Chapter 78: The Mother of Demons

Dante was sleeping on the ground while Nagasawa stood guard, observing the surroundings. She didn't mind having to watch; in fact, it felt good to be useful.

They had reached almost the fiftieth floor.

Dante was recovering his energy that he had lost in the past two hours killing Robgoblins, Ogres, lava spiders, and Black Wolves. Although they were easily defeated, there were still many of them.

The more numerous they were, the harder the battle became, and Dante wasn't used to fighting many monsters at once. In fact, he was quite inexperienced, and Nagasawa gave him tips whenever possible because she wanted to make her presence felt in Dante's life.

Hours passed, and Dante woke up. They moved on to the next floors of the place. Of course, there were still thousands of beasts to kill, but Dante was not intimidated. Despite the insane concentration of demonic energy disabling the use of Holy Fire, he could use his Black Flame very effectively.

When he started at school, his worst flame was precisely the Black Flame, but with each passing moment and with every monster he killed, his flame grew stronger.

"Rest," Nagasawa said as she wiped Dante's dirty face, cleaning the blood and sweat marks from his face.

"You doing these things makes me a little shy," he commented, laughing, and Nagasawa smiled slightly.

"We needed to get out of this. If not, Valentina will cause chaos," Nagasawa commented, leaving Dante pensive.

"Probably, Morgana must be trying everything she can already. We can't do anything about this reflective structure. Until we find the end of this place, it won't help," he commented as he got up and held Nagasawa like a princess.

"Let's go, my teacher," he said and carried the woman's body in his arms, feeling every curve of her body.

"Why do you do this... are you trying to seduce me?" she wondered lightly.

Dante's body had undergone many changes due to the extreme stress of battles, refining his bones and muscles.

Think of it like molten metal being constantly hammered to gain the perfect shape of a sword to cut through your enemies.

With the constant damage Dante received, his muscles regenerated many times during the day and kept regenerating. If Dante didn't rest properly, his body would likely give in completely. That is, if he were alone, it would be quite likely, but with Nagasawa's presence, he was getting physically stronger.

While she spent a few hours watching the area, he could rest properly and fully absorb the changes.

Dante now had a muscular body, dark red hair due to dirt, and a well-developed physique, standing at about 1.80m tall. He had almost turned into an adult man.

This was normal for vampires; their bodies, in addition to being metamorphic, were always at the peak that their age allowed. But Dante broke that mold like several other vampires who were always trained to fight. This is normal. Although Dante's physical strength was almost that of a 100-year-old adult vampire.

"HA!" he shouted and killed three more Black Wolves.

"If fighting weak Wolves is like this, I wonder what it would be like if I ever meet Fenrir. If Gungnir exists, Fenrir and Odin must also exist, or have existed, right," Dante thought as he broke several crystals with Beasts inside and collected their blood.

AHR!

"Sorry," Dante said as he picked up Nagasawa's unconscious body and sat her back against the wall.

"I can't let my efforts to save you go in vain; I still need you to be all mine," Dante said with an abyssal expression, his eyes black with obsession, as deep as Limbo.

"Let's move forward," Dante said and summoned Durandal in one hand. Yes, he could already wield Durandal with just one hand, and the energy of Durandal hadn't returned. In the other hand, he drew the Ice Nunchakos.

"It's time to play," he said, but when he looked inside, he saw nothing. Nothing but a huge circular room with a carving that seemed to tell a story.

However, he didn't let his guard down; on the contrary, he was as alert as possible and remained cautious from start to finish.

Dante began to read the illustrations lightly.

The story began simply: there was a man and a woman. They seemed happy, and it lasted for days. There were small carvings showing their daily lives, eating fruits and resting in an unknown location. One day, the woman refused to do what her partner asked, then a punishment came from the sky.

At her partner's request, a divine lightning struck her, casting her to another place and separating her from the Man. It was a divine punishment.

An image of the moon and its phases appeared. The woman changed completely after being banished from the heavens; she descended to the human world and became bitter. Her sense of independence and refusal to accept others' superiority over her plunged the world into chaos.

Dante looked closely and tried to decipher who these two humans were. He couldn't recognize them immediately, but something caught his attention.

"A woman expelled from the heavens," Dante said aloud, but he set it aside and continued the story.

Years passed; the man gained a new woman similar to him. The abandoned woman then became furious, wreaking her anger on humanity and bringing misfortunes to human beings, such as diseases and death. She attacked only women and sometimes personally killed those inferior to her.

Time went by.

There were images demonstrating the phases of the moon, representing the phases of the woman's life, both good and bad moments.

She constantly lived in ruins and abandoned places. As a time lapse, the engravings now depicted a giant tree, and two women were upon it; one of them was the abandoned woman, and the other was a new woman.

They seemed to be fighting, and the abandoned woman was banished from the Tree.

"She was banished twice... This woman... she is," Dante was beginning to decipher who the woman the plates were telling the story of.

Then, on the next plate, he saw the woman changing slightly; her wings were black, and her body turned slightly reddish, with two horns and much bitterness in her heart.

The place she was in? If not another, only Hell itself, sitting on a throne as thousands, no, billions of demons emerged.

"So this is you... The Mother of Demons, the Demon-Goddess Lilith."