Mei's absence was like a heavy silence on their shoulders.
And yet, Stella and Dan held firm.
Around them, the vegetation seemed to breathe—but with patterns that did not belong to this world. Branches pulsed in purple hues, blinking like living flesh, and slowly dragged themselves over the city's metallic structures. The ground seemed to pulse, as if the heartbeat of something larger echoed beneath the earth.
The Gate to the Abyss expanded, slowly, silently, like a pupil absorbing everything around it. An ancestral sigh filled the air, as if reality itself were suffocating.
Stella tightened her fingers around the staff of light she wielded, but her voice came out firm:
— His regeneration is slower now. If we keep incinerating him, he won't be able to react. At least for a while.
Dan nodded.
— Then let's keep doing that.
Further back, inside the research bunker, tension mixed with chaos.
Researchers ran back and forth. Monitors flashed red. Mute sirens screamed in the eyes of those who could read the numbers.
Elise was in contact with Danteus via call.
His image floated before her—holographic, flickering.
— ...this energy just keeps growing — she said, her voice trembling. — It's as if something is expanding… and trying to touch everything. We are in the prelude to a new war, Danteus.
The man on the other end seemed nervous, but tried to maintain authority in his voice:
— Breathe. We still have time. You need to resolve this there. Quickly.
— I will try to contain the other leaders.
— But if there's no sign of resolution in 24 hours… I will consider the mission a failure.
— And other measures will be taken.
Elise nodded, pale.
— Understood.
Outside, the world's heat seemed to fall upon Dan and Stella like an invisible mantle.
The smoke from the last attack dissipated slowly.
Stella took a step forward, shielding a group of researchers retreating into the perimeter. Dan maintained his guard, eyes alert, hands burning with energy.
Hazau was motionless in the center of the crater… or so it seemed.
Until he moved.
And both realized, at the same time: he had already fully regenerated.
Without any sound. Without warning. Without pain.
— You know… — Hazau said, his voice soft, almost amused — with that woman here, I think anyone in my place would avoid a fight.
— But now that she's gone…
— I think I'll play a little.
Dan and Stella narrowed their eyes.
Their bodies fell into position.
They had already accepted this risk.
They had given Mei the freedom to act—and now, it was their turn.
Hazau smiled. His golden eyes shone dissonantly with the darkness surrounding him.
— I see several promising vessels before me.
He extended a hand, pointing to the black bubbles dozens of meters away, motionless, yet pulsing like cocoons.
— I will transcend each of you.
He opened his arms.
— Come on, children.
— Show me.
Dan rolled his shoulders, his gray flames spreading across his body.
Stella planted her feet on the ground, the spear of light already in hand.
The real combat began.
And there would be no more retreats.
The air trembled.
The presence surrounding them now was not natural. It was visceral, primitive, almost as if the ruined forest were alive—and hungry.
Dan and Stella knew. They knew the fight wasn't just for survival: it was for every life trembling behind them, for every young person who wouldn't withstand Hazau's first attack. And they also knew they could not retreat.
Dan advanced first. The training with Fenra and the broken seals in his soul had awakened something in him—a new rhythm, a new depth. He wasn't the same boy who once hesitated.
In a single gesture, his body multiplied. Several Dans appeared around him, like material echoes of the same fury, all running toward Hazau with hands charged with incinerating energy. The strategy was clear: corner, suffocate, destroy.
But Hazau smiled—that discordant smile of something that did not belong to this world.
Hazau's arm deformed, stretching and molding into a grotesque blade that swept across the battlefield. The clones were sliced apart in a single blow, but exploded in sequence, releasing a brutal wave that forced Hazau back a few steps.
Before the smoke cleared, an arrow of light cut through the air.
Stella had fired it at an absurd speed—too fast even for Dan to follow immediately. Hazau, with the arrogance typical of him, laughed:
— You think that will hit me?
But the arrow stopped... right in front of him. It hadn't been fired to wound—but to contain.
The moment it decelerated, the arrow channeled all its speed and mass into an energetic implosion of wind, a blast so powerful it hurled Hazau dozens of meters, smashing him against the ancient structures of the ruined arena. Branches snapped, stones flew, and silence fell for an instant.
Dan looked at Stella.
There was something different about her. Not just the glow of her golden aura—it was her gaze. A mature, sharp gaze. Her energy control was more refined, purer, as if every particle obeyed her slightest thought.
— You… — Dan murmured, surprised by the precision.
Stella, without losing her composure, looked back at him with a brief, almost mocking smile:
— Those were the advantages of synchronizing my energy with the First Sif's.
Dan blinked, absorbing those words. Stella then raised her hand, and her aura intensified.
Dante had destroyed the Jade Sword. But what no one had foreseen... was that Jade's true legacy was not the blade—it was the soul.
When Stella wielded the sword, even if only for an instant, her energy had mingled with Jade's, infiltrating every fiber of her being. It wasn't a reincarnation. It wasn't a possession. It was a silent fusion—a union of memories, sensations, instincts.
Stella didn't hear Jade's voice, not like Tekio or Yara with their spiritual bonds. But she felt it. The experience, the weight, the reflexes. It had all settled within her as if it had always been there, waiting to awaken.
Stella was now Stella… and something more.
Hazau began to rise, laughing with blood trickling down the side of his face. His muscles recomposed themselves with wet, grotesque sounds.
Dan approached Stella. They walked side by side, in silence, until they were face to face with Hazau again.
— So — said Dan, with a half-smile —, got any new tricks besides walking around naked?
Hazau guffawed.
— You amuse me. I was bored. But now… I'm excited.
But deep down, Dan and Stella sought more than just victory. Their gazes betrayed their unease.
What was the true objective of all this? Dante was dead. The chaos had already been instated. So why? Why continue?
These questions dissipated when something changed.
The ground shuddered.
The wood of the soil began to contort. Branches grew in spirals, piercing and intertwining like hungry snakes. Natural and corrupted structures began to take shape, emerging around them like arms of hell itself.
Forcing Stella and Dan to dodge as they retreated, each branch coldly aimed to pierce and kill.
Hazau rose among the thorns and rot, like a king on his organic throne. The distorted nature there—that living aberration—responded to him like blood recognizing the heart.
— Let's start for real now — said Hazau, his eyes shining with a bestial golden hue.
Before them, the Regent of the Abyss arose.
Dan and Stella clenched their fists.
And the battle had, in fact, begun.
The wind blew strong as the ground split once more. Hazau stood before them, surrounded by pulsing branches and corrupted wood that bled a dark, thick sap. His still-naked body began to change. From the abdomen down, a viscous membrane sprouted, a black nectar that dragged like a second skin. The material molded into something resembling living attire, moving with slow, muffled breaths. He now seemed more complete—or more monstrous.
— A matter of common sense, right? — Hazau said, mocking. — After all, you seem so bothered by... human details.
Dan clenched his fists.
— Believe me, what bothers us is your existence.
Without warning, the ground exploded under Stella and Dan's feet. Thorny roots emerged with voracious snaps, trying to capture them like hungry serpents. Stella leaped high, flexing her bow and firing two circular arrows of light. They spun like fragmented moons, marking the air with golden trails. The arrows collided with the roots, exploding in waves of heat and pushing Hazau back a few meters.
Dan slid between the trunks, channeling energy through the soles of his feet. He touched the ground with his palm and murmured:
— Spectral Explosion – Dual Variant.
Two clones appeared beside him, both vibrating with unstable energy. They ran in circles, tracing lines on the ground with their feet. Hazau watched, curious. Then, simultaneously, the clones lunged and, at the exact moment of contact, exploded in fiery, cutting blasts, tearing away part of the vegetation surrounding him.
But Hazau didn't seem affected. His body, like living clay, contorted to adapt. He stretched his arm, which took the form of a whip of corrupted wood, and struck Dan squarely in the flank. The young man flew through the debris, crashing through one of the partially collapsed structures.
Stella landed beside him, panting.
— He doesn't feel pain like we do... he adapts. He molds his body.
Dan wiped the blood from his lips and stood up.
— I noticed. But he has limits too. He's more tied to that earth than he wants to admit. — He looked around. — If we want to protect the people in the bunker, we have to draw him away.
— And fast — said Stella, preparing another arrow.
Hazau walked slowly toward them. The earth beneath his feet regenerated, as if alive, pulsing in harmony with him. Around him, smaller creatures sprouted—small beings made of roots, dead leaves, and eyes pulsing with black nectar.
— You still don't understand... — Hazau said, with a bland smile. — I am the very womb of this rot. You fight the ground you walk on.
He raised both hands and, with a broad gesture, made a grotesque wall of thorns and carnivorous flowers sprout from the soil, opening with fibrous tongues. The wall closed in around the trio, trying to isolate the fight.
But Stella advanced.
Her body was light in motion.
Her eyes, now golden and serene, shone as if carrying centuries of precision. She raised the bow—and the arrow that appeared between her fingers was not like before. It didn't just glow with energy. It pulsed with a memory.
— Jade fought without hesitation. And she showed me that fear is not my enemy. — She whispered. — Lack of control is. And that no longer exists here.
She fired the arrow into the air—but not aiming at Hazau. She aimed at the sky.
Upon colliding with the clouds above, the arrow imploded into a rain of luminous particles that descended like a golden storm. When they touched the ground, they sealed the movements of the creatures around them, paralyzing them long enough for Dan to emerge amid the glare.
With a punch charged with compressed energy, Dan struck Hazau in the abdomen. The impact opened a massive crater, dragging trees and constructions aside. Hazau spat a dark sludge from his mouth, but still laughed.
— So warm... so alive... that's what fascinates me about you.
Suddenly, from the center of his chest, a black flower grew with petals made of flesh and roots. It opened and fired corrosive spores in all directions. Stella conjured a barrier of light while Dan summoned another clone to block part of the attack.
But the damage to the scenery was devastating.
Structures collapsed. The corrupted plants grew unchecked. The bunker, even at a distance, trembled under the strain of the combat.
— Stella! — Dan shouted. — If he stays here, the shelter will collapse!
— I know! — she replied. — But he's putting down roots. Literally. His connection to the soil is expanding.
Stella gritted her teeth and spun the bow.
— Then let's pull him out by the roots.
Dan nodded.
— Let's push him. To the north. There's a slope there. If we break the ground under him... we can do it.
Hazau launched himself again, his body opening like a multiple whip of wood, flesh, and nectar. He was fast, more aggressive now. As if feeding on the destruction itself. Every blow Dan dodged, a tree was born. Every defense from Stella, an abyssal flower sprouted.
The battlefield wouldn't stop growing.
But neither would they.
Neither Stella's light.
Nor Dan's fury.
Both began to adapt to the insanity of that terrain. And in the midst of the chaos, even as they were being swallowed by dead nature, they advanced.
Not because they were the strongest.
But because, in the end, there was something there they would not let crumble.
The world behind them.
To be continued...