[Aethel]
[The Grand Colosseum]
Millions of spectators still sat frozen, their voices a collection of shock, awe, horror, and exhilaration. The titanic screens hovering above the arena, broadcasting the impossible destruction unfolding on the desolate planet effected all.
The earth had shattered.
The sky had burned.
The planet bore the scars of what could only be equated as the Gods' wrath.
And at the center of it all—Mikoto, not a single injury. He was Invincible.
"BY THE GODS, ARE WE EVEN WATCHING A FIGHT ANYMORE?! OR IS THIS A MASSACRE?!"
The announcer's voice cracked as he gripped the broadcasting device.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY! NO! NO, SCRATCH THAT! I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT TO SAY! THIS—THIS RIGHT HERE—IS NOTHING SHORT OF AN APOCALYPTIC NIGHTMARE!"
His voice boomed across the stadium, amplified to reach even those seated in the highest sections of the stands.
"LOOK AT THE DESTRUCTION! LOOK AT THE WAY HE MOVES! LOOK AT THE WAY HE MOCKS THEM! THIS ISN'T JUST A BOY—THIS IS A MONSTER IN HUMAN FORM!"
His hands shook as he pointed at the feed, the crowd erupted in a thousand different emotions—
Betting slips were ripped apart in frustration. Some onlookers prayed to their Gods, others collapsed into their seats, unable to comprehend the destruction they had just witnessed.
Something however, changed. One of the floating screens flickered—shifting and switching feeds, drawing attention away from the desolate battlefield.
A different battlefield.
A different kind of power.
And there—standing alone, was Dante. His long white cape draped behind him, fluttering gently despite the absence of wind.
Everything grew quiet, even the announcer's breath hitched.
A new storm was about to begin.
--------------------
[???]
His white fur-framed cape billowed against the gentle winds.
Across from him, Gisèle trembled—not with fear, but with a maddened thrill. Her blood-red eyes dilated, lips twitching into an unhinged smile, bare feet pressing against the broken terrain beneath her, harder. Her body practically shook with uncontainable excitement, her bandaged arms flexing as her fist clenched.
("It is a great pity that Gisèle has been reduced to this. At the very least, Lyra can help mend her madness. I am not one for mercy; even so, putting her down would be decrepit,") Dante internally mused.
"Ohhh!" Gisèle giggled, her voice an erratic in that filled with delirium. "You stand there so proud, so pristine, like some distant, unreachable moon—I wonder do you ever dream of what's inside the moon?" She tilted her head, cackling breathlessly. "Do you? Do you? Oh, but I know—it's full of teeth, just like you~!"
Dante did not react. His arms remained folded, not a single muscle in his form shifting.
Beatrice scoffed, her eyes burning with annoyance. "Enough of this," she spat, her annoyance barely contained. "This bastard is standing in front of me instead of that damned brat Mikoto Yukio—I don't have time for this."
Aurélie said nothing. Silent, the split-haired woman merely raised a pale hand. Aithne stood back, observing.
Ezerald did not move yet; she was still not sure. She and Beatrice had fought Dante before, and he could have ended the fight that day anytime he wanted to. Even with two powerful Ancestors at her side, she could not help but feel uneasy still.
She frowned, watching as Gisèle moved first.
With a shriek of euphoric laughter, she lunged, her bare feet shattering the ground beneath her, launching her toward Dante like a human missile. Her right fist reared back, at the very last moment— he turned his head.
The moment her punch met nothing but air, a shockwave detonated from the force of her swing, obliterating the ground for miles. A massive rupture split the ground in half, falling outward with an earth-splitting roar. The shockwave ejected slabs of terrain into the sky, sending them spinning into the sky.
But Dante was gone.
Above her.
A shadow loomed over Gisèle, and she looked up just in time to see Dante's white-caped silhouette descending at the same time Aurélie whispered.
"Reject."
Suddenly—space itself collapsed where Dante stood.
He twisted his body midair, and in the fraction of an instant, space itself folded where he had once been standing. The ground beneath him ceased to exist.
Simply… gone.
An entire section of the battlefield vanished into nothingness, leaving only a gaping, bottomless void where matter had once been.
Aurélie's eyes slightly narrowed. A miss.
Dante reappeared behind them, standing near where the ground once was, his voice finally emerged.
"You believe the absence of existence is enough to swallow me?" He tilted his head slightly. "Feeble."
Aurélie's expression did not change, but her fingers twitched slightly.
Aithne hummed. "Barely even trying, hm?"
Not having Mikoto in front of her was an annoyance and she needed an outlet. She was confident that with two Ancestors they could beat this monster, so Beatrice roared.
From her outstretched hands, an enormous wave of black fire erupted, a tidal force of cursed fire that surged across the wasteland, devouring everything in its path. The ground melted, the air cracked, the sky darkened.
At the same time Ezerald struck.
She raised her hand, and from above, five colossal swords materialized in a burst of mana, each as vast as a fortress. The very same Divine Relic of the Forge Goddess, replicated in near perfection. And worse—each blade carried an unbreakable charm ensuring they would always strike their target.
"Die."
The swords fell.
The black flames crashed down.
Dante with one motion, he threw out a punch. The force that followed was not of this world.
A single, unrestrained wave of pure kinetic energy erupted outward. It ripped the skies apart, sent waves of pure force spiraling off the planet's surface, and annihilated Beatrice's inferno before it even touched him. The flames themselves bowed and dispersed, utterly erased from existence.
The swords shattered mid-descent, obliterated before they could even reach their intended path.
Ezerald's breath hitched. Beatrice's eyes widened.
"It's useless." His voice rang out. "If you believe parlor tricks enough to smite be then you best give up now."
Aithne shook his head. "How very wrong." He chuckled.
Gisèle, she was laughing. Harder, louder and even more breathlessly.
"Ooooooh! THAT was beautiful!" She clutched her head, shaking with an ecstasy not meant for battle. "Aghh, aahh—I felt that in my bones!" She twirled, facing Dante, grinning with all the mania of a woman lost in bliss. "Tell me, tell me, tell me—what's in YOUR moon?"
Dante did not respond as Gisèle surged forward again, only this time with Ezerald in tandem. The wasteland cracked apart under their acceleration, sending massive chunks of earth spiraling into the air as they burst forward—two forces of nature, bearing down upon Dante.
Ezerald manifested her divine armament—
A radiant spear, massive and burning, materialized within her grasp. A mimicked relic of the Sun Goddess herself, solar embers trailed in her way as she spun the weapon.
Gisèle, meanwhile, giggled breathlessly, her salmon-pink hair whipping wildly, they struck.
Ezerald lunged forward, her spear arcing downward, the tip igniting the air as it tore toward Dante's skull—
Dante shifted.
The radiant spear slammed into the earth—and in that instant, the world ruptured.
A blinding explosion erupted from the impact site, expanding outward. The land beneath it did not merely crack—it was annihilated. The shockwave that followed ripped across the area, shattering distant cliffs, sending them collapsing like dominos. The atmosphere itself screamed in protest, Dante was no longer there.
Before the explosion could consume him, he had already vanished from its path.
Ezerald's eyes barely had time to widen before—
Gisèle struck.
With mad glee, she spun mid-air, her bare foot whipping toward Dante's head, a strike infused with enough force to bend the land. The air around her foot imploded, the pressure of her kick warping the air, yet she struck nothing.
Dante had already moved.
Again, it was a simple tilt of his body. Were Gisèle it any right state of mind she would have known how foolish it was to engage him in physical battle.
"Fufufu~! My my my! That was a good one!" Gisèle purred, her blood-red eyes dilated with excitement, her breath coming out in eager pants. "Did you feel that? That was for you~" Her voice dripped with something twisted.
But she had no time to revel in her amusement.
The sky turned black.
A thousand obsidian spearheads materialized in the air above them. Beatrice joined the fray. Her burning gaze locked onto Dante, and with a snarl, she unleashed hell. The black spearheads—massive, serrated, each one as large as a boulder—came crashing down.
Not one.
Not ten.
Dozens upon dozens.
They fell like comets of ruin, their descent so rapid that the sky wept with the force of their arrival. The area quaked,
Dante still did not uncross his arms.
A step to the right—a spearhead shattered the land where he once stood. A tilt of his head—a spearhead carved through the air mere inches from his helmet. A shift of his weight—a dozen more spearheads whistled past him, missing by fractions of a hair.
Not one struck.
Not one even grazed him.
Ezerald grimaced, Beatrice's snarl deepened.
Gisèle, she moaned? She really was not in the right state of mind. "Ahn~! Fuuuuh! I can barely stand it!" She trembled, her entire body shivering as if Dante's very presence alone was enough to send her into a state of pure bliss. "You're divine, more so than even the one in the moon! Just—just let me taste you! Let me break you! Let me—"
She never finished.
Dante's arms unfolded.
And in a single, lightning-fast motion—
His hands shot out.
A single gesture and two throats caught in an iron grip.
Ezerald choked, her eyes widening in disbelief, she could not even react
Gisèle shuddered. "Oh~", she exhaled, her voice laced with a breathless sound. Dante was quite repulsed, he decided there he would make it a top priority to ease her madness.
So he held them both aloft, his grip iron, and then he threw them.
He cast them away like trash.
His hands flinging them through the air like ragdolls. The force of the throw sent them crashing into the ground, causing massive craters where they landed. The earth shook beneath them, rocks and dust flying in every direction as they tumbled across the wasteland. The destruction was immense—cracks spider-webbed through the surface of the area, and the air seemed to vibrate with the force of it all. The ground quaked beneath their feet, fissures splitting the earth open as the land around them began to fragment and fall away.
The planet itself shuddered.
Dante adjusted the gauntlets on his arms. It was quiet now, of course it was. Gisèle was no longer here.
Aurélie and Aithne stood to either side of him, their expressions unreadable, eyes carefully observing. Beatrice clicked her tongue softly, her gaze flickering between him and the surrounding destruction.
Gisèle would likely return soon, no doubt emboldened by the surge of power her Ultra Vires had granted her. But for the time being, it was quieter without her, her manic energy absent from the scene. Yet, even in the absence of that madness, there was something unsettling about the silence.
"You Ancestors never struck me as the types to be this foolish," Dante's voice cut through the silence. He folded his arms once more. "Save for the Ancestor of Malice." He corrected.
The words hung in the air but there was no immediate response
Aurélie shifted ever so slightly, her arms folding. Her eyes, though betraying little emotion, bore into Dante. "Foolish?" she echoed, her voice measured. "True, your might is overwhelming, undeniable. But even so, you stand in the way of our objectives. It is a certainty."
"It's because you're too righteous for your own good. All your efforts, all your might, only to fight for an era that's already slipping from your grasp. What would you call that? Stubbornness? Delusion?" Aithne interjected, his words were mocking, though his eyes remained devoid of any genuine emotion. A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Barring Britha, the goals of us Ancestors go against what you fight for, don't they? The prosperity of this era."
Beatrice huffed in irritation, her gaze drifting briefly to where Ezerald had been tossed aside like a ragdoll. Then, her eyes snapped back to Dante. "I still can't fathom why you would fight for this era. You're an idiot. Even if you believe in your cause, you're still chasing after something you can't ever reach. You're trying to fight for something that's already been decided," she muttered, her words thick with disdain.
Dante shook his head as if in mild annoyance, the gesture almost imperceptible as he met Beatrice's gaze. "I made my reasoning very clear," he stated evenly. "Though, despite knowing of my power, it seems you've all still the confidence to start issuing challenges." His tone shifted. "Very well then, I shall show you the true gap in our strength."
"Then I shall respond in kind," Aurélie's gaze set upon Dante. There was no fire in her stance, no reckless ferocity, no outward signs of aggression.
The Ancestor held no ranking of power; Rhiannon was the mightiest, and that much was accepted.
However, if any of her brethren could be considered a threat, it would be two, Britha and her - the bane of Gods, dragons, and The Keepers of Order alike. More than a mere annoyance, she was the Ancestor of Pestilence.
And so beneath that silence, power stirred.
Aithne still stood further back, his arms crossed, watching with a neutral gaze.
Aurélie's sharp gaze flickered toward him for the briefest moment. "Stop being useless." Her voice was emotionless, yet sharp. "Fight."
Aithne merely blinked.
Aurélie no longer paid him any mind. Instead—
—a weapon of darkness coalesced into existence within her grasp. The air grew heavy, almost suffocating, as reality seemed to recoil from the manifestation of her scythe. It was immense, yet weightless in her grip—an executioner's blade hewn not from steel, but from something far darker. Strange inscriptions pulsating around it, twisted along its length.
The moment it fully took shape—
The ground beneath her feet collapsed.
The presence of the weapon sent spiderweb fractures tearing through the earth, splitting the already-broken terrain apart. Cracks spread outward in jagged, erratic lines, stretching for miles in an instant, causing entire sections of land to sink violently. Loose stones and debris, caught in the sudden upheaval, rose unnaturally into the air, levitating as if gravity itself had been momentarily distorted.
She moved.
The instant her foot left the fractured ground, a force erupted outward, turning the air around her into a concussive shockwave. The force of her acceleration obliterated the surrounding terrain, sending entire slabs of earth careening into the sky.
She closed the distance in a blink.
Her scythe screamed through the air, a blackened crescent arcing toward Dante's throat. The pressure alone preceding the blade's edge was enough to slice through the distant remnants of formations.
Dante did not move.
The abyssal blade was inches from his neck—
Then, in a motion so effortless it was almost insulting, his hand rose and caught the scythe, the world lurched. The result was instantaneous.
The force condensed within Aurélie's strike had to go somewhere—and it did. The mere impact of Dante's palm against the scythe released a shockwave so devastating that entire tectonic plates groaned in protest. The land beneath them, already fragile, could not withstand the strain—
It buckled.
Then it broke.
The foundation of the wasteland ruptured outward in every direction, massive sections of the planet's crust ripping apart. Mountains didn't merely collapse—they disintegrated, reduced to nothing but clouds of dust. Craters, once shallow scars, now deepened into colossal abysses.
And yet, amidst the large-scale destruction—Dante remained motionless. His grip on the abyssal weapon was iron, his fingers curled around the edge without so much as a scratch upon his gauntlet.
He lifted his gaze to meet Aurélie's.
Her expression remained unreadable. There was no frustration, no shock or a flicker of doubt.
She merely adjusted.
With an abrupt shift of her grip, she ripped the scythe free, spinning into another strike. This time, the blade curved low, aiming for his legs with a sweep designed to bifurcate anything in its path.
Dante stepped forward, his foot slammed into the ground, and in that instant—
A shockwave erupted downward, so vast in scale that entire landmasses in the distance began to break apart. The remnants of the planet's surface—already fragile—could no longer hold itself together. Fissures spanning thousands of miles tore through the world, consuming everything in their path. Entire valleys crumbled. The curvature of the land shifted violently, sending tidal waves thousands of feet high crashing in all directions.
Aurélie lost her footing, her strike missing as she leaped backwards.
"You're predictable." Dante stated, though it was not an insult, a mere observation.
Aurélie landed gracefully a distance away, her grip on her weapon still firm, she did not even register his words or refute as she moved again.
This time, it was faster.
Her form became a blur, a streak of force cutting across the fractured land with a velocity so intense that the atmosphere howled in protest. The scythe carved through the air in a sweeping arc, Dante already moved to dodge.
In the fraction of a second before the blade could reach him, he shifted, his body tilting just enough to let the edge pass within a breath's distance of his armor. Sparks flew as the scythe grazed his armor, in the same instance. His left hand snapped upward, an open-palmed strike aimed directly for Aurélie's chest.
Aurélie reacted in kind.
Rather than retreat, she twisted midair, shifting the angle of her scythe with a single, fluid motion. The blade curved around her own body, following her rotation. The moment Dante's strike neared her, she reversed the momentum and brought the weapon crashing down toward his shoulder, its trajectory guided.
The air detonated between them as their movements clashed.
Dante's foot barely grazed the ground, but the sheer pressure of his repositioning sent a radial shockwave surging outward, Aurélie attacked again, the scythe came within a hair's width of his throat—only for his body to lean back at the perfect angle, letting the edge pass harmlessly through the air where his flesh had been moments before.
She swept for his ribs—he pivoted on his heel, letting the blade whistle past. She feinted low before launching a strike for his face—he twisted his neck just enough to let it pass beside the jaw of his helmet.
Aurélie didn't falter, if anything she simply adapted. In the next moment, she vanished.
No, not vanished—accelerated.
A sonic boom detonated at her previous position, she reappeared behind him. Her scythe, now wreathed in dark mana, curved downward in a two-handed arc aimed to cleave Dante cleanly in half from the waist.
But—
Dante turned.
A single step and he was already facing her. His hand lashed out with blinding speed, catching the base of her scythe's handle before it could complete its swing.
The land around them exploded. The moment their forces clashed, a crater instantly formed beneath them, sinking the ground for miles in all directions.
Aurélie didn't hesitate, she twisted the handle—shifting the weight of the scythe in an attempt to throw him off—before launching a brutal knee strike toward his ribs.
Dante caught her leg with a single hand. But before he could react further—
Aithne finally deigned to move, the Ancestor raised his hand without a single word.
The sky screamed in the very next instance. From the sky above, five enormous objects appeared in a sudden shift, scraping against the air.
Not falling—plummeting, their descent was not gradual, it was instant.
Massive burning celestial bodies, each large enough to dwarf cities, surged downward at. The force behind them was so staggering that the atmosphere caught fire, turning the sky into a swirling, apocalyptic red. The heat wave alone was enough to vaporize the surrounding terrain.
Aurélie immediately disengaged, leaping backward.
"Die already you bastard!" Beatrice acted next as she raised her hand toward the meteors, darkness of decay bloomed.
A pulse of entropy rippled outward, coating the meteors in an unnatural black aura. What once burned now rotted, their surfaces crumbling into writhing, decayed husks as they fell—yet their momentum was not slowed.
The five meteors impacted Dante all at once, the world shuddered. The moment of impact sent a colossal wave of destruction surging outward.
The first meteor struck, and a shockwave erupted, flattening everything in a five-hundred-mile radius.
The second meteor followed, sending a fissure so deep through the planet's crust that molten rock shot into the sky.
The third meteor crashed next, its decayed surface fracturing upon impact—only for the force behind it to send a tidal wave of pure force rolling across the land.
The fourth meteor landed, and with it, the tectonic plates beneath them buckled and broke apart. Entire regions of landmass sank.
And the fifth—
A wall of dust and fire surged upward as it impacted, consuming Dante's figure entirely. The shockwave ripped through the atmosphere, sending hurricanes of ash spiraling in all directions. The force of destruction reverberated across the entire planet, sending quakes so powerful that distant, landscapes—miles, no, kilometers away—began to fracture.
Silence.
For a moment, there was only the aftermath.
Aurélie stood at a distance, her scythe at her side, watching. Her expression was not expectant; in fact, her stance was still poised for action. Few could survive such a devastating combo, yet Dante was not just anyone.
Aithne exhaled slightly, lowering his hand.
Beatrice narrowed her eyes toward the choking storm of dust and ruin.
And then from within the devastation Dante stepped forward, his still pristine form clashed with the absolute devastation around him. Not a single dent on his armor, for his armor was as mighty as his body.
"Hmph."