The truth, when it fully settled, was not a crushing weight.

It was a cold, heavy stone that dropped into his chest. But it didn't shatter him. Didn't break his will.

Instead, he felt something strange.

Clarity.

For the first time since being summoned to this nightmare, he understood the game completely. The board was revealed. The players were known. The rules were finally clear.

He was a pawn. A tool. A disposable soldier in a war he'd never known existed.

The knowledge should have filled him with despair.

Instead, he felt excited.

Liora looked at him carefully. Her galactic eyes were full of sorrowful pity. She expected him to fall to his knees. To weep at the cosmic injustice of it all.

"I am sorry, Dante," she said gently. "I know this is a heavy burden to bear. But it is the nature of the roles we must play."

She raised her hand. The vision of the countless gods and worlds faded completely. They were alone in the sterile white expanse again.

"There is more you must understand before you enter the new world," she continued. Her tone shifted from historian to warden. Laying out terms of his eternal sentence.

"This world you are about to enter Zerawell which is the only real world in this dimension. Everything else you've experienced, the zones you traversed, the trial itself... those are anomalies. Pocket dimensions created and tethered to the main reality. They exist for one purpose only: to forge you."

Dante listened silently.

Her expression became serious. Important.

"And our most sacred covenant is this: we cannot touch a single soul born of Zerawell. We cannot harm them. Cannot control them. Cannot directly interfere with their free will. To do so is to risk becoming Fallen ourselves. To be corrupted by the ultimate temptation—absolute power over our own creation."

She paused. Her soul-fire eyes fixed on him with chilling intensity.

"But you..." she said slowly. "You are not of this world. You and your team are foreign entities. Anomalies."

"And therefore, the covenant does not protect you."

The words hung in the air like a death sentence.

"We can touch you," Liora said quietly. "We can make you obey. If a hero were to go rogue—to become a tyrant like the first champion did—we have the power to curse you. To bind you. To rip your soul from your body and crush it into dust."

She looked almost sad as she said it.

"We have a thousand ways to control you. To ensure you do our work. To make certain you never turn against us."

It was a threat. Delivered with the gentle, sorrowful tone of a loving mother explaining a painful but necessary truth.

It was the final chain she thought she was placing around his neck. The ultimate failsafe to ensure her weapon would never turn against its masters.

Dante smiled.

It was slow. Cold. Utterly genuine.

A smile of pure amusement.

Inside his mind, the tyrant laughed.

'Control me? You think you can control me?'

He thought of everything he'd stolen from her. The litany of blessings he'd manipulated her into granting. The architecture of his perfect immortality.

'You cannot kill me with a curse I'm immune to all curses. You cannot see me, I'm cloaked in divine obscurity. You cannot harm me with your power, I cannot be killed by any god.'

'You are a jailer threatening me with a prison whose walls I've already dissolved. Whose locks I've already melted. Whose chains I've already broken.'

'You are a god, yes. But I am a system error you cannot comprehend. I am a ghost in your machine. A virus in your code.'

'And you just gave me the keys to your entire kingdom.'

"I understand," he said aloud. His voice was humble. Weary. Accepting.

Her expression softened immediately. The pity returned to her eyes.

"The time has come," she said gently. "The gate you opened leads to a new dimension of this world. A place where you will be called heroes."

"The people there do not know the truth you now carry. They do not know you are a solution to our divine mistakes. They believe the gods, in their infinite wisdom, have sent champions to protect them from great threats. And they should never know it that is the reason the curse is applied on you now."

She looked at him with something like fondness.

"You will find your purpose there, Dante. Now go. And try to find some measure of peace in the life you have been given."

Dante thought of making himself more powerful, more wishes with his skill but then a harsh reality hit him.

That if he went too overboard it will be impactful to himself.

There would be too much complications.

He had hid himself from gods but not from he fallen ones they can see him, they can fight him and he doesnt know how strong they can be, Even immortality can make him caged to eternity which was much worse.

Not only Fallen gods but Gods were his rivals now due to the power he holds the greatest anomaly in history.

So in the end he accepted the end of his greed.

She waved her hand.

The shimmering golden gate from the Bone Dragon's lair appeared before him. Beautiful. Inviting. The doorway to his new playground.

He gave her one last solemn, heroic nod.

Then he turned his back on the god he had so thoroughly plundered.

And stepped through the gate.

---

The transition was instant and jarring.

One moment he stood in sterile infinite white.

The next, he was standing in a forest.

The air was thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. Birdsong filled his ears. Leaves rustled in a gentle breeze. The sounds of life were almost overwhelming after the dead silence of the trial.

The light was different here too. Warm golden sunlight filtered through a canopy of ancient green-leafed trees. Real trees. Living trees.

This was a world that was vibrantly, unapologetically alive.

Dante stood there for a moment. Letting his senses adjust. Taking it all in.

His body was whole. Both arms intact. A testament to the power he now wielded.

His mana was a calm infinite ocean within him. Quiet. Reassuring. Always there.

He was no longer a broken college student. No longer a desperate survivor.

He was something else now. Something more.

Behind him, the air shimmered.

His team began to arrive.

One by one they stumbled through the gate. Collapsing onto the soft mossy ground. Still in their tattered blood-soaked armor. Bodies still bearing scars from their final brutal battles.

Masha came first. Her face was pale but her eyes were sharp. Immediately scanning their new surroundings with tactical awareness. She took in the trees, the light, the sounds. Calculating. Always calculating.

Then Jin and Talia appeared together. They instinctively moved to support each other. Jin's hand found Talia's. Their bond was silent. Unbreakable. They looked at each other first, checking for injuries, before looking around at this new world.

Lana tumbled through with a wild triumphant laugh. Her amethyst eyes sparkled with renewed manic energy. "We made it! We actually made it!" She spun in a circle, arms spread wide, breathing in the fresh air like she'd been drowning.

And finally Erica. She stepped through the gate more slowly than the others. Her healer's robes were torn and bloody. She saw him standing there—whole, waiting, both arms intact—and let out a sob of pure relief. Her legs gave out. She fell to her knees, hands covering her face.

It was a reunion of mortals and their new secret immortal.

They looked at him with awe. Exhaustion. Deep soul-weary gratitude.

They saw their leader. The man who had, against all odds, led them out of hell.

They did not see the monster who had worn the skin of a god and stolen its fire.

"We did it," Jin breathed. His voice was full of wonder. "We actually did it."

"Is it... over?" Erica asked. Her voice trembled. She looked at him with desperate hopeful eyes. "Is the trial really over?"

"The trial is over," Dante said calmly. His voice was an anchor in their sea of emotion. "A new life begins now."

They began picking themselves up slowly. A fragile hopeful energy returning to them.

They had survived. They had won. They were the six heroes who conquered the trial.

They were free.

It was Talia who broke the spell.

She had been scanning their small group. Her assassin's eyes taking a silent automatic headcount.

Her gaze swept over them. Jin. Lana. Masha. Erica. Herself. Then Dante.

Six people.

Her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Dante," she began quietly. But her voice carried weight that made all other conversation cease.

She looked at the empty spaces in their formation. At the ghosts only they could see.

Eric should have been here. Standing tall with his shield.

Rina should have been here. Smiling gently at their victory.

Kael should have been here. Bouncing excitedly on his heels.

"Where are the others?" Talia asked.

She took a step closer. Her eyes were full of pure innocent devastating hope.

"Didn't you ask for their revival?"

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