Chapter 386 Legacies that come and go....
Dante walked out, frustrated, his mind caught in a strange impasse. With every step he took through the streets of the Western Empire, his head tried to reformulate every possible scenario. While talking to Beelzebub, he realized that many things were off. At least, thinking about killing a world tree seemed surreal. But he had proof that something was very wrong in this place.
"First: The sector we're in doesn't have any gods," he thought. "Besides Strelitzia and Lilith, I haven't found any sign of a real god. Lilith... She's not really a goddess, she only holds divinity because of the existence of Hell and the power of the Ruler. She's nothing more than a conceptless figure. Unlike Strelitzia, who is a true goddess, full of divine power."n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
"Second: The sector has serious power balance issues," he continued thinking as he walked, his expression tense. "When I came back, I noticed that something was completely off. Especially when I looked at Valentina. I even pretended not to see it, but now... Now I realize there's something deeply wrong with all of this. Even before I came back to life, there were signs of imbalance... And I... I am the imbalance in person."
The thought that he could be the imbalance, something so natural in him, made him question everything. "Not only am I a strange being, with both negative and positive powers, but I also have titles and legacies that shouldn't exist. This only proves that I'm not the imbalance... It's the sector that lacks protection against it. In fact, this protection doesn't exist. There's no one who represents this negativity, this evil. The sector is unbalanced because of it."
"Good and evil, Ying and Yang, shadow and light, positivity and negativity... None of that exists here. Sure, evil exists, but there's no representative, no one who carries the world's misery on their shoulders to keep the balance stable."
He paused for a moment, the weight of his own words still reverberating in his mind. "They... were testing this sector?" he murmured to himself as he continued walking, now more aware of his surroundings. "A test... Yes, that makes sense. In the end, if this is a test, the conversion to a larger sector makes total sense. They want to integrate the existences of this world into other sectors."
"But now, something else is starting to make sense," he continued, the connection between events taking shape. "The hunger for power of that woman... She was chosen by the Universe to be the Negative God. That's why everything aligns with what she wants. Even I, dying, unable to bring Tiamat back, she managed to find the true body... Something happened in Kryoris... She succeeded."
Dante stopped walking for a moment and took a deep breath. "Even though I stopped the experiments with Tiamat's end energy, she found something else... A woman who, by the way, is a beast of the end." He rubbed his forehead, remembering the pieces that were beginning to fall into place. "And Ethan Smith... He was somehow connected to the demonic cult. At the time, I thought it was a coincidence, but now... It wasn't. It was probably Astaroth. She wanted the Sin of Greed."
He felt more and more isolated in his own conclusions. "Now, I can't trust anyone but my wives..." he murmured with a bitter smile, feeling the solid truth that remained. "Since I killed Asmodeus, demons stopped coming to me. Now, the Virtues are safe. I've already recovered Gluttony, Lust, and Greed. Four more to go..."
The night sky seemed to weigh down on him. Something big was coming, he could feel it. "I feel like something bad is about to happen... Something I won't be able to avoid."
He teleported through the flames and appeared inside Albion. In the highest tower, he sat, looking down as the moon reached its peak in the night sky.
"I need to go to Hell and start descending its cycles... I'll lose all my powers temporarily until I reach the last cycle. Until then, I'll have to trust them to keep everything intact... Am I worrying too much?" he questioned as he sat at the edge of the rooftop.
As he leaned his head against the wall, he began to think about his current wives and the ones he still needed to rescue somewhere...
"You seem tired..." He heard a woman's voice sit beside him, as she looked at a specific building where a great banquet was taking place.
He turned his gaze toward the figure beside him. Her hair gently swayed with the wind, her eyes fixed on the same direction as his, focused on the banquet happening below, while the moon illuminated the scene with a cold, metallic light.
"I think I'm overthinking," Dante replied, his voice low, almost lost in the vastness of the city. "I feel like I'm worrying too much, but at the same time, I feel like I'm worrying too little, given the situation." He let out a bitter laugh, the weight of his words heavier than the air itself.
He looked at the banquet once more. It wasn't the kind of event that would normally interest him, but from a distance, he could see several of his wives having fun, though no one knew what was about to happen. No one knew what was coming.
The woman beside him said nothing at first, just observing him. Her presence was comforting, and even in the depths of his own concern, Dante allowed himself to feel a slight relief. He knew she would understand him, perhaps even better than he understood himself.
"Do you really think this is going to work?" she asked casually, though there was a restlessness in her voice, as if probing more than just his words.
He looked at her, his gaze now softer, though his mind was far away, full of dilemmas. "I'm not sure," he replied, taking a deep breath. "But it's the only option. I'm not the powerful dragon I once was. I'll have to play my cards as strategically as possible. It's a game of patience... and I was never good at that, Fufufu~" Dante laughed, sitting next to the woman who leaned her head on his shoulder. Your next read is at empire
She smiled slightly, as if understanding more than she let on. "You always find a way, even when it seems like everything is lost. I just hope this time it's not too late, like that time..."
Dante fell silent for a moment, absorbing her words. He didn't like the idea of losing his powers, of becoming vulnerable, but he knew he had to do it. He had to dive into the very thing he had avoided for so long. To restore balance, he would need to descend into the deepest levels of Hell, a place where his own fears and weaknesses would be exposed in every cycle.
"I can only trust all of you," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "Those who are with me now... what's already mine. And my wives."
"You're sounding like an old man again, you know?" She asked, laughing as she watched the time pass.
"Voralith... or rather... Li Mei," Dante said, calling her name. She turned to him. She had already told him she abandoned that name, but still, he called her that, and it reminded her of bad memories.
"I already—"
"I know, you don't want me to say that name..." Dante interrupted, smiling softly. "But I don't think I can say it to Voralith, so let me speak to the one from millions of years ago." He smiled.
"Alright, Lord Dragon," she said, smiling playfully, trying to ease the strange tension in the air.
"I found Nyx," he mentioned lightly, then looked at the sky, the night. "She recently awoke, and we talked for a bit..."
"Hm... so it looks like I wasn't the only one who awakened in this Era..." she remarked, giving a shy smile. "And the others?"
"You know, don't you? Valentina is Amaterasu and Morgana is Tsukuyomi, though they no longer have their memories... However... she told me that if I gave this..." Dante murmured, as two strange spheres of power appeared in his hand, "They would regain their memories," he explained.
"I-is that..." she wanted to say something, but... "I assume you already understand where I'm going with this, right?" He asked, smiling.
"You... want to go after the others, don't you?" she asked, her body trembling slightly. She was the only one who survived that day, the only one who carried the will of all of them together... She was...
"I've already started... Nyx said she found almost all of them, in various sectors..." Dante murmured. "Ah~ my head hurt so much thinking about it, but I've made a decision."
"You have my legacy, don't you?" He asked. "That time in the forest... when you completely disappeared... it must be because of the legacy." Dante commented, and she gave a shy smile, doing the same as him... A strange golden and red energy sphere appeared in her hand.
"Although I've already used it... it seems it hasn't run out," Voralith said, and Dante simply smiled. "Let's trade." He said, handing over the two spheres.
"When I disappear from this world and go to Hell, give this to Valentina and Morgana..." He said before standing up, holding his own legacy.
"I'll be back soon, I need to speak with... this guy." He said, squeezing the legacy... Then Dante's body disappeared.
"Ah... so, they're awakening..." Voralith murmured, her voice hoarse and trembling. She sat slowly, bringing her knees up to herself, as if trying to shield herself from what was coming. "Good... good..." Her words disintegrated in the air, sinking into a deep sadness as tears silently began to flow down her face.
She hugged her knees tightly, as if the gesture was the only thing keeping her anchored to the present. Her shoulders trembled slightly, and the pain she was trying to contain erupted in a soft sob, but those tears had been kept for millennia...