"Not so fast!"
Dante's warning cracked the air as Brinyalf blurred in from the left, sapphire armor glittering like frozen lightning. Dante ducked low, pivoting on the balls of his feet, and hammered an uppercut into the devil's unprotected flank. The blow—enough to crater granite—earned only the squeal of stressed crystal. Brinyalf barely flinched. His counter‑strike came as a piston‑fast hook aimed at Dante's ribs.
Muscles bunched. Dante planted his boots and braced, abdominal wall flexing with both training and telekinetic reinforcement. Brinyalf's knuckles detonated against him in a radial burst of pressure that rippled outward, carving a shallow trench in the sand—but Dante didn't budge an inch.
Brinyalf's crystal‑blue eyes widened. "What the—"
Dante seized the arm, rolled it over his shoulder, and executed a textbook shoulder throw. The audience roared as the Stolas heir—now weighing half a ton in diamond plates—slammed into the arena floor, carving a furrow before bounding back to his feet with crackling fury.
A weapon, Dante reminded himself, retreating two paces. His mind replayed the earlier interruption: Brinyalf had blitzed him the instant Dante tried to summon his sword‑spear. The bastard knew that alloyed blade could puncture the vaunted Diamond‑Back shell.
Fine. Buy time first, then draw blood.
Brinyalf lunged again. A scything overhead blow screamed toward Dante's skull; he slipped under it, palm‑striking the devil's wrist. Crystal rang like struck glass. Dante felt the joint's kinetic rhythm sputter—the age‑old martial trick of collapsing momentum at its hinge.
There was the weakness.
He poured velocity into his next motions: a vertical fist to the throat, knuckles compressing the windpipe; a heart‑level palm that thundered with twice the force of his opening salvo. Brinyalf's body rocked but, with Dante's telekinesis anchoring him in place, never left the ground.
Brinyalf grunted, surprise tarnishing arrogance. He can feel that, Dante noted. Even diamond nerves still screamed when pressed just right.
The Stolas heir snarled, sending an anger‑blind uppercut. Dante pivoted left and drilled a hook into the liver node, shocking Brinyalf's system so violently the towering devil's breath fled in a hoarse wheeze.
Red haze washed over Brinyalf's features. He lashed out—a desperate jab—only to have Dante collapse the wrist again and snap two quick strikes: sternum, then throat. The crystal spider‑webbed under both hits. Before recoil could set in, Dante's left hand clamped around the armored collar. Thumb dug beneath the Adam's apple, choking airflow; his right fist crashed into the temple with surgical precision.
Crack. Tiny shards cascaded like shattered ice.
Up close, the Diamond‑Back plating resembled true gemstone, but Dante could feel its comparative softness—harder than steel, yes, yet far from the mythic hardness of the Earth diamonds he'd studied. Still, if my hammering fists can crush granite, this costume won't last long.
He sensed the crowd's energy cresting, each gasp and cheer feeding adrenaline through his veins. Somewhere behind the din, noble spectators murmured, perhaps finally realizing that pedigree alone did not equal invincibility.
Brinyalf staggered back, a spiderweb of fissures crawling across rib and collar. Rage eclipsed caution. "Y‑you… bastard!" he howled, voice reverberating off broken crystal. Power flared around him, a geyser of blue‑white mana that singed the very air.
Dante exhaled, rolling his shoulders, assessing fractures. I'm cracking the shell. A handful more precision strikes—or thirty seconds—will buy the window I need to call the spear.
He slid one foot behind, settling into a southpaw stance, lightning dancing across forearms. Sand hissed beneath his soles. Above, holographic roses drifted past the monumental image of his own face—an almost absurd reminder of the spectacle this fight had become.
Time to drown the roses in crystal dust, he thought, eyes narrowing as Brinyalf charged again, every step shaking the coliseum like distant artillery.