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The impact on the crown reverberated like the bell of an apocalypse.
For a moment, the world stopped moving. A deep hum spread through the city's ruins, shattering already broken glass and further cracking structures on the verge of collapse. The floating crown above Dante's head trembled, the runes on its surface pulsing like open wounds.
And then…
Voices.
Echoed from the crown like whispers from another plane. — "This girl… kill her now…" said a hoarse, feminine voice, almost a choked scream. — "…she must die."— "Insolent…" added a male voice, colder, deeper. — "It was always a mistake to let her live."
Dante didn't respond, but his expression hardened for an instant. His black eyes spun like corrupted galaxies, and his fists clenched. The crown glowed in response to the voices—and lines of purple energy ran down Dante's arms and shoulders, further strengthening the fusion with the abyss.
Mei took a few steps back in the air, her body still in flames. Blood dried on her skin, but the smile... that never faded.
— Hey, hey… — she raised a finger. — Was that a scolding, Dante? Are mommy and daddy yelling at you because you haven't managed to kill me yet?
She laughed heartily.
— How embarrassing. Imagine the disappointment. Centuries to set up this little show, and you get beaten up by a girl with an empty stomach and messy hair.
The voices from the crown ceased. But the energy increased.
Mei now stared at the crown with more attention. Something there made sense.
"It's not just a power source... it's a portal."
The fragments of energy emanating from the crown not only fueled Dante but vibrated with patterns that didn't belong to this world.
— Now I get it… — she murmured, more to herself. — That thing is the link. The bridge. The sewer pipe between here and that place.
She looked at Dante, who watched in silence. — You can control the Abyss? That explains why the scourge from that place never comes with warning, never comes with logic. Only destruction… and you managed to rein it in.
She snapped her fingers. — Admit it: with this power, you'd give four, five nations a hard time.
Pause. Smile. — But me? It just gets me more excited.
Dante raised his hand. — Empty words from a creature cracked inside.
— Ah, come on… — said Mei. — You fuse with the void, listen to voices of grumpy old hags from another dimension, and want to call me cracked?
The ground shook. The crown spun faster. Dante advanced.
Mei did too.
The two collided in the center of the crater like out-of-sync gods.
Dante conjured black spheres that multiplied into fractals, each orbiting the other and exploding at irregular intervals. Mei dodged with Pulsar impulses, her feet burning the air, each step calculated with precision.
He summoned chains from the ground. She spun, burned, punched, and opened clearings of light in the darkness.
Between blows, Mei thought.
"The voices recognized my existence… This is personal. I am a threat."
— So tell me… — she shouted amidst flames — …what did I do to make you so bitter? Did I break your toys when I was a child? Did I tear the sacred rug of the Abyss?
Dante cut the air with a sword made of purple energy. It ricocheted off a flaming wall raised by Mei.
— You do not belong to this world — Dante said coldly. — You do not belong to any. You are an error… a spark of something that should not exist.
Mei arched an eyebrow. — If I'm an error, then correct me. Go on. Show me the Abyss's correction fluid.
She charged with a blast of concentrated energy, but Dante evaporated and reappeared behind her. A quick slash cut through her side. Blood. Pain.
Mei was thrown.
She crashed into one of the broken buildings, sliding through beams until her shoulder hit the concrete.
For a moment, silence.
Mei coughed. Spat blood.
— Ouch, I admit... that one hurt.
"Most of his attacks are predictable, but when he hits me, it's always direct..."
"I have to end this soon..."
But she stood up. The flames enveloped her again. The Pulsar glowed. Her skin began to heal.
— Trying hard, huh? She wiped the blood from her mouth and smiled again. — I bet mommy is there in the depths of the crown saying "son, you never do anything right".
Dante charged with everything, but now… Mei was waiting for it.
She began to guide his movements. Every absorbed blow, every dodge, every step... was part of a new plan.
Mei noticed the moments when the crown expanded and contracted, as if breathing. The phases when it became more vulnerable.
She spun in the air, took a grazing blow just to calculate the distance. Made Dante move to the left once more. Took a kick. Spat more blood.
But smiled.
— There. Now I understand your song.
She launched herself at him. Spiral flames. Multiple blows. Imaginary Technique being shaped right there, in the heat of the moment.
Mei created an inverted gravity field with her solar flame, distorting the air. Used it to make the next blow seem to come from above but reversed at the last second.
— Imaginary Technique: Stellar Quiver!
From her fist, three lances of pure energy were fired in a curve, as if defying physics and logic.
Dante dodged the first. The second grazed him.
But the third… struck directly at the base of the crown.
BOOOOOOM!
The explosion was like the dawn piercing an abyss.
Fragments of stellar light scattered in all directions.
The crown screamed. Not Dante—the crown.
The voices writhed. — "HER! SHE MUST..."
CRAAAACK. Another crack in the structure.
And across the entire planet…
Everyone watched.
— MY GOD! — AGAIN! — SHE HIT THE CROWN AGAIN! — THE STAR IS WINNING!
Back in the building where they were... Mei smiled, bleeding, panting, her eyes more alive than ever.
"I just need to hit it a few more times. If that crown falls, Dante will run out of energy, and I can kill him."
She stared at Dante and said:
— My compliments to your family... if you want, I can make tea with the crown's pieces later.
The crown screamed—not with sound, but with existence.
After Mei's blow, its glow flickered, fragments of energy scattered like shards of a broken sun. But before the silence could solidify, it reacted. Lines of darkness danced in the air and intertwined like maddened serpents. The crown absorbed energy directly from the abyssal plane, pulsing with a second, darker wind.
Dante trembled for an instant… and then exploded with power.
His wounds closed as if time had reversed for him. His eyes now burned in three directions.
The crown's voice echoed, hoarse, powerful, multiple:
— "RECEIVE MORE… BE MORE… KILL HER."
Dante spread his arms and roared. The sky responded.
Black storms formed above them. Lightning made of corrupted matter crossed the firmament.
Dozens of demons were summoned around him—creatures made of cold flames, broken hooves, and mouths contorting in agony.
— Let's end the hope — Dante said, now with a triple voice that vibrated in space like dry thunder.
Mei prepares herself, bleeding, chest heaving. But her smile was still there. Smaller. More strained. But there.
— Look at that… mommy gave you a little gift, huh? I hope it didn't come with a bow.
Dante appeared before her in an instant. A precise kick pierced her defense and shattered the flame structure around her abdomen. Mei flew through the ruins, crashing through two buildings before stopping against a cracked wall.
She coughed. A lot of blood. Her left arm was in pieces.
"His speed increased?"
"How much power does that crown have? And how far can it go without a price?"
The world watched.
— ...Mei...? Did she die?
— No... she doesn't fall that easily...
Fenra clenched her fists. — It's different. That thing… it's not the Dante we know. It's something else using his soul as a host.
Mei slowly stood up, staggering. She lifted her face and smiled, even with eyes full of pain.
— Making me sweat, congratulations.
She cracked her neck and, with a slow gesture, the wounded arm began to reform. The flames spun in reverse, reconstituting muscles, tendons, and bones.
— Cellular temporal reversal... — she murmured. — But this will drain me quickly.
She looked at Dante, who was walking slowly, surrounded by demons and spheres of abyssal energy.
Mei retreated in the air, feeling a cold fear for the first time in the fight.
"If this continues like this… I think I..."
In that moment, for a fraction of a second, her face trembled.
And she remembered.
Remembered the first time she was on the verge of death, fighting alone against a being of equal or greater power… The Demon Emperor. An ancestral being, whose existence was feared across all continents. His name carried stories of massacres and ruined kingdoms. He was defeated with extreme effort, in a legendary fight where Mei, Tenklyn, Aisha, and Akira united. Mei almost died that day.
Remembered the second… the Cursed Mercenary. A silent Reaper, who killed kings and generals without leaving traces. A poison specialist, he almost killed her slowly, suffocatingly. The fight was personal. One mistake, one more instant, and it would have been the end.
In both cases… she should have died. But she didn't.
She smiled. Even with fear. Even with her body in pieces.
Her mother's voice resonated softly within her:
— When everything is against you… smile with your heart, my daughter. A smile can be stronger than a thousand blades.
Mei took a deep breath. Her eyes shone again. Fear turned into focus. Pain turned into a weapon.
— Alright then, Dante. Want to bet infinite energy against intelligence? She raised one arm pointing to the sky.
— Combined Technique: Cyclonic Pulsar + Internal Supernova.
The flames began to spin around her in double rotation. One ring moved clockwise, the other counterclockwise. In the center, Mei's body vibrated in orange and white light, like the core of a star.
She used the Pulsar to keep her body in perpetual motion and the Supernova to generate controlled combustion with each impact.
Dante advanced with the demons. But Mei was no longer the same as before.
She moved in a zigzag, swift, leaving solar trails that exploded after a half-second delay.
One demon tried to touch her—turned to ashes. Another tried to surround her—evaporated.
She smiled, her eyes on fire.
— Imaginary Technique: Stellar Fusion Blade!
From her reconstructed arm, a blade made of pure gravitational light emerged, shaped by compressing the flames to extreme density.
She spun and cut through two abyssal spheres, tearing the space around them.
Dante descended from the heavens with two black swords in hand. They collided. Flames against darkness. Sound against silence.
The city below crumbled in waves.
Explosions swallowed entire buildings and streets.
Mei thought:
"If I destroy the crown, he'll lose the link, and his damn infinite energy will crumble. But I can't approach directly. I have to force him to open a point."
She retreated. Created a fake opening in her guard. Dante fell for it. Charged.
But that's what she wanted.
She spun at the last instant, propelled by the Pulsar's flames, and struck the opposite side of the crown with the Stellar Fusion Blade.
CRAACK!
No crack this time.
This time, the crown reacted on its own.
A field of black, vibrating, repulsive energy appeared around it. When Mei's blade touched the shield, a shockwave threw her away with crushing force.
Mei was hurled like a flaming comet, carving a deep, spiraling trench in the ground. She hit a weakened concrete structure with violence, and it collapsed instantly.
The crown hovered motionless above Dante—untouched, protected. But now, clearly… alive.
— You must have realized by now — Dante murmured with an arrogant smile — The crown is alive.
And it adapts.
Mei coughed in the dust, slowly stood up, her arms trembling. Even so, she smiled.
— Damn… the crown has a security system now? Want me to show my ID too?
She rolled her shoulders, in pain.
— If you think this will stop me…
Her eyes glowed.
— ...you'd better get ready to hear the alarm ringing until it explodes.
To be continued...