The Tower of Limbo – Apex
The silence after the strike was worse than the fight.
Elsa's breath came ragged. She skidded across molten stone.
"DANTE!"
He didn't move.
Rebellion jutted from his chest, the blade still glowing. Blood ran down the grooves like rivers of fire. His body slumped to one side, eyes half-lidded and unfocused.
"Come on, dammit!" Elsa dropped beside him, grabbing his coat, shaking him. "Don't you dare die on me now!"
No response.
Only the Tower's heartbeat. Only the hiss of blood on heat.
She pressed a palm to his cheek. Fever-hot. Pulse faint—almost not there. The heat wasn't just blood. It was energy. Building. Changing.
"Dante, please…" she whispered. "You can't leave me here with him."
Behind her, the air cracked.
Ulysses turned from the fallen hunter, halberd scraping a comet-tail of sparks.
"Let him rest, Elsa," he said, soft and paternal. "He's served his purpose."
She looked up, eyes blazing. "You call stabbing him through the heart a purpose?"
Ulysses didn't answer her. His gaze locked on the floating shard of Force Edge.
Blood pooled under Dante, then shimmered—lifting, twisting—drawn toward the gem in Ulysses's chest.
The chamber shook.
"Do you feel it?" he whispered, arms spreading. "The convergence—the moment when all worlds bleed together."
Crimson light spiderwebbed across the floor toward the altar.
The shard vibrated, edges splitting into spectral doubles—as if the sword were remembering itself.
Elsa rose, shotgun up. "I'm not letting you finish that ritual."
Ulysses traced a burning sigil with the halberd's edge. "It's too late. Blood has been spilled. The seal is broken."
The air tore open.
Reality twisted like a whirlpool of light and shadow. Something looked back—vast, burning, pressed against the veil.
The portal bled flame. Its center glowed deep red—the color of sin. Of power. Of Hell.
Ulysses dropped to one knee. "My lord Mephisto… the door is open."
The answer wasn't sound. It was hunger.
"You have done well, vessel…"
Elsa staggered as the air thickened. Shapes writhed within the portal—claws, horns, wings—and something older behind them all.
The Bloodgem flared. Ulysses trembled. "Grant me your flame. Make me your will."
A tendril of crimson energy lashed out, striking his chest. He convulsed, screaming as the gem fused deeper. Veins blackened. Armor cracked and reformed.
Elsa fired straight at his heart.
The bullet dissolved midair.
Ulysses lifted his head, eyes like coals. "You never understood, Elsa. I am beyond your reach."
He slammed the halberd down. A shockwave threw her back. The shotgun skidded away and vanished into smoke.
When she looked up, Ulysses stood before the portal, arms outstretched. Energy wrapped around him.
Mephisto's voice deepened—amused, venomous. "You seek divinity, mortal… but all you've found is servitude."
Ulysses's eyes widened. The gem flared out of control, bleeding light through his armor. "No—no! I am your vessel!"
The voice turned cold. "Then serve."
Energy ripped through him. Humanity burned away. His scream filled the Tower. Flesh blackened. Bone fused with armor. The Bloodgem turned from red… to black.
A shockwave shattered the altar.
Elsa rolled clear, stone raining down. She looked back—and where her father had stood was something else: a figure of obsidian armor, eyes hollow, the gem pulsing like a dying star.
"Father…"
It turned toward her. No longer Ulysses. No longer human.
Only a Death Knight.
Behind him, the portal widened. A hand reached out—clawed, ancient, dripping flame.
And below it all… Dante's blood began to boil.
The ground around him pulsed crimson. Rebellion shook in his chest. Steam hissed from his skin as cracks of red light spread from the wound.
Elsa's eyes widened. "Dante…?"
No answer.
But the air shifted. The Tower's heartbeat quickened.
Ulysses turned, sensing it. "Impossible…"
—
A memory rose through the fire.
Not this Tower. Not this hell. A kitchen lamp humming. The smell of tea and rain. His mother's hands, warm on his cheeks, whispering stories about a man with a devil's power who chose to be good.
Your father saved people who feared him, she'd say, brushing his hair back. He fought monsters on both sides of the door. He did it because he could—and because someone had to.
Another voice layered over hers—Matteo's, ragged and sure.
Don't fight with anger… fight with heart. Don't run from either side of yourself. Devil and man, together.
Dante's breath steadied.
The rage didn't vanish. It aligned.
He didn't deny the fire. He held it.
—
Rebellion flared—once, twice—then light consumed everything.
The portal, the altar, even Mephisto's hand vanished in the blaze.
Through the storm, a voice cut steady and low—alive.
"…I'm not done yet."
White fire roared through the Tower as something inside Dante woke.
The light around him pulsed… and shattered.
Elsa threw an arm over her face as heat rolled out in a wave. The floor cracked. Rivers of molten stone split as if the Tower recoiled.
Rebellion moved.
The blade pulsed—alive—and its light turned from red to blinding white. Wounds sealed. Blood steamed off his coat.
A low growl rose. Not human.
Dante's head dropped. His shadow stretched long across the broken stone—horns flickering into shape where there had been none.
Crimson light crawled up his arms and spine, veins burning like molten fire beneath his skin. The air around him thickened, alive with heat and static.
His coat snapped in a wind that wasn't there. The human outline burned away, replaced by something raw, untamed—half fury, half fire.
Devil Trigger.
Horns curved from his brow, sculpted from living flame. His skin darkened to blood-red steel, lines of black fire racing across his chest and shoulders.
Energy wings flared from his back—phantoms of smoke and crimson light—before folding into a pulsing aura that lit the ruins like dawn.
Rebellion tore itself free from the earth and flew to his hand. White-red energy surged along its edge, demonic glyphs flashing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
His eyes opened—gold, slit, and blazing. A devil's gaze, but still unmistakably Dante's.
Dante looked up. His voice came layered—man and devil together.
"…You wanted to see the devil?"
The floor ignited.
Ulysses staggered. "No… impossible! You shouldn't have survived!"
Dante smirked, fangs flashing. "Guess I'm full of surprises."
He vanished.
A blur of motion. Rebellion slashed across Ulysses's chest. Sparks and blood sprayed. The halberd whistled back, igniting with hellfire—
Dante caught it with his bare hand. Ifrit's gauntlets burned into existence, brighter than the Tower itself.
"Let's see how your 'evolution' stacks up."
Their clash shook the apex. The ceiling split. Crimson lightning poured from the rift. Thunder with every hit—fire against shadow, angelic light against infernal rage.
Elsa found cover, eyes wide. The boy who fought like a man was fighting like something greater.
A bridge between worlds, she thought. Just like Matteo said.
Dante's wings flared wide. Heat shoved everything back. "This ends now!"
Ulysses roared, the black gem burning. "Then die with me!"
They charged—light and shadow colliding—
—until the blast swallowed the summit whole.
The Tower screamed.
Flame and shadow coiled around Dante. Devil Trigger burned at full power. Wings tore through smoke. Fire rippled across his skin.
Ulysses—fully the Death Knight now—raised his halberd. The gem glowed like a tiny sun. "You think rage makes you strong?"
Dante grinned, fanged and fierce. "No. But it'll make you hurt."
He surged forward. Rebellion carved a blazing arc. Ifrit followed—his fist slammed into the helm. The Death Knight flew, smashing the altar.
Obsidian shattered.
Ulysses swung from the rubble. Dante ducked, grabbed the shaft, and ripped it free. He snapped it in two and tossed the pieces aside.
"Class dismissed."
A knee to the gut. A flaming fist into the gem.
The gem screamed. Cracks spidered across it.
Ulysses staggered. "No… I am perfection—"
"Not anymore."
Rebellion rose—white, not with rage but with judgment—and fell.
Steel met gem. CRACK.
Red light erupted.
The shock threw Dante back. Devil Trigger flickered. The Tower's heartbeat stuttered. Flames dimmed. Air stilled.
When the smoke cleared, the Death Knight was gone.
Ulysses Bloodstone knelt there—human again. Frail. Old. Scars everywhere. The gem's remnants glowed like dying embers in his chest.
Elsa approached. The shotgun trembled in her hands.
Ulysses looked up. His eyes were just tired. "Elsa… my daughter…"
Her grip tightened.
He smiled weakly, the weight of years behind it. "You think killing me will free you? Even if you pull that trigger… you'll never step out of my shadow."
Elsa's breath hitched. Rage met sorrow.
Dante stood back. This was her choice.
She steadied the barrel. "Then I'll burn the shadow too."
The shot echoed through the Tower.
Ulysses slumped. The red glow faded to ash. Then… nothing.
Elsa lowered the weapon, shoulders shaking. Smoke curled from the barrel like a ghost that wouldn't leave.
For a long moment, only falling embers whispered.
And beneath them—faint, cruel—she could almost still hear his voice: You can never step out of my shadow.
Her jaw set. She exhaled through her teeth. "Watch me."
The echo lingered—cold, condemning. She didn't push it away.
She faced it.
Dante stepped closer, voice low. "Elsa… it's over."
She turned. No tears—something sharper. Fury. Relief. Release.
Before he could speak, she grabbed his shirt and yanked him down.
The kiss hit like fire—sudden, fierce, full of everything she'd held back. Anger. Pain. Freedom.
Dante froze, then steadied her shoulder. The Tower burned and crumbled, but neither moved.
She pulled back, breath trembling. "He'd never have let me do that."
Dante's grin crooked. "Is this part of the down payment?"
Elsa huffed a laugh—the first real one in forever. "Don't push your luck, Sparda."
He smirked. "Worth a shot."
She rolled her eyes… but didn't step away.
For the first time, the silence between them wasn't heavy.
It was alive.