For a long moment, Dante felt entirely weightless.
The agonizing burn of Aesha's holy light was gone. So was the crushing pressure of his failing soul. There were no cheers from the human army, no smell of ash or burning feathers.
Only silence.
Then—
"Y—Ster!"
"Young—!"
"YOUNG MASTER!"
Dante jolted upright, violently gasping for air as though he were breathing for the first time. His hand flew to his chest, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The ruined battlefield was gone.
In its place stood a high, vaulted ceiling made of polished obsidian and dark mahogany.
This was his room, his room which was nestled in the royal palace of Superbia, the largest kingdom of the demon continent. But that should've been impossible, this place had been destroyed!
"Young master?"
A face leaned over him, her brow furrowed with genuine concern, but he wasnt focused on her.
He threw the heavy silk covers aside, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and hurried toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the chamber.
The reflection staring back at him belonged to someone he hadn't seen in over a decade.
Wild, untamed purple hair fell past his mid-back framing a face far softer than the one he remembered. His skin was slightly tanned, while his striking eyes—black and red rings surrounding his red pupils stared back at him in sheer disbelief.
Dante slowly raised a trembling hand and pressed it against his chest.
This was where Aesha had nearly cut him in half.
To most demons, even a shallow graze from that weapon was a death sentence. The immense divine power woven into its blade through countless prayers and blessings prevented demonic regeneration from repairing the damage.
Dante hadn't been grazed.
He had been impaled.
Dante slowly dragged his fingers down his stomach, expecting to feel the wound left by Aesha. Instead, his fingertips met nothing but smooth skin beneath his sleeping shirt. The absence of pain was almost more unsettling than the wound itself. He could still remember the blade piercing his body, the holy energy spreading through his Phantasmal Body and reaching his soul, and the way his regeneration had failed to repair any of it. He had been certain that was where his life ended.
'No...'
Dante stared at his reflection.
'Have I... regressed?'
The idea sounded absurd, even to him. He had died. He remembered the battlefield, the army surrounding him, Wolfsheim and Gabrielle standing beyond the crater, and the Fist Emperor watching as his body finally gave out. Dante had spent six years fighting a war filled with things he once would have considered impossible, so he couldn't completely dismiss something as strange as temporal regression.
But if that was really what had happened, then he needed to know how far he had gone back.
"Young master?"
The maid leaned closer, deliberately blocking his reflection in the mirror. Her lips pulled into a small pout.
"Why are you ignoring me~?"
Dante was about to tell her to give him a moment when he finally looked at her properly.
His thoughts stopped.
He knew that face.
The short silver hair tipped with red, the pointed ears, the violet eyes, the familiar expression she wore whenever she was trying to get his attention. He had seen that face beside him for years before the war, and he had watched it disappear from his life when the Fist King attacked the palace.
'It can't be...'
His throat tightened.
'Valentine?'
Valentine Zepar had been his personal maid, confidante, and bodyguard. She was also one of the few people Dante had trusted completely. During the war, she had died protecting him during the Fist King's sudden assault on the palace. Dante still remembered finding her afterward, remembered the blood covering his hands and the desperate realization that there was nothing he could do to save her.
She had died alongside his mother.
'If she's here...'
Dante looked at her again.
'Then Mother is alive too.'
He stepped forward and pulled Valentine into his arms without saying anything.
She immediately froze.
"Y-Young master? Is something the matter?" she squeaked.
Dante didn't answer at first. He could feel her breathing and the steady movement of her body against his. There was no illusion here. Whatever had happened to him, Valentine was standing in front of him alive and unharmed.
"It's nothing," he finally murmured as he released her. "I'm fine."
He turned back toward the mirror, though his reflection was the last thing on his mind now.
His mother was alive.
Valentine was alive.
The war hadn't happened yet.
Dante took a slow breath.
'What year is it?'
He turned toward Valentine.
"Valentine."
She straightened and smoothed down her apron.
"Yes?"
"Do I have anything planned today?"
'First, I need to figure out when I am.'
Valentine tapped a slender finger against her chin.
"Oh! That's right! Lady Hildegard returned from the Gula Kingdom this morning! And Young Master Nero just arrived from the Phenex Territory!"
Dante's eyes narrowed slightly.
'Hildegard... Mother. Nero... my half-brother.'
That gave him some information, but not enough to establish the exact date. His memories from this period were buried beneath fourteen years of events, and the final years of the war had overwhelmed much of what he remembered from his childhood, the further he went back the worse his recollection became.
'How am I supposed to ask this without sounding suspicious?'
He hesitated before rubbing the back of his neck.
"Right... and, uh..."
Dante looked away.
"How old am I again?"
Valentine stared at him.
Dante immediately realized how ridiculous the question sounded.
'Idiot.'
"I'm still a little tired," he added awkwardly.
Valentine's expression shifted into concern.
"...You're fourteen years old, young master."
Dante went quiet.
Fourteen.
The number settled in his mind as the last piece of the puzzle.
'So it really happened.'
His gaze lowered.
He had eight years.
Eight years before the Holy Empire's crusade. Eight years before the continent became a battlefield, before his mother died, before Valentine sacrificed herself, before countless people he had sworn to protect were buried beneath the war. The war until his death had lasted about 6 years.
Dante closed his eyes for a moment.
The memories hadn't disappeared with his death. They were still there, and some of them were so vivid that he could almost feel the pain again. He remembered Aesha piercing his body, the Fist Emperor standing over his mother, and Valentine dying in his arms. He remembered the helplessness that had followed him through the final years of the war, when every victory seemed to come with another body added to the dead.
His hand slowly tightened at his side.
Without another word, Dante turned and headed toward his walk-in closet.
"Hey! Don't you need help getting dressed?" Valentine called after him, raising the neatly pressed clothes she had prepared earlier.
"I can manage."
He closed the closet door behind him, finally giving himself a moment alone.
He hadn't been able to check properly before. Now that he had some privacy, there was one thing he needed to confirm.
Dante closed his eyes and turned his awareness inward, toward his Mystic Ether Body.
The Mystic Ether Body was an energy body formed from Aether, the primordial energy from which all other forms of supernatural energy ultimately derived. It absorbed, refined, circulated, and distributed energy throughout the body, acting as the medium through which supernatural power was controlled and manifested. Even Aeshma was connected to it to a certain degree.
Damage to the Mystic Ether Body could severely disrupt a person's ability to control their energy, even if their soul remained unharmed.
Dante focused deeper.
At the center of his being, a powerful rotational force churned continuously. Kleshmara flowed through his Mystic Ether Body in a constant cycle, colliding and compressing against itself before circulating again.
He could feel his Aeshma within it.
Weaker.
Much weaker than he remembered.
But it was there.
So were the two bloodline abilities he had inherited from his father's lineage.
[Radiance of the Morningstar], and [Brilliance of Venus].
Radiance of the Morningstar constantly generated and refined his demonic energy, forcing it through repeated cycles that gradually improved its quality while expanding his reserves.
Brilliance of Venus was more specialized. It could enhance the quality and output of whatever Dante applied it to, from his Vasana Arts to the amount of Aeshma he could produce, even his comprehension.
At fourteen, neither ability had reached anything close to the level they would eventually achieve. That wasn't surprising, considering his younger self had never been particularly interested in training. Being born with the Lucifer bloodline had made him somewhat complacent, and he had relied heavily on the advantages that came with his birth.
By the time he reached the peak of the Tenth Order—the Mystic Realm—he had pushed his bloodline comprehension all the way to the Fifth Class.
It hadn't mattered much in the end, though.
The Lucifer bloodline had given him enough versatility to survive a direct three-hour battle against the Hero, but even that hadn't been enough to save him.
Dante had still died.
He opened his eyes.
As expected, his strength had regressed along with his body. He was currently in the Low Stage of the Fourth Order, the Master Realm, while his bloodline comprehension had fallen back to Basic Comprehension.
Dante wasn't particularly bothered by it.
What mattered was what remained.
His foundation was still intact, and so were his memories. He remembered the arts he had learned, the techniques he had developed, and the countless battles he had fought throughout his previous life. His current body couldn't handle most of the techniques he had relied on during his later years, but that was something he could work around.
He had eight years.
That was plenty of time to prepare.
A few minutes later, Dante finished dressing and adjusted his clothes while examining himself in the closet mirror. He had settled on a black long-sleeved shirt, simple black trousers, and a deep purple coat lined with thick silver fur. A white leather belt with a circular golden buckle completed the outfit.
Dante gave himself one last look.
'Damn, I look good. People should really wear more purple, heh.'
He stepped out of the closet with a faint smile.
"You're looking quite... stylish, my lord." Valentine remarked.
She stepped forward and smoothed a crease in his collar.
The familiar scent of her hair reached him.
Dante's eyes lingered on her for a moment, his thoughts drifting into dangerously spicy territory before he caught himself and looked away. Its not like he had time for...other things during the war.
'Focus.'
"Valentine."
"Yes?"
"Is my father attending the gathering today?"
Fourteen years separated him from this exact day. Six of those years had been spent fighting through a brutal war, and the sheer amount of memories he had accumulated since childhood had buried many of the smaller details from this period.
He couldn't remember every part of his family's schedule.
Valentine hesitated, her fingers fidgeting with the fabric of her skirt.
"N-No... I believe Lord Samael is still away. He's occupied with the administration and defense of Superbia's borders. He won't be returning to the central estate anytime soon. I can dispatch a courier with a formal message if you wish—"
"No. It isn't necessary."
Dante cut her off smoothly.
His thoughts returned to Nero.
Valentine had mentioned him earlier.
Nero was the son of his father's second wife and had been born only a few months after Dante. Their close ages and positions had created friction within the household from an early age. Nero's mother despised Hildegard, and she had spent years teaching her son to see Dante as a rival for the succession of the Lucifer lineage.
'We never did get along in the previous timeline.'
Dante frowned.
He knew Nero wasn't fundamentally evil, though. Most of the hostility between them had come from the way they had been raised.
Maybe that could change.
With eight years of memories from the future, Dante might be able to steer their relationship in another direction.
At least, that was the idea.
----- Two Hours Later -----
'I take it back.'
Dante sat across from Nero at the grand dining table.
His younger half-brother glared at him from the other side, his expression twisted into barely restrained irritation. His fingers tightened around a heavy black steel fork until the metal bent beneath his grip.
Dante stared at the warped utensil.
Then he looked back at Nero.
'This is going to be harder than I thought.'