Chapter 86: Final round

Marcus walked across the sand, and the ground cracked under every step. The armor had fused over his whole body. His fingers ended in points. His eyes were black with a thin grey ring.

"You killed my vessel," the double voice said.

"Don’t worry, soon You’ll also die," Dante said in serious tone.

Then Marcus become furious and charged towards him. His sword hit the ground a step in front of Dante, and the sand blew apart. A trench tore across the arena. The stone benches on both sides split open and fell.

Dante came through the dust with his sword swinging. The two swords met in the middle with a crack like thunder.

Marcus hammered down again and again. Dante took the first on his blade and the second on his forearm. The third split the skin of his right hand wide open.

Blood ran down the hilt. He didn’t let go. He spun and cut across Marcus’s chest, and black blood sprayed.

The sword swept low at his stomach. Dante threw himself sideways. The edge only grazed him, but it went deep. Warm blood soaked his belt.

He drove his knee into Marcus’s jaw. Teeth cracked.

Marcus grabbed his horn and slammed his head into the sand. White light burst in Dante’s skull. The horn cracked.

"Dieee you lowly human". Both voice screamed at once.

Dante kicked up with both feet and threw Marcus off. He rolled and came up on one knee.

"Not before you "

His next swing took the arm off at the elbow. Both voices shrieked. The arm grew back in two heartbeats, black and thorned. Marcus stabbed at his chest. Dante twisted, and the point went through his side and out again. It hurt. He kept the sword moving and cut across Marcus’s face.

They stood chest to chest, bleeding on each other. Screaming and yelling. Their blades locked, and the ground cracked in a ring around them. The stands fell. The walls fell. The sand rose like a storm.

Esabella watched from the bench.

Her eyes were open, but her body wouldn’t obey. The healer’s white light shook over her ribs. She watched Dante’s blade go up and come down, and she watched what it cost him. His hand was torn to the bone. Blood ran from his all body, his ears, and his stomach everywhere. The horn on his head had split in two.

"Noo," she whispered.

She tried to push herself up. Her arms folded but she fall again she couldn’t stood up because of her wounds.

Then the wound in her body was slightly healing because the healer was doing his best to try to heal both of them.

Her voice cracked and turned into a cough. Blood poured from her mouth. She clawed at the stone until her nails split. She couldn’t stand. She lay with her face against the bench and said his name again and again, until her voice gave out.

....

Marcus’s body began to break. The armor cracked along the spine. Black light leaked out of every seam. Blood ran from his nose and his eyes. The two voices fought inside his throat.

"Hold the vessel," the male voice said.

"It’s tearing. We can’t both fit."

"Hold it just a little more"

Marcus came at Dante with the sword over his head. The swing split the ground. Dante stepped aside, and the blade went into the sand up to the hilt. He drove his elbow into the face and the pommel of his sword into the skull.

His own body was failing too. His hand shook. Black spots crawled over his sight. His breath came in wet rasps.

’One more. Just one.’

He pressed the ring. The stone eye opened, and Marcus lit up like a map. Two knotted bundles of power ran through him and twisted together in one place on the chest, where the armor was cracked. A small bright knot pulsed there, red and black at once.

’That’s where they’re joined.’

He threw the sphere on the ground.

[Ground Weight Control activated. Target: Marcus. Pressure: 100x.]

"Arghh" Marcus dropped to one knee. Dante stepped in and He was too close now.

"You are dead now ." Dante said and he was just about to kill him but then –

"Law of breaker " Marcus smiled and drove the sword up with one hand. It went through Dante’s stomach, in at the front and out at the back, and the point stuck out near his spine.

"DANTE!" The scream tore out of Esabella’s throat. She wrenched herself up on her elbows, and blood poured from her mouth. The healer fell backward.

"No. No. Danteeeee!"

On the sand, Dante stood very still. The sword was in him. Blood ran down the blade in a stream and pooled around his foot. He looked down at the sword, then up at Marcus’s eyes.

But –He smiled. It was small and crooked, and it frightened the things in Marcus’s body more than anything he had done all day.

"Got you," Dante said.

He grabbed the blade with his torn right hand. The steel cut through the last of his fingers. He didn’t let go. He pulled Marcus closer, until their faces were a hand apart.

"Wh–What are you—?" the double voice said.

Dante lifted sword in his left hand.but then a sudden pain come in his body telling him to stop.but he didn’t.

"Spatial Cleave."

The world split. The black line opened from his blade, thin as a thread, and slid straight through Marcus’s chest. It cut the armor, the ribs, the knot of red and black light at the center.

For half a second, nothing happened.

Then Marcus came apart from the middle. Black light blasted out in every direction. Both entities screamed together, a sound like a thousand knives dragged across glass. The sky shook. The stone flew up in a ring.

"Ahhhhh–Get–Get out of this vessel!" The male entity screamed

Two shapes tore out of Marcus’s back, one black, one red, and flew upward. Marcus’s body fell forward onto Dante’s chest and hung there.

A circle of white light opened above them. It was a portal.

"Quickly Leave from here!"

"Noo–He’s still coming!"

"You can’t run," Dante said "I’ll find you."

He let go of the dead body. Marcus slid off the sword and landed on his knees in the sand, with his mouth full of blood. For one moment, the black left his eyes, and they were only Marcus’s.

He looked up at Dante’s face. It was bloody, with a broken horn and eyes full of fury.

"Dan..." he whispered. Marcus fell on his face and didn’t move again.

Dante raised the sword in his Both hands. Blood poured down his arms. His whole body shook.

but one last time, he give everything he had in final attack .

"Go to hell," he screamed.

"Haaaaaaaaa" He swung one last time.

"Spatialll Cleaveeeee."

The black line shot upward after the fleeing shapes and went into the portal with them.

On the other side, in a place without a floor or a sky, two figures stood side by side.

They were tall, and their faces were hidden by shadow. Their long robes swallowed the light. They had barely turned around when the black line came through the gap in the air, glowing at the edges.

"Block it!"

They threw up their arms together. But before they could do anything The line hit them like a bell cracking. Both were thrown backward across the dark. One hit the wall of nothing and slid down. The other stayed upright, but a long cut ran across his forearm, and black blood dripped into the void.

They both coughed. Blood ran from their mouths.

The man wiped blood off his chin and stared at it. His eyes burned red in the shadow, and his hands shook with rage.

"I’ll skin him," he said. "I’ll tear that thing out of his chest myself."

And The portal closed.

Meanwhile on the arena....

Dante stood alone in the middle of the sand. The red veins on his arms faded. The horn on his head crumbled to dust and blew away. The sword was feeling heavy in his hand, and he let it fall.

[Demon Sovereign Form deactivated.]

[Power level: 1%.]

[Body integrity: 9%.]

[WARNING: Life signs critical. Death imminent.]

The words come in front of his eyes. And as he saw the more warning start coming .

His legs gave out and He fell to his knees. Blood ran out of his body from everywhere.His hands wouldn’t open.

He started to tip forward.

’Yenna. Esabella.’

Then he heard a scream, high and cracked, far away. Someone falling, and getting up, and falling again.

"DANTE!"

He lifted his head. Across the broken arena, past the shattered benches and the black trench, a woman was running toward him.

She had no sword. Her wings were torn. Her scales were grey and blistered, and blood ran down her chin and stomach. She stumbled with every step, one hand pressed to her ribs. She fell, dragged herself up on her knees, and ran again.

"Nooo , dante–don’t"

Dante watched her come. His vision blurred at the edges. He tried to say something but nothing come out from his mouth. But he was smiling.