The bodies of Derek's team lay twisted on the blood-soaked ground, their life force now a part of his own growing power.
His four shadow puppets stood as silent, violet-eyed statues, a testament to his victory. His team, his living weapons, were gathered behind him.
Their faces showed a mixture of grief for their fallen friends and a new, chilling awe for the monster who led them.
And at his feet knelt Derek. The great and terrible leader, the champion of savagery, was now just a broken man, gasping for breath, his face pale with terror.
The red glow of his artifact was gone, leaving him looking small and pathetic.
He looked up at Dante, his arrogant smirk replaced by a desperate, shaking plea. "Please," he choked out, his voice a pathetic rasp. "Dante... please, don't."
"I was wrong. I was wrong, okay? We can... we can team up. What's left of us. We can join you. I'll serve you. I swear it."
Dante looked down at him, his expression unmoving. He felt nothing. Not pity, not satisfaction, not even hatred.
Derek was simply an object, a loose end to be tied up. His words were the meaningless buzzing of an insect.
"Serve me?" Dante asked, his voice dangerously soft. "You already have. You gathered a team of killers, hardened their resolve, and delivered them to me on a silver platter."
"You were the perfect tool. But now, you are broken. And I have no use for broken tools."
He began to raise his hand, channeling the dark mana he had just claimed. A faint, shadowy energy coiled around his fist. The air grew cold.
His team tensed behind him. He could feel their desire for vengeance, a hot, pulsing thing in the air. They wanted him to kill Derek. They wanted to see him pay for Neil and Juno.
Derek's eyes widened in sheer terror as he saw the killing intent in Dante's gaze. He scrambled backward, pushing himself away with his hands and feet like a crab.
"No, wait! Wait!" he shrieked, his dignity completely gone. "I have something you need! Information! A secret!"
Dante paused, his hand still glowing with deadly energy. He let him babble. It was amusing.
"My team... we asked the Goddess a question, too!" Derek sputtered, the words tumbling out of him in a desperate rush. "We asked her what happens when we clear the trial! I know the reward!"
Dante let out a short, scornful breath of air. The sheer arrogance. He thought this was a bargaining chip?
"I already know that," he said, his voice flat with disappointment. "Six survivors. Six kingdoms. Six new lives as puppets or playthings for whatever faction rules them. Your life isn't worth information I already have."
"No, that's not it!" Derek insisted, shaking his head frantically. "You know the outcome, but you don't know about the blessing! You know the goddess gives a blessing, right?"
Dante's hand paused. A blessing. That was a new variable. "What are you talking about?"
Derek saw the flicker of interest in his eyes and clung to it like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. "The first one!" he gasped.
"The very first survivor who finishes the trial, the first one to kill the Bone Dragon and claim a Hero's Mark! The Goddess grants them a wish! Any wish!"
The world seemed to stop. The sounds of the forest, the crackling of dying embers, the ragged breathing of the team, it all faded into a dull roar.
A wish. Not a skill, not an artifact, not a place in some backwater kingdom. A wish. The power to rewrite a rule, to change a fate, to grab for something beyond the limits of this brutal game.
"A wish?" Dante repeated, the words tasting strange on his tongue.
"Yes! Anything you want!" Derek confirmed, nodding wildly. "She said there were limits you can't wish to be a god, you can't wish for more wishes, you can't wish to harm her."
"You can't wish to go home... but anything else! Dante, you could wish for unparalleled power! You could wish for one of your dead friends to be brought back to life!"
At that, a sharp gasp came from somewhere behind him. Erica. The fool. He was planting seeds of hope where none should be allowed to grow.
But the core of his words... it held a power far greater than vengeance. Killing Derek would be a final end to this bloody chapter.
It would be a moment of satisfaction for his grieving team. But what was that, compared to this? The potential to reshape his own destiny.
The game had just changed. It was no longer a grim battle for survival, a race to be one of the lucky six.
It was now a race to be the first. The only one who truly mattered. The winner. Everyone else, even the other five survivors, would just be runners-up.
Dante slowly uncurled his fist, the dark energy fading into his palm. The immediate threat of death lifted, and Derek gasped, a shuddering, relieved sob shaking his body.
He thought he had won. He thought he had successfully bargained for his life.
"Thank you," he whimpered, tears of relief streaming down his face. "Thank you, Dante. I won't forget this. I'll do anything--------"
"I never said I wouldn't kill you," Dante interrupted, his voice as cold and empty as a winter grave.
The hope in Derek's eyes shattered, replaced by utter, uncomprehending horror. "What? But... but the information! I told you! You promised!"
"I promised nothing," Dante said, standing up and looking down at him with the detached curiosity of a scientist observing a specimen. "Your information was valuable. I thank you for it."
"But your life... your life has no value to me whatsoever. You are a liability. A rival. And I do not suffer rivals to live."
Derek opened his mouth to scream, to beg, to curse him, but no sound came out. He was paralyzed by the sheer, cruel betrayal of the moment.
Dante turned his head slightly, his gaze falling upon the silent, shadowy puppet of the Wardcraft user, the boy who had been Derek's loyal shield.
"You," he commanded, his voice empty of any emotion. "Bring him down."
The shadow puppet glided forward, its movements silent and unstoppable. Derek stared in absolute terror as the ghost of his own teammate, his own friend, raised its spectral hand.
There was a terrible, poetic justice in it. He would not be killed by Dante, his enemy. He would be executed by the ghost of the loyalty he himself had betrayed.
Shnk.
The shadow's hand plunged into Derek's chest. He let out a final, choked gasp, his eyes locked on Dante's, filled with a look of deep, soul-shattering betrayal.
Then, the light faded from them, and he collapsed into a heap on the ground, his final secret paid for with a life Dante had never intended to spare.