Northern grinned hard, blood staining the white of his teeth. The light in his eyes gleamed—menacing, a little unhinged.
"Yes. I taste it well, Dante, and it's sweet. Just like the taste of your blood will be."
Dante stared at the boy before him, his gaze seemingly indifferent.
Even for him, it was a lot to process. He was clearly standing before someone who looked no older than twenty. He himself was thirty-five. Raizel was forty-two. The two of them had chased the fineness of swordsmanship since their youth. Of course, with Raizel's broken ability, he was never as enamored with the sword as Dante was.
Dante's own talent, however, could only shine through the mastery of an impenetrable combat style. So he began early—mastering the sword from a very young age.
And yet, not even he could boast of reaching this level by twenty. No, that had never been possible… at least, it shouldn't have been.
Everything about the boy standing before him defied logic. Unless he had lived a life before, there was no explanation for the kind of resolve he wielded. The light in his eyes—it was too fierce, too knowing, too ancient to belong to a youth. To belong to a twenty-year-old.
…Granted, Northern was just days away from turning seventeen. But that didn't really matter.
Northern's grin widened as he watched the Lieutenant.
"What? Getting scared…?"
Lieutenant Dante shrugged. His face remained caught in that strange place between stern and unreadable. Then, he sighed.
"Tell me. What do you stand to gain from stopping me? As far as I remember… the world I'm trying to create is for young boys like you. A better world. One where equality isn't just a dream. A world stripped of selfish old bastards who hoard riches and glory—those same riches that could make us infinitely stronger—while not even caring that they're doing it at the cost of our future!"
He gestured outward, voice rising with each word.
"Look at the world, boy! Look at it. We barely have a handful of Paragons who truly deserve the title. Rift emergence rates are dwindling. And what do these people do? They impose absurd taxes and levies on what little we still have. Step into a rift without their permission, and suddenly you've committed a sin worthy of death. And for what?"
His voice dropped, sharp as a blade.
"To monopolize resources."
Dante fixed Northern with a dark, unwavering stare, stepping forward with quiet resolve.
"They're so consumed by greed, they've lost all sense of priority. In over three hundred years, not a single Luminary has been born. Who's supposed to become a Transcendent then? Do we—as a continent—even have the right to dream of producing a Zenith?"
His words hung like a blade in the air.
"Have we ever asked when the real threat is coming?"
Northern said nothing, watching him silently.
"Since I was a child, I've watched this madness unfold. I've seen it choke innocent lives while the government smiled. It's rotten to the core. They're not afraid to use mundane lives as collateral, just to get what they want. They call it the 'greater good'—but that same 'greater good' only fattens their pockets and feeds their gluttony."
He paused. The breath he released was soft, but laced with disgust.
"Ah… how people misuse that word these days."
Then finally, a flicker of emotion crossed Dante's face. His brows furrowed as he stared at Northern.
"These are the people… you and Burning Storm are fighting so desperately to protect."
Northern stayed silent for a few beats. Then, scratching his head with the same casualness one might give to an idle thought, he spoke with quiet deliberation.
"Not to sound apathetic to the chaos brewing in the Central Plains... but I really don't care. If I want to enter a rift, I enter it. Let's see who's bold enough to stop me. So I guess I'm not bound—no, crippled—by the standards your gluttons have set. If there's anything I care about, it's that last part... the real threat."
His face sobered, his tone sharpening as he stepped forward. His hands curled tighter around the hilt of his blade.
"If you're actually preparing for the real threat… then why in the world would you team up with it? I'm confused."
Dante's expression darkened at that. A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth.
"What do you mean?"
Northern held his gaze, unblinking. For a moment, he simply stared—expression deadpan, unreadable. Then he scoffed.
"Of course you don't know. You have no idea that the person you've allied with is a servant of a strange existence… one whose power is terrifying and boundless."
Dante's frown deepened. It was no longer a reaction—it was suspicion.
"What are you saying?"
Northern sighed. The breath carried weight, like someone fed up with explaining the obvious.
"Are you going to reveal yourself, or should I peel back every layer of your secret for him?"
A ripple ran through the air. A faint shimmer of scarlet thread bled into existence—and then, as if reality itself was being stitched into submission, Koll slowly emerged. He appeared beside them, materializing like a ghost sewn from a red thread.
His face held a pale frown.
"Tch. My cover's been blown."
Lieutenant Dante's head snapped toward the figure he knew as the Prophet.
"You—what are you doing? Don't tell me… you've been scheming other things all this while!!"
Koll dismissed the Lieutenant with a lazy wave, not even sparing him a glance. His attention remained fixed on Northern.
"This is the last chance I'll offer you, Son of Void. This is your destiny. Side by side, we could witness the descent of the King of Origin—we could usher in an era of peace… one that understands the weight of war, one that honors every drop of blood spilled in its name."
Dante's eyes flared with fury. Being ignored like a footnote by someone he considered a pawn was one thing he was not going to tolerate.
His face twisted into a snarl as he lunged, vanishing in a sharp burst of white light. He descended upon Koll like a meteor—fast, fierce, unrelenting.
But Koll didn't flinch. He raised one hand and caught the blade mid-swing, his fingers locking around cold steel as if it were no more than a twig. The clash birthed a rippling shockwave that cracked the air around them.
With a slight tilt of his head—a gesture almost bored—Koll crushed the sword in his grasp. Metal groaned, then shattered. Before Dante could process the shift, Koll's arm snapped forward, and a clean, merciless punch slammed into his face.
The Lieutenant was sent flying.
He crashed into the earth with a brutal thud, then tumbled backward, rolling through dust and stone, skidding dozens of meters across the scorched ground.
Northern remained still, arms loose at his sides, expression untouched by surprise or concern. He watched the scene unfold like someone waiting for a show to resume.
'Popcorn would've been nice but it's alright. I'll manage things as it is.'