Dante's lip twitched into a half‑smile when Brinyalf telegraphed yet another wide haymaker. He slipped inside the arc, ribs brushing crystal armor, and poured a barrage of knuckle‑blows into the devil's sternum and solar plexus—each strike doubled in force by arc‑lightning surging through his arms. A retaliatory hook whistled past Dante's ear. He dipped beneath it and hammered three liver shots so clean that the crowd could almost hear organs protest.
Brinyalf's elbow blurred back, but Dante bobbed, weaving under the strike to set his hips. In a fluid pivot he snared the Stolas heir's head, yanked it down, and met it with a rising knee that cracked sapphire shell and sent Brinyalf's vision swimming. Before the titan could recover, Dante hooked an arm across the devil's opposite shoulder, cupped the right bicep, and executed a textbook hip throw—augmented by telekinesis that hit with freight‑train ferocity.
BOOM.
The stone floor cratered beneath Brinyalf's falling bulk. Crowd and skyboxes alike gasped in synchronized awe.
Dante leapt back, palm flashing in a precise sigil. Shink— his alloyed sword‑spear materialized in a vortex of violet sparks. He twirled the weapon once, twice—muscle memory humming—then strode toward the downed devil. The downward stab came swift as judgment, detonating a thunderclap of arc energy when the blade kissed earth; Brinyalf rolled clear by inches, coughing blood‑flecked breath.
When the smoke parted, Dante stood nonchalant, elbow propped on the haft of his spear. "What in the Satans are you?" Brinyalf rasped, voice quaking.
"Your opponent," Dante replied simply, scratching his cheek as though bored. "A rather underestimated one, it seems." He couldn't help the small snort that followed. I expected a craftsman of close‑quarters combat, he mused. Instead I found an overconfident hammer in search of a nail.
His eyes narrowed in puzzlement. Could he really be this raw? Any competent fighter would have blended Diamond‑Back with grappling or weapons work, yet Brinyalf fought like a street brawler in borrowed plate. Perhaps he had never been tested—pitted only against dilettantes who collapsed at the first glare. The thought chilled Dante more than amused him. Arrogance cultivated by an echo chamber.
Brinyalf lurched upright, stagger‑charging with a telegraphed right hook. Dante caught the fist mid‑air; crystal ground against his palm. Another swing—same story. He released the spear, letting it clatter to the sand, and immobilized the second wrist as well.
He sighed—an audible note of disappointment that carried into the first tier. "You and those sucker punches…" His grip tightened just enough to fracture sapphire plating. "…Do you actually know how to fight?"
Brinyalf's eyes flared cobalt rage. "Don't you dare mock me!" He threw his weight forward, muscles bulging, diamond shell groaning as he tried to bulldoze Dante backward. Sand rippled, stone tremored—but Dante held fast, legs rooted like iron pylons.
Electric light danced over the locked arms, illuminating fine cracks spidering across Brinyalf's gauntlets. The crowd fell into a hush—sensing the fulcrum upon which the bout now teetered.
Dante leaned in, voice low enough that only Brinyalf could hear. "Strength without discipline is glass masquerading as steel." His eyes narrowed to predatory slits. "And glass, my friend, shatters."
He drew a deep breath, feeling power coil in his core. One decisive move—one bone‑splitting throw or spear thrust—would end this charade and prove, to every caste watching, that arrogance was no substitute for craft.
The arena waited, breathless.
Lightning hissed around Dante's shoulders as he locked wrists with Brinyalf, crystal gauntlets grinding in his palms.
"Mocked, ridiculed, written off as weak," Dante said, voice low, each phrase punctuated by a forward step that shoved Brinyalf back a full yard. "I drank their words like poison—and forged antidote from the pain."
With the next breath he clenched. Diamond‑blue plates shrieked under his grip, spider‑cracking as though they were glass. Shock rippled through Brinyalf's eyes.
"You let the mutterings of 'low‑class scum' unsettle you?" the Stolas heir snarled, trying to rally his strength. "Pathetic!"
But the power behind his push felt soft to Dante now—like swollen muscle inspired by vanity, not hardship. "A fake can't fathom real steel," Dante murmured.
He stamped a kick into Brinyalf's inner thigh. The force snapped the heir's leg into a half‑collapse, dropping him to one knee. Dante used that knee as a springboard, vaulting up to drive his knee into Brinyalf's mask of crystal—an impact that sent the larger devil sailing skyward.
Sand still hung in the air when Dante twisted mid‑leap, both fists laced tight. Arc‑light flared, thunder answered, and a spearing bolt from the crucible's storm roof chased his descent.
BOOOOM—BRVVVVVVV!
Lightning welded to knuckle, kinetic fury detonated as Dante's doubled hammer‑fists crashed into Brinyalf's skull, pile‑driving him straight through the arena floor. Stone ruptured in concentric rings; the entire crucible quaked.
Silence—absolute and fragile—settled over the stands. Dust boiled up, hiding everything.
A gentle ripple of unseen force whisked the cloud aside. Dante stood over the crater's rim, breath steady, spear crackling at his back. At his boots lay Brinyalf Stolas: unconscious, faceplate shattered, head literally stamped into the earth like a broken idol.
"I need no speeches," Dante said, voice carrying in the hush. "My proof is carved in stone."
One heartbeat—two—and the coliseum erupted. A tidal roar of ecstasy battered the walls, petals and confetti mingling with the acrid smell of ozone. Dante's shoulders rose in a quiet sigh, an expression of something softer—fatigue? relief?—flickering across his features before the crowd's thunder swallowed everything but triumph.