Chapter 74: Dante vs all ?

The corridor erupted into a complete bloodbath as Marcus waved his hand, commanding the thousand mages to open fire. Blinding circles of blue, red, and purple magic lit up, channeling torrents of pure lightning and burning frost straight down the path. They targeted Dante with zero physical kinetic force, trying to melt his baseline structure to ash.

Dante didn’t back down. Wiping a streak of blood from his split lip, he went straight into the incoming storm of magic. his movement faster than their eyes could track.

Void Step—

He materialized right in the center of the front line of mages. His right hand swung the invisible Seven-Sins Asura Blade with terrifying, absolute rage. The aura surrounding the unseen edge cut through the mages’ defensive barriers like paper. Ten high-tier sorcerers were sliced cleanly in half before their casting circles could even detonate, their severed torsos hitting the ground as Dante systematically carved his way toward Marcus and Elena.

"Keep casting! Don’t let him close the distance!" Elena screamed frantically from the rear, her long daggers trembling as she threw dark hexes toward his blind spots. "He’s just one human! Burn him! Burn him to ash!"

While Dante was holding the front in a brutal, ruthless slaughter, the third traitor, Nelon, saw an opening. Carrying his tower shield and short-sword, he broke away from the main vanguard line and marched straight toward the back of the tunnel where Yenna was placed behind the pillar.

Esabella stood guarding the path, her black-and-purple horns radiating a dark aura as her thorn-vein whip hummed. Yenna lay shiveringly behind her, clutching her injured thighs, her big ears twitching in fear.

Nelon stopped few meter away, his face twisting into a disgusting, mocking sneer. His eyes slithered down Esabella’s sleek corset scales and long white thighs, before locking onto the shivering, injured girl on the floor with absolute lust.

"You think a couple of giant horns make you a queen, lizard bitch?" Nelon spat, his voice dripping with foul words. "You ruined our entire setup today. I was just about to go down into that cage and properly punish this little sub-human myself before your human rat showed up. But it doesn’t matter. Once Marcus burns your King to a crisp, both of you are going to end up in my bed tonight. I’ll make sure you learn your place."

Yenna shrank back, her voice trembling as she looked at Esabella’s back. "Lady... please step back. Nelon uses a dark binding short-sword. He’s dangerous..."

Esabella didn’t look back at Yenna. The glowing gold in her eyes turned completely wild, and she let out a low laugh that sent a shiver down Nelon’s spine. Every ounce of her royal restraint violently snapped.

"Dangerous?" Esabella whispered, her voice dropping to a terrifying sound that silenced the nearby groans of the dying. "You think a disgusting worm like you is dangerous? You look at my King’s domain with those filthy, lustful eyes, and you think you will live to see tomorrow?"

She slightly turned her head toward Yenna, her manic yandere smile returning for a split second. "Don’t worry, little cat. Dante told me to protect you, and nobody disobeys my King. Watch closely how I handle filthy humans."

SNAP!

She didn’t use a standard swing. Her arm moved in a lightning-fast blur as she went forward, her high heels shattering the stone floor. Her thorn-vein whip shot out like a striking dragon, the barbs instantly biting deep into Nelon’s shield. With a monstrous surge of her raw dragon strength, she didn’t just break his guard—she violently ripped the shield clean out of his grip, shattering his forearm bones instantly.

Nelon let out a shriek of panic, his short-sword slipping from his broken fingers. "What kind of monstrous strength is this?! You’re not a normal demon!"

"I am his Queen," Esabella snarled.

Before Nelon could stumble backward,Esabella’s tail snapped forward like a switchblade. The spikes popped completely outward, driving straight through his thigh armor and pinning him violently to the ground. Nelon screamed in pure agony, his blood pooling into the sand as he looked up at her majestic horns and eyes with absolute, trembling survival terror.

At that exact microsecond, the battle at the front line reached its absolute boiling point. Marcus, Elena, and the remaining hundreds of high-tier mages focused every single drop of their mana into a joint, catastrophic elemental blast, aiming it directly at Dante’s chest. The combined energy formed a giant vortex of fire and black lightning that made the entire mountain grid groan.

"Die, Dante!" Marcus roared, his face purple with exertion. "You can’t reflect this!"

Dante didn’t attempt to dodge the incoming pressure. His expression remained completely still, but his internal aura was incredibly dense. He focused his full energy into the hilt of his sword, meeting the massive wall of magic head-on with a brutal, full-power horizontal slash.

BOOM!!!

The collision of their powers detonated with a world-shattering force that completely defied the logic of the floor structure.

Esabella’s reactions were instant. Sensing the oncoming shockwave, she abandoned the thrashing Nelon, going backward, and lifted Yenna’s into her arms with a single motion.

Before the impact wave could reach them, she coiled her body tight, wrapping her massive black-and-crimson wings completely around herself and the Yenna like an absolute, unbreakable dome of scales.

Inside the dark safety of the wings, Yenna looked up at Esabella’s glowing chest scales in shock, the deafening sound of the explosion muffled by the wing membrane. "If You... you protected me... like this you will get hurt."

"Quiet," Esabella murmured softly, her eyes still locked on the outer darkness. "Dante values you. If you die, his handsome face will look sad again. I won’t allow that."

The surrounding mages and vanguard soldiers frantically tried to retreat down the extraction corridors, but it was too late.

The energy of the impact created a colossal, deafening explosion. A massive wave of pure black and red energy violently ripped upward, completely pulverizing the stone ceiling, the rock pillars, and the entire structure of the 55th-floor arena above them. Boulders were vaporized into ash as the shockwave shot straight toward the upper atmosphere.

When the blinding light and the roaring wind finally settled, the underground tunnels were completely gone.

Esabella slowly uncoiled her massive wings, letting them fold halfway behind her back. Yenna blinked through her knotted hair, looking around in complete shock, her breath catching in her throat.

The entire landscape had been completely flattened into a vast, open crater of cracked obsidian and black sand. Every single structure around them was destroyed, leaving nothing but smoking ruins. Above them, the dark stone roof of the floor was entirely gone. The sky was completely visible now—clear, open, and illuminated under the high tower barriers.

Dante stood firmly on the shattered ground a dozen paces ahead as the smoke cleared under the open sky.