her children with the inevitability of a natural catastrophe.

And that catastrophe edged closer.

Echidna's expression hardened—barely. A faint frown curved her lips, thoughtful rather than distressed.

("I suppose he would not be so brazen if he lacked true power.") Her tone in her own mind was almost bored. ("But confidence alone has never impressed me. I have yet to show him anything real.")

A geyser of blood erupted only a few paces from her, forcing her to turn her head.

And then she saw him.

Dante—once more in clear view—stood drenched in the gore of a Deseruit Beast he had just torn clean in half. His striking black attire was spattered with crimson, gold trims shining faintly beneath the mess. The long coat draped from his shoulders rippled with his movement, fur-lined edges stained red. Violet lenses of his helmet burned through the haze, fixed solely on her.

Yet his advance halted. A massive Deseruit Beast stepped between them, blocking Dante's view—its frame broad and its fur pitch black. Radiating violet runes pulsed across its hide.

Dante didn't hesitate.

He pivoted on his heel with precision and delivered a swift, brutal kick. His leg cut through the runed beast like parchment; the creature split cleanly into two halves. Then came the shockwave—rolling outward in a pulse that hurled several nearby beasts away in a storm of bodies and dust.

Dante turned back toward Echidna.

She smiled—slowly.

"Seems at the very least, you're not all talk—"

Her sentence snapped in half.

Dante vanished.

"What?" Echidna hissed. "Teleportation—?"

She didn't have time to finish the thought.

Pain lanced up her abdomen—white and blinding. A flash of black tore across her peripheral vision.

"What!?" Her head jerked violently to the side.

Dante streaked past her, his right arm buried deep through her stomach as if his limb were a sword. Her humanoid torso separated from her long serpentine lower body; the massive upper half crashed to the ground with a heavy, echoing thud as Dante landed several paces away.

Her lower body writhed grotesquely. Then the threads came—long, black and sinewy strands extending like tendrils from the severed lower half. They latched onto the upper body and pulled it back, reattaching with a wet, fleshy squelch.

Echidna exhaled sharply, eyes narrowing.

("What was that?") Her thoughts buzzed. ("I did not perceive him. Not even a flicker…")

Several Deseruit Beasts rushed to her front defensively—larger ones—but she barely noticed them. Her gaze remained fixed on Dante, his form drenched in blood that belonged to everything but him.

("I've simply grown sluggish…") Her lips curled downward as she reasoned. ("Yes… the cavern made me complacent. I won't allow it to happen again.")

Dante's voice cut into the air, unhurried.

"As a monster born beyond these realms, I imagine you are accustomed to a different reservoir of power." He flicked blood from his gauntlet with an almost absent gesture. "Here, the rules are… different."

Echidna's brows lowered, but she allowed him to speak.

"All Gods of the nine realms exert authority through their core concepts," Dante continued. His tone was almost instructional, though not condescending. "Along with this, they circulate refined mana. What mortals call divine mana."

Echidna rolled her eyes. "Is there a point to your little lecture? Or do you simply enjoy hearing yourself speak while soaked in my children's blood?"

Dante tilted his head, violet lenses unblinking.

"You're inhabiting a God's body as the basis of your existence. Because of this, divine mana has become your substitute for sustenance. Your wellspring." A pause. "Vast, yes. But not infinite."

She blinked. Slowly.

Seconds dipped by.

Then she scoffed and let out a humorless laugh—sharp and echoing across the gore-soaked field.

"Oh, I see." She leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing with a predator's smile. "You think you can outlast me. Drain me to the point I cannot regenerate."

"It is possible," Dante replied simply.

The bluntness twitched one of her eyes.

But she recomposed herself instantly.

"Talk is cheap, human." Her arms folded beneath her chest, serpentine tail curling behind her. "From what I observe, your mana is pitiful. And you've yet to use a single spell." Her smirk sharpened. "You tore through my offspring with brute strength alone. That is impressive, yes, but…"

More Deseruit Beasts crawled around—some smaller, some malformed, some more feral. The ground vibrated with their arrival.

Echidna gestured to them with a slight tilt of her head.

"Raw strength has limits. It is barbaric, crude—versatile only in its simplicity." She leaned closer, voice dropping, thick with condescension and growing malice. "You cannot win this, human. You will break long before I falter So no matter how sharpened your resolve may be, it cannot match the ingenuity of a Mother whose children number in the thousands."

Dante stood silent, violet lenses fixed on her. Not a twitch or response.

Echidna folded her arms beneath her human torso, leaning forward slightly, her serpentine tail coiling with agitation. "Say something. Defend yourself. Are you so stunned that you've reached the limits of your bravado?" She scoffed. "Your silence grows tedious."

But Dante did not speak. He did not rise to her bait. He merely studied her.

Inside his helm, his thoughts sparked.

("Injury alone will not exhaust her. She regenerates too efficiently. Regeneration as a mechanic. A function with a cost. And cost can be forced. But not like this. I must press her. Make her respond.")

Echidna's irritation finally cracked into confusion as Dante calmly shifted his stance—placing his right foot forward, shoulders turning, posture loosening in increments as though preparing for an opponent directly in front of him.

Yet… he was nowhere near her.

Her brows lifted. "…What exactly are you doing?" she asked, voice thinning with bewilderment. "You are preparing a strike from that distance?"

The violet lenses in Dante's helm angled slightly down, as though considering the space between them, then lifted again—directly at her.

"I do not require proximity," he said at last, his voice controlled. "Nor do I require acknowledgment from you."

Echidna blinked, confused that he'd chosen that moment to speak.

"You—"

But Dante was already drawing his arm back.

The air tightened—subtle at first, then violently. A sound like the world inhaling echoed through the plains. Dust shivered. The ground trembled. Even the Deseruit Beasts, in all their hunger and fury, sensed something too vast for instinct to fully comprehend. They hesitated, ears flat, bodies lowering, tails stiff.

Echidna felt an unfamiliar ripple crawl along her spine—unease.

("What is he—?")

Dante struck. There was no flourish or roar, just a single, brutal punch thrown forward.

The sound that tore across the plains did not resemble wind, nor thunder, nor any natural force. It was a rupture—the violent shattering of air meeting a pressure it could not contain.

A shockwave tore across the plains—violent and concussive, a wall of destruction that devoured everything in its path.

The first line of Deseruit Beasts was gone instantly. Not thrown or merely knocked aside. They were disassembled. Their bodies burst apart under the force—skin peeling like paper, bone fracturing into white dust, organs liquefying into streaks of red vapor.

The second and third lines were lifted off the ground, bodies twisting as if caught in the mouth of an invisible monster. Their limbs snapped backward, spines torn clean in half before their torsos detonated in mid-air. Blood sprayed in colossal sheets, turning the air into a red rain.

Hundreds died in a blink.

Thousands in the next.

Rows upon rows of Deseruit Beasts—charging, snarling, advancing with feral unity—were swallowed by the wave. Their wings snapped like twigs; their scaled hides ruptured under the crushing pressure. Some beasts were shredded into ribbons of flesh; others simply folded in on themselves before exploding into clouds of red mist and black ash.

The ground beneath them fared no better.

The force traveled in a widening arc, ripping trenches into the land so deep they exposed the dark stone layers beneath the planets surface. The plains buckled, a long, thunderous crack ripping open beneath the shockwave. Great slabs of earth split apart, some plates rising as if punched upward from below. Others sank, collapsing into ravines littered with the torn remains of beasts who had been caught mid-stride.

Dirt shot skyward in violent eruptions as fissures expanded with a deep, resonant groan that vibrated through the entire area.

Echidna barely had time to react.

The shockwave reached her with its full, devastating force.

Her serpentine body lifted off the ground and she was hurled backward like a ragdoll through a storm. The air pressure alone tore several scales from her tail, sending them spinning like shards. Her upper body twisted, eyes wide, her breath punched out of her.

Behind her, another violent quake followed in the shockwave's wake—an aftershock born of nothing but the raw force of Dante's single strike.

Thunder rolled from the ground, not the sky.

The ground convulsed, a violent shudder so intense that boulders split apart and the terrain reshaped itself. The earth heaved in massive waves, like an ocean. The very plains seemed to howl as they collapsed under the stress of the strike.

When the wave finally dissipated, the plains were unrecognizable.

Entire sections of the plains were gouged out, transformed into trenches so deep they vanished into darkness. Hills had been flattened. Valleys had been born. And the Deseruit Beasts—once numbering in the thousands—were now nothing more than scattered gore and broken anatomy strewn across a broken landscape.

Echidna rolled across the ruined terrain, coughing blood, her body streaked with dust and torn scales. She stared up at bloodied figure in disbelief.

He lowered his arm slowly.

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