Chapter 609: Vergil vs. Cerberus
Hours earlier.
Vergil walked slowly, hands in his pockets. A little while after hearing a lot of complaining, they were still following him even though he had told them he didn’t want to hear their argunt.
Sapphire and Sephirothy.
“Are you really going to ignore the instructions? That’s political suicide even for you, Vergil.” His mother’s voice was cold, precise, and sharp as steel. Her gaze, a translucent silver, pierced him as if she could foresee every possible consequence.
On the other side, Sapphire leaned against a pillar, arms crossed and an almost childlike smile on her face.
“Oh, shut up, Saphy. He has to do what he was born to do. Chaos.” Her eyes glead with intense green, reflecting the enthusiasm of soone who sees the world as a stage in flas.
Vergil stopped between the two, taking a deep breath.
“I’m not going to follow what either of you wants.”
Sapphire raised an eyebrow, amused.
“Finally acting like the Demon King I know.”
“That’s not a wise attitude,” Sephirothy cut in, taking a step forward. “You ssing with the gods like this will cause a rupture that even Hell can’t fix.”
Vergil laughed. “Great. Then let it be a rupture impossible to deny.”
Sapphire clapped her hands, vibrating with excitent.
“That’s it! Show them who you are, Vergil. Show them that there’s no throne that can’t be turned upside down!”
Sephirothy stared at him coldly.
“Are you really going to just destroy everything and bring more bad reputation to us?”
Vergil sighed, looking away.
“I don’t want to destroy anything… yet. I’ll only act if sothing really happens. If soone does sothing that truly irritates …”
His eyes turned red like live coals. “…then I will cause the greatest chaos possible.”
…
The present returned like a thunderclap. The flas of Erebus blazed again, the ground pulsing beneath Vergil’s feet.
He blinked slowly, returning to reality, as Hades rose from his throne.
“So it is decided,” Hades’ voice echoed throughout the hall, deep and relentless.
“You want punishnt, Demon King?”
The god extended his hand, and the chains binding Cerberus began to snap with tallic cracks, one by one.
“Then you shall have it. Let the guardian of Erebus test you, then. No mortal or demon has ever withstood Cerberus’ fangs. Let this be your penance.”
Vergil twirled Yamato in a light, almost nonchalant movent, and his smile returned—serene, dangerous.
“Perfect.”
The sound of a snap cut through the silence.
A single movent.
Simple. Precise.
But coming from Hades, the god of the dead, nothing was simple.
The air trembled.
The black flas of Erebus curved inward, as if sucked into an invisible vacuum. The ground beneath Vergil’s feet cracked in perfect lines, and each crack glowed with a reddish hue—the red of the underworld, of the essence of death and blood.
A muffled thunder rolled through the hall.
And then, the world… changed.
Erebus—forrly a gloomy temple, filled with twisted columns and living walls of shadows—began to distort, spinning upon itself like a colossal whirlpool. The souls trapped in the walls scread in unison, the sound tearing through the fabric of reality.
Vergil looked up. Above him, the ceiling tore open, revealing a sky that belonged nowhere—an infinite gray vault, where white and blue lightning danced like serpents of pure energy. When the rotation ceased, what remained of the old Erebus was sothing entirely new.
A colossal arena.
Concentric circles of black stone ford endless tiers of seats, like the scales of a cosmic serpent. Each seat glowed with blue flas, supporting figures of all kinds—gods, demons, archangels, dead heroes, and entities too ancient to be nad.
In the center, a coliseum of absurd proportions.
The ground was a mixture of volcanic rock and silver ashes. Cracks exhaled steam and fire. From above, gigantic chains hung—remnants of Cerberus’s prison—swaying gently, creaking like funeral bells.
Vergil looked around slowly.
The hot, tallic wind carried the scent of sulfur, blood, and ancient power.
“So this is your kind of stage…” he murmured, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Not bad.”
Hades slowly descended from his throne—now materialized atop a grandstand made of fossilized bones. His cloak billowed, moved by a non-existent wind.
“Erebus is shaped by my will,” he said, his voice echoing through all the planes. “And my will now is that everyone sees the price of disrupting the balance.”
The runes around the arena began to glow—thousands of inscriptions in dead languages, sealing the space. No god, no demon, no mortal could interfere.
“A neutral ground,” Hades explained coldly. “Where neither light, nor darkness, nor faith have dominion. Here, only strength matters.”
Yama reappeared on the balcony, observing the new setting. Her gaze was a golden abyss, analyzing Vergil with dark curiosity.
“A judgnt in the form of a spectacle… as always, Hades. You never change.”
“And you always talk too much,” he replied without even looking at her.
The grandstands began to fill faster—gods who were previously scattered in the hall were transported in flashes of energy. Competitors, warriors, and even curious spirits were forcibly pulled to witness the duel.
Susanoo laughed from where he was.
“Finally sothing interesting!”
Wukong snapped his fingers, sitting on his golden cloud that now floated above the arena. “Ah, this is going to be fun. Go on, dog… show if you bark more than you bite.”
Ada was among the gods, brought there by space itself. Hela, beside her, crossed her arms, observing everything with that cold, unbreakable air.
“This isn’t punishnt,” she murmured. “It’s entertainnt.” Hades heard, and a half-smile crossed his lips. “Entertainnt and punishnt can be the sa thing, depending on who’s watching.”
On the other side of the arena, the ground trembled violently.
The portal appeared—a tear of dense, crimson energy, spitting fire and steam. Broken chains flew like serpents, and a bestial roar filled the air.
Cerberus erged.
The hound of the depths.
The three heads rose, each with a distinct expression—wrath, hunger, and pure contempt. Their mouths exhaled smoke and flas, and their eyes burned like small infernal moons. The body was a living wall of muscle, covered in black scales and gleaming scars.
Around it, the ground lted and cracked, unable to bear its weight.
Vergil smiled, adjusting his grip on Yamato.
“At least I won’t be bored.”
The three heads arched back, and a furious howl filled the air—so loud it made the space tremble. The entire arena vibrated.
The spectators fell silent. Even the winds seed to stop.
“Cerberus,” Hades said, with a gesture, “I release you from your chains and your duty for this instant. Your duty now is to test the demon before you. No limits. No rcy.”
The chains dissolved into black smoke.
Vergil closed his eyes, and the energy around his body manifested again—fire, wind, blood, and shadows, swirling around him like a crimson hurricane. The ground beneath his feet cracked, and reality itself seed to bend before the brutal mixture of powers.
The gods felt the pressure. Even Shiva—accustod to destroying universes—raised an eyebrow.
“That… is chaos incarnate.”
“Chaos with purpose,” Hela murmured, her eyes fixed on him. Vergil opened his eyes again. They weren’t just red—they were blazing abysses.
“So, dog,” he said in a provocative tone, “let’s see if your bark is as bad as they say.”
Cerberus roared in response, and one of its heads lunged forward, exhaling pure fire.
The impact was imdiate—an incandescent torrent that consud half the arena. The temperature rose to absurd levels, and yet, when the smoke dissipated, Vergil was still there. Immobile.
A thin, gleaming cut crossed the space between him and the beast.
The fire that had struck him split in two—divided, torn in half, without even touching him.
The audience reacted with murmurs and astonishnt.
Hades watched in silence, his gaze dark and assessing.
Wukong laughed, leaning forward.
“Ah, this is going to be good.”
Vergil raised Yamato, the divine steel reflecting the fire and blood.
“Let’s begin for real.”
Cerberus’s roar echoed again—this ti deeper, wilder, as if the underworld itself trembled at the sound.
Vergil remained motionless, Yamato in hand, the wind around him pulsing in sync with his heartbeat.
The three heads of the hellhound moved, each revealing a distinct glow deep within their throats.
The middle one, fire—burning and unpredictable.
The right one, thunder—pure energy in the form of destruction.
And the left one, ice—absolute cold, the opposite of the hell that surrounded him.
The air cracked with a glacial snap.
The icy breath ca like a white and blue wall, dense, heavy, cutting the air like invisible blades. The stones of the arena froze instantly, cracking and breaking upon impact. The ground trembled under the weight of the energy.
Vergil barely had ti to move—the force of the attack hit him head-on. The ice swallowed him, forming a crystalline prison around his body.
Silence.
For an instant, it seed as if the demon had been erased from the map.
The three heads of Cerberus rose in triumph, each letting out a different guttural sound—a laugh, a growl, and a distant thunder. The audience watched, expectant.
But then…
A sound.
A single sound cutting through the ice.
Crack. A fissure ford right in the center of the prison. And then another. And another. Until the ice began to glow—not blue, but red.
A burst of energy erupted from within, lting everything in a fraction of a second.
Vergil stood there, enveloped in steam and fragnts of molten crystal.
His eyes glowed with supernatural intensity, and a wide smile ford on his face.
“Three heads, three elents…” he said, running a hand through his wet hair. “A nice trick. Now I understand why they call you the guardian.”
The air around him began to distort, cut by silver lines—cuts in space itself.
“But if you think that will be enough…”
He spun Yamato, and the sound that ca wasn’t the sound of steel—it was the sound of the world itself being torn apart.
“…try harder.”
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