The ruins of Halcrest pressed in around them like a tomb built for giants. Broken columns clawed at the sky, and the air was thick with dust that tasted like ash and copper. Every step echoed like it was trespassing.
Lyra kept her spear close, her eyes darting too often to the shadows. She walked stiff, pulling her hair back with one hand, the other squeezing the haft of her weapon until her knuckles paled.
And then, over the silence, came the Trickster.
He hummed first. Then he sang—if it could be called singing. His voice was coarse, dragging out the words like he was on stage in a tavern no one had asked for:
"Old man walked the plank o' death,
The sea took his breath, took his breath,
Be cruel, be vile, the waves remember,
They'll drag ye down, to the deep forever…"
"Enough." Dante cut him off with a glare sharp enough to cut glass. "Whatever that is, it's irritating."
The Trickster clutched his chest like a wounded bard. "That, boy, is an old sea shanty. From my navy days. Teaches men not to spit in fate's eye, unless they're fond of drowning." He grinned wide enough to show teeth. "Of course, I never listened to the moral."
Dante shook his head. Typical. But when he looked at Lyra again, her body language pulled his attention tighter.
He slowed until he matched her stride. "You're wound tight as a bowstring. What's wrong?"
She drew in a breath, kept her voice low. "Sometimes… I feel when something's coming. When danger is too close to ignore. It gives me migraines. Worse when I'm the target."
Her grip trembled. Dante, for once, softened his tone. "Then let's make a deal: you don't collapse from a headache, and I won't let anything touch you. Fair?"
She blinked, startled, then her cheeks warmed peach. A smile tugged against her stern features. "Thank you."
In Dante's mind, a whisper coiled like smoke. You like her.
"Shut it," Dante muttered under his breath, eyes fixed ahead.
Oho. He blushes, the Trickster sang in his skull. The fearless leader undone by rosy cheeks.
Dante rubbed his neck. "I can't afford someone on the team feeling insecure. That's all." His words had the cadence of denial, but the way he said them carried heat beneath the steel.
The path twisted until it ended in a dead wall of stone. Zerathis clicked his tongue, frustration boiling. "After all that walking?"
Dante turned to the Sound God. "Anything behind it?"
The deity's head tilted, as though listening to the air. After a pause, he shook it. "Impenetrable. No echo leaks through. Either it's nothing, or something doesn't want me listening."
"Useless," Zerathis spat.
Lyra's voice broke the silence. "We should turn back."
But Dante's eyes had caught something faint—scratches on the stone. Writing. The letters were jagged, shallow, almost lost to the years, but not old enough to be ancient. Recent enough to still matter.
"Hold on." He stepped closer. The words refused to yield at first. Then he muttered, "Trickster. Sing that cursed song again. The verse about karma."
"Ohhh." The Trickster chuckled. "He admits he loves my voice." But without further prodding, he belted the lines about the sea's revenge.
As he did, the scratches came alive. Dante mouthed the words, stitching them together with the song's rhythm.
"To stop what must be undone,
Is to meet what you've become.
The scales will tilt, the sea will swell,
And drag you down where shadows dwell."
The ground shuddered.
A crack split open beneath Dante's boots, stone yawning into a pit of black that swallowed light whole. He slipped before he could brace himself.
"Dante!" Lyra cried, reaching.
But Zerathis only grinned, sharp and hungry, and leapt in after him.
Lyra steadied to jump too—until a voice, like oil and thunder, coiled through the ruin.
Lyra.
She froze. Every nerve in her body screamed to move, but the sound rooted her to the stone. Her name carried not affection, but command. Rage.
She gritted her teeth, tried to wrench free of the invisible weight. The pit was sealing, closing shut like a mouth after swallowing prey.
"Dante—!" She stepped to leap—
The shadows gathered instead. They thickened, smothering, darker than the absence of light itself. And from them, a form pulled free.
A figure tall, graceful, wrapped in void-black, her eyes like two moons eclipsed.
"Mother…" Lyra whispered, her spear trembling in her grip.
Nyx had arrived.
---
Dante plummeted into darkness, the air whistling past him like knives. His stomach flipped, and for a moment it felt like the fall would never end. Then—stone. His body hit hard, the impact rattling his ribs. Dust exploded around him as he coughed, dragging himself upright.
"Hell of a drop…" he muttered, running a hand through his sweat-matted hair.
Zerathis descended moments later, landing soft as if gravity bowed to him. His boots didn't even crack the ground. He straightened his coat, unfazed.
Dante looked back up at the endless shaft. "Where's Lyra?"
"She was right behind me," Zerathis said flatly.
That's when it came—like a breath on his ear. Go.
The whisper froze Dante's blood. His fists clenched, his voice rough.
"Well, she isn't."
He stormed up to Zerathis, fist gripping his collar, crimson flooding into his eyes. His chest rose and fell like a caged beast's.
The Trickster's voice slid into his skull. "Whoa, whoa, careful Red Eyes—don't pop an artery on me. You're scary when you're moody."
Dante's jaw flexed, and after a long inhale, he let go. But the tension never left.
"Trouble," said the Sound God, his voice vibrating low and metallic.
From the shadows, they came. Crawling. Slithering. Hulking shapes made of pure blackness, their bodies forming and reforming, mouths splitting at unnatural angles, jagged teeth scraping like glass. Their shrieks scraped the cavern walls raw.
Shadowbeasts.
They lunged.
---
Above.
The surface wind died, replaced by a silence thick as oil. Lyra's spear trembled in her grip. She knew the feeling—her skin prickled, her head throbbed. Someone was watching.
Then the air split. Darkness peeled open like a wound, and out stepped a figure draped in shadow so deep it seemed to drink the light. Nyx.
Her eyes glowed faintly violet, her lips curled in a cruel half-smile.
"My daughter," she hissed. "Still pretending you can save the world with mongrels?"
Lyra's chest tightened. She pulled her pink hair back, jaw hard. Flames flickered along her spear.
"Leave me alone, Mother. You're the one who sent assassins after me. Dante saved me. Father—Death—trusts him."
Nyx's laugh was sharp as broken glass. "Your father's a fool. And you… you're in my way. Do you know what happens to things that block me?"
She flicked her hand, and a ball of condensed darkness shot forward. Lyra barely dodged—her hair singed as it passed. The orb struck a stone pillar, and in an instant the rock wasn't destroyed—it simply wasn't. It was erased. Gone, as though it had never existed.
Lyra's heart raced. But instinct answered. Her spear ignited in a blaze of blue fire, hotter, wilder than before. She hurled it straight at Nyx's head.
Nyx tilted aside lazily, smirking. But Lyra had been waiting. She spun, swept Nyx's legs, dragging her down. One hand tightened in her mother's hair, forcing her face toward the dirt, while the other summoned a roaring sphere of blue fire in her palm.
Her breath trembled. Her teeth gritted. She pushed the flame down.
Nyx just smiled, calm even under her daughter's strength. "You've gotten better."
Lyra's fury spiked. "Shut up!" She slammed the fireball down—
—but Nyx dissolved into black smoke, vanishing.
Her voice crawled into Lyra's mind, low and lingering: I'll be back.
The world went quiet. The spear's flames died. Lyra collapsed onto her knees, her body trembling as the adrenaline drained away. Memories drowned her—the warmth of her family before Nyx's fall, before shadow swallowed everything. Her chest ached, tears stung—but she clenched her teeth, refusing to break.
---
Below.
The cavern was a massacre. Corpses of Shadowbeasts twitched, their black ichor spilling into cracks in the stone. Dante stood in the middle of it, shirt shredded, blade dripping, his breathing ragged.
Zerathis wiped blood from his cheek, calm as if this were routine.
Then—the ichor pooled, snaking like a river toward a massive stone tomb. Green runes lit up, humming as the coffin lid slid open with a groan.
Inside: a skeleton slumped in rusted armor. In its hands glowed a blade—the Siphon. Its green aura throbbed, filling the cavern with a sickly light.
The Trickster whistled. "Well… somebody really stuck to the diet plan. Dead forever. Consistency is key."
Zerathis sneered. "Smells worse than you."
"Harsh. But true."
Dante stepped forward, eyes locked on the sword. His hand wrapped around the hilt, and the air itself seemed to bend. Power surged through him, humming against his bones.
"Log it," he said curtly.
The Siphon shimmered and vanished into the Trickster's infinite storage.
---
Back above.
A flash of light—and Dante was back on the surface. His eyes scanned instantly—and there she was. Lyra. Collapsed, trembling.
He rushed to her side, dropping to his knees. "Lyra. What happened?"
Her lips quivered. "My mother… she was here."
Zerathis froze. His expression hardened, voice dropping like lead. "Nyx? If she's moving… this is beyond us."
Dante's face turned to stone. His hand squeezed Lyra's shoulder, firm, steady. "I don't care who she is. If she ever comes near you again—I'll kill her."
The Trickster laughed in his head. "Romance and murder threats. My favorite cocktail."
Dante ignored him. Lyra's cheeks flushed the faintest pink despite her exhaustion, and for the first time that night, a small smile cracked through her pain.
The war was coming. But so was something else—something Dante couldn't yet name.