Chapter Ten: On the Hunt
Tok. Tok. Tok. Tok.
Vergil's boots echoed in the library; it was nearly silent, otherwise.
He slowly came around the perimeter; a massive battle seemed to have ensued here. Good. That means Dante is still alive. Entire shelves of books had been burnt, or worse, exploded, leaving naught but the charred stone. Leaves of singed paper lay on the ground, picking up and following Vergil for a second as he passed over them.
At length, he passed by the girl from before, huddled against the wall, but still clearly alive. Thinking her unimportant, he continued his march, barely sparing her a sidelong glance as he went. With a resonating creak, he opened the other door to the library, and passed through, letting it fall open and clatter against the wall.
If that girl wants to follow, he thought, so be it. It's her problem.
He emerged to an immense tower, aptly dubbed the Heavenrise Chamber. It stretched up into the inky blackness an incredible distance, and the only sources of illumination were the torches spaced every so often, with their soft, blue arcane flames.
With a mighty leap, Vergil sprung up to the second tier; the tower had become wrecked since the morphing of the Temen-Ni-Gru, and rubble covered most of the floors of the chamber. Lacking any other direction to go, he leapt again- and again- and again, from one step to the next, until he reached the very top, and threw open the large, ornate door there as well.
It revealed, in turn, a balcony of sorts on one of the upper levels of the Temen-Ni-Gru. Vergil stepped out onto it, gazing out. The sky had become cloudy, and overcast; it was like being in the eye of a horrendous storm. He looked upward, and saw that it was a good distance towards the top... and that something was glowing there, a fiery crimson glow.
He turned back, and down a small set of stairs to a massive door; a hole had been blown in the wall to his right, but he paid it no mind. He threw open the gate, and saw...
"What is this?" he mused to himself.
The room was wholly new- it was a cavernous place, in dark black stone, with the same red glow that the central pillar had before. A number of odd cubes lay around the room, some immobile, others floating and turning in the air. He looked up, and saw the door to the upper levels some two stories overhead, and wasted no time in making his way up.
He climbed onto a nearby cube, and when an airborne one floated down, he leapt upon it. It rose into the air at a steady rate, and halted near a platform of the odd blocks. It started to descend, and Vergil stepped off onto the hanging stage. It was like a dance, his careful ascent upwards; in no time at all, the devil reached the top, and exited the chamber.
This time, it opened into a strange antechamber. It was open, and dominated by a central platform whose sides dropped off into a deep pit. Three stairways rose from the far end, but only one ended in a doorway- the others had been sealed off by rubble. Vergil went through the one exposed door, into a tiny chamber where, again, only one of the available exits was open; the shields of two demon warriors lay here, indicating that this had indeed been the path Dante took. But an odd noise came from the next room... a noise of shifting metal.
With trepidation, he stepped beyond the threshold. The source of the noise became apparent immediately. The room itself was a vast hall, with rows of holes on the walls, ceiling, and floor all the way down. In regular intervals, great steel spears shot from the holes, in an advancing pattern and in rows of three. Each wave of deadly spikes left only a tiny opening, barely big enough for a man to move through. It was the Trial of Skill.
Vergil hesitated for only a moment, then burst into his full devil form. Glowing blue and sparking, he moved with a godlike speed, kicking off of walls, leaping through the air gracefully, and sometimes even disappearing from sight for just a second. With great proficiency, he evaded every deathtrap, despite their challenging swiftness. His devil trigger faded away as he came to rest on the other end of the hall, and walked, panting, through the hole in the wall there.
On the other side, there was only a small walkway. He stepped out onto it, and leapt into the air, landing on another balcony, like the one before; he took no time for a second gaze outward, and passed through the door.
Hm. Familiar territory.
It opened to the hallway that led, in turn, to the Moonlight Mile. As soon as he entered, a number of Abysses rose from the ground, intent on stopping him. Vergil twirled the Yamato into a battle position, and scoffed, saying, "Come. You will be a prelude to my vengeance against Arkham."
The first to die leapt at Vergil, scythe blazing. Before it knew what had happened, he had drawn his sword and cut the demon clean in half in a spray of blood. As the body hit the ground, Vergil was already dashing forward to end the next combatant. It was like the beginning of the whole ordeal all over again.
As he began his attack, the Abyss sank into the ground. There was a noise behind the blue devil, and as he turned, the beast burst from the stone behind him, preparing to throw a burning projectile at the summit of its leap. Vergil, however, was in no mood for mercy, and performed a similar trick. He vanished, and reappeared, seemingly via teleportation, in midair behind the Abyss, and decapitated it as it realized where his foe was.
The last demon began to back away, thoughts of retreat running through its mind. Vergil, however, materialized directly in front of it in an instant, and just as quickly, plunged the Yamato into the monster's skull. Blood flew through the air as it fell back off of Vergil's katana, and he twirled it once more before replacing it in the sheath.
"How boring."
Full of adrenaline now, and eager to taste Arkham's blood, Vergil charged to the zenith of the Temen-Ni-Gru, through the Moonlight Mile, up the winding path, and onto the summit. Seven bells, adorned with graven skeletal angels, were suspended here, and the source of the fiery light was revealed. It was a massive column of light, rising from the ground and piercing the clouded sky... and at the eye of the storm, if one looked skyward, one could see a vision of the Demon World.
"Arkham... prepare to die!" Vergil shouted into the air, and stepped into the column of light. He steeled himself for battle in the ultimate battlefield- the demonic realm- as he rose swiftly into the tumultuous sky, and through the gate.