Brynn.
Strapped to a chair, arms locked in glowing restraints. Blood on her wrists where she'd fought them. Her face was pale with pain.
And Caelum standing over her with a twisted ward-tool pressed to her arm, golden light pulsing as it tore at her abilities.
While she screamed.
Their eyes met across the distance.
Relief flashed across her face. Then terror. Then Caelum's hand tightened on the tool, and her back arched with fresh agony.
Another scream. Weaker this time, her voice breaking.
The army flooded forward, thousands of shells moving to block his path. To slow him down while their master continued torturing what belonged to Dante.
Every bit of restraint. Every ounce of control he'd maintained while searching, while conserving power.
It meant nothing now.
Dante stopped holding anything back.
His shadows exploded outward with enough force to crack the floor beneath him. The temperature plummeted to impossible depths, frost spreading across every surface. His form flickered between solid and something else entirely.
The shells between them dissolved. Hundreds gone in seconds. The army tried to reform, tried to block his path, but they were hollow copies facing the genuine thing.
Through the gap his power had created, he saw her clearly now.
Tears on her cheeks. The tool was still pressed to her arm, still glowing.
She was still wearing his shirt under that coat. Still carrying pieces of him with her. And Caelum was trying to tear those away too.
But the shells kept coming. Wave after wave, synchronized to overwhelm through sustained assault. From every angle simultaneously. He met them with unleashed power, shadows tearing through dozens at a time.
Metal screamed. Armor shattered. Bodies dissolved.
But there were thousands.
For every dozen he destroyed, two dozen more stepped into the gap. The army was adapting, exploiting the fractures in his defenses that grew wider as his power drained.
More blades found marks through the gaps—his shoulder, his forearm, his thigh. Cuts were accumulating with each passing moment.
His power was still vast, still devastating everything close to him, but even he had limits. He'd never tested them. Never had reason to push this far.
Never had something he couldn't bear to lose.
A spear grazed his neck, just enough to draw blood.
The shells pressed closer, sensing weakness. More disciplined strikes, tighter formations. Learning that he could be worn down.
He was tiring, and Caelum, watching from beside her chair with that tool still in his hand, knew it.
"Ah, there we are." Caelum's voice carried across the chaos, calm through the carnage. "The Reaper, come to save his thief. How predictable."
He gestured casually, and the army shifted, creating a corridor between Dante and the chair. An invitation. Or a dare.
"Please." Caelum rested his hand on the back of her chair, dangerously close to her shoulder. She flinched but couldn't pull away. "Let's discuss this reasonably. You're powerful, Reaper, perhaps the most powerful of all the Death Lords. But you're in my realm now. Fighting my army. Destroying victims who've already suffered enough."
"Each one was someone's beloved," Caelum continued, almost gently. "Someone's child, parent, lover. And you're unmaking them by the hundreds just to reach one mortal girl."
