"Dante is actually facing Asmodeus, the dirtiest of demons, you entered her body Asmodeus." Dante said as he threw Asmodeus away, the strength of the throw was so great that Asmodeus' back hit a crimson red trunk and created a crater with the impact.
"Argh!" She roared in pain as her entire body sprayed wood splinters, piercing through all kinds of muscles in her body, the scene was not pretty at all. On the contrary, that once beautiful succubus had become nothing but torn muscles and exposed bones.
Dante looked at the scene emotionlessly; he had to hold back against her, but he also knew something... That body... It belonged to Lyrianna, the woman who was once compared to Valentina and Siren in her prime. And it was exactly that, the moment her body loosened, in microseconds she was as good as new.
"Not bad," Dante murmured, his sharp eyes tracking Asmodeus' movements. She smiled wickedly before disappearing in a straight advance. Her claws, sharp and deadly, aimed for Dante's neck, but as she approached, she felt an insane danger emanating from him. Instead of attacking, she instinctively protected her face.
"Lyrianna, I hope you won't be mad at me," Dante said. In the midst of her advance, he delivered a horizontal slap from right to left, hitting Asmodeus' cheek and sending her flying to the other side of the hall.
Asmodeus collided with the solid wooden wall, cracks spreading from the impact. She got up with a murderous gleam in her eyes, the sarcastic smile still on her lips. "You'll pay for that, little worm," she growled, raising her hand and conjuring a series of pink spectral blades that flew toward Dante.
Dante invoked his own malice, raising a miasma barrier that deflected the blades with a shattering sound. He jumped forward, crossing the barrier, summoning [Demon Ex-Calibur], his sword glowing with a black and red aura. With a powerful swing, he slashed the ground in his path, releasing a shockwave that made Asmodeus stagger backward.
"Do you think you can stop me with these tricks?" Asmodeus laughed, even as her body still glowed with regeneration energy. "I'm immortal in this body. Nothing can stop me!"
"Oh really? You just seem like an excited bitch, can you even fight?" Dante retorted with a mocking tone, taunting the succubus. He focused, and his sword began to resonate with power. "Let's play." He then charged, his sword cutting through the air with deadly precision.
Asmodeus retreated, conjuring a barrier of demonic energy that absorbed the impact, but the force of the blow still pushed her several meters back. With another fierce attack, he struck through Asmodeus' defenses, sending her flying again.
Asmodeus fell, but before Dante could capitalize, she disappeared in a pink cloud. The entire room began to distort, the ground cracking and revealing a flaming abyss. Shadows emerged, assuming grotesque forms that began to surround Dante.
"Shadow Dance," Asmodeus whispered, her voice echoing. "Let's see how you handle this."
Dante spun his sword, releasing a wave of black light that dissipated the shadows around him, but they continued to emerge, one after another, endless. "Illusion," Dante thought, expecting such tricks from a succubus who couldn't attack him physically, so she resorted to being cowardly.
He extended his free hand, summoning intense red flames that emanated in all directions, disintegrating the shadows in an explosion of energy.
"Aren't you acting like a child, Asmodeus?" Dante teased, placing his sword on his shoulders. "Why don't you give me back Lyrianna? You know you're going to lose," he questioned in the distorted room.
"You haven't seen anything yet," Asmodeus snarled. In the open space, a woman emerged, her hair blood-red, but from afar, she would never be a copy of the true Valentina... "Seriously? You want to put up a fake illusion of My Valentina? Why are you so pathetic?" He said seeing her raise her hands, summoning flames that engulfed her body, her claws now burning with infernal energy.
With a cry, she launched a blast of fire straight at Dante.
Dante raised his sword and struck in a straight line, so fast that the pseudo-clone was erased, the blow generating an explosion of sparks and smoke. The entire room trembled with the intensity of the impact. Dante wasn't playing around; he was mocking her to avoid using too much force and negatively affecting Lyrianna.
His true attacks couldn't harm her in any way; he was exerting immense self-control.
"Damn you!" Asmodeus shouted, reappearing in the arena. She summoned a storm of spectral blades, each infused with corrosive magic. They surrounded Dante, trying to cut through his defenses.
Dante spun his sword, creating a spinning miasma barrier that not only deflected but also consumed the blades. He needed a more offensive approach that wouldn't instantly kill her. His assessment of that demon was almost complete.
He concluded something... "Lyrianna had started her path to adapt to cultivation... If it were the same Lyrianna from before, this battle would probably be problematic, but you're just inhabiting the body; the only emptiness I see is within you," he said to the furious being before him.
"No more games," Dante said with a dark voice as he prepared to advance, and he did so. "Enough already!" With a roar, he struck a powerful blow that cut through Asmodeus, hitting her chest. Demonic energy shone intensely, forcing the succubus to scream in agony.
"Argh!" She roared again, but in a desperate gasp with a disgusting smile "You... will never fully defeat me," Asmodeus shouted, her body trembling. "You can hurt me, but I will always return!"
"Tsk, what a joke," Dante mocked, already seeing that this wasn't going anywhere.
"Don't mock me!!" Asmodeus shouted in fury, her eyes burning with intense hatred. "Then prove your strength against the true power of the sin of lust!!" She raised her hands, and a wave of lust energy radiated from her, invading Dante's body. He felt an unbearable heat spread through his being, every nerve in his body aflame with insatiable desire.
"World of Infinite Lust," Asmodeus whispered, her voice transforming into a seductive murmur reverberating in his mind, a completely different mental attack.
Dante felt not only this heat, this desire, but his mind... various memories began circulating in his head... But these memories... They weren't just his...
"M-My soul!" Dante screamed in pain, feeling his chest nearly exploding. Asmodeus was rifling through all his lives, every existence of his soul. "What are you doing?!" He struggled to maintain control, but the pain and invasion were relentless.
"What an interesting soul..." Asmodeus said, now toying with his soul, something that shouldn't even be possible, yet here she was doing it. "I will find what you desire most, what you fear most... and use it against you." Her voice sounded venomous as if he were trapped in his own body. For a moment, Dante vanished from the world he knew...
He went far, far away, to the point of leaving Elysium...
Asmodeus infected his soul and followed all his lives, every time he passed through samsara.
Dante then found himself faced with memories he didn't even know existed, whispers from his mental world that he never thought were real, echoes of destiny between the beginning, middle, and end of his lives.
Then, he came face to face with a tired, fragile, lonely woman, facing bullying from schoolmates. Every laugh echoed like a painful echo in his mind, reliving the weight of the bullying he had suffered in childhood.
"You..." Dante said, standing still, seeing his own memories in third person... Seeing the girl spending all her savings to buy the video game she wanted next...
Rum-Rum
As she left a store that started with W and ended with Mart, a truck ran over the girl's body.
"A moment of desire... wishing for the video game... and then dying..." Dante murmured, feeling his body falling into the eternal void of his memories. He remembered fragments of this, from when he was a child, he dreamed a lot about this, these dreams... They were reality... But he didn't remember being a girl...
"That's why when I briefly became Ziriel, it wasn't so uncomfortable," he laughed, after all, it was a stain he erased from his mind.
"What a tasteless joke, Destiny," Dante said, but he realized something... It wasn't just this life that existed in this cycle; next... He saw another life... A very distinct life...
He saw himself, not as the man he was now, but as a being with resplendent feathered wings, radiant with purity and divine justice, one of the celestial beings...
"Damn... I was a damn angel? A virtue still?" Dante said, "This has got to be a joke." He growled, for some reason unlike the previous one, he remembered a lot about this, including his name in this other reality...
"HAHAHAHAHA! YOU MUST BE KIDDING ME!" Dante's laughter was so loud that it destabilized the balance of the illusion; his soul was becoming stronger by remembering the small things in his life.