Final is here.
Sin Dante vs Urizen theme goes great with this, much better than Mundus theme actually lol mind changed.
Chapter 29 ~ King Nothing
There was a flicker of movement and a click as Mundus parried Force Edge with the Yamato, Dante sliding sideways to miss the twinkle of the Katana thirsty for his blood. Turning round, the hunter slashed backwards, swinging the blade at his brother's katana as they traded metal sparks, with Dante using what he liked and Mundus relying upon the fundamentals of Capo Ferro. Fancy parries were useless against the blunt tactics of Sparda's red son, the man simply blew past the twisting turns and stabbed at the devil lord's flesh repeatedly. Mundus grunted through Vergil's lips as he was forced back further and further until eventually summoning a sword of blue light. Hurling it telekinetically, the Devil aimed at Dante's chest.
Forced to part ways, Mundus held both his weapons at his side, the broadsword he'd taken from his most recent victim and the saber taken from his mortal foe's son.
Dante stood back as the phantom blade pierced through his heart, then shattered back into atoms, and the two stared down one another.
"Come on, old man!" Dante taunted, "My mother's faster than that."
The king shuffled, shifting to keep Dante in front of him. He held himself with easy confidence, assured in the superiority of his mission, his strength and his weapons. Slicing and dicing forth, Mundus renewed his offense. Dante had every reason to attack first, but he was smarter than that. To win, it would take strategy. Through the black clouds of the sky poured in moonlight, drenching them within it's brilliant glow, the King of all devils fighting the Prince of all rejects.
Arrogance is a good bedfellow, Dante thought. It made even prime fighters such as Mundus slow and stupid.
He continued to drift around the possessed devil, maintaining a solid distance at which only Force Edge could reach the King's position, and he struck the air with the blade as though he were hypnotized to shred a diseased swine. Lightning-quick rounds of brutish strikes knocked Mundus about, albeit still guarded by his dual blades. Dante ceased awareness of his own breathing, his mind unconsciously falling into the rhythm of battle he'd grown so accustomed to, focused on the subtle changes in Mundus's every movement.
The dark ruler leapt forward when he'd cleared past the boy's razor offense, Yamato slashing forward against a vertically held Force Edge, followed by the strike of the red brand, driving Dante's blade downward and then directed Yamato once more, this time at the hunter's neck.
It was a marvelously-delivered strike but it would never come close to how gracefully Vergil could tune a weapon, so the swift son of Sparda trailed below the sword as it traveled toward him. The strike missed the top part of his crown by mere millimeters, and the man swung Force Edge upward as Mundus jerked Modeus's blade down. The long blades created an explosion on contact, crackling, chiming and clattering; their feet slid and scuffed the ground as the two men took in much-needed air. The pressure came undone with a violent decompression that sent the two rocking backwards to opposite ends of the battleground.
"Disappear!" Mundus yelled, his footing regained near instantaneously, and he charged forward in a stinger.
Successfully, he whipped past Dante and gouged a potent gash in his side as he went, the blade slicing through between the man's ribs, and he then twisted on his heels rapidly, darting back again across the disturbed car park, cyan blades conjured high in preparation at his shoulders as he tore through the hunter's other side, the summoned swords impaling through the back of Dante's chest.
Coming to a stop, the slayer turned to his opposite, "Useless vermin."
"Aww," Dante muttered as he checked the wounds on his sides, admiring the craftsmanship of his mutilation, "Nice work."
The wounds instantly closed themselves, and the King growled evermore.
A less experienced fighter couldn't last against those blades, but Dante had fought Vergil before, he knew the moves, he knew the pain.
Mundus rose in the air.
"Die!" He growled.
He leapt atop a destroyed vehicle, moving in a purple blur all around.
The air pulsed with the rhythm of jagged lightning bolts chaotically structured into furious winds. 'Vergil' landed on a car behind the demon hunter and shifted, turning around in the blink of an eye. His opponent whipped around with a sword slash of his own so quickly that the air cracked whiplash. Mournful cataclysms considerately killed their enthusiasm to other means, the reflections of their own selves, possessed in others, was an effective breeding ground for hatred. Fortune favored the famed, but the reflection in a cracked mirror always remained. The king himself was crowned with nothing, and so was a king of nothing.
The devil hunter's backward swing struck nothing, yet the simple act of release surged through the air a violent slash of plasma.
Solid and murderous, the wave crashed through the king's stolen form, yet he remained stolid and unmoving.
"Foolish." Mundus said, his image cutting itself right in half but then fading, a hollow remnant — an afterimage.
Blue spread all around Dante in a circle, judgment coming for him, the ending.
Ruins whirled around in a great thrust of ancient zephyrs as all things within range were torn to pieces; all cars ripped asunder, cosmic poles of light goring through the air like the impossible sparks of stars far off in the distance. Crimson luminescence tore through the azure happening, and the hunter stood unabated by this display of force, his own inner power surging to negate it.
Mundus felt the backlash and was lifted off his feet, gliding back through the hunter's heat as his boots eventually came down, guided by preternatural grace. Landing with ease, the King didn't hesitate as the fiery return of Ifrit came to pass, the aegis breaking into existence around his fists and forearms. Rocketing forward past the hunter's hurricane, the Devil's ruthless fist came down upon the grim brother with no remorse and no repent. The Cambion jerked into action and met that blazing hand with his own open fist, the force of flame matched by cool white light emerging from the front of Dante's palms, pulsing brightly before receding abruptly to reveal the elegant mettle of Beowolf.
The two froze for a moment looking at each other.
"Hmph, Beowolf. Unsurprising." The King growled.
"Considering it wasn't on me when I died . . ." Dante remarked.
The King raised an eyebrow briefly.
And the two traded heavy blows, gauntleted fists colliding in tidal waves of kinetic rage, grafting together into a gold form of energy that glimmered just as angels would. A flurry of impacts were followed by three straight punches to Mundus's gut as he drove his boot heel into Dante's thigh, the hunter reacting by spinning around and leading with a vengeful Muay-Thai elbow to the opposite side of the King's face. They parted all too briefly as they turned in opposite directions and leered in close for sweeping kicks of identical style.
Limbs clashed as that same golden power burst out between them. Repeatedly, their disparate weapons collided, the light of reason bashed against the shadowy flames cast by darkness.
Reaching an impasse, they both shot back from a golden breach and raced to one another, both their rightward fists pouring forward.
The radiance emerged once more, forcing them back across the battlefield. No blades came his way surprisingly, though the hunter did see a sharp spear-like glaive.
It glowed with the same power that constituted the well-worn summoned swords.
Hollow copies of the Force Edge, that's all they were. The construct came rushing forward at him as sent by his dear twin.
Hunting, Dante stepped to the side and batted his father's blade dead on to the center of the harpoon. Sliced directly, the spear cracked and splintered to pieces, fading away. A storm of Blue blades soon followed, and the man went to work, effortlessly slashing through each copy, a shining red light within a cascade of cyan knives. The ground nearly caved in beneath them, the silver brothers clashed, and Mundus brought down the red sword against his old rival's onslaught.
A lustrous weave of pale violet plasma fulminated across the sky its toxic bright touch.
The king slashed right with Vergil's katana, but Beowulf's metal bracer blocked the weapon's fine edge. He forced the other blade off to the side, and with a window opened, Dante hopped his feet up and heaved them into the opposition's solar plexus. White light blinded them both as the hybrid launched himself backwards, his heels grinding themselves against the ground to stop his momentum. The King staggered, enraged, and hurled off another spear, summoning dark power meant for destroying souls.
Cracks started to form in the blacktop. A pillar of dust blew out from the blackened presence. The storm had grown far worse.
The ornate javelin came soaring towards the man, the instrument leaving only vapor behind itself, and it seemed to pierce his chest.
The Devil manically grinned to himself, that is till he saw the exorcist also disappear just as the construct fractured, revealing another afterimage.
Dante reappeared a hundred feet above him, the Force Edge burning red. Hurtling the blade clasped in his fists downward to the ground, he streaked across the sky a shooting star towards the Devil. Violence came crashing down fast, slicing the back of Vergil through his red jacket into his skin, ripping the flesh open. A pained howl emerged, Mundus stumbling forward as he grasped at the wound, gasping for air. He was like a fish on dry land, coming undone, but rage soon pulled him back together.
Smoke poured off from the cursed affliction. Force Edge remained a toxic reminder to his nerves.
The veins in his face strengthened and renewed their blue corrosion, and he slashed both blades rapidly in a spiral as he pivoted, Yamato slitting Dante's throat. The hunter stumbled back himself, a fiery kick blasting his chest and sending him off his feet as a shadow soon joined him midair, Mundus, facing away as they flew. With the back of his hand, the King swung horizontally a straight-laced belt, smashing the kin of his host into the concrete below. The ground cracked further but still held firm, and the slayer twisted as he flew to the edge of the car park, landing upon the raised wall meant to protect people from falling off the side.
Holding his right hand high, Mundus's silver eyes flickered green . . . commanding the storm.
Lightning surged, and it lashed down at the ground repeatedly, striking Dante's seraphic heart in three measures. His face contorted as he jittered on the ground, his side exposed. The skies went silent as the man sat there singed, smoke rising from his hands and feet. But, vermillion eyes opened and the hybrid sprung to his feet, and with hell's wrath in his heart, the Devil summoned more bolts from the heavens. Powered shafts struck so frequent that the diviner could hardly stop for a moment's pause without seeing a flash almost burning him alive. His clothes had scorch marks in small places, but he pushed himself to his furthest degree of athleticism, moving around columns as they struck. The ground atomized and crumbled. Vehicles exploded within seconds.
The sky itself had torn open, heavy shrapnel careening across the battlefield as the Devil drew upon more and more of the firmaments might.
Mundus heard a familiar laugh, and something rose up from within the smoke.
It was a giant thing, looking as though it were the head of a dragon, and it burned, glowing holocausts of pure scarlet fire.
This again! The King thought to himself as the entity roared at him its being, the semblance a monstrous burst of crimson power, and all raging embers barreled down towards him.
Mundus darted through the fallen debris, seeking the hunter's true form in the chaos, the thundering onslaught tearing through the very structure beneath them before this beast reared its head back around, flying up high into the sky, above the stygian clouds. And when an enraged shout cleared the dust, Mundus saw no one, his face falling as he heard the bellowing monster above him, looking skywards far away. With nuclear wings, the red entity came rushing down atop the Devil's rugged shoulders, the hunter within the charred configuration, crashing death aloft from the murky welkin.
Another hail of blue blades gathered around the spawn of Sparda in a cylindrical shaft matched in scores of hundreds, ready to pounce.
"Die, impure urchin!" Mundus yelled, and unleashed them all will. If he were to die in this kamikaze, he would take the doomed boy with him.
Dante bared his wolven teeth, and he plummeted down on the Master of darkness. Ifrit's flames emerged and jettisoned the King like a missile. Man met devil, to the Demon's heart the Childe came.
Unnatural forces collided and the floor beneath them outright shattered.
Torment escaped the blast, emergent from the darkness like Christ's burning cross, and the wail of serpents screeched in their ears. The shockwave unleashed broke through countless windows, obliterated numerous panes of glass, its unmitigated force shredding across the land like a quake of hurricanes. Once more, Ifrit and Beowulf clashed, the Hunter's glare meeting the Devil's snarl.
Their strong hands deadlocked at once, they remained airborne and still so very briefly, ashes snowing in the wake.
Metal on metal shook the ground with quakes unbecoming of the territory. In the man's mind, his mother screamed over and over again.
Perfect motivation.
A temple of kicks met a flurry of sweltering punches, and gold light boomed through the skies like discordant fireworks, hypnotically flashing incessantly till the black of the night could no longer hide the brilliant radiance from human eyes outlying so secluded. Mundus launched a hook kick to the enthusiastic hunter's face, but the Cambion shifted back and away, the heel missing his cheek by a paltry few centimeters, but an important metric difference all the same. Righting himself, the Devil and the mortal zoomed toward one another as they fell, right-handed cuffs smashing against one another.
Dante grasped the back of Mundus's head and his right arm moved past the blazing fist, locking the Devil's arm in place at his side as he wrenched the clasped head forward.
Thrusting forward his own, Dante's forehead met 'Vergil's' nose as his head-butt crushed those sinuses while breathing soon stifled.
Holding onto the man, the Hunter flipped vertically around and flung Mundus's ailing frame down below him.
The Devil crashed on the hard cement floor and bounced up as he rolled.
He came to a gradual stop, disturbed. Things felt misaligned inside.
Blood dripped from his mangled face as he pushed himself up off the ground.
"Hey, what's the matter?" He heard Dante say, "C'mon, don't give up so soon, now you're just bein' lazy."
Looking back at his vindicator, the skin closed and sealed itself, those bones reset themselves, and his joints relocated. The Devil spit out his dislodged tooth, Vergil's visage nearly restored.
"Aheh, I shall spit on your grave." The King soon said, wiping his mouth on his wrist.
"It could use a polish." The Dark Knight's son replied.
"Grah!" The Devil yelled as he launched an inferno from his fist.
Dante crossed his arms and assumed a familiar stance, the Royal Guard. The flames squelched and died out rather quickly for such a large volume, and the hunter maintained his same guard.
Unchanged, those red eyes glared at him.
Dante slowly shook his head in disapproval.
One second later, he'd zipped right in front of the possessed slayer just above the ground in a blur, the coyote growling buckshots in the Devil's face.
Taken off his feet, 'Vergil' flipped backward numerous times, managing to recover briskly as he darted back in, thrusting Modeus's broadsword forward to stab.
Landing, his feet firm to the ground, Dante rolled the weapon back then forward in his right hand, firing again as his opposite palm quickly grabbed the stalk.
As if the iron was a pair of nunchucks, the man swiftly fired three shots as he maneuvered the shotgun over both his shoulders lightning fast, firing super-charged shells.
The King stumbled as he came, and he hit the ground, toppling over long before he could reach Dante.
Lumbering on his side, he struggled to push himself, painful lacerations marking up his entire left side.
He spat blood and pressed onward regardless, seizing the stolen brand once more.
Sprouting wings from his back, Mundus took flight, metamorphosing into the Majin, the incarnation's corrosive power rattling the iced earth. Defying the will of gravity, the creature took flight.
Circling around their chosen battleground, in time the King began to chant incantations, black speech from the pits of hell. Of the embers from Ifrit, they trickled down around the hunter as he stood by idle. From those dying fires poured living flames that formed together a sphere of conflagration. The temperature rose to an unbearable level as Dante lunged at a wall made of inferno, but the barrier was solid, and he simply burned. Dante resisted the sweltering heat that ate away at his flesh, and then from this firestorm emerged a beast that so too rose to the sky. The circle broken, those flames simply faded away like lost ideologies from a more civilized time.
This new form was exquisitely charred, the red coat remaining in place as a scaled ornament, the white hair on his head becoming a metal helmet that closed around his skull, the nose sinking behind demonic flesh that turned his handsome face into a nightmare. The humanity withering away, two great raven wings hung off his back, carrying him higher and higher as his forearms and legs became covered in black insectoid plating that grew armored, and human hands became devilish meat hooks, a caliginous ridicule of earthly features.
The lips receded, leaving an exposed machine-gun smile, and the transformation was complete.
Mundus shouted callous words in his old language then dove with a swinging pole arm, the crimson lance elongating out from his forearm aiming for the exorcist's ankles.
Dante growled.
Force Edge narrowly stopped the severance from occurring, and a storm of cuts of slashes sparked between them, Mundus's strength and speed nearly a match for the now-maroon-hued half-ling's. A million strikes and furious dodges insulated them from the outside currents created by the black rain still raving, disparate wrath continuing to assault itself as two sides of the same coin furiously, straight from history books' past. One slip would be enough to bring the demon king down to his knees. Repeated strikes snagged and tore at the fabric of the air around them, and though Dante nearly landed a strike, the Devil King managed to avoid them all, much the way Vergil used to. He was growing more comfortable in this vessel.
Finally, as the myriad blows came to a head, the slayer's keeper drove one of his crimson blades through Dante's shoulder, and Mundus then laced his own right leg in fire, propelling it forward.
Punted, Dante gritted his teeth as he sailed through a skyscraper, crashing through a darkened room into an industrial brick wall behind him.
Embedded in the mortar, he soon pulled himself free and launched forward towards the blown out window, though Mundus had already arrived.
With brute force fueled by irritation, the King clotheslined the hunter through the bricks out the other side of the building and dragged his dazed form before letting loose with a power-packed fist.
Hellfire exploded against Dante's face as he fell to earth into the rubble below. They did not ease the pain he felt.
He crashed against a helipad on top of a wide, particularly-sturdy establishment. He stood on one knee for a moment as the shock wore itself away.
The fallen angel appeared before him floating down, beautifully evil.
"Well, at least you're a man of your word . . ." He muttered, "Haven't felt any pain yet."
The demon stood to meet the crooked ruler's hostile embrace.
Mundus lunged forth with an unintelligible growl, thrusting his right-armed lance at the hybrid's chest. Dante caught it with both of his hands as he stood on his feet, but the impact forced him back.
"You wretched boy . . . You really are full of surprises, aren't you? Every step takes you closer to your last, deny it all you want. It's the end for you." The Devil said.
Dante pushed himself against the towering monarch, and though it would cost him, allowed the red spear to pierce his chest. It dug through him daunting agony, but he was the happy soldier. The Devil was bemused by the defiance, and kept driving the blade forward till his clenched-hand touched the man's chest. Dante grunted, his left fist grasping the King's carpus, his twisted face turning from angered resolve back to tortured misery.
Finally, it had come to this.
Raindrops began to fall once more, the light of Modeus's sacrifice fading. This was it.
"Sweet dreams, Dante." The King spoke these chilling words with Vergil's baritone.
Dante smirked back, "You first."
Force Edge disappeared, and in its place on the devil hunter's right arm returned a blinding lucent light, and the King's crooked maw abruptly compressed against against the rest of his skull, Beowulf's might raging upward. He had planned this, taken advantage of majesty's arrogance, sacrificed some of his own strength, all for the want to play the King. His castle had long ago crumbled, and now he was left with only a name; Mundus, King Nothing. The prince of lies, more like it. With his burning soul rupturing forth into the power of the rising dragon, a pure beast of white heat emerged, and its strength was phenomenal. The fury in his eyes was something to behold, Dante's own mastery of his power able to overcome the shadows that this light cast.
"D-Damn- Damn it!" Mundus growled through forcibly grating teeth, then finally screaming, "Nooo!"
The spear through the hunter's chest retreated, withdrawing to the confines of Mundus's massive arm.
His feet leaving the ground, Dante travelled with his rapturous blaze and saw the powerful strike through to its end. The pressure built snapped and Mundus went soaring.
Dante felt exhaustion nearly consume him, but there was no rest for the warrior's soul, and, carried on death's ebony wings, charged on after the King. Racing the opposite fist forward, Beowulf's left duke crashed into devil-jaws again, fracturing the altered bones further, bodies slamming, breaking through concrete and metal, and then emerging out the other side, a familiar scene awaiting them. Mundus felt haggard, drained of his appropriated power. His body flopped mid air, wings too tired to even perform their basic function and he toppled over in vertical circles.
Dante kept himself in place above the tyrant and held his hands together above his head. Summoning his dark power for a final assault, unearthly scarlet welled out together, forming a cosmic supernova born of purgatory's insanity. With a final shout he thrashed his entire being down and the blast rocketed toward the lonely planet below, tearing down the King from his throne of grace. Unholy screams ripped through the air as the power released soon fissured apart, a massive column of purple-tinged-crimson power erupting from the singularity as it flattened and smoothed out the land surrounding its edges. It burned the King again and again, never stopping till he could no longer withstand the form of the Majin, and soon this too faded away from him.
Divinations unfolded and soldiers faded, the wrathful pillar soon disappeared as the energy expended itself fully. A masterpiece of war.
Exhaustion overtook all parties involved, and the silver-haired man sunk slowly to the ground, his aching feet unable to bear anymore.
Dante collapsed forward, the two back atop the parking lot, destroyed down from its top floor now, reduced to the third level. All others had been stripped away, devastated.
The man was back to his mortal form, panting from the exertion of their fight.
He was glad, at least, that it was over, even if it meant Vergil had died in the process.
In the back of his mind, he'd hoped he was wrong.
Before him, he heard a low grumbling, and rubble began to move.
From beneath the layers of dust that had quickly gathered, the King returned in Vergil's flesh. He was covered in soot and dust, problems that soon remedied themselves as the rain washed him clean.
And he stood up, a perversion of their proper outcome. Dante's eyes widened, the devil still had enough in him to stand straight up . . . Had he failed?
Though relegated to one knee, Dante knew he wasn't completely done himself either. The old fire was still there, ready to burn at a moments notice.
Still . . . standing would prove an arduous challenge at the current juncture.
Mundus's green eyes emerged from the dust in the wind before the storm washed it away, and when it cleared, Vergil's body appeared no worse for wear, his face twisted in a hate-filled scowl.
But the second he seemed poised to take that first step forward, the Devil fell backwards on his elbows and grunted.
A sense of relief radiated over Dante's forehead as he sighed and thought on his injuries in the hopes they'd soon heal.
"You . . ." The King spoke through clenched chops, "You've robbed me of everything."
"Aheh, says the guy who took another person's body . . . Seriously, look up hypocrite in the dictionary, you'll find your picture." Dante said, heaving foggy breath.
"I can not believe this . . ." Mundus replied, managing to roll onto his right side where he spat more blood, then shouted, "Taken down again by this imbecile!"
Dante opened his mouth to reply but he never got the chance. Mundus's rage overcame him and the man pushed himself off the ground, disappearing just as he did so. Teleporting right in front of the hunter to attack, launching a kick up at the hunter's chin. Dante managed just barely to push himself off his feet, lurching back but managing to gain control of his steps while Mundus struck only air.
The dark lord spun about, and Modeus's sword appeared in his right hand crackling against the air with red electricity, and he slashed at his opponent's neck.
Yet again, Dante avoided the attempt on his life, the trickster darting back abruptly, this time steadied. Force Edge reappeared in his hands as Beowulf faded away.
He held the blade in front of him assuming a basic stance and stifled his trembling fingers from their frantic hurt.
Mundus bared his teeth and his eyes glistered green envy, bitterly growling, "Why!? What makes me inferior to you!?"
And he pounced forward with an overhead helm-breaker, though how he was moving at all was still a surprise, given all that Dante had thrown at him. The devil-hunter swung laterally, darting around the scarlet blade, Force Edge hacking at the hollow King's belly. It left behind a stinging gash. Mundus nearly fell to the ground as he gripped his stomach and focused, his eyes bloodshot. Steadily, the wound began to heal itself while Mundus took to stimulating the pain in order to maintain his adrenaline, bashing the open sore repeatedly with his gloved fist while it closed. Turning on his heals as he did so, he then held out his left hand, and the Yamato flung to his grip from across the battlefield buried under ashes. At least this blade held some kind of stabilizing power within its glorious steel.
A black aura emerged around Vergil's body, the sentiment of death on his breath, and Mundus sought to make himself an overwhelming wall of offense, throwing anything he had left.
Though weary, Dante stood his hallowed ground, the inherited prowess from his exorcist's prior life instilling within him confidence as the Devil reverse-gripped the katana and lunged again.
Tearing the edge of the sword sideways through the air from his left side, Dante employed the proper guard and the metals clanged against one another.
Cleaving sideways, Mundus brought Modeus's brand at the hunter's waist. The man's eyes widened and he did the only thing he could do with Yamato still against Force Edge on his other flank.
Freeing his left hand from the handle, Dante braced for pain and so caught the broadsword against the palm of the hand, his fingers clasped around the blade's thick steel. Through vindictive impulse, the King thrust forward his boot and cracked some of Dante's ribs. He heard them fracture, and then soon came the desire for oxygen. Dante coughed and staggered as he stumbled off his sore feet, and his back soon hit the ground. Yamato's cutting edge diced through his abdomen, and Dante immediately adjusted strategies, grasping the blade by the dull side and holding it in place there.
Force Edge still clasped in his right hand, the man used it to deflect two strokes meant for his neck, and then had to contend with another impalement.
Bringing Modeus's brand down, Vergil's eyes were wide with frantic anger, and Dante only barely managed to shift his head out of harm's way, the blade instead digging into the ground beside him.
Without any hesitation, he stabbed Force Edge forward into the man's gut.
Mundus remained standing, enraged, his eyes large as plates, face bestial from pure spite. He desired nothing more than his mortal foe's death.
Death would be the only solution. How could it not be? Yes, this boy was going to pay, he thought as he grabbed the red blade's handle. This would pay—
A foreign fist crashed into the possessed slayer's cheek, the hand in question a burly thing with metal coils wrapped around the knuckles.
A gargoyle's face loomed.
Though its wings were clipped, Ulmarag could not stand for the King's betrayal.
Socking the other mitt into the Devil's stomach, the Sandman had arrived to take revenge, and this in turn infuriated Mundus all the more. Though Mundus tried to counter the beast with metal blaze, it bitterly responded with a swift three-move operation of its own, blocking the punch with an elbow, crunching the stomach using a knee, then bashing the side of the skull with its left hand, and the demon smacked the King across the opposite side of his face with the other. Gagging on saliva and blood, Mundus tumbled onto his side, and the beast towered over him, pounding its weakened but still-sturdy chest.
"You think I'd do nothing after that conceited display of power!?" The beast roared in the King's face.
Livid feelings strung through the Devil's face, liquid anger pulsing through his body's veins. A summoned sword shot straight into the beast's chest and sent it reeling.
It grumbled as it slammed the stripped body of a van, yet it still came, indignation further stoking its temper, and the demons clashed, Ulmarag grappling the King's smaller body.
Its massive hands pushed back on his shoulders, and so Mundus drove up his fiery knee into the beast's pointed chin, though failed to realize a small spike sat there.
They both yowled as they came apart and sat there soothing the wounds, Mundus unable to stand as the puncture in his knee ran deep. So much depleted energy, it would take time to heal.
Embittered, the Sandman seized and lifted the fragile remains of the vehicle behind itself, and then with all of its might, swung the burnt contraption around. Mundus flattened himself instinctively and the swipe missed him. Rearing the heap around behind its head, the creature prepared to crush the treacherous Devil beneath this scrap of metal once and for all. Sitting up, the King shot off a blast of flames from his gauntleted fist, the pyrokinetic energy setting the creature in its entirety alight as it dropped the wreckage and screamed.
The alloy of his weapon red-hot, the Devil turned the flames inward and cauterized the wound on his knee shut. Struggling to his feet, Mundus limped one step as he prepared to finish his old stooge.
Though the flames generated were incurable from telluric water, the flames abruptly died out, and the King looked over his shoulder.
Dante stood there, his hand outstretched, having just uttered a spell that prevented the poor creature from suffering any more. The runes evaporated and they stared one another down.
Mundus's lips winced up as he recalled the last time.
"I think I've had enough of you." Dante said flatly. With a simple thought, one more personal affect tethered to his soul returned to finish this fight.
Mundus growled like a dog, "You would be nothing without your father, without your brother, without me! Take us away, strip yourself down to the soul, and what are you really!?"
"Time to find out."
And the two rushed at each other. No weapons, no tricks, just the will of one nature versus another, human versus the demon.
Mundus threw his bare fist forward as Dante's serious face phased to the left, the attack missing, and with arms outstretched, the man clasped them around his brother's back. Held together tightly, the dark ruler had no time to scream, no time to thrash away, for the second he realized what was happening, the amulets around their necks lifted up and locked together, connected as one. As soon as they did, so too did they, the absolute good flowing forth into the absolute evil, and soon Dante was gone in a redshift through the fabric of reality. The will of Sparda, the red soul, and the scarlet slayer combined as one, the physical matter merged together somehow.
Vergil fell to his knees, catatonic.
. . . Shadow . . .
Within the united essence, their stood the lingering will against the desperate demagogue
. . . Slumber . . .
To the recesses of his mind, beyond the pantheons of Roman and Egyptian gods, beyond the shores of wolf and man, and even across the eternal oceans of empires, there the light finally reached the sleeping son, and soon came the consciousness here of his broken faculty, the control exerted over him by the Tartarean King. It was a crucifix of darkness from which he could not escape, and now he was only there to witness the deadening memories of life that once was and the actions that had become.
Perhaps it was the desire he held, the high austerity of his grand ambitions in his first life, the one before he became the fallen angel. Still, he was so sure that he himself was in control, the master of insanity that used to beckon him to his bidding just a cold evocation of sunless times, how had he been so deceived? To see the world as he had, trapped within a grain of salt, pushed in place and Hell following with him in an exotic flower, it felt like grasping infinity in the palm of his hand while being graced by eternity for only an hour.
All love was taken away, replaced with stone. His heart had frozen for so long, itself an aberration of nature's supreme whims. He had scars now, scars he was sure would never heal.
As he continued to wake, the flow of his lifeblood pumped through him clarity, and the murky world that surrounded him had become clearer and more definitive.
Now, a voice rang out to him, one that he knew from somewhere, and it said, "You owe me one for this."
. . .
Odd, he thought the first words he would hear again would be more comforting than that. A fire flickered in the darkness before his eyes, if he even still remembered what those looked like. Feeling returned to his body alongside that warmth and, suddenly, the boundary between life and death seemed to blur. Who said where one ended and the other began? The voice that spoke to him before, never spoke again, instead now, a different one spoke, one of constant tumult. Another soul? Who did this one belong to?
Tearing through his mind, the voice came to life a'scream, rocking his return further to the aether. He blinked his eyes for the first time in what felt like forever.
"Who's there?" The fragile soul said.
"Who is not here!?" The voice screamed back at him.
"What do you want?"
"What don't I want!?"
"Why are you here?"
"Why are you still here!?"
"Why am I still alive?"
"Why won't you just die!?"
"Are you scared?"
"Of course not!"
"You should be."
"What are you!?"
"I am Vergil. I am . . . I am the son of Sparda."
"No! You are my slave and you will fear me!"
"No, you are my prisoner here."
The lingering will stared into an oval mirror, an old delicate thing that stood there in the abyss corporeal.
He did not now when he arrived there, nor why his own reflection was speaking back to him, independent.
"You are the one here that sleeps! I am the one true master of reality, you cannot hold me prisoner." The reflection spoke to him.
The visage was so much like his own. He looked down to see his feet touching the floor somehow, a sensation he had not felt in eons.
Terra firma was not what he stood upon, the floor seemed to be made of a black liquid that rippled with a step. He blinked and felt alive.
"Words have no power here. I learned this long ago." The man said, looking back up, "You cannot force your ideals upon others when they lack the desire to follow them." He told his reflection.
"I will not be bound here! I will not be bound! I am the King of all devil's, you will obey my words for they are law!" The reflection screamed, veins appearing on its face.
"I am no devil, nor am I man. You speak without knowing and that is what dooms you, unholy one." Vergil said, flexing his fingers.
"You ungrateful sniveling Ass! I gave you life when you sought freedom, I gave you shelter when you lost your path in my domain, I gave you power when you desired more!" The figure said.
It grew larger, morphing slowly as blue veins took control of its corrupted skin, the visage becoming more and more inhuman till it was plain to see that the image reflected was that of Nelo Angelo: his old form, what he'd been reduced to when he'd been enslaved. The sight of it disgusted him, stung his mind with the stain that grand mistake still left on him.
"You and I were the same once, you never know what is enough unless you come to know what is more than enough." Vergil said solemnly.
"Who says we are no longer one?" The dark angel asked.
"I do, but it is because I know myself, and I know you as well, Mundus. I know your deceit, I know your despair. This is why you will never have control, never again." The slayer said.
The horns on its head were joined by even larger coils of the same make across the black angel's chest, and all physical features, save for the mouth, vanished. This new entity that resided was the true face of this liar, the King of wicked emptiness, and the southern cross that misguided his followers to him. All his power lay sealed away within his home, the realm of which no one is meant to enter nor leave. Mundus had severed his consciousness to escape that clause, and so too through the soft mucus between realms that the castle of mallet island housed, he was able to escape within his most loyal servant, a soldier still apprised of humanity, however suppressed and damaged, but humanity regardless.
And it brought him here, of all places, alone, drenched in the dark and cold, wherever this was.
The mirror's edge frayed and broke apart, so too did the glass that held back this beast stretched across dimensions. On the other side of the barrier where the reflection once stood was the Devil itself, Mundus in the guise of the black angel, standing proudly, as if this meager show were some great accomplishment. The slayer stood still while those fragments of glass simply turned to sand against his body, then whisked away into the cosmos by celestial currents.
"If I told you twice, I'd tell you a million times, I WILL NOT BE BOUND!"
The dark angel swung its massive broadsword around as Vergil remained still, his stare itself stripping away the blade to nothing, and the King was taken aback.
The colossal sword no longer existed, now simply a lonesome handle.
"You . . . You were not this strong before." The King said.
"Look beyond my eyes, look at the soul before you and realize what it is that you face." The slayer said, and so the King did as requested.
Beyond the pale flesh, beyond the nordic-white hair, and beyond the frostbitten eyes, there he saw the truth of what he battled.
Dante, that infernal pest, and his father, both their fathers, the Dark Knight Sparda himself. The will of the legend had been within Modeus, and so by process of transference, upon the merging of their vessels, so too did Vergil now possess this iron resolve. Now it was here, bound to the thread of humanity that was this despicable boy and his filthy lineage. How could he have been blind to see this? This disgusting union of spirit with, of all trite things, family. He even saw the repulsive smile of Modeus.
"I let you into my mind out of fear, you poisoned my brain with lies and I believed them. No more." The slayer said as he walked toward his possessor.
Mundus stepped away from the man and his revolution, a feeling present inside him that he could not rationalize: fear.
"No more will you torment those who are innocent, nor will you bring down the sky, nor the disease, nor will the ocean's boil; your reign is over!" The man shouted.
His hair spiked upwards on it's own, the true face of the man who stood before him finally complete. Vergil summoned Force Edge and with one swift motion, lashed out millennia of penance waiting.
"No-" Mundus had begun to say.
The bonds of the tyrant's body broke apart, his hands becoming ashes before his own eyes, and then he screamed. Green flames burst from the remainder of the entity and it burned away.
Exhale.
King Nothing was no more, his essence purged from Vergil's soul, the very place he had resided within. Now it made true sense, everything that had transpired, and he made peace with that. All of his being had become one, solidified into a new whole. Venom in mania had been drained, and he exhaled once more, expelling, recasting his tale. In that new mold he felt peace at last, genuine peace. As it were to him now, the doors of perception had been cleansed and he saw in a way that humans had only ever tried in vain to replicate; all things were infinite.
Exhale.
The slayer opened his eyes.
Damp ground lay beneath his face.
His body had been remade, reborn through the merging, his clothes magically restored. Standing anew, he felt an odd sense of calm. Gone were the demons that bayed to the wind like dogs chained to posts. No more were the wolves diseased and driven to kill. They'd been freed, liberated from the lies of King Nothing. The truth may have been stretched thin, but it never broke altogether. In the end, it had surfaced above the lies, much like oil floating on water. Childish pride and arrogance firmly fell away, all that was left for him to feel was a calmness, as he too was unbound from corruption.
He felt the cool breeze brush against his face. What a wonderful welcoming.
He placed his hand over his hair and swept it back, the familiar style he had always dawned came with a knowing silence, the soul hearing the melody that the ears could not.
A new day had come, new possibilities, a fresh page yet to be written.
Though destruction had been stopped here, he knew this had not erased the devastation already committed. Many lives were lost, many of them undeservedly so.
Still, one had to hope for the future, and as he heard the roar of a motorcycle engine approach, his hope blossomed like a wondrous rose. Everything was going to be all right.
~ Thank You ~
The end, I'm so happy about how it turned out, the perfect close to Mundus. Vergil is finally free from corruption.
It's been a long time coming, but the bad guy's been beaten and it's time to relax! This was an amazing adventure to write, thank you to everyone who has come this far with me.
Hope you guys enjoyed the ending.
I'll be seeing you later, there's an epilogue that needs writing ^_^
Just in case, I don't mean the story is officially over. There is more to come for this series.