Chapter 48: Let’s paint this vault in there blood

"You will never speak his name with your filthy mouth again," Esabella whispered.

Her voice dropped to a terrifying register. She didn’t hesitate. She raised her left hand to her mouth, her nails piercing her own bottom lip once more, letting a fresh drop of royal demon blood fall directly onto the thorned handle of her whip.

A explosion of hellfire erupted from her hand. The metal vines violently expanded, twisting and fusing together until the whip completely transformed back into the two-handed dragon-sword. The burning blade pulsed with an dark energy that forced the surrounding smoke to scatter. The high slit of her skirt flew open as she took a dangerous, aggressive stance, her long white legs completely exposed against the firelight.

"I am going to peel the iron plates from your flesh," Esabella said, her red eyes dilating with pure, vengeful fury. "I am going to break every single bone in your body, and kill you that you have never imagined off, you will scream and beg, but nothing gonna save"

Balor’s face turned angry. He raised his giant axe with all three of his lower arms, pointing it straight at the stage. "Useless trash! Kill the human, and bring the girl to me alive! I will break her spirit myself!"

"Form up!" the northern vanguard soldiers roared, their step creating a loud thud as the front line of fifty armored demons lunged forward simultaneously, their stone halberds aiming straight for the platform.

Dante slowly stepped down from the elevated core stage, walking up right beside Esabella. The sheer gravity of there presence made the nearest charging soldiers hesitate for a fraction of a second.

"Leave the boss to me," Dante said, his eyes locking onto Balor’s throat. "Clear the soldiers out of my way."

Esabella’s furious expression softened for a second as she heard his voice, her tail twitching happily behind her dress before turning back to the charging army. "As you command, my King. Let’s paint this vault in their blood."

The vanguard of fifty armored northern demons rushed forward

Dante didn’t wait for them to reach the steps. He stepped off the edge, his body turning into a dark streak as he used a rapid Void Step. Because his physical statistics had just been multiplied a hundred times by the sovereign override, his movement was entirely silent. He materialized right in the middle of the front line.

SLASH!

His right hand moved in a clean, horizontal blur. Even though the Seven-Sins Asura Blade remained completely invisible, the dense aura surrounding the newly evolved edge cut through three armored demons simultaneously. Their armor and stone weapons split, dark red blood spraying across the black sand before they could even register his presence.

"He’s in the center! Surround him!" a demon captain roared, waving a massive battle-axe.

Before the soldiers could turn their weapons inward—

swish!

Esabella went forward ,The high slit of her skirt parted completely, revealing her long white leg as she swung the massive dragon-sword with absolute, ruthless power. A wave of hellfire erupted from the blade, cutting a wide arc through the crowd. Five more demons were instantly set ablaze, their armor melting into liquid slag as they tumbled to the floor.

Her tail snapped forward like a switchblade, the jagged bone-shards popping outward to pierce a demon’s throat, pinning him to the stone while she smoothly spun her sword to decapitate another.

"Don’t ignore the old generation," a rough voice shouted from the rear.

Gideon stepped forward, slamming the butt of his bone staff violently against the ground. He didn’t use demon magic; he triggered an old S-rank pioneer skill from his days clearing the 50th floor.

"Earth-Grid Lockdown!" Gideon commanded.

The floor for fifteen meters around the remaining vanguard soldiers suddenly cracked, and pillars of pure obsidian shot upward like a row of spears. The pillars didn’t just block their path—they clamped tightly around the demons’ legs and torsos, completely freezing thirty armored soldiers in place and shattering their lower bone structures.

"Argh! My legs! I can’t move!" the trapped demons shrieked, thrashing against the stone clamps.

"Good job, old fossil," Esabella mocked with a serious smile, her dragon-sword flashing as she immediately glided forward to harvest the trapped soldiers, her eyes burning with fanatical revenge.

With the vanguard completely broken by Esabella and Gideon, the path to the back of the room was open.

Dante didn’t turn back to look at them. He executed a final Void Step, appearing directly in front of Warlord Balor.

"Human !" Balor roared, his face turning furious.

The giant warlord raised his greataxe with three of his hands, drawing every drop of his energy into the blade until it pulsed like a burning coal. With a force that compressed the air in the room, he brought the giant weapon crashing straight down toward Dante’s head.

Dante didn’t draw his invisible sword to parry. He wanted to test the absolute limit of his newly multiplied physical density under this floor’s high gravity. He simply raised his left forearm horizontally, intending to take the world-crushing strike directly.

BOOM!!!

A catastrophic explosion of kinetic force detonated through the vault, shattering the stone blocks beneath Dante’s boots and creating a deep crater. The shockwave was so violent it sent waves of black sand flying across the room, forcing the remaining northern soldiers to cover their faces.

Balor’s red eyes went wide with absolute shock.

The giant axe had stopped exactly two inches above Dante’s head, resting heavily against his bare left forearm. The SSS-rank Vajra Mirror Body initialized instantly, the physical impact multiplying by two and violently blasting straight back into the weapon.

CRACK!

The axe violently fractured into thousands of tiny black shards, and the brutal feedback wave traveled straight up Balor’s three giant arms, cracking his bone armor plates and forcing the five-meter warlord to stumble backward four steps, his step leaving deep gouges in the floor crust.

Dante stood in the center of the crater, his clothes slightly torn but his skin completely clear of any blood. he slowly pulled his sword humming silently in his grip.

"Your armor is heavy," Dante said flatly. "But your strike is completely weak."