Steel met what should have been flesh.
But wasn't.
The blade skidded instead.
A metallic shriek split the air as Dante's sword scraped against Raizel's shoulder—not flesh but living flame wrapped in momentum's armor. The strike didn't cleave clean; it dragged, flinging sparks and embers like scattered stars as it carved a shallow groove across hide transformed into molten defense.
The beast had become a walking furnace.
Raizel rolled with the impact, converting execution into glancing wound. Flames erupted along his hide, racing up his mane and horns like fire given hunger and consciousness.
Dante's feet barely touched ground before retaliation came.
A hoof swept horizontally—not a downward crush but a sweeping scythe that cleaved the horizon. The force alone demolished buildings half a mile distant. Dante dove beneath the arc, the heat boiling moisture from his skin as he escaped death by a hair's breadth.
He emerged from the roll already striking, sword seeking the vulnerable joint behind Raizel's knee—a seam in the molten armor.
Steel found its mark. Penetrated.
But the hide responded with fury—flames exploded outward from the wound, meeting steel with steam that screamed like a dying god. Dante jerked back, vision blurring as fire raced up his blade toward his grip, threatening to consume flesh along with metal.
Raizel surged forward.
A shoulder crash—no finesse, just crushing mass behind impossible speed. It connected with Dante's center mass. Flesh met molten fury and surrendered.
Dante launched skyward, tumbling through air like broken pottery. His body carved ravines in the earth, bouncing once, twice—before colliding with a stone wall that swallowed him in a cloud of debris.
Raizel thundered after him.
His hooves left burning prints on the ground, blackening soil and vaporizing rock. Each exhale birthed flame; each stride proclaimed dominion over the crumbling world.
Dante crawled from the wreckage, spitting crimson.
His uniform hung in charred tatters. At least two ribs sat at wrong angles beneath his skin. Yet his fingers still clutched steel.
The beast's eyes locked onto him—not mindless rage, but something older, calculating, merciless.
Raizel drew breath, and his flames intensified—shifting from orange to white-hot soulfire that bent the air with its heat.
He charged again.
The earth split beneath his assault.
Dante vanished—a blur, then nothing. He reappeared along Raizel's flank, blade extended like a predator's claw. The upward slash should have split any creature from hip to shoulder.
But Raizel embraced the strike. Let the blade rake across his hide—let steel meet living fire and fail to find flesh.
Then his tail swept around.
The appendage struck like a battering ram forged by angry gods. Air fled the world as Dante crashed through two trees before meeting a boulder that exploded on impact.
Yet—impossibly—he rose.
Blood streamed from his scalp, one eye puffed shut, ribs grinding agony with each labored breath.
But his speed hadn't diminished. If anything, it transcended.
Dante blurred again, cutting a low arc across the scorched earth. Sparks erupted from his boots as his blade found Raizel's thigh, biting deeper this time.
A grunt rumbled from the beast.
Instant retaliation—twin horns descended like judgment made manifest.
Dante released his sword.
He leapt, seizing Raizel's horn with both hands.
Using the horn as an anchor, he swung around the beast's momentum, redirecting tons of charging mass—then drove his heel into Raizel's skull with bone-crushing force.
The creature stumbled.
Only fractionally. But it was an opening.
Dante touched down, reclaimed his blade in one fluid sweep, and pivoted upward—driving steel toward Raizel's jaw.
Contact. Sparks exploded. Metal shrieked against bone.
The sword carved a channel but couldn't penetrate. Raizel's roar erupted—not agony, but awakening fury.
Flame geysered from his back, a crimson tower reaching toward the heavens.
Then—Raizel struck.
His jaws snapped shut with enough force to crack granite. Dante rolled clear by inches, leaving the beast's teeth to shatter stone where his skull had been moments before.
Smoke engulfed them. Heat turned air into burning silk. Their arena had contracted to this crucible of fire and steel—where legend battled memory, and velocity danced with the inevitable.
Both warriors gasped for breath.
One—transformed into living flame.
The other—painted in crimson, trembling... yet his lips curved in savage triumph.
Raizel's eyes blazed with emerald fire as his voice crashed over the battlefield like distant thunder.
"Do you think you can kill me without using your talent abilities? You take me for a fool?"
Dante's smirk remained fixed in place.
"Who says killing you is all I want? You're a formidable Paragon, Raizel. Fighting you is a privilege I savor with every drop of blood spilled. I will defeat you—and yes, maybe I'll need one or two talent abilities to do it. But right now? You're weakened. I doubt I'll need them at all. It's only a matter of time before your Essence Manifestation begins to collapse."
He paused, casting a glance toward the Unification Complex, which stood impossibly intact despite the devastation surrounding them.
"Besides, you're shielding the city while fighting me. You've hamstrung yourself with so many disadvantages. You must really be prepared to die."
Raizel's response rumbled forth like an approaching storm, shaking loose stones from nearby ruins.
"I won't be dying today, Dan. Not now. Not anytime soon."
The battle raged on.
What followed wasn't silence.
It was pressure incarnate.
Like dwelling in a hurricane's eye, waiting for the world to tear itself apart.
Raizel moved.
Not a charge—a descent.
His hoof fell like divine judgment. Dante vanished in a blur of desperate speed, but the impact atomized the ground beneath. Magma geysered upward through shattered stone, painting the sky in hellish red.
Dante materialized on Raizel's burning spine.
His boots skidded across hide that blazed like the surface of the sun, soles liquefying as he sprinted along the beast's back—every stride a race against the fire that threatened to consume him alive. He launched skyward and plunged downward, blade aimed at Raizel's nape—steel seeking the heart of a god.
The hide resisted.
The sword penetrated—then shrieked in agony.
Raizel bucked with explosive force, his entire frame convulsing. Dante rocketed into the air, his silhouette igniting as he spun helplessly earthward.
He didn't impact.
Catching himself mid-flight with inhuman precision, he pivoted, shoulders guiding his rotation, and landed in a three-point stance. His blade drove into the earth, anchoring his controlled descent.
Smoke billowed from his scorched back.
His breathing rasped like air being dragged through a punctured bellows.