[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Outskirts]

Echidna's shock did not come from the landscape ruined around her.

Yes, the plains had been crushed flat into a scarred land. Yes, enormous trenches split the earth. Yes, hills collapsed in the distance, and the trembling quake still pulsed faintly beneath her coils.

But she had witnessed devastation far greater in her lifetime. This was tame in comparison.

What unsettled her wasn't the destruction.

It was who had caused it.

Her serpentine lower body rose slowly from the dust, muscles rolling beneath regrowing scales. Her humanoid torso lifted, cracked skin knitting, blood vanishing from wounds that sealed themselves with a small shimmer.

She exhaled once, steadying herself—and turned her gaze to the one responsible.

The human.

Dante stood amid the ruin he'd carved open, his silhouette still spattered with beast-blood. He had not even brushed it off. The long coat draped from his shoulders fluttered in the heated air. Violet lenses glinted coldly, unreadable as ever.

A human had done all of this.

Not with magic, and not with a special artifact either.

Just strength.

Her brows lowered, her tongue clicking softly.

("I know how the blessings of the Gods function in this realm… they grant strength, yes—but on this scale?") Even the divine hosts she had encountered in older eras could not cause so much devastation so easily. Something was off.

Her eyes turned to the corpses of her Deseruit Beasts—the thousands who had thrown themselves willingly between her and the approaching threat. Their lives were her responsibility. Their deaths always stung, no matter how ancient she grew.

Her chest tightened faintly.

("You all stay away.") The mental order pulsed outward.

It reached them—those still alive, those still watching from deeper shadowed pockets of the plains. She felt their agitation, their instinctive need to protect her, but her command settled over them firmly.

Still, she hated giving that order.

A Mother asking her children not to die for her. To not protect her. Painful and repetitive.

Meanwhile Dante came to a stop, stepping over shattered debris as though none of it mattered.

("As expected… even catching her off guard does little.") His thoughts were unhurried. ("The strike achieved its purpose—clearing the field. Forcing her to act more serious. Now… the real test begins.")

He knew the danger. He understood what happened if she fully tapped into the body she inhabited. A God's vessel. A God's mana. A God's reservoir of spells.

If he wanted to exhaust her, he needed her to expend that mana.

And that meant forcing escalation.

Echidna watched him approach with that same unshaken calm. A small laugh escaped her.

("He's no ordinary human. I admit that much.") Her eyes narrowed slightly. ("But he still only has—")

"Raw strength to rely on," Dante said, finishing her thought with unsettling precision.

She blinked, surprised he had spoken the words aloud—more so that he'd spoken her words.

"Would I be wrong?" she replied, tilting her head as her arms crossed leisurely. "Strength has limits. All things do. And while you've impressed me, pleasantly even… my point remains. Walls exist for a reason, human."

"Perhaps," Dante said calmly, "my strength has a limit. But if so… then a limit is merely another wall I will tear through."

His tone was not arrogant. Nor was it boastful or raised.

Echidna chuckled softly. "A brutish philosophy—but a strangely charming one. I don't dislike it." Her arms spread. "Very well. My children of this realm shall not interfere. Their devotion is admirable—but unnecessary for this stage."

The air thickened abruptly.

Two blinding emerald lights manifested before her, pulsing in heavy thuds like hearts beating outside a chest. Their glow stretched across the fractured plains, painting every broken stone, every splatter of blood, in a green so vivid it seemed alive.

The lights shifted, molding and taking form.

The radiance peeled away like shedding skin, revealing two towering silhouettes.

The first—

A colossal hound, pitch black, its fur streaked with red-pulsing runes. A serpent's tail lashed behind it. Two heads—both snarling, both dripping saliva that steamed upon hitting the ground—locked onto Dante with vicious singularity.

The second—

An amalgamation. A lion's massive, snowy-white body formed the base, muscles coiling beneath its pristine mane. From its back rose the upper body of a soot-black goat, head twisting with malice. And curling behind them was a serpent tail of emerald scales, tongue flicking in and out.

"Orthrus and Chimera," Echidna murmured softly. "Not the originals, no… but every bit as powerful."

The monsters stepped forward, placing themselves between Dante and their mother. The ground trembled beneath their weight.

("Instant birthing…") Dante noted, stance shifting slightly, helm tilting ever so faintly as he assessed.

("But born from mana. Divine mana. This bodes ill if her reserves are deeper than expected.")

Echidna's smile sharpened.

"Now then—my children," she said, her voice warm in a way that contrasted chillingly with the devastation around them. "Keep the pesky human busy for a moment. I will bring forth your siblings shortly."

Both beasts lowered into stances.

Orthrus's massive frame tightened, muscles rippling beneath fur as thin arcs of red lightning crawled across his body, igniting the runes etched across his hide. At first the glow was faint then it surged violently, blooming into an intense blaze.

There was barely time for breath.

With a deafening crack, Orthrus vanished—not in blur, but in a raw streak of lightning, as though his entire mass had folded into a spear of red energy. The air behind his launch imploded in a violent pop.

Dante shifted, weight sliding across fractured earth.

The beast reappeared behind him—two snarling maws splitting open, both sets of teeth wide enough to crush a boulder. One head lunged.

Dante's heel was already rising.

His kick snapped through the air with a concussive clap, connecting with the creature's jaw. The force sent Orthrus's huge body spiraling away, carving a long, gouged trail into what remained of the plains. The ground peeled away.

But Chimera did not wait.

The lion head lunged first, fangs glistening, its breath hot. The goat head shrieked, twisting unnaturally to snap from above; the emerald serpent tail hissed violently, coiling for a strike.

Dante stepped forward meeting the lion's jaws.

Both his hands clamped on either side of the open mouth. His palms pressed into thick muscle and bone, his grip immovable as he halted the monster mid-lunge. The Chimera pushed with all its unnatural weight, claws digging trenches into the broken ground.

Dante didn't move an inch.

"Persistent," he muttered, as if commenting on a mild inconvenience. Chimera snarled louder, taking offense. "Save your outrage," Dante added calmly, tightening his grip. "It does not change what comes next."

With a flex of his arms, he lifted the entire beast—lion body, goat torso, snake tail—all of it wrenching free of the earth with a violent, scrabbling tear. Using the gathered momentum, he pivoted and hurled Chimera like a battering ram straight toward Orthrus, who was still skidding through dust.

The two giant forms collided with a bone-shaking impact, kicking up a cloud of debris.

Echidna raised a brow. "Brutish," she murmured.

Dante ignored her entirely.

His attention remained fixed on the two monsters struggling to reorient themselves within the settling dust cloud.

("Good,") he thought. ("If she births more, she'll burn through mana faster. If she doesn't, these two won't pose enough threat to push her into high-tier spells.")

His boots ground into the cracked earth as he launched forward.

Not toward Echidna—who watched him leave with slight confusion—but after the recovering Orthrus and Chimera.

Echidna blinked once, then huffed a small laugh.

"Oh? Ignoring me now?" she said aloud, voice lilting with curiosity. "Is that how you intend to coax me into revealing more?" She leaned forward slightly, as if studying him from afar. "Or do you simply enjoy throwing yourself at my children?"

But Dante didn't spare her a look. He accelerated, each step collapsing the terrain beneath him, until he was a streak aimed directly at the regrouping monsters.

The dust parted as Orthrus rose, both heads snarling in unison, lightning crackling once more across its fur. Chimera shook itself free of rubble, its lion maw growling while the goat head lowered in preparation.

Dante slid to a halt just meters away.

Chimera inhaled—its lion jaws prying open with a bone-deep creak, tendons pulling—right before a column of fire roared outwards. It was not flame so much as a moving wall of heat, a furnace-burst that carved a blistering channel through the shattered plains. The air warped as the shockwave kicked up scorched dust that shot past.

Dante didn't move.

The inferno swallowed him whole.

Flames folded around his silhouette, a blazing cocoon that should have incinerated his coat, his gauntlets, his very flesh—but the fire passed over him like spilled water. His outline remained unchanged. The heat died against him.

Chimera did not wait to be disappointed.

The goat head upon its back arched skyward, throat pulsating, eyes glowing a feverish red before it released a guttural screech. The clouds above—already torn apart by Dante's earlier blow—shuddered and reformed into a dense spiral. Lightning crawled through them like veins.

A spear-thick bolt tore downward.

It struck Dante dead center.

A sound like a large cannon firing rang out, deafening and seemingly unending. Dirt and smoke plumed outward from the blast point. For several heartbeats, Dante was lost in the storm—heat, electricity and debris boiling around him in a furious vortex.

Chimera's lion head snarled triumphantly, convinced.

The smoke abruptly thinned.

Dante was still uninjured.

A thin layer of ash slid from his coat as he brushed it with the back of one gauntlet.

Chimera did not have time to feel insulted as Dante moved.

To all their eye, the space between stillness and motion blurred. One heartbeat he was yards away; the next heartbeat, he was atop Chimera's back, landing with enough force to crater the monster's spine.

The goat head screeched in panic, twisting to bite him, but Dante's hand was already on it.

He grabbed it by the base of the throat.

And pulled.

Brutality unfolded as flesh tore. Bone cracked like thin branches. Muscle gave way under strength that simply refused resistance.

The goat's upper torso separated along a wet, splitting tear, its pitch-black flesh peeling like paper. The severed piece dangled for a fraction of a second before Dante flung it aside. It hit the ground with the weight of a tree, twitching.

The lion head bellowed in agony, its roar warped into a choking gargle. Its limbs buckled under the shock, claws shredding the ground in wild, instinctive panic.

The serpent tail lunged toward Dante's back, striking fast and desperately.

Dante caught it by the fangs.

His fingers sank into the snake's mouth, gripping the top and bottom jaw. A brief moment of silence—nothing but Chimera's tremors—hung between them.

Then Dante ripped.

The snake tail tore free with a sickening give. Vertebrae snapped. Green blood sprayed in an arc, flecking Dante's coat before steaming away on contact.

Chimera staggered, balance failing. Its lion head snapped at him in a final, wild attempt—but Dante was already shifting, already planting his feet, already drawing his right arm back in a compact motion.

He drove his gauntleted hand straight into its open maw.

Bone shattered.

His arm tore through palate, brain, and skull—bursting out the back of the lion head in an eruption of blood, bone shards, and fragments of flesh. The body convulsed around him.

Dante withdrew his arm and leapt backward as the monster collapsed—its three severed pieces crashing into the ruined ground.

He landed lightly.

Orthrus was already lunging, both heads foaming with rage.

Dante watched calmly, shifting his stance, not missing the intense emerald lights coming from Echidna as she created more of her children.

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