The dragon's blood ate through marble like it had a personal grudge against the floor. Each crimson drop sizzled and popped, boring holes into stone that had probably been around since before humans figured out fire was useful for more than staying warm.
Dante Ashford stood over the corpse of Infernus, the Last Dragon, the final boss, the big bad everyone had been pissing themselves over for the past decade, and tried to remember what winning was supposed to feel like.
It didn't feel like this.
Twenty fucking years. Twenty years of watching good people die while he got stronger. Twenty years of crawling through dungeons that shouldn't exist, fighting monsters that made nightmares look like bedtime stories. Twenty years of being the System's golden boy, humanity's last hope, the chosen one who never asked to be chosen.
And now what? He had killed the dragon. The portals were closing. Humanity was safe.
So why did his gut feel like someone had filled it with broken glass?
"We did it," he said to the empty throne room, because talking to yourself was still better than the silence that had been eating at him for months now. His voice bounced off the walls and came back sounding hollow.
He caught his reflection in a pool of dragon blood, still looked thirty, still had all his teeth, still had that lean hunter's build that made guild recruiters wet themselves. The System had kept him young and pretty while everything else went to hell. Dark hair, gray eyes that had seen too much shit, face that belonged on recruitment posters.
The face of a man who'd just realized he'd been played.
The clapping started slow. Real slow.
"Magnificent performance, Dante."
That voice. He knew that voice the way you know the sound of your own heartbeat, intimately, completely, and with growing dread.
Seraphiel stepped out of the shadow. Six wings, silver feathers, the kind of beauty that made poets weep and strong men stupid. The Goddess of Divine Justice. Humanity's patron saint. The bitch who'd been whispering sweet encouragement in his ear for two decades.
She was smiling. She never smiled unless something was about to die.
"You sound like someone just shit in your breakfast," Dante said, not bothering to lower Godbane. The sword was still humming from dragon-slaying, still eager for more blood. Smart sword.
"Free," she said, ignoring his question entirely. "That's what you think you've done, isn't it? Set them free?" Her laugh could have cut glass. "Oh, my sweet, stupid champion. You were never supposed to free them. You were supposed to keep them busy."
More shadows moved. More gods stepped into the light like actors taking their places for the final scene. Malachar with his storm-wrapped fists. Nethys looking like death's accountant. Bram carrying his hammer like he was itching to break something.
All of them looking at him like he was a problem that needed solving.
"You climbed too high," Seraphiel said, and there it was. The truth he'd been trying not to see for months. "Do you have any idea what happens when mortals start thinking they can play with the big boys?"
Dante's laugh came out bitter enough to curdle milk. "They stop kissing ass?"
"They become competition." Malachar stepped forward, electricity dancing between his fingers like deadly fireflies. "And we don't like competition."
The pieces fell into place with the sound of a coffin lid slamming shut. Twenty years of perfect missions. Twenty years of following orders without question. Twenty years of being the good little soldier while his friends died around him.
And all of it, every sacrifice, every loss, every nightmare that still woke him up screaming, had been one long setup for this moment.
"I was supposed to die fighting the dragon," he said. It wasn't a question.
"A glorious death," Nethys whispered, her voice like wind through graveyards. "The tragic hero, falling just as victory was within reach. Very dramatic. Very final."
"But you didn't die," Bram rumbled. "You won. That's... inconvenient."
The System. The goddamn System that had made him strong enough to fight, but never strong enough to question. The leash disguised as a gift. The cage painted to look like freedom.
"Perpetual war," Dante said, understanding flooding through him like ice water. "Keep us strong enough to survive, never strong enough to thrive. Keep us needing you."
Seraphiel's smile could have powered a small city. "Very good. I always said you were the smart one."
They attacked without warning, because gods don't believe in fair play.
Lightning. Divine fire. Death magic. All of it aimed at the spot where he'd been standing a heartbeat before. Dante rolled, Godbane singing as it cut through divine energy, but these weren't dungeon monsters playing by System rules. These were the ones who'd written the rules in the first place.
The second wave caught him in the chest and sent him flying into the dragon's corpse. Ribs cracked. Blood filled his mouth. The taste of copper and failure.
"Nothing personal," Seraphiel said, walking toward him. Light gathered in her palm. "You've been a wonderful servant. But every dog eventually needs to be put down."
He tried to get up. His body laughed at the suggestion. The divine energy was eating him from the inside out, unmaking everything the System had built. He could feel his levels dropping like stones down a well.
"Twenty years," he gasped. "Everything I gave you..."
"Will be remembered fondly," she promised. "Right up until we find your replacement."
The light came down like judgment day.
Dante Ashford died with the taste of betrayal in his mouth and divine fire eating through his heart.
But dying wasn't the end of the story.
As the darkness wrapped around him like an old friend, as his soul started drifting toward whatever came next, he heard a voice that shouldn't exist, rough and old and pissed off enough to make the void itself take notice.
"Not yet, boy. You and I have some gods to kill."
Something grabbed him in the dark, hands that felt like time itself, ancient and patient and absolutely furious.
Then everything went black.
Then everything began again.