A shape emerged from the crater. Then stood still—a prism-born creature cloaked in armor that devoured light and wept color.
Lieutenant Dante's Essence Manifestation frame was humanoid only in silhouette, yet every contour of his form betrayed something beyond humanity. Jagged, overlapping plates curved along his body like the hide of a celestial leviathan, refracting light into a spectrum that danced violently with each breath he took.
Where metal might have corroded or bone might have splintered, his armor shimmered like living crystal—impossibly sharp and endlessly shifting, a kaleidoscope trapped in predatory form.
His back bore a crown of blades—spines of rainbow-touched glass jutting outward in asymmetrical brilliance, each one pulsing with a silent hum that resonated like a chord too deep for mortal ears. They flexed, not with muscle, but with pure intent. Essence-slick and coldly deliberate.
His horns curved like antlers forged from split starlight, arching backward like the remnants of a forgotten constellation frozen mid-collapse.
Between them, his face vanished beneath a mask of luminous porcelain—faceless, featureless, yet somehow watching. Judging. Understanding all it surveyed.
In one clawed hand, he gripped a blade that wasn't forged but distilled—a sword of absolute reflection. Its edge was silence itself. Its weight was consequence incarnate. It did not gleam with glory—it mirrored the viewer, revealing their true essence before it struck.
Beneath the armor of refraction, shadows pulsed, thick and alive as ink in water. Legs terminated in talons that split the ground like prophecy made manifest, and a long tail coiled behind him like a serpent woven from refracted light and anchored wrath.
As he slowly began to walk forward, crystals of mirrors bloomed with every footfall—petals of crystallized truth, fractals of reality fracturing in his wake.
The world bent subtly around him, angles defying geometry, as if his mere presence rewrote the fundamental rules of existence.
And he did not breathe. Instead, he released a geometry of strange rhythms—like a wound in reality that had forgotten whether it was divine or damned.
Burning Storm stood speechless, his chest heaving with great displacements of air, eyes wide with recognition.
"Fractured Light… Truly befitting of such a name."
Lieutenant Dante rippled, like a broken glance curving and refracting different cadences of light.
"Do NOT... call my NAME!!"
His voice echoed from all sides. Then reality failed to register his movement—one moment standing distant, the next hovering before Burning Storm's bestial body, leaving only a trail of crystalline mirrors in his wake.
He moved his sword, and the world mirrored it, caught in the reflection of his wrath.
Raizel barely had time to react.
The instant Dante's blade moved, space cracked. Not from pressure, but from rejection—as though reality itself recoiled from what he had become.
Raizel roared and hurled his massive forearms forward, flames spiraling off his fur like a sentient inferno seeking prey. His strike carved through stone and sky, but—found only absence.
Dante had already shifted again.
Like light skipping across fractured glass, he materialized behind Raizel, sword slashing in a low, merciless arc. The crystal blade scraped across the beast's molten hide, sparks erupting like furious stars as it collided with the momentum-coating.
It didn't pierce.
But it rattled him to the core.
Raizel spun, his tail whipping around with devastating force, but Dante vaulted skyward, evading with a burst of mirrored steps—each footfall flashing like constellations shattering against night.
He descended like divine judgment incarnate.
His sword crashed onto Raizel's shoulder, not with brute force, but with precision—sharp, layered strikes cascading one after another, each blow reverberating through the kaleidoscope of mirrors that bloomed around them like temporal echoes of the violence.
First strike—
A flash of crimson lightning.
Second—
A pulse of violet retribution.
Third—
Raizel buckled, bones quaking beneath molten flesh.
With a primal roar, he slammed both arms down into the earth. The ground surrendered—magma and pressure erupting outward in a chaotic maelstrom. Fire and smoke surged like a volcanic scream, devouring everything within reach.
The shockwave flayed the land to ribbons.
But Dante emerged from the inferno untouched—suspended upon a mirror that hovered midair, as though reality's covenant with gravity no longer applied to his existence.
His voice rang out again, honeyed with false mercy.
"You're burning too fast, Raizel. You're fracturing yourself just to keep pace. Having come this far is testament enough—why not surrender? Come to me. I can grant forgiveness... Together we could claim the whole of Central Plains..."
Raizel's breath escaped his nostrils in scalding plumes.
"Dante, shut the hell up and kill me."
He charged—a meteor of fury and flame.
Dante blinked out again—not teleportation, just movement beyond what Raizel's combat-honed instincts could process.
He materialized mid-charge, inverted in space, blade already singing its lethal arc—and slashed downward across Raizel's face with surgical precision.
The horn cracked. Just slightly. But enough to ignite the beast's rage to new heights.
Raizel slammed into the crystal mirror beneath Dante's feet—shattering it with a sound like thunder consuming glass—but Dante had already dissolved into motion.
He reappeared beside Raizel's leg, blade flashing low and merciless. The blow struck true behind the knee, seeking weakness.
This time—blood.
A spray of molten crimson arced through the air, sizzling as it bored smoking holes into the earth.
Raizel howled, a sound torn from the depths of primal rage.
"Enough!"
With that thunderous declaration, the flames along his spine erupted skyward—his Essence Manifestation surging to its terrible zenith.
The air itself liquefied. Space contorted. His bullish frame expanded—not dramatically, but perceptibly—swelling with raw, unchecked power. Muscles strained against burning hide, veins pulsating like rivers of captured sunlight.
He slammed his forelimbs down, and the ground didn't merely break—it surrendered.
A hemisphere of pure momentum detonated outward—a cataclysm of unrestrained kinetic fury.
It caught Dante unprepared.
For one perfect moment, Dante tumbled through the void, his prismatic form cartwheeling in magnificent disarray. The force had penetrated his defenses. His immaculate control—fractured.
Yet even in disorder, he remained transcendent. His crystalline form splintered Raizel's inferno into countless dancing motes of iridescent light.
Dante arrested his chaotic flight mid-air, anchoring his foot against a mirror that materialized from nothingness. He launched forward, trailing luminous streaks like comets tearing across midnight skies.
Raizel didn't hesitate. He surged forward to meet his destiny.
They collided at the epicenter of the devastated estate.
The impact convulsed through the remaining city. The forest beyond the walls shuddered, ancient trees swayed like saplings, and even the imposing metallic ramparts of Fhugal vibrated in sympathetic resonance.
Dante's crystal sword clashed against Raizel's incandescent charge. Neither yielded an inch. Power contested power. Light against fire. They remained locked in stalemate, trembling with cosmic exertion, faces mere breaths apart.
Dante hissed, his voice like obsidian wind chimes.
"This is the end, Rai. This is my final offer!"
Burning Storm's eyes glowed with an eerie, spectral luminescence, but the beast was flagging visibly.
His physical form wavered subtly, the once-voracious flames along his spine now diminished to flickering embers.
His reservoir of essence had reached its absolute nadir... And worse still, Burning Storm was dying.