Chapter 38: Demon akon

Captain Akon didn’t waste time with a theatrical descent. The moment the words left his throat, he leaped forward, letting his body drop down the steep incline like a falling boulder.

Dante didn’t move an inch. He kept his feet planted in the shifting black sand, his right fingers tightening around the invisible hilt of the Seven-Sins Asura Blade.

’He isn’t pulling a weapon,’ Akon thought, his glowing eyes narrowing as he fell through the air. ’The reports said he fights barehanded with a reflection technique. Let’s see if he can reflect the earth itself.’

Mid-flight, Akon gripped his volcanic glass greataxe with both hands. He swung the massive weapon horizontally, not aiming at Dante’s torso, but slamming the flat of the obsidian blade violently into the face of the sand dune right before he landed.

BOOM!

The impact didn’t just kick up dust. The sheer kinetic force of the captain’s strike compressed the sand, triggering a localized shockwave that split the ground open. A jagged fissure ripped across the desert crust, straight toward Dante’s legs. From the depth of the crack, a pressurized geyser of bubbling, molten magma erupted into the air, creating a wall of liquid fire that cut off Dante’s path forward.

"Dante!" Esabella called out. She stood five paces behind him, her hair whipping around her face as the intense heat scorched the air. Her thorn-vein whip was already uncoiled, humming aggressively.

"Stay where you are," Dante commanded .

He didn’t retreat from the rising lava. Instead, he utilized Void Step, his body blurring as he executed a precise diagonal shift around the edge of the magma wall. He reappeared right in Akon’s blind spot, his right arm moving in a rapid, vertical slash with his invisible sword.

The air whistled as the unseen edge cut toward the captain’s exposed ribs.

Akon’s reflexes were incredibly sharp for his size. He didn’t try to turn his massive body. Instead, the dark red plates covering his back suddenly shifted, opening up like the gills of a fish. A blast of superheated volcanic gas erupted from the armor plates, creating an explosive counter-pressure that forced Dante’s invisible blade slightly off course.

CLANG!

The invisible edge struck Akon’s shoulder plate. The SSS-rank Vajra Mirror Body should have immediately doubled the impact and shattered the armor, but Dante’s eyes narrowed as he felt the feedback.

The attack didn’t bounce back. Akon’s armor didn’t break. Instead, the red plates turned a blinding, white-hot color, completely absorbing the kinetic energy of the strike and converting it into pure thermal heat. The air within two meters of Akon instantly reached a boiling temperature, the heat passing straight through the fabric of Dante’s hoodie and searing his skin.

"Ha! You think I came unprepared, human rat?" Akon laughed, a rumbling sound that vibrated through the ground. He swung his lower left arm, driving a fist right toward Dante’s jaw. "My Magma-Core Plate converts all physical impact into thermal energy! The harder you hit me, the hotter I burn! Your reflection is useless if you don’t actually damage me!"

Dante used a quick pivot to dodge the fist, the hot wind grazing his cheek. He slid back three meters across the black sand, his boots leaving faint tracks as he stabilized his balance.

’Kinetic conversion,’ Dante analyzed internally, his expression remaining completely serious despite the heat blisters forming on his forearm.

’He isn’t taking direct damage, which means my mirror passive has nothing to calculate and reflect. The armor absorbs the strike before it hits his actual skin signature. It’s a smart counter-build.’

"Die in the pit!" Akon roared.

He raised his axe with three of his hands, while his fourth palm slammed into the sand beneath his feet. He triggered a hidden demonic technique. The black sand desert for twenty meters around them suddenly lost its solid structure, liquefying into a churning, swirling vortex of boiling mud and molten stone.

Dante felt the ground beneath him give way instantly, his legs began to sink into the burning mire.

Akon raised the axe high, the obsidian edge pulsing with a dark crimson light as he prepared to chop the trapped human into pieces.

Behind them, Esabella watched Dante sink into the volcanic trap. The sight of her chosen King struggling there caused a violent, dark surge of energy to explode from her core. The attractive, playful Queen was entirely gone. Her red eyes burned with a fanatical, lethal light, and her massive black-and-purple horns radiated a dark aura that froze the surrounding air.

"You disgusting, oversized piece of filth," Esabella whispered, her voice carrying a weight that silenced the nearby skirmish. "Who gave you permission to look down on him?"

She raised her left hand to her mouth, her red nails piercing her own bottom lip until a drop of bright, royal demon blood dripped down. She caught the blood directly with the handle of her thorn-vein whip.

The boiling mud vortex swirled aggressively, rising to Dante’s shins. The intense heat singed the cuffs of his clothes, but his face remained a cold, emotionless mask. He tightened his grip on the Seven-Sins Asura Blade, calculating the distance to Akon’s neck. He could force a Void Step out of the mire, but it would drain a massive amount of his baseline physical stamina under this floor’s high gravity.

"A proud S-rank hunter, reduced to a stuck pig," Akon mocked, his voice a volcanic rumble as he stepped through the molten sand. His four arms raised the massive glass axe, the edge glowing a vicious crimson. "Marcus told us you were an unkillable ghost. He forgot to mention how easy it is to drop a ghost into a furnace. Any last words, human rat?"

Dante didn’t answer. He simply looked up at the giant blade, his eyes deadpan.

Before the axe could swing downward, a sharp, terrifying hiss echoed through the cavern ridge.

The drop of royal demon blood from Esabella’s lip soaked into the dark vine handle of her whip. Instantly, the weapon reacted violently. The thorns didn’t just grow; they began to twist, multiplying and fusing together as a blinding fire erupted from the it. The vine expanded into a solid spine, and within a split second, the whip had completely transformed into a massive, two-handed greatsword. The guard was shaped like the roaring jaws of an ancient hellfire dragon, and the blade itself looked like a solid shard of burning, crystallized blood.