The next impact was so violent that the sound itself seed to lag behind.
Dante and Seris collided again in the center of the fractured sky. Rebellion found a newly ford blade in her hands, the other sliding underneath to strike her ribs. He twisted his torso at the last second, allowing the tip to just tear her skin as his elbow crushed her shoulder.
The air exploded.
The entire coliseum trembled.
Seris slid backward, but didn’t lose her balance. Her combat body was at the peak of adaptation—every blow from Dante was being read, analyzed, corrected in real ti. She advanced in a brutal sequence: diagonal slash, low spin, upward kick.
Dante blocked the first.
He was hit by the second.
And grabbed her leg on the third.
He hurled her upward as if she were light, leaping right behind, Rebellion descending like a guillotine.
Seris crossed both swords above her head.
The shockwave split the clouds.
The impact traveled to Alice’s barrier, making the do vibrate as if it were glass about to crack.
The two were thrown in opposite directions.
Seris landed sliding, her blades tracing incandescent furrows in the ground.
Dante fell to his knees for a second.
Just a second.
He stood up with a crooked smile.
"You’re learning," he said, breathing heavily.
Seris didn’t answer.
She advanced again—faster than before.
This ti there was no exchange of multiple blows.
She appeared before him and executed a single perfect sequence.
First blow: deflected Rebellion.
Second: deeply cut his thigh.
Third: opened his chest.
Fourth—
Dante held the blade with his bare hand.
The magical tal cut his palm, blood trickling, but he held on tight.
His eyes shifted.
Sothing there darkened.
He pulled Seris violently, forehead to forehead, and unleashed a burst of concentrated demonic energy at point-blank range.
Seris was thrown back like a projectile, crashing through two floating structures before stabilizing in mid-air.
She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth.
And smiled slightly.
"Finally."
She vanished.
This ti, Dante couldn’t quite keep up.
A cut opened her back.
Another pierced her arm.
A third ripped through her side.
She was getting the better of him.
Adapting faster than he could regenerate.
Dante fell to his knees for a mont as a blade pierced his abdon and pinned him to the ground.
Seris landed before him, forming the second sword above her head.
"It’s over."
She lowered the blade.
And the world turned blue.
Not sky blue.
Abyss blue.
A presence erged between them—not descending, not appearing.
It was simply there.
Seris’s strike was interrupted by a single gigantic blade that intercepted the attack with absurd ease.
The impact didn’t generate an explosion.
It generated silence.
Seris’s eyes widened.
Dante slowly raised his head.
And then she laughed.
A clear, amused, almost childlike laugh—but laden with sothing profoundly wrong.
Sapphire.
She stood between them, wielding a colossal sword that seed made of dark blue crystal, pulsing as if it had a heart of its own.
Her eyes shone with pure delight.
"Ah... this was getting interesting."
Before anyone could react—
She moved the sword.
It wasn’t quick.
It was inevitable.
A single horizontal blow.
Clean.
Absolute.
Dante was still kneeling when his body was split in two.
From shoulder to hip.
Perfect cut.
No explosion.
No spectacle.
The upper part slid to one side.
The lower part tumbled to the other.
The silence lasted a second.
Two.
Three.
Sapphire began to laugh louder.
"HAH! I always wanted to do that!"
Seris took a few steps back, her eyes fixed on the severed body.
"You—"
Sapphire twirled the blade and pointed it at her, still smiling.
"Go away."
It wasn’t a request.
It was a casual order.
"He’s mine."
Seris hesitated.
She looked at Dante.
For the absence of energy emanating from the divided body.
For the smile still frozen on his face even after the cut.
Sothing within her calculated.
And decided.
Her blades dissipated.
Her body began to return to its previous form.
"Don’t destroy the barrier," she said calmly.
Sapphire tilted her head.
"No promises."
Seris vanished in particles of light.
Only Sapphire remained... and Dante’s severed body.
The wind swept through the destroyed coliseum.
Alice’s barrier trembled.
Sapphire rested her sword on her shoulder and walked to the two halves.
She nudged the upper part with her foot.
"Wow... you really let her hit you quite a bit."
Silence.
Then—
The lower half began to move.
Flesh stretching.
Blood evaporating.
The upper half blinked.
And the division began to close.
Not like normal regeneration.
But as if the concept of "cut" was being rejected.
Sapphire’s smile widened even further.
"Ahhhhh... that’s what I like."
The two parts joined with a wet, electric sound.
Dante stood slowly.
The scar still glead across his body.
He looked at Sapphire.
He wasn’t angry.
He wasn’t furious.
He was excited.
"You always know how to get into a party."
Sapphire spun the colossal sword once, its weight making the air groan.
"No rules."
She pointed the blade at him.
"No interruptions."
The ground beneath them began to crack from the re pressure of their two presences.
Dante swung Rebellion.
The aura around him grew denser.
Deeper.
Sapphire advanced first.
The impact between the two swords didn’t generate a shockwave.
It generated rupture.
The sky above literally split in a straight line that crossed the entire horizon.
Dante was pushed back dozens of ters, his feet dragging on the ground.
He smiled.
Sapphire disappeared and reappeared above him, descending with her sword like a blue teor.
He crossed Rebellion overhead.
The impact sank him into the ground up to his waist.
The entire coliseum gave way a few more ters.
She pressed down.
Laughing.
"Harder! Harder!"
Dante roared—not in pain.
But of pleasure in battle.
An ascending demonic explosion launched her upwards.
He leaped after her.
The two began exchanging blows in the air, each collision creating permanent cracks in the isolated space.
Sapphire cut his arm.
He responded by piercing her shoulder.
She spun and kicked him against a floating tower.
He passed through the structure and reappeared already slashing horizontally.
She blocked with the side of her giant blade and responded with a headbutt that split his nose.
Blood.
Laughter.
Impacts.
There was no calculation.
There was no refined strategy.
It was pure violence between two forces that loved to fight.
A blow from Sapphire pierced Dante’s chest again, this ti diagonally.
He spat blood in her face.
And gripped the blade.
She pulled.
He didn’t let go. The two stood motionless for a second—absolute tension.
Then she smiled.
And released energy from her sword.
The explosion engulfed them both.
Alice’s barrier finally cracked.
...
The blue explosion reverberated throughout the isolated domain.
Alice’s barrier rippled like the surface of a lake struck by a colossal rock. Luminous fissures ran across the do, spreading like incandescent veins. The impact wasn’t contained in the center.
It echoed.
Down there—
Vergil felt it.
Angelo’s blade descended like a decree.
Vergil crossed Yamato at the last instant.
The shock was brutal.
The ground beneath his feet simply ceased to exist, vaporized by the concentrated pressure of the impact. The surrounding air imploded before exploding outward in a circular wave that hurled debris and shattered structures in all directions.
Angelo didn’t retreat. He pressed on.
His strength had increased again. His body was different—denser, heavier, as if each blow was fueled by sothing beyond re physical power.
Vergil felt his arms tremble.
Not from fear.
From limit.
Angelo’s blade pushed Yamato down inch by inch.
Vergil clenched his teeth.
His eyes analyzed.
Breathing.
Angle of the fist.
Weight distribution.
He wasn’t like Dante.
He didn’t react on savage instinct.
He learned.
He absorbed.
He adapted.
Angelo spun his sword, abruptly changing the vector of force.
Vergil was thrown sideways, crashing through three pillars of the coliseum before regaining his balance in mid-air. He landed gliding, tracing a perfect line on the ground with the tip of his katana.
Angelo advanced. Without hesitation.
Each step created small craters.
He attacked in sequence—heavy, vertical, crushing blows. There were no flourishes. Just brutal execution.
Vergil blocked the first.
He dodged the second by inches.
The third struck his shoulder and threw him back again.
Blood trickled.
Vergil took a deep breath.
He closed his eyes for half a second.
When he opened them—
Sothing was different.
His posture adjusted.
Lower.
More efficient.
Angelo ca again.
This ti, when the sword descended, Vergil didn’t block.
He slid.
A minimal sideways step.
Yamato cut.
Not the body.
The space between them.
A thin, precise, almost invisible tear.
Angelo cut through that tear.
And for a fraction of a second—
His trajectory was shifted.
The blow missed.
Vergil appeared behind him.
A single diagonal slash crossed Angelo’s back.
Black sparks exploded.
Angelo stopped.
Looked over his shoulder.
The energy around him oscillated.
Then grew.
The wound began to close.
Not slowly.
Imdiately.
Vergil narrowed his eyes.
"So you learn too." Angelo spun his entire body in a wide motion, his sword sweeping through the air like a celestial hamr.
Vergil teleported.
But Angelo anticipated it.
The blade was already waiting at the point of materialization.
Impact.
Vergil was struck squarely in the abdon and launched high into the air.
He spun in the air, stabilizing himself, but Angelo was already above him.
Clenched fist.
Descending.
The punch struck Vergil’s chest.
The sound was dry.
The air left his lungs.
The ground rose to et him.
The crater ford was deeper than all the previous ones.
Dust rose.
Montary silence.
Angelo descended slowly, sword pointed downwards.
But sothing cut through the dust.
A vertical line.
Clean.
Precise.
Angelo raised his sword to block—
Too late.
Vergil erged from the very spatial slash he had created, piercing Angelo’s guard with a sequence of almost invisible blows.
One.
Two.
Five.
Ten.
Each cut was minimal.
And perfect.
When Vergil passed him and landed behind him, Angelo remained motionless for a second.
Then dozens of energy lines opened in his armor simultaneously.
Controlled explosions.
Fragnts flew.
Vergil breathed heavily.
His body was wounded.
But his movents were more fluid.
Faster.
Sharper.
Angelo turned slowly to face him.
The damaged armor began to rebuild itself.
The energy around him increased again.
Denser.
More violent.
The ground around him began to give way at his re presence.
Vergil felt it.
The increase wasn’t small.
It was proportional.
He had grown stronger.
Angelo too.
Without a word, Angelo advanced again.
But now the speed had doubled.
Vergil barely had ti to react.
Sword against sword.
Successive impacts.
Each clash made the entire coliseum vibrate.
Vergil began to smile slightly.
Not like Dante.
But with recognition.
He was keeping up.
Even if only slightly.
Angelo executed a heavy feint, shifting his weight to the right before reversing the blow at the last instant.
Vergil read it.
Not perfectly.
But enough.
He let the blade tear through his arm to maintain his stance.
Yamato glead.
A single cut.
Silent.
The space behind Angelo opened up like a shattered mirror.
Gravity there was distorted.
Angelo was involuntarily pulled half a step back.
Half a step was all Vergil needed.
He appeared before him.
Cold eyes.
Absolute focus.
"Now."
A single downward strike.
The two swords clashed.
The impact generated a column of energy that pierced the cracked sky, reaching the fissures left by Dante and Sapphire’s battle.
For an instant—
They both stood motionless.
Swords locked.
Energy colliding.
Angelo’s eyes began to glow with increasing intensity.
Vergil’s too.
Neither retreated.
Neither yielded.
The pressure began to crack the ground beneath their feet.
The cracks spread.
Both were evolving.
But neither of them had reached their limit.
And when the energy finally exploded to the sides, hurling them in opposite directions once more—
Vergil landed on his feet.
Gasping.
Wounded.
But stronger than he had ever been.
Angelo also landed.
Armor partially rebuilt.
A denser aura.
Heavier.
They faced each other from a distance.
Speechless.
No distractions.
Above, the sky still burned blue because of Dante and Sapphire.
But here—
It was another war.
Colder.
More technical.
More inevitable.
And for the first ti...
Vergil wasn’t just surviving.
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