Mission 16

Sacrifice

The arrow pointing to the right had led Dante into a gigantic ice cave through which he is still making his way. He had to move carefully and at the same time deftly not to slip on the frozen ice which covered the cave floor and the many holes in the ground.

The devil hunter thinks back to the huge frozen waterhole he had passed. Where all the ice is today, hungry flames must have raged back then. So was this waterhole filled with bubbling and spitting lava at that time?

In the area of the cave that Dante is now entering, the coldness is gradually fading. Water, resulting from mighty icicles that hang on top of the cave ceiling, is dripping onto the cold and wet rocky ground. Dante had never thought that drops of water could make such a strong and annoying noise. That noise is getting even louder due to the cave's echo. The sound of a multitude of water droplets falling down reminds Dante of a leaking faucet in the bathroom from which the water literally hit against the ceramic of the sink or bathtub.

The passage becomes narrower and narrower and the ice is gradually fading. Dante has to push several steel chains hanging from the ceiling to the side to be able to move further. There is a whole jungle of that chains ahead of him.

Finally, he reaches a huge and open area which rather reminds of an ice landscape since the cave's rocks are only hardly visible through the ice. Frost and ice are everywhere and Dante can recognize himself many times in the coldness' reflections as if clones were entering the room too. The temperature here is all the more unpleasant. The cave ends far behind but a path leads even further, and this is where the reason for the icy and crystalline spectacle of this place becomes apparent: A mighty snowstorm rages at this spot as if it were a warning that the cave should not be left under any circumstances.

On the sides of the cave, there are several empty iron cages which are equipped with additional chains. Dante slowly approaches the dangerous looking exit and lets his gaze wander alternately to the left and right. He has to squint his eyes as the blizzard raging outside puts a lot of strain on them.

In the middle iron cage on the right, Dante can see a massive figure hiding in the shade and in a corner. Thereupon Dante changes his course in this direction.

When he is close to the iron cage, which is fixed with a particularly large number of chains and spears, he squats down and moves as close as possible to the dungeon in order to identify the figure more precisely; even though the cold of the blizzard now whips against his left side particularly hard.

He recognizes the demon's thick armor that, resembling a turtle's shell in its nature, covers most of his body. The body's own protection is dark brown and decorated with several black dots and circles which, in the overall picture, look as if demon eyes are watching over the figure. The shape of the armor that extend to the left and right of his body is reminiscent of one of the many oval leaves on the branches of a tree. Despite the huge protection, the mud-green, obese, and slippery belly peeps out in the middle in whose skin flap he seems to warm his slender and lizard-like fingers. As far as Dante can tell, the demon has only four fingers on one hand. His head that, like the carapace, resembles a turtle, is tilted downwards and supported by his puffed up neck which has the same pattern as those on the carapace.

The demon hunter pulls out his pistol from the right holster and taps against the iron cage with the handle of his weapon.

The creature startles and pushes itself closer to the icy wall. He puffs frantically and his belly wiggles.

"... Vergil ...?" The creature, to Dante's surprise, begins to speak in the trembling voice of an old man, and stands up clumsily. The demon's shell bounces against the wall several times as if the demon, in addition to its heavy weight, were limited in mobility.

"... No, you are ... Dante", The demon continues.

"... And you are Futuras?"

"... How do you know my name?! ... And what are you doing here?!"

"I wanted to meet you in person. This book here has made you famous as an author", Dante says and has put away his pistol in the meantime to get the red book out of the inside pocket of his coat.

"My journal! ... You have my journal! ... Give it back to me!"

The demon clumsily straightens up and tramples on his stubby legs, much too small for his body weight, towards Dante and thus further into the brightness. Ankle cuffs, however, prevent him from getting closer to the dungeon door. Dante's gaze is focused, compulsively and completely unintentionally, on the demon's belly which is wobbling the whole time; especially since the shell has now opened and the belly is thus presented in its entirety.

Dante has to avert his eyes as he gets gradually disgusted by the sight of this region. He then rests his attention briefly on the carapace which now protrudes from the right and left side of the demon's body as if it were petrified wings, and moves his gaze further up to the demon's head to let his gaze end there. Futuras' eyes are pitch black and were therewith not visible in the darkness. They perfectly match the pattern of his armor.

"Only if you promise to answer a few questions as a finder's fee. No fibs, of course."

"If you give me the book back and you let me out of here, I will answer as many questions as you want. I swear it!"

"Well, you have high standards. Ain't it enough that you got rid of Berial because of me, so you don't have to sizzle in hell anymore ...?" Dante says and lets the book disappear in his coat.

"Oh really?! It was you?! It was you who defeated the Conqueror of the Fire Hell?! ... That's why I'd been subjected to an ice age after all that torturing fire additionally?!" It bursts out of Futuras.

Dante had noticed the scars and burns on his stomach and face. So these are not part of Futuras' nature after all, but a sign of his torment.

Now the demon's body begins to tremble slightly, just like his voice all along. This causes the shell to close. A veil of ice and frost has appeared on it.

"How about a little bit more gratitude? I got you a cooling off after all that heat ..."

"Alright, alright! Thank you! Just free me from this! How can I enjoy my relief from pain when I'm trapped here in the end?!"

"... How can I be sure that you'll tell me the truth ...?"

"I just swore that I would tell you everything you want to know! So it's only natural that I will answer honestly!"

"I wonder how much a demon's oath may be worth ..."

"I am Futuras! I can be trusted! I would never lie! I have never lied and I won't do so in the future! I cannot see the future of others anymore but I can still say this much about mine!" Futuras says. "Look, I need your help and you need mine. One hand washes the other ..."

"Okay then ... I just sincerely hope for you that you won't fuck around." Dante rises his body, looks at the many chains, and shakes the iron cage. "And how do I get you outta here?"

"There! Over there! You see that lock?! My freedom requires a sacrifice! A sacrifice from a demon who is responsible for my plight! Now that Berial no longer exists, which is no pity at all, it has to be Abylum! Otherwise, only Mundus can free me ... And that will never happen! We need Abylum's heart!"

"Ewww ... Organ donation is a great thing, but not in this case. Besides, if I was interested in the insides of any living beings, I would've become a surgeon!"

"Don't be such a baby! You must have seen much more horrible things in your life!"

"Watch it, pal ..."

"I'm just honest! I say what I think! That's why I can't lie at all!"

"I got it, okay? ... Who is this Abylum and where can I find him?"

"He is the Enslaver. The King of the Slaves, and also the Demon of Gifts and Talents. Some also call him 'The Skill Manipulator'. He dwells in the Slave Garden."

Slave Garden. The arrow to the left.

"... So I have to put his heart into that lock ...?"

Dante's gaze wanders to the large lock which is attached to the dungeon and has an oval opening. In terms of shape and size, a human heart could also fit in there.

His face shows the disgust he is feeling inside.

"Exactly!" Futuras replies. "But be careful in the fight! It has a reason why he has so many ... titles! He does not only judge about slaves but also skills. He can manipulate, steal, and even destroy various gifts and talents! That's how I lost my special ability! Beware of his tentacles! If he uses them, it's a sign that he wants to take your abilities! The power of Sparda may allure him ..."

"Well ... That sounds like an interesting fella ... Thanks for the tip", Dante says and turns his back on Futuras.

Dante walks along the path he had came to reach the place with the signpost. This time he follows the left arrow which has been inscribed with the word "Slave Garden".

After the glaring light has swallowed him, the first thing he sees, or better said reduces his visibility, is a dark fog. He moves forward and the fog clears a little so that he finds himself on a stone bridge. He had already felt the hard ground under his boots. Dante continues to look around and he sees a black liquid flowing beneath the bridge; as if burnt motor oil had been used to replace the water at that spot. He moves closer to one side of the bridge and looks down. Various bones and skulls float in that liquid which get swept away by the black river. Eventually, the fog dissolves completely and Dante can see the end of the bridge with a huge volcano in the background.

A wasteland, which Dante now enters, opens up around the volcano. The ground is stony and therefore very bumpy and uneven. The clear night sky, that suddenly appeared, gives the impression of being on a scene in the human world. The ground has several deep holes in some places. Dante passes one of them and, after taking a quick look inside, he is recognizing various dark figures in it. They are trying to move their ghastly bodies up, but they are failing and sliding down. They are making terrible and plaintive sounds as if they were begging for help in their own language.

Dante continues going straight ahead and reaches the next hole. Again he looks down for a moment. About a dozen demons are bustling in this one. Unlike the demons Dante was just looking down on, these are not trying to escape from the hole, but fighting each other. They are biting, scratching and dismembering each other until finally one demon remains. This creature is looking up to Dante with its big eyes while drool is running out of its mouth. Now he wants to flee up to the demon hunter but not to give itself freedom, but rather to get Dante between its sharp and yellow teeth. However, this demon too does not pose any danger since it is not able to move its massive body upwards. Dante averts his gaze and goes away.

On his way towards the volcano, it finally comes to life. Dark smoke leaves the depths of the volcano and smaller lumps of lava gurgle out of it until it finally erupts and loses a thicker mass of lava. The blistering heat trickles down the rock and when it hits the stony ground where Dante is, deep cracks start to form which get filled with lava immediately. The cracks are racing past Dante to his left and right and eventually are spreading all over the ground.

Suddenly, it bubbles again in the volcano and another eruption takes place but with the hot lava, a figure is also leaving the volcano. As the hot magma is flowing down, the red demon with his magnificent wings rises into the air, circles around the volcano, and then lands on the ground a few meters before Dante. The ground is vibrating.

"Visit for Abylum ..." The demon begins to speak. "Son of Sparda ... Why here?! Son of Sparda like Kingdom of Abylum?!"

The demon has a very slurred speech. It appears as if his own tongue was in the way. From the sound of his voice, one could think that his voice needs to get broken first to produce the typical supernaturally deep voice of a male demon.

"So Dante in the right place! Dante not interested in Kingdom of Abylum! Dante here because he needs something from Abylum!" The demon hunter says, imitating the creature's language style.

The demon is similar to a Tyrannosaurus in physique, except that he also has wings and is not quite as tall as a dinosaur. It could be around sixteen feet. The head, however, can be assigned to a completely different group of animals. His face has features of a predator, but it has huge horns like those of a ram. A long black beard is to see on his entire neck. If the beard were to grow above his neck, it would resemble the mane of a horse. Various parts of his hair are tied together with several dark rings and thus decorate the demon's hair or beard. His eyes match the color of his body. Only the thick cornea on his front side matches the color contrast of his wild mane.

Where the tentacles of the demon, mentioned by Futuras, should be, is a mystery to Dante currently.

"What Dante need?!"

"... Don't take this personally but I need your heart. And no, this ain't supposed to be my declaration of love for you."

"Heart of Abylum?!" The demon replies as he laughs out loud. With that, the mane on his neck is moving wildly back and forth and the demon's hair accessories are clashing together, causing the typical sound of metal rings bumping against each other. This makes the hair moving even more.

"Dante funny! ... Wait ..." The demon's laughter is getting quieter. "Aaaaah! ... Futuras! ... Dante need for Futuras! ... Futuras still believe in freedom! ... Why Dante help Futuras?!"

"Everyone has his reasons for certain things and actions, right?"

"Never Dante get heart of Abylum! Abylum King of Slaves! Dante will be slave of Abylum!"

The demon stomps his feet furiously. He then lifts one of his legs and lets the sole of his foot race down on Dante.

Dante dodges with a sideways roll, but already here he has to be careful not to touch the lava flowing through the torn ground.

The demon rushes towards him with his mouth wide open. Dante even jumps towards him and uses the head that is coming closer to make his first successful hit with Rebellion. Dante deliberately does not choose his fiery nunchaku-like weapon since his surroundings do not lack heat and he assumes that the flames produced by his blows might not be very favorable for him.

His blade deeply penetrates the demon's snout and before the demon can hurl his head wildly around to get rid of Dante, the demon hunter lets up on the demon by himself with performing a jump in the air. Through the momentum he gains, he can pull his blade out of the demon's flesh and move his body over his horns. The demon spins around its own axis to push Dante away with its spread wings. His long, slender tail probably does not seem to be much help in his defense since it is wagging uncontrollably and almost rubber-like. Dante can move nimbly through the air and thus escape a blow from the demon; he also gets himself a few feet away from his opponent this way.

Abylum searches the area for Dante. When he spots him, he jumps three times towards Dante whereby the ground is shaking and the lava is splattering around the opponents, and on his last jump and just before Dante, he rises into the air. Despite the feigned attack on the demon's part, Dante was able to give him a few blows.

The lava flowing down from the volcano multiplies and finally pours into the many holes in the ground. The demons inside get slopped out of the holes; so the heat does not seem to bother them. Dante now has to deal with the smaller demons that were once trapped while Abylum is flying high up in the air.

Dante uses his sword and pistols powerfully to get rid of the annoying demons as quickly as possible. Occasionally, Abylum lowers his flight altitude and tries to catch and hit Dante with the claws of his short arms, his powerful legs or with his sharp teeth. Dante is always fully aware of those attacks, however, and can dodge accordingly to then immediately apply himself to fight the troublesome troop of demons.

When Dante has finished off most of the group, the stony platform tears further and further in various places, leaving huge cracks in the ground which Dante has to watch out. For the moment, however, he can also take advantage of this situation by letting the demons fall into the crevices. Even if they do not dissolve in the lava and seem to be resistant to the blistering hot magma, they still splash around and cannot manage to climb up the stony platform.

Abylum starts descending down but then remains in the air. His wings are spread wide and he is flapping them to keep his heavy body in the air. The glow of his eyes is intensifying and also the thin skin on the inside of the wings, which can be seen in some places next to the thicker and bulging areas, is shining brightly.

Now Dante is getting to see what Futuras meant when he spoke of Abylum's tentacles as the thick, bulging skin starts moving, detaching from the wings, and finally growing out on both sides as four long tentacles.

"Yummy ...", Dante says to himself. "This is where it gets exciting."

"Before Abylum make Dante slave, Abylum want see abilities of Dante!" The demon speaks and sends his tentacles to him as fast as lightning.

Dante parries a tentacle with his sword and cuts off a piece of it. He can also escape the next one this way and evades the other tentacles with nimble movements. Again, the previous ones grope for Dante. Finally, it gets too far for him and he activates his Devil Trigger to reject the tentacles completely.

Abylum is forced to retract his tentacles and let them merge with his wings.

The demon hunter remains in his supernatural form and uses the rapid running speed to get closer to the demon, then making a leap in the air and hitting him with several blows. For a short time, Dante succeeds in freezing Abylum in the air with this method when the demon is able to free himself from rigidity and glides through the air again. He flies up to the volcano and dives into it. Gigantic lumps of magma are the result, flying towards Dante.

Still remaining in his demonic form, he manages very well to avoid those burning balls. However, it is the ground that takes damage from them, and has now more craters. Again, the volcano bubbles and the next flow of lava emerges from it. This heat also penetrates into the existing crevices and cracks in the ground but especially into the craters that have just been created in which the next demons are located and flushed upwards by the rising lava.

Dante is thus allowed to devote himself to another wave of demons which probably belong to the repertoire of Abylum's slaves. Due to his greatly increased speed with which he can dodge and attack quickly thanks to his demonic form, even more care is needed to avoid getting into the burning heat as his space on the ground starts shrinking. He slices his way through the hordes, and then Abylum can be seen again.

The demon wants to take advantage of the moment when Dante is distracted and lets his tentacles emerge once more, causing the thin layers of his wings glow red as well as his eyes. The tentacles flit down to Dante.

No chance for Abylum to succeed in his plan. Dante knows how to use his body to get the situation under full control. The tentacles get fended off or shortened several inches by blows with his sword. One of the tentacles repelled by Dante is passed on to a demon in his vicinity; a demon that is characterized by enormous muscle power, huge and sharp teeth, and claws. The tentacle sticks to that demon and thus the demon gets pulled to Abylum. The remaining tentacles, including those that have been injured by Dante and now dripping blood, are brought to the body of this muscular demon by Abylum. The being appears paralyzed as the tentacles begin to thicken; as if something is being sucked through them. Then Abylum lets go of the creature and hides his tentacles inside his wings. The muscular demon falls to the ground and dissolves.

Suddenly, Abylum's claws on his feet as well as on his little hands start growing larger. Also his already pointed teeth are lengthening and enlarging, so that they protrude far out of his mouth since it is too small for his new teeth. On top of that it can be seen how Abylum is gaining muscles. The strong legs are becoming even stronger and his body even more stable. With this enhancement, Abylum is sinking to the bottom. It literally seems as if he is being pulled down unintentionally because of his even heavier body and not that it was Abylum's intention to enter the ground. He lands on his feet and the ground starts vibrating massively which makes it getting more cracked. Dante, who in the meantime has changed his form to save energy, is jumping aside, so that he does not fall into the slit that is now appearing. Then Abylum tramples towards Dante.

Dante has to finish Abylum off quickly if he does not want to vanish inside the lava. There is not much rock left underneath him and the fact that Abylum has now gained weight and thus can crush the ground more easily underneath his feet does not really work in Dante's favor.

After Abylum has gotten close to him, Dante catapults himself up into the air in an attempt to have more room and freedom for further attacks on the demon and also to protect himself from the hot ground. Abylum hurls his head around and Dante has to escape his mouth as well as his horns, but still he manages to hit him one way or another. Abylum pushes his body aside, and Dante follows in the air; constantly insisting on causing damage on him. His attention wanders briefly to the slender tail of the demon which Abylum has not yet used. Whatever the reason is why the tail has not been applied in combat so far, Dante knows a use for it.

The demon hunter stops his sword strokes and moves through the air with his nimble and acrobatic movements and, bringing his devil mode back to help, heads for the back of the demon. Abylum turns abruptly and so Dante, who in the meantime could grab the tail end of the demon with one hand, gets hurled along. He manages to tame the tail and flits forward towards the head of the demon. Abylum flaps his wings and wants to stop Dante, but he is too slow. Dante is already there and can wrap his tail once around the neck of the demon - the tail of the demon is that long and flexible. He pulls strongly on the end of the tail and with the help of his devil powers, he succeeds in strangling the demon as Abylum is gasping for air.

With his muscular legs, the demon is stomping wildly on the ground as if he were almost performing a dance. The wings are beating against Dante's back, but he gets not deterred by this. He is rather concentrated on getting the noose - as the demon's own tail is one at this moment - even tighter. Through the dancing of the demon, the ground is crumbling more and more until it is finally collapsing completely.

Abylum's lower body is sinking into the fiery liquid. He is stuck. His short arms are resting on the rock and he is trying to lift himself up, but he fails. Despite the predicament, Abylum manages to extend his tentacles. They are groping for Dante who sees another chance for himself. He lets go of the tail, which then flips back, and grabs one tentacle with his right and one with his left hand in an intention of tying off the demon's neck once more. This time it works even better. He pulls on the tentacles strongly and finally knots them together. Then he grabs the next two tentacles that are searching for Dante and brings them around the neck of the demon and knots them together as well. This way it looks like as if he were tying up a package. The wings now literally stick to the demon's head and since he has no more possibilities left to move and is also running out of air, he falls forwards.

Due to the strong weight which is pulling the demon down, another part of the ground is collapsing, so that now also the head is plunging into the lava. The hot liquid splashes upwards. Dante flees and at this very moment, the glowing lava splashes onto the back of the demon and thus onto the spot where Dante had just been. With the remaining energy from the devil's mode, Dante lets himself down on a small patch of rock before his human form finally emerges again.

Suddenly, Abylum's head shoots out of the lava and his short arms feel the remaining rock around him. Abylum could free his wings from tightness. This because the tentacles were torn from his wings. The tentacles are hanging limply around his neck.

Abylum hisses and screams when he notices this.

"Dante not defeat King of Slaves! Dante get very big punishment!"

"I don't know what's wrong with you! It could work as a necklace! Looks fabulous by the way!" With this sentence, Dante is hopping closer to the demon - otherwise he cannot move because of the many cracks and lava spots in the ground.

Abylum comes towards him with his head.

The demon does not have many actions left to execute, so that Dante, with the use of his aerial acrobatics, succeeds in attacking the demon's head, until it finally gives in.

Abylum utters a final painful scream and his upper body rushes down backwards. Dante jumps from platform to platform to get himself out of reach of the lava fountains that surely will arise again when Abylum's body plunges into the hot and boiling heat.

Abylum hits the lava and, as expected, the lava shoots up to sink back into the red and hot liquid after some time.

The King of Slaves floats motionless on the surface of the magma.

Finally, Dante approaches Abylum again at a rapid pace. He jumps onto the demon's black horny skin, raises his blade, and stabs it into the chest region with full force. Rebellion's point sinks only slightly in the demon's skin. Immediately, he pulls it out again and lets the sword race down another time and then once again. The small dent in the skin gets deeper and deeper this way. He continues this process in order to penetrate even further into the different layers of the demon's skin. When he finally feels resistance with his sword, Dante pulls his weapon out to take a look inside the wound.

He can see a small part of the grey and damaged rib of the demon. There is something black behind it. Dante stabs his sword into the wound again and pushes its hilt to the side to enlarge the hole. Now Dante can identify the black something as Abylum's non-beating heart. So he has targeted the right region. After all, Dante has come to this place precisely because of this organ.

Once again, Dante sticks his sword into the opening caused by him in order to break the heart protecting skeleton with quick pushes. Now that the heart is free from any hindrance, Dante switches to his nunchaku and impales the organ with the two-pronged ending of his weapon. When pulling the weapon back, he needs more force to break all connections between the demon's heart and the inner body of the devil.

Grabbing the heart with his left hand, he puts his weapon away to finally hold it in his two hands which gives him a feeling of aversion. That feeling disappears, however, as the organ's slimy nature hardens and darkens, changing into kind of a black gem, an onyx.

Dante lets the onyx-heart disappear in his coat and jumps off the demon's body. He just wants to make his way back through the many stony platforms when the bubbling of the lava behind him demands his attention again. The demon's body sinks into the lava completely and with its disappearance, a thick and long cudgel rises from the lava, first lingering in the air and then hovering towards Dante.

The heart is not all that Dante is supposed to receive from Abylum, though this too may not be of Abylum's free will.

He reaches for the black stick of the weapon, that otherwise consists of various shades of red, and looks at it with astonishment but also with a bit of repulsiveness before tucking it to his weapon arsenal on the back.

There does not seem to be enough time for testing the weapon as the environment is increasingly turning into a lava landscape in which the stony platforms gradually dissolve, so he hurriedly makes his way out of the Slave Garden.

"... With hearty greetings from Abylum!" Dante shouts into the ice cave area and proudly moves towards the cage in which Futuras is imprisoned.

Joy and relief can be noticed on Futuras' face when he sees Dante, and especially the souvenir Dante holds in his hand. If his deep black eyes could sparkle - in the figurative sense -, as it is the case with humans when something wonderful happens to them, they would surely do it now.

"After all these years! Finally! I can't believe it!" Futuras exclaims. "How did you kill him?! Did you see his tentacles?! ... Whatever! Get me out of here!"

"I didn't expect you to be interested in my story", Dante replies and inserts the onyx into the hole of the iron lock.

Immediately, the lock burst open and the many chains come loose and crash to the ground together with the many spears that had almost fenced the dungeon.

Dante opens the dungeon door for the demon. Futuras does not hesitate for a second and tramples out on his short stump legs while his greasy belly wobbles along with his movements. His sideways expanding shell bends accordingly to fit Futuras through the passage.

"Now my book!"

Dante hands him the red covered book. Greedily, Futuras grabs it and looks at it, also in this moment, full of joy.

"Why did you think I was Vergil at first? I know we're twins and we have a quite similar look but why especially did you think of him?"

"Are you that kind of guy who can't stand being number two?" Futuras wrinkles up his nose and wipes under his olfactory organ with his stump arms. "I just thought he had returned", The demon continues before Dante can say anything in response to the previous statement from him. "But then I realized that he hadn't been the type of men who wore red clothes at all ..."

Dante grins and smiles at Futuras' impertinent reaction as he continues: "What do you mean with 'I just thought he had returned'? Returned back to the demon world?"

"Gaaah ..." Futuras grouches. "Okay ... I promised. Let's go a little further into the passage. The cold shouldn't be too severe in there. Then I'll tell you everything in peace. It's getting really unbearable here!" Futuras says and trudges, probably at a fast pace for him but at a leisurely pace for Dante, towards the passage that leads further into the winding corners of today's ice cave.

Once there, he pushes aside the steel chains hanging from the ceiling to sit down on a ledge that protrudes out of the wall and that is only moist but not covered by ice, his belly continuing to wobble for some time while he himself already sits still. Dante leans against the wall opposite to him and crosses his arms.

"Back when the Fire Hell was worthy of its name, your brother had been confined to a jail next to mine by Mundus' command. That was the first time I ever received a visit. Normally, slaves and prisoners were always sent to Abylum in the Slave Garden directly where they would die after a certain time. But Mundus had other plans for Vergil and me. We were not meant to die. While I was supposed to burn for all eternity, Mundus only wanted to break Vergil's will and strength so that he could take control of your brother completely. Therefore, it had been in Berial's responsibility to keep us suffering by torturous flames which severity always had to be as high as we were only just able to bear with. In the moments when the flames paused to give us some time to rest, so that we could gather strength for the next pain that would befall us, I talked to your brother. He told me that he would destroy Mundus no matter how bad and unfavorable the situation was. He would be strong enough not to lose his mind. He would pretend Mundus to have become one of his puppets. Then, at the decisive moment, he would take action, surprise Mundus, defeat him, and ascend the throne. He even promised to set me free if he would have taken Mundus' place. Eventually, the time arose and Berial brought Vergil to Mundus. Abylum had then to make sure that Vergil would become the soulless Nelo Angelo. The later death of Nelo Angelo was announced to me by Berial. With this information, he probably wanted to destroy my hope of ever being free from pain and suffering again; that there was no one left who could do anything against Mundus. He even had been successful with this as I gave up any spark of hope. But when I saw you and took you for Vergil, I felt hope rising. I thought Vergil had been able to accomplish his deeds after all these years and that Nelo Angelo's death was merely a tactical disappearance of him to prepare for a better plan. But apparently, it was over for Vergil already then ..."

"... He may not have been able to stand up to Mundus the first time, but he's still eager for the throne, and probably just in this second, he's making his second attempt ..."

"WHAT?! Vergil is alive?! ... Oh, I'm so delighted right now! Today must be the greatest day of my life! ... But how can it be?!"

"It sucks not to have clairvoyant abilities anymore, huh?"

"Indeed! Nothing worse could have been done to me! I would rather have spent more years in the fire! And I, who had been completely abandoned and lonely in the dungeon at a place in the back of the demon world, don't get any news at all! I was left behind! After Vergil and Berial, I never saw anyone else here again! Not even Abylum or any other of Mundus' harbingers! Not that I had wished for that ... But now tell me!"

"After his defeat by Mundus, he could save his soul from death. Then he took the body of a human being, gained power, and spread in there, so that he was now able to take over this body completely. Clever as he is, he has also managed to open the demon world. Yeah, and now he might be on his way to Mundus, If he ain't already there, putting up a nice power play ..."

"He gave himself a second life through his soul and a human body?!"

"That's how you could put it."

"That is impressive!" Futuras exclaims as he begins to look more introverted. "... Onvoram geveli è pehl secan metre bedurio tabeh ..."

"That's what I say all the time!" Dante says as a joke, in truth not knowing what Futuras is trying to tell him in the foreign language.

"... Yes! ... Yes, of course ...!" Futuras finally is getting louder again.

"What?"

"... Entailing mother's benevolence and shelter ..."

"... Entailing mother's -" Dante repeats and stops abruptly.

This line sounds familiar to him. Is it not written in the red book in the paragraph about Sparda and his descendants?

"... Your mother is always guarding you ... Even if she couldn't save Vergil's body from death, she was at least able to protect his soul."

" ... A gift ..." Dante continues, with that reproducing the beginning of the meant sentence. "... The amulets ..."

"Nonetheless, it requires a great deal of strength. His power is truly incredible! I'm absolutely astonished! That makes me suspect that it might not be unlikely Mundus is going to get defeated by him this time! Mundus must be punished for all his shabby deeds! That's all I want!"

While Dante remains in his world of thoughts for a short time, he finally gets himself out of it by raising a question:

"... Vergil claims that Mundus has a weakness. Is that true? He also knew about the Blood Angel before I did. Ain't that your specialty? Did you give him all this information?"

"I educated him about all the things one should know about Mundus if one, just like him, intends to rule the demon world. This included the facts about the Blood Angel. Let me tell you everything as well. Let's start with Mundus."

"I'm all ears."