The chaos of battle faded.

Beneath the suffocating presence of Dante's new power, everything became quiet.

The sky was no longer a sky. A churning ocean of shadow. A living proof of his will.

And from that ocean, his children had returned.

A legion of the damned.

Everyone, friend and foe, was frozen.

His own team stared. Faces a mixture of awe, terror, and horrified understanding.

Lucien's remaining teammates, the vultures who came to feast on corpses, were now nothing more than terrified insects.

And Lucien... Lucien was a statue of pure terror.

The manic smile was gone. Shattered.

The cruel light in his eyes extinguished. Replaced by the wide, uncomprehending stare of a man who just witnessed reality being broken.

His hands trembled uncontrollably.

Dante began to walk.

Not the stumbling, broken crawl from before.

Slow. Deliberate. Completely unstoppable.

A king walking through his throne room. A god passing judgment.

With every step, his army moved with him.

The ground was a flowing river of shadow. Ghostly Minotaurs and Phase Spiders parting before him like a tide.

The air was a storm of silent wings. Sun-Eater Wyverns and Void Drakes swirling around him.

His two titans, Ouroboros and Hephaestus, were his honor guard. Massive forms flanking him. Violet eyes fixed on Lucien.

'This is it. I've lost. I'm going to die here.'

Lucien was desperate. He knew he had lost. Knew with cold certainty that he was going to die.

The predator had become the prey. And the entire world was now his cage.

In that final, desperate moment, his terror turned into spite.

If he was going to die, he would not die alone.

He would take from Dante the one thing he knew Dante once cared for.

His gaze snapped to Lana. Still kneeling on the ground. Wounded. Helpless.

With a final scream of pure rage, he charged her. His blood-red sword raised for a final murder.

"LANA!" Erica screamed. Too far to help. Too weak to move.

Lana's eyes widened. Then closed. She was too weak to even raise her staff.

She braced for the end.

But the blow never landed.

From across the battlefield, Masha moved.

No longer the cautious, strategic ice-mage. A queen. Her S-rank core blazing with cold, furious light.

She didn't even look at Lucien.

She simply thrust her hand out.

A volley of ten perfectly formed spears of black ice erupted from the air around him.

They didn't fly. They simply appeared. Tips already inches from his body.

SHUNK. SHUNK. SHUNK.

Lucien's charge was cut short.

The ice spears, each sharp and hard as diamond, punched through his armor. Into his chest. His shoulders. His legs.

He let out a choked, gurgling cry. Collapsed to the ground.

A broken, bleeding mess of frozen rage.

Not dead. But crippled. His final act of spite denied.

Masha didn't spare him a second glance.

Her duty done, she turned. Moved toward Erica. Face a mask of weary concern.

Her own battle won. Her focus now on rebuilding the shattered team.

"Masha," Erica whispered. Tears streaming down her face. "Thank you. Thank you."

Lana stared at Lucien's twitching body. Then at Masha's retreating back.

A look of deep complexity in her wild eyes.

Lucien was crawling.

A pathetic, broken thing. Dragging his impaled body across blood-soaked stone.

Leaving a thick, crimson trail in his wake.

He was begging. Pleas a low, desperate whimper.

"Please... someone... help me... please..."

Dante walked toward him. A slow smile spreading across his face.

He could feel the immense power of his legion. But also the cost.

A flood of mana. A river of his life force pouring out to sustain this impossible army.

He could not hold it for long.

With a single, silent command, he unsummoned them.

FWOOSH!

The black sky didn't fade. It simply vanished.

The hundreds of shadows dissolved into fine black mist. Flowing back into him. A screaming flood of reclaimed power.

The world was suddenly quiet again.

Only sounds were the wind whistling through giant bones. And the pathetic, whimpering gasps of Lucien.

Dante stood before him. His one remaining arm at his side. The other a mangled stump.

But in his hand, he still held Soul-Drinker.

And in his eyes, Lucien saw a darkness far more terrifying than the army he'd just dismissed.

He tried to crawl faster. Fingers scrabbling at stone.

Dante simply took a step forward. Drove Soul-Drinker's blade through his thigh. Pinning his leg to the ground.

SHLIIICK!

"AAAAARGH!"

Lucien screamed. High-pitched. Animal. Pure agony.

Dante knelt beside him. Face just inches away.

"Hello, Lucien," he whispered.

"Please... Dante... please," Lucien sobbed. Face a mess of tears and blood. "I was wrong. I was a fool."

"Please, just let me go. I'll do anything. I'll serve you. Please."

"Serve me?" Dante asked. Voice soft. Curious.

He tilted his head. Pretending to consider.

"You know, for a moment there, you almost had me. You were right."

"I was useless. Powerless. Just like that little boy you used to corner in the alley."

Lucien's eyes widened. The memory a fresh splash of terror.

"You remember, don't you?" Dante continued. Voice gentle. Almost kind. "The day you broke my arm."

"Over a piece of stale bread."

"I... I didn't mean... it was just..."

"I lay there in the mud," Dante said. Ignoring him. "In the rain. And I thought about dying."

"It seemed easier than getting up. Easier than facing another day of being the mistake. The garbage."

He leaned in closer. Smile never wavering.

"But then I had a thought. A funny little thought."

"I thought about a happy end."

"A world where I was the one with power. Where no one could ever hurt me again."

"A world where the bullies were on their knees. Begging for mercy that would never come."

He patted Lucien's cheek. Almost tender.

"And you know what I realized? Lying here. Bleeding. My arm cut off. My magic sealed."

"You were trying to give me that same gift again."

"Despair. Surrender."

Lucien was sobbing now. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please. I was just a kid. We were all just kids."

"The old Dante," Dante said. Voice turning cold. Hard as stone. "The one you knew. He would have taken that gift."

"He would have given up. He would have died."

He stood up. Pulling his sword free from Lucien's leg with a wet, tearing sound.

SHLIICK!

Lucien shrieked.

Dante looked down at him. At this pathetic, whimpering ghost from his past.

"But you see, Lucien, the thing you fail to understand is simple."

"The old Dante is dead."

He raised Soul-Drinker with his one remaining arm.

"You killed him," he whispered. His smile returning. Wider. More terrible. "A long time ago."

"And I... I am the monster that crawled out of his grave."

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