[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Outskirts]

("Not long now…")

The thought surfaced with calmness rather than hope.

Dante leaped back just as one of Cerberus's separated bodies threw its head skyward and howled. Black flames erupted from its jaws, a violent surge that tore across the ground toward him. The fire did not merely scorch—it liquefied stone, leaving the earth sagging and bubbling in its wake. Dante twisted aside at the last instant, coat flaring with the motion as heat washed past him.

The flaming hound charged immediately after its attack, jaws snapping savagely. Dante shifted again, narrowly avoiding the bite as it tore through empty air. Pain flared violently through his mangled left arm—white-hot and immediate—but he dismissed it without ceremony. Pain was noise. He had long since learned to fight through noise.

Another presence pressed in.

He ducked on instinct as a black bolt of lightning screamed overhead, the discharge detonating against the plains with a thunderous burst. The impact sent broken stone flying. Without pausing to assess the damage, Dante sprang upward, flipping backward just as a wave of ice surged outward and encased the ground where he had stood a heartbeat earlier.

Cold snapped through the air.

The three separated forms of Cerberus slowed, spreading out as they began to circle him. Their movements were more measured. As if they were hunting prey.

Dante exhaled quietly.

("In the state I am in, hoping to do any meaningful damage is asking too much…")

That truth settled easily in his mind. His injuries were numerous. His left arm was useless weight at his side. Venom still burned through his veins, potent and insidious, gnawing at his system. Yet the injuries themselves did not concern him. Injuries only mattered when one yielded to pain.

And Dante never yielded to pain.

The venom was the real problem.

("My body is in the process of adapting…") he noted, focus sharpening inward even as his eyes tracked movement. ("It should not be long now… however—")

His violet lenses shifted toward the periphery.

He felt it.

Mana thickening.

Echidna.

She was preparing something.

No doubt she had realized he was stalling—or worse, that he was waiting. Dante did not slow his breathing as the realization settled.

("Does she intend to use magic?") His thoughts raced. ("She's using the body of a Goddess to maintain her form. That grants her access to Resonantia-tier magic under the Lex Caelorum.")

A dangerous escalation.

("A tier aligned with the Arbor Astrigaudium… potent enough to extend beyond the nine realms themselves.")

His lenses narrowed.

("But spells of that level are taxing—even for Gods. Ordinarily, they rely on their concepts instead.")

The thought had barely finished forming when the plains shifted.

The three Cerberus forms suddenly leapt back, retreating in unison. At the same moment, the fluctuation in Echidna's mana ceased—abrupt and clean, as though cut short.

Dante's head snapped toward her position.

("Wait… could she be—")

Something hit him.

Not struck but engulfed.

The impact was immense. The ground cracked beneath his feet as something massive collided with him, stealing his balance and crushing the air from his lungs. For a split second it felt solid and unyielding but then it wasn't.

It surrounded him.

His right arm came up instinctively, bracing in front of his face as pressure closed in from all sides. Breathing became difficult, then impossible. Something filled his mouth—salty and thick.

Water.

Sea water.

"Blrgh—!" The sound tore out of him, garbled and useless, as his vision adjusted to the distortion around him. A vast volume of water had materialized, swallowing him whole.

He did not question how.

Instead, he reacted.

Before the current could drag him fully under, Dante bent his legs, muscles coiling tightly. With a violent burst of force, he launched upward, his movement tearing through the water. For a brief instant, the liquid parted around him before crashing back together.

He burst free into the open air, sailing upward through the sky.

Midflight, he looked down.

An immense wave tore across the plains below, carving through the land with intensity. Debris—stone, ice, remnants of the plains—was swept up and carried along as though insignificant.

Gravity reclaimed him moments later. He struck the ground hard, rolling once before stopping. Water poured from his armor and hair, soaking the earth beneath him.

He rose immediately.

("That was no magic… no.")

The sensation lingered in his bones.

("That power…")

Recognition set in, unwelcome and sharp.

("Arielle?")

His gaze swept the plains, quickly finding Echidna's towering form—and beside her, Cerberus, now whole once more, standing at her side.

"My, my," Echidna mused, flexing her fingers slowly as she regarded her own hand. "I can see why Poseidon held such authority. Commanding the sea… it's intoxicating."

Dante straightened fully.

("So that's it.")

Understanding clicked into place.

("The God's body she's using is… the Goddess of the depths, sea, and freedom.")

A pause.

("The Goddess Arielle.")

"Tsk," Echidna continued lightly, her lips curling into a faint scowl. "Suppose that wouldn't kill you. Terribly sloppy of me." She glanced toward him. "This little Goddess was so quiet. I had hoped not to resort to using her power—but with my mana stretched thin, I've little choice."

Dante remained silent.

("I see.") His thoughts sharpened. ("Using Arielle's power interferes with Echidna's control.")

A dangerous trade-off.

("It means the Goddess still retains some awareness…")

And worse—

("Killing Echidna might kill her as well.")

His stance did not change.

("Hmph. It matters little.") His resolve hardened. ("Arielle was among the Gods who sanctioned the Great War.")

No sympathy stirred.

("She'll get none from me.")

"I cannot see your expression," Echidna said thoughtfully, tilting her head. "But I imagine you're shaken. At least a little. Please tell me you are."

"Hmph."

"Tch." Echidna clicked her tongue. "Come now, human. I invoked the power of a God. Are you not impressed?"

Silence.

"Are you not awed?" she pressed. "Is your faith not even slightly disturbed?"

Dante's voice was level when he answered. "Worshipping those you believe above yourself is a useless gesture." Echidna blinked once. "I've no love for the Gods," Dante continued. "Nor do I believe in them."

To his surprise, Echidna smiled.

"That," she said, genuinely amused, "I can commend that." She chuckled softly. "In Olympus, they'd try to smite you for words like that." Her gaze sharpened. "But a human who disregards Gods entirely… that is interesting." She slithered forward. "All beings cling to something," Echidna said. "Power. Faith. Authority. Something they believe greater than themselves. But you?" She studied him carefully. "You stand alone."

Dante said nothing.

"It won't change what happens next," she finished quietly.

Her hand rose.

The air changed before Echidna even finished lifting her hand.

It wasn't a gradual swell or a distant gathering—there was no warning beyond a sudden, crushing pressure that settled across the plains, as if the world had drawn a breath too deep to release. Something thickened to the point it felt almost tangible, heavy against the skin, dragging at movement and sound alike.

Then the water came.

Not summoned from a source, not pulled from river or sea—it simply existed. An enormous mass of water erupted into being before Echidna, spanning the horizon in a single, impossible instant. It rose like a wall torn free from the ocean floor, towering higher and higher until it blotted out the sky itself. The crest curled far above the plain, its upper reaches dissolving into mist as the sheer height wrung the clouds apart, scattering them in wakes.

The wave moved.

It did not rush. It advanced dreadfully, it did not need speed to promise annihilation. The ground beneath it broke and vanished as the water swallowed plains, stone, and debris whole, compressing everything beneath its mass into nothingness. The sound was a constant overwhelming force—pressure grinding against pressure, the world protesting its own erasure.

Dante did not hesitate.

The moment the wave began to surge forward, he planted his foot and launched himself upward in a violent burst of force. The ground cratered beneath him, splitting outward in an uneven ring as his ascent tore him free of gravity. He shot skyward just as the wave swept beneath his boots, missing him by mere meters.

From above, the scale became horrifyingly clear.

The water did not merely crash and disperse. It consumed. It rolled forward endlessly, folding over itself, dragging the plains into its depths. Ice, fire-scorched stone, shattered earth—everything vanished beneath the surface, reduced to indistinct shadows swallowed by water.

Dante twisted midair, tracking the devastation with a brief, detached glance.

Then the sea answered once more.

Before him—above him—the water convulsed.

An immense cyclone burst into existence, its formation so sudden and so vast that the air screamed as it was torn inward. The water rose violently, spiraling upward in a colossal column that dwarfed even the wave behind it. The cyclone stretched impossibly high, its upper reaches piercing the sky, forcing the clouds to recoil and twist as if caught in a gravitational pull they could not resist.

The world tilted.

Wind howled with a ferocity that bent sound, the pressure tearing at Dante's form as the cyclone surged forward and swallowed him whole.

The moment he was caught, his body was ripped into a brutal spiral.

Water slammed into him from all sides—rotational force dragging him around the core with merciless speed. His senses blurred as the centrifugal pull crushed against him, forcing the breath from his lungs again and again. His mangled left arm was wrenched violently by the current, agony flaring bright enough to drown out thought.

Still, he did not scream.

He would not even clench his jaw beneath the helm, he merely forced his body to align with the rotation instead of resisting it outright. Muscles screamed in protest as he adjusted his posture, riding the spiral rather than being torn apart by it. Each rotation grew faster and tighter, the pressure increasing until even his vision began to fracture into streaks of light and shadow.

Then—release.

Dante forced power through his legs and core, discharging it outward in a sudden, violent burst. The water recoiled for a fraction of a second—just enough. He tore free of the cyclone's grip and was flung outward, his body hurled through the air.

He burst from the spiraling wall of water in a spray of mist and droplets, spinning end over end as gravity seized him once more.

And waiting above him—

Cerberus.

The massive hound twisted through the air with unnatural fluidity, its enormous body rolling as if the sky were solid ground beneath its paws. All three heads were locked onto him, jaws parted in snarls that bared rows of fangs. The runes along its black fur burned vividly now.

Its three tails lashed out simultaneously.

The strike came down like a hammer.

Dante brought his right arm up just in time.

The impact was immense all the same.

The collision detonated the air around them, the force of Cerberus's tails slamming into his guard with such overwhelming power that the surrounding water cyclone was obliterated. The spiraling column collapsed instantly, torn apart by the shockwave and scattered into a violent downpour that hammered the plains below.

Dante was sent flying.

The force ripped him from the sky, his body hurtling downward at impossible speed. He cut through falling sheets of water, the air shrieking past him as he plummeted toward the churning wave below.

Pain exploded through his right arm, the bones within screaming under the strain. His shoulder threatened to tear free, ligaments stretched to their limit. Even so, his guard held—just barely.

He struck the wave like a meteor.

The impact swallowed him whole.

Water surged around him, crushing in from every direction as he was driven deep beneath the surface. The momentum carried him downward violently, the pressure stacking until it felt as though the sea intended to grind him into nothing.

Above, the wave continued its relentless advance.

Below, Dante sank as the ocean closed in once more.

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