Chapter 69: No Mercy

Dante walked down it with his hands in his pockets, and halfway along, the lights went out.

Steel plates dropped over both ends. A hiss came from the ceiling, and a sweet smell filled the air.

He didn’t stop. He pressed the ring and the stone eye opened. The walls turned grey, and he saw a pipe running behind the left wall, full of yellow gas. He drove the sword into the wall and cut the pipe in one stroke.

The hiss stopped. He turned to the steel plate at the far end and put his palm on it.

[Property Seizure activated.]

The plate went up into the ceiling. Behind it stood eight guards in crimson capes, with spears pointed at his chest.

"Don’t move!" the one in front yelled. "You’re surrounded!"

Dante kept walking. The first spear hit his chest and shattered. The guard’s arm snapped back and his body hit the wall. The second charged, and Dante cut him in half without looking at him.

The rest ran. They didn’t get far. He crossed the room in two steps, and the blade went through the backs of four necks one after another. The last guard dropped his spear and fell to his knees.

"Please, I..." Before he can speak anything Dante cut him down too.

[Soul Reaper activated. Permanent gain: +14 Strength, +12 Agility.]

He wiped his hand on his sleeve and went up the stairs.

Floor 52 was a lift station. When Dante came out of the stairwell, an alarm was already ringing.

Workers ran past him in every direction, screaming. A woman dropped her tray. A man tripped and was stepped on. Somebody shouted, "He’s here! The traitor’s here!"

Dante walked through them. They ran around him like water around a rock. He didn’t touch anyone who ran.

A squad of twelve guards formed a line across the platform. A captain stepped forward, his hand shaking on his sword.

"Stop right there! By order of Guild Master Marcus..."

Dante took the sphere from his pocket.

[Ground Weight Control activated. Pressure: 100x.]

The platform floor caved in. The twelve guards went down on their faces, and their armor crumpled like paper. The captain screamed. His legs bent the wrong way.

Dante walked up to him and looked down.

"Where’s the lift?" he asked.

"It’s... it’s locked! Marcus sealed everything! You can’t..."

Dante put his foot on the captain’s chest and pushed down.

Crack!

He turned to the lift doors, laid his hand on the panel, and rewrote the lock. The doors open. Nobody stopped him.

Floor 53 was already waiting. When the lift opened, a wall of fire hit him in the face. Four mages stood in a line at the end of the hall, with their staffs pointed at the doors. The flames rolled across the floor and the ceiling.

The heat burned his hoodie off his shoulders. His skin blistered. He didn’t back up.

He took the World-Eater Urn and held it out. The fire bent and poured into it in a long, loud rope. The mages stared.

"He’s eating it!" one screamed. "Pull back!"

Dante was already on them. The blade took the first mage across the throat. The second lifted his staff, and Dante cut it in half and his arm with it. The third tried to run. The fourth cast a shield, and it did nothing against a blade that ignored shields. Four bodies, in six seconds.

The last mage lay on the floor with his hand pressed over his chest. He was young. His eyes were wet.

"Elena said you’d... It was her plan all along she said you will not kill us ..."

Dante looked at him. "She was wrong," he said.

He finished it.He took the burn off his hands. They shook once, and then they stopped. The flesh on his shoulders was red and peeling, and he didn’t have time to heal it. He kept going.

Then he reached Floor 54, it was was dark. The alarm bells were louder here, and people ran overhead. A voice shouted through a speaker, loud and shaky.

"All units to Floor 55! The intruder is on 54! Repeat, all units..."

Dante stepped out of the stairwell, and thirty guards were waiting. They had formed a half-circle around the stairs. In front stood a man in full armor, the biggest one yet, with a hammer the size of a door.

"I’m Captain Dorrick," he said. "You’ve killed forty of mine. That’s enough."

Dante said nothing.

"Put down the sword and I’ll let you live until the arena. You can watch the cat die with your own eyes. Marcus wants that."

Dante stood there with blood on his sleeves and his skin blistered. Then he started to laugh.

It wasn’t loud. It sounded like something breaking. The guards at the back stepped away.

"Let me live," Dante said. "Until the arena."

"That’s the offer for you, don’t you like it ?! Haha"

He took one step and vanished. The hammer came down on empty air. Dante was behind the captain, and the blade went through the back of his armor and out the front. The man looked down at the point sticking out of his chest.

"You can’t..." he whispered.

Dante pulled it out. The thirty guards broke at once. Half of them ran. The other half charged, because they were more afraid of Marcus than of him, and he cut them down one after another, calm and fast and without a sound. The Mirror Body threw back every blow. The ones who survived the first hit didn’t survive the second.

When it was over, the hall was silent.

[Soul Reaper activated. Permanent gain: +40 Strength, +36 Agility, +20 Vitality.]

Dante stood in the middle of the bodies. He was breathing hard. He looked at the gate to Floor 55, huge and black at the end of the hall, with the guild crest in gold. He walked to it and his hand on his sword.