----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The field was silent.
Only the viscous sound of flesh recomposing itself broke the air.
Dante lay in the center of the crater, his body torn, burned, fragmented—a heap of darkness, bones, and black blood pulsing as if hell itself breathed through him.
Regeneration happened in a grotesque manner: veins stitched themselves together, bones rose like distorted roots, and pieces of skin crawled back to his body, sticking to each other in an abominable mosaic.
Even so, he seemed… defeated.
Not conquered, but broken.
The gaze that once reflected sovereignty now trembled under the golden and white light dominating the field.
Stella and Dan walked.
Slow, exhausted, but relentless.
Dust rose with every step, mixed with the gleam of flames and particles of light still floating—fragments of the powers they had both pushed to the limit.
They knew they could not stop.
Not now.
Dante was not an enemy who would simply die.
He had to be crushed until the abyss itself gave up on rebuilding him.
Their footsteps echoed across the silent battlefield.
Dan and Stella advanced slowly, as if each movement were dragged by the pain burning inside them.
The cracked ground beneath their feet seemed to pulse with their hearts—slow, but firm.
It was not just hatred that moved them.
It was something much deeper.
The terror of war, the memory of every scream, of every lost gaze… from the very first moment until now.
Dante was before them—a mutilated king, regenerating grotesquely, a shadow of the god he once was—and yet, each step the two took was heavier than the air itself.
They carried not only their own wills.
They carried the echoes of those who remained.
Amara's will, who, even as a recent ally, fought to the end, carving paths with heart and courage. She was gone, abruptly and brutally.
Aisha's heart, the Empress who led with strength and gentleness, who never bowed, who protected each of them with a mother's care and a goddess's fury.
The memory of Akira, lost between life and death, her body used as a puppet, but whose soul would never yield—because Akira taught them to never hesitate, even at the end.
And Tenklyn's sacrifice, not the Emperor, but the brother who fell so the world could breathe for one more day.
But above all…
They carried the memory of the one who left without applause, without goodbyes, without glory.
Of someone who needed no titles to be essential.
Tekio.
His name burned within them.
Simple, yet immense.
He was the kind of person who illuminated the path without realizing it, who turned the impossible into the everyday—and whose absence left the world empty, cold.
They trained together, grew up together, learned to love together. They were a family of three siblings with patched-up hearts.
But in that fateful instant, it was as if a piece of their hearts had been torn out, leaving only the echo of what he was.
Even from afar, they felt him there, as if Tekio were holding them by the shoulders, saying: "Keep going."
Stella felt more than that.
She carried Jade's memories, and with them, the horror witnessed through the ancient guardian's eyes.
The hell that was the war against Dante centuries ago—the flames, the bodies, the shattered skies.
And with Jade came the shadows of Konan, Yara, and all the forgotten soldiers, whose voices were lost to time, but whose fury now burned within her.
The golden light covering Stella trembled, but not from weakness—from wrath, from promise, from inheritance.
It was the strength of all those souls, converging into a single oath.
She would burn it all.
Burn the darkness, the pain, the past.
Until nothing remained of the shadow they called a king.
And beside her, Dan kept his fists clenched.
His gaze, once human, now shone with something beyond vengeance—it was the reflection of the same fire Stella carried.
Of the same oath.
The two stopped before Dante.
He was slowly reconstructing himself, flesh and shadow merging like a living nightmare.
But in that moment, before them, the king seemed… small.
There was no more glory.
Only the empty echo of his own ruin.
However…
Dante rose slowly, the wet sound of flesh recomposing itself echoing like a profane chant. The black flames enveloped his body, his blood boiled and evaporated, and every muscle stitched itself back together in grotesque movements. His smile was born between spasms, until it opened completely—an arc of pure arrogance and insanity.
Stella and Dan stood firm on the cracked ground. Their ragged breathing did not stop them from advancing. There was still fire in their eyes, a determination bordering on desperation.
They moved—two gleaming figures amidst the dust—ready to repeat the massacre, to crush Dante until nothing but ashes remained.
But then… the weight came.
An invisible tremor tore through the air, as if the world itself had held its breath.
The ground sank beneath their feet, and their bodies gave way all at once. It was as if tons of force were pulling them down.
Gravity distorted. Space contorted.
Sound disappeared.
Stella's and Dan's vision began to fragment, like a mirror cracking into a thousand reflections.
They tried to breathe—the air felt liquid.
They tried to move—time seemed unresponsive.
And Dante laughed.
A deep laugh, vibrating in multiple tones, as if a thousand voices accompanied him.
His body regenerated completely, his black hair falling loose to his shoulders, his eyes burning red, gold, and darkness.
He was the very form of the abyss.
—Feel that? — he said, his tone calm, almost pedagogical. —It is the weight of a dominion you will never comprehend.
The energy around them rippled like water on fire.
Dan looked around, trying to understand what he saw, but the world made no sense. Shapes bent, the horizon split, and the sky seemed to swallow the ground.
He barely noticed, but they were inside the temporal distortion—the same technique Dante had used against the Emerald Gate Agents.
Haruto, Kael Amina, and Elara had felt it.
But this time, there were no meteors.
No spectacle.
This time, Dante wanted something personal.
—Do you know what happens when a human tries to gaze into the abyss? — he asked, walking amid the distortion, shadows flickering like living veils with every step. —The brain implodes trying to comprehend the infinite. The body grows heavy, time breaks… and the soul screams.
What Dante had done was overlay a portion of the abyss onto reality instantaneously, causing a massive shock to the unprepared human brain.
Dan and Stella tried to react, but their bodies would not obey.
Their minds tried to fight, but space did not respond to logic.
And Dante, now fully restored, observed them with hungry eyes.
—You fought well. You were even inspiring — he said, tilting his head. —But the time has come for you to understand what true power is.
He extended one hand, and the air began to bend around it, as if the universe itself recoiled.
Dante would show them the true abyss—and what it meant to challenge a king.
Silence fell like a verdict.
Dante positioned himself between Dan and Stella—motionless, serene, his gaze turned to the cracked ground, shadows dripping from his feet like rivers of living ink.
No sound, no wind, only the distant echo of the world shattering.
It was the calm that preceded the end.
The prelude to chaos.
Dan tried to move a finger.
Nothing.
Stella tried to take a deep breath.
Not even the air seemed to respond.
Time curved around the king.
Dante kept his eyes closed for long seconds.
The atmosphere trembled.
When he opened them again, reality wavered.
His eyes—red, gold, and darkness—shone like profane suns.
He raised his hand to his face, his bloodied fingers tracing an invisible symbol in the air.
And in a low, drawn-out voice, as one summoning something even hell feared, he whispered:
—Veil… of the Abyss.
The world roared.
The shadow expanded in a living wave, swallowing everything—the ground, the sky, sound, even the light itself.
It was like watching reality bleed.
Dante overflowed with power, and Dan and Stella felt only the impotence of being swallowed by something they could not comprehend.
The weight was absolute.
The despair, inevitable.
But then—before the Veil could complete, before hell could fully open—Dante stopped.
Something pierced through him.
A real chill.
An ancient, almost forgotten vibration echoed through the distorted space.
The king shuddered.
It was impossible… but he felt it.
That energy.
Familiar.
The same chill, the same presence that had defied him ages ago—when all seemed lost, when the abyss had recoiled before a single woman.
And in the smoke falling like rain from the shattered sky, Dante saw.
Amidst the sparks, the mist, and the blood suspended in the air, an aura tore through space.
Thunder. Chains.
And blue eyes—cold, cutting, unmistakable.
Dante's body shivered from the base of his spine to the top of his head.
The smile came first, nervous, trembling… then it opened into pure ecstasy.
—No… — he murmured, teeth clenched. —It can't be…
But it was.
The silhouette formed—alive, pulsating, emanating the same power that had nearly destroyed him centuries before.
Yara.
The lightning warrior.
The shadow of his defeat.
But it wasn't her—and Dante knew it.
It was the reflection of his fear.
An echo conjured by his own subconscious, reminding him what it meant to stand before a being who denied the abyss.
Even so, he screamed:
—YARA!!!
The voice cut through space like thunder.
The name reverberated in the souls of Dan and Stella, trapped in the distortion—and for an instant, both reacted.
A minimal movement, but enough.
The impossible began to crack.
From the smoke, the face revealed itself.
Serene.
Impenetrable.
Eyes of crimson—alive, determined.
It wasn't who Dante expected, but he himself knew it was impossible; only one person in that world carried her flame.
And that person was.
—Tekio... — Dante murmured between his teeth and a strange smile. He didn't know if he was nervous or in ecstasy.
Tekio was there.
Or something of him.
Not a memory, not an illusion—but the perfect fusion of a will that had overcome death.
The wound was gone.
The air stabilized.
The Veil of the Abyss dissipated into fragments.
And Dante… retreated.
Not from fear—but from respect.
Because no king, not even of hell, would dare cloak himself in the abyss before the one who was born to deny it.
The battlefield changed its tone.
Light and thunder united once more.
The true fight was about to begin.
Dan and Stella began to react within the bubble of abysmal distortion—small movements, almost imperceptible, but real.
Dante noticed.
And soon understood the reason.
They were reacting to Tekio.
His mere presence distorted space.
The layers of the abyss, once under Dante's absolute control, began to fragment.
The energy he molded with perfection wavered, broke, dissolved.
It was like trying to command chaos in the presence of something that denied it by nature.
Tekio did not need to move to wound the king—his existence was enough.
Dante understood this with terrifying clarity.
Tekio was his inverse.
The opposite the universe had forged to balance him.
And that infuriated him to his core.
The sound around them ceased.
The king lowered his head, breathing deeply, and a low growl escaped his throat.
Then, suddenly, he raised his arms and, with a single gesture, hurled Dan and Stella away.
The impact was inhuman.
They were thrown like projectiles, crashing through rocks, dust, and wreckage until the sound was lost in the distance.
The abyssal bubbles dissipated—Dante could not maintain them any longer.
They consumed too much energy.
Now, the problem was another.
Tekio was no longer standing still.
The moment the veil broke, he moved.
He vanished into the air.
A crimson flash scored the space.
Dante tried to follow with his eyes… but he saw no lightning—he saw only a living aura, without human form, something that transcended flesh.
An instinct, a will in motion.
The air deformed when Tekio passed.
He did not speak.
He simply appeared before the king.
And the impact came.
The ground split beneath the two of them.
Their arms collided in a boom that shook the air—and Dante retreated two steps, teeth clenched, blood boiling.
He counterattacked, his gaze overflowing with fury.
His fist rose, and the Vacuum Flame took shape—the same one that had erased Amara from the world.
The abyssal energy twisted space, consuming color and sound.
The touch of that flame extinguished and subjugated with raw energy. Erasing everything.
And Dante intended to erase Tekio—permanently.
But Tekio did not retreat.
On the contrary, he advanced.
His crimson gaze ignited, and the air cracked.
His fist glowed, wreathed in living energy—pure, raw, indomitable spiritual force.
Dante roared.
And the clash happened.
Fist against fist.
A blinding flash erupted.
Sound disappeared for a second, and then came the explosion—white, red, colossal.
The impact destroyed the ground, raising dust and stone as if the entire world had collapsed.
When the glare dissipated, Dante was on his knees, his arm vibrating, his skin crackling with black fissures.
His hand tingled—he had lost the contest of pure force.
Rage grew within him.
But he had no time to react.
Tekio appeared behind him, fast as a thought, and struck him with a punch that sent him crashing into the rubble.
Dante spun in the air, summoning dark tentacles to pierce him—but Tekio had already vanished.
A flicker.
Another blow.
Another flash.
With each appearance, Dante reacted with more desperation—ice, fire, earth, shadows—shaping the environment like a wounded god trying to crush a storm.
But Tekio always appeared again.
Relentless.
Cruel.
Like the thunder that never ceases to fall.
Tekio's fist cut through the smoke and struck Dante's arm.
The impact cracked the air, deformed space, and the sound that followed was that of thunder being crushed.
Dante was thrown like a discarded body, spinning through the air until he collided with concrete, making it crumble.
The pain came next—and it was real.
A pain he had not felt for ages.
Something burned in his flesh, corroded his essence.
It was no common wound.
There was no regeneration.
The spiritual tissue did not mend, and the darkness within him trembled as if afraid.
—This... — Dante murmured, his body arching, the sound of cracking bones. —What is this supposed to be?
He looked at Tekio.
The boy walked slowly through the smoke, his body erect, his gaze emotionless.
That crimson aura pulsed—alive, conscious—as if it were observing Dante as much as Tekio himself.
Every step made the ground react, vibrate, distort.
It was as if the world rejected his presence.
Tekio moved.
A blur.
Dante tried to predict—but Tekio was already in front of him, his fist plunging into his abdomen with superhuman force.
The impact bent him double.
The sound that emerged was not of flesh being struck, but of something deeper—a spiritual break.
The pain… spread like a disease.
Dante staggered, gasping.
He tried to absorb energy, conjure shadows, anything—but the flow failed, cut off.
It was as if every blow from Tekio disconnected him from the very source of chaos.
As if the boy were a divine antivirus.
Tekio was a demon who hunted demons.
Dante felt this with clarity now.
It was not a metaphor.
Tekio's body nullified his existence.
Chaos recoiled, afraid to touch him.
And Dante—the emperor of the abyss—was being pushed back.
Tekio vanished and reappeared.
He struck with surgical brutality, without hesitation.
Dante tried to create distance—and Tekio took it back.
Space no longer obeyed Dante.
The rhythm, the strength, everything was in that boy's hands.
Every punch… an explosion.
Every impact… a grotesque crack.
Dante felt his soul fragmenting, felt his flesh stop responding, his power escaping through his pores.
He roared in despair, trying to react, but Tekio intercepted, broke, nullified.
"How?"
The question echoed inside him like an agony.
How had that boy, who should have been merely a vessel, become this?
How did he survive?
Who had healed him?
Dante looked—and Tekio's body seemed almost untouched.
Some remnants of the war, yes, but no deep cuts.
Only scars.
Old.
Closed.
"Is there someone behind this?"Dante thought, trying to decipher, between blows, if there was another presence, some hidden figure in the shadows.
But no—it was only Tekio.
And that terrified him even more.
They collided again, tearing through the skies and plummeting amidst wreckage and dust.
The impact cracked the earth, opened craters, launched debris for kilometers.
Tekio was lightning incarnate—and Dante, for the first time, did not see himself as a god.
But as prey.
He counterattacked, unleashing an explosion of black flames that cut across the horizon, opening fissures in the air and vaporizing everything around.
The world seemed to crumble under the power.
But, even so…
Tekio's fist pierced through hell.
The flames parted as if fearing him.
The punch struck Dante's arm—which he blocked by instinct—but he was still hurled back, his body distorted in pain.
In the dust, Dante saw him walk forward again.
The boy, the lightning bolt.
Light cuts, nothing to stop him.
And an energy around him, vibrating—mutable, alive.
Dante felt fear.
Perhaps Tekio had acquired something more.
Something that altered his very body.
That made him the impossible—a being beyond death and chaos.
The air split into silence.
Dante breathed deeply, his chest rising and falling in a slow, almost solemn rhythm.
The abyss faded around him—and in its place, something older, purer, began to emerge.
The black flames.
They were not simple fire.
They were the very substance of hell before light, the power that forged Dante's throne when the world still burned in its nascence.
They were dark as the void, yet alive—they pulsed, consuming the surrounding light until space seemed a cracked mirror.
Dante's body became enveloped in them.
His muscles tensed, his gaze turned to pure gold stained with ruby.
Every breath spat burning smoke, and when he opened his mouth, the sound of the fire was like an ancient, animal roar.
—Enough tricks... enough abyss.
The King… has returned. — he murmured.
The ground bent under his feet.
And Dante advanced.
Tekio reacted.
The movement was instantaneous—a crimson streak tearing through the air.
They collided in the middle of the field, the impact splitting the ground in concentric rings.
Dante's fist hit Tekio in the abdomen, a blow so strong the air around them imploded.
Tekio bent over, but only for half a second—and he responded with another punch, straight to the king's jaw.
The dry sound echoed like thunder.
Dante laughed—and spun his body.
An arc of black fire cut the air and struck Tekio in the chest, hurling him against the wreckage.
The impact destroyed the terrain, dust and smoke rising in columns.
But Tekio emerged before the smoke could dissipate.
His body scored the air, crimson, a human lightning bolt piercing through hell.
He struck Dante with an impossible sequence—punches, knees, elbows, without rhythm, without hesitation.
Every blow made the ground yield, and Dante, even with his body reinforced by fire, felt it.
Truly felt it.
—Tsk... — he spat black blood and laughed.
Dante grabbed him by the arm and threw him with brutal force, Tekio crashing through a wall and disappearing for a moment.
But a moment was all Tekio needed.
He reappeared behind Dante and struck him with a punch to the ribs, followed by another to the chest.
The king's fire exploded, creating a vortex of heat and shadow.
For a moment, hell swallowed everything.
And within it, two silhouettes danced—one wreathed in living darkness, the other in pulsating crimson.
Dante attacked again.
The fist covered in black flames descended like a hammer, hitting Tekio on the shoulder and opening a fissure in the ground that stretched far and wide.
The impact echoed like a hollow thunderclap.
But Tekio did not yield.
Even wounded, even panting, he looked at the king with that cold, impassive gaze.
As if the fire did not burn him.
As if fear did not exist.
Dante felt his heart accelerate—and he hated feeling it. Then he kicked him far away, where Tekio cushioned his fall and stood.
That presence… was wrong.
A human should not resist the essence of hell.
Dante was using his flames, his natural ability. There was no abyss to alter the essence here, but it seemed Tekio didn't just consume the abyss.
But rather, everything that was impure.
The king's fire weakened.
The flames thrashed as if trying to flee from the proximity of that body.
It was the abyss being denied by its very inverse.
—What are you...? — Dante asked, panting, the shadows oscillating on his back.
Tekio did not answer.
He simply advanced.
And the sound of his footsteps—light, precise—was the prelude to destruction.
Tekio's punch cut through the fire.
The impact made Dante spit blood and hurled him meters away, his body ricocheting off the wreckage before stopping on his knees.
The silence was broken by a dry blast—the sound of two bodies colliding with enough force to make the air scream.
Tekio and Dante crashed together in the middle of the crater, fists meeting, bones echoing the impact.
The world stopped for an instant.
Then came the avalanche.
The king's black flames roared and spread in waves, merging with the ground, while Tekio cut through space like a living crimson blade.
It was chaos incarnate—fire against will, hell against blood.
Dante did not retreat.
His fists were precise, lethal, molded by ages of combat—the synthesis of a thousand forgotten styles.
Every blow carried the weight of an empire, of a body forged in a thousand wars and refined by the brute strength of Akira's body.
He moved like a king and like an animal.
The blows flowed, rounded, violent, graceful.
But Tekio kept up.
Without defined form, without apparent technique.
Pure instinct.
It was speed, adaptation, survival.
Dante punched, Tekio dodged—and counterattacked in the same instant, making the flames writhe.
The sound of the collisions was brutal.
The ground cracked, the air vibrated, crimson and black sparks crossed with every touch.
It was a war without breath, without room for hesitation.
Dante advanced, spinning into a high kick covered in fire.
Tekio lowered his body, grabbed his leg, and threw him to the ground.
The king rolled, the fire spread, and he rose with a leap, punching the air—an explosion of burning pressure that threw Tekio back.
But Tekio spun in the air, landed, and returned in a single impulse, his fist advancing like a lance.
The blow struck Dante in the face.
The impact was so brutal the king's head snapped around and the flame extinguished for a second.
Dante laughed.
Laughed like a madman, spitting black blood.
—Tsk... it's not possible that... — he thought, dodging another blow.
Akira's body reacted before he could think, defending itself, reading Tekio.
And it was in that instant that Dante realized.
The way Tekio moved, the way he attacked between one blow and the next—the lightness, the precision, the surrender.
It was Aisha's style.
Akira recognized it.
The soul trapped within Dante saw the movements and remembered them.
Every sequence, every retreat, every breath—Aisha had taught him that.
Dante narrowed his eyes.
"So that's it... you're not just fighting me. You're taunting me with her."
With the one who was impaled by the king's own hands.
The thought corroded him.
And a rare fear crossed his mind.
If Tekio was reproducing Aisha's movements…
If Akira's soul recognized it…
Then, perhaps, Akira's very soul was reacting to Tekio.
Being reborn within him.
"If this boy makes Akira awaken... not even hell will save me."
Dante roared, expelling black fire from his pores, the heat distorting the air.
The ground melted under his feet.
He attacked, fast, wild.
But Tekio intercepted him.
The crimson fist collided with the king's chest, the fire parting around it.
The force of the impact bent Dante over for an instant.
They returned to the exchange, blow for blow, knee for knee, each impact a short explosion.
Blood, smoke, ashes.
The sound of bones breaking.
Nothing else mattered.
Until Dante retreated, a small jump to gain distance.
And it was then that he saw—Tekio's torn uniform fluttering in the wind, exposing part of his collarbone.
From there, climbing up his neck, extending to his back, was a living, pulsating black mark, as if branded by fire and lightning simultaneously.
Dante gritted his teeth.
The memory struck him.
"The mark... he had one on his back."
His gaze hardened.
That was no simple symbol.
It was a mutation—an evolution.
He dodged another blow and thought, quickly.
"It grew... it changed. The mark matured."
For an instant, the king almost smiled.
Now he understood.
Perhaps therein lay the answer to how Tekio had survived certain death.
The mark was not just a seal.
It was a living entity.
A power that fed his body, his spirit, and his time.
Dante wiped the blood from his lip and laughed again, hoarse, insane.
—So... that's how you survived, isn't it?
You created... your own curse.
Tekio did not answer.
His crimson gaze only glowed in the gloom.
And the next blow came without warning.
The fist cut through the fire and struck the king with force enough to shatter the flames into fragments.
The impact split the sky.
Dante flew backward, colliding with the wreckage, his body catching fire and black blood dripping to the ground like acid rain.
Even so, he rose, trembling, but smiling.
The King of Hell would never fall to his knees.
Not before a boy—but before something not even hell could understand.
To be continued…
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------