Chapter 280 Dante's Cold Fury - End
Many onlookers were still dealing with the shock and horror of Lara's cruel actions in slaughtering so many prodigies at once that they did not even have time to process her words full of tyranny and domineering nature.
Dante, who casually looked back at the spot the students had been and the leaving Lara, had an expression that was becoming colder and colder by the second. He took a step forward and disappeared.
Lara, who had folded her legs and closed her eyes with a slight smirk of satisfaction, was suddenly forced to open them when she saw Dante mounting her throne rudely and staring down at her.
"Get down."
Dante said this coldly and grabbed Lara's face, pushing slightly as the throne was shattered to pieces and Lara was sent flying into the ground, crashing into it for a short distance. The dust billowed and blocked everyone's sight, but was soon cleared.
In the end, one saw that Dante was pressing Lara's face into the ground casually while raising his head to glance at everyone else. This sight was so shocking and so life-changing that everyone looking on truly and genuinely had their minds go blank.
"Ignore her earlier words. In this universe, everyone is free to decide what they will do with their lives and themselves based on their own strength. Because I am strong enough to put her face into the ground, I can do what I want without her acknowledgment." Dante stated loudly, speaking slowly so that everyone could hear him.
Meanwhile, pressed underneath his hand, was Lara's relatively small face that was half into the dirt. She wore an expression of shock as if she never expected to be in such a position in all of her life, and so did not react at first.
It was right at the moment, Dante casually let go of her head and calmly stood up to move to the side that her expression changed to one of insane fury, her entire body exploding with her Heaven's Annihilation Flame.
The area around her became scorching hot and many onlookers panicked as they fled quickly to avoid being caught in the fallout. The way the fire was spreading too, it was as if Lara wanted to wipe them all out to prevent her humiliation from being broadcasted.
Meanwhile, Dante continued to stand beside her, but he was cloaked in his hellfire true qi which resisted the white flame competently. He realized that he had underestimated his hellfire true qi, even though it was of a lower grade than the white-colored fire.
To compare, it was like in the summoners' world Dante had just been to, where Lara's flames were a 3-star Divine Beast and Dante's flames were a 10-star legendary beast. Even though the quality was lower, the quantity and raw strength were far higher due to the boost from his stats among other things.
Lara pushed herself up from the ground and wiped the smudges of dirt that clung to her face off, watching as they were incinerated into nothingness by fire that did not follow any scientific logic or basis.
Her pupils rapidly expanded and constricted in a bizarre manner as she gritted her teeth. Hatred of an enormous level radiated from her, and eventually, her eyes fell on Dante. Her flames calmed down slightly as her expression regulated itself into a cold one immediately.
Meanwhile, Dante finally understood that there was something fundamentally wrong with this woman. She went through too many extreme emotions far too quickly and with a false sense of self-control.
It was as if she was…
"Insane." Levi spoke solemnly.
Even though he was not summoned out, he stayed in Dante's soul space to nourish himself and cultivate their bonds so he could see everything that Dante saw as long as Dante allowed it. Naturally, having a truth beast being able to see anything from his eyes was like having an always-active encyclopedia; he could get answers in real-time to troublesome issues.
However, Levi's' words startled Dante because it was what he thought too. "Insane? I thought she was cold?"
"That's just an act. The real Lara Sanguis is the most insane and unstable existence in the greater universe. Her nature is so troublesome and her power is so great that the creator of our entire multiverse had to come and beat her up, then sealed her true body away." Levi revealed a shocking truth casually.
Dante was silent for a while before furrowing his brow. "Wait, why are you saying this now? I thought you couldn't reveal more about her?"
Levi glanced at Dante's soul projection within his soul space with a hint of disdain. "I said I couldn't pry too much because it would alert her and attract her hostility. Putting her clone's face in the dirt has soared past that, so what's there to hide?"
Dante shook his head, unbothered by the blame in Levi's tone. His decisions were not up for debate, though he wouldn't mind being influenced by his loved ones positively. However, he knew that whether it was his parents, Beatrice, Augeus, and most especially Portia, they would have been disappointed in him if he had done nothing at this moment.
He focused on Lara who began to walk forward as a strange trail of darkness began to emerge from her body, which contradicted her white fire. However, the darkness seemed to coexist with the white fire because they came from the same source, one of her superpowers.
The darkness stretched out to cover an area of about 20 kilometers around them, forming a domain devoid of light, sound, hearing, and all other sensations except touch. Even the bright white fire disappeared from view, leaving one naked in terms of senses and defenses.
Dante was not suppressed though. His sense of touch still existed, and he could sense the movements of the wind by how they affected his skin. However, there was no need for such complex high-level play, not when he could simply spread out his spirit sense and see everything.
Lara was currently behind him, mumbling something with a slowly twisting expression as she placed her hand near his back, aiming to blast him through the torso.
Dante saw this and reacted quickly, opened a small portal to subspace behind him in which Lara fired her basic blue flame into it, while he himself removed his blood battle halberd from his inventory and swung backward with full force.
Lara simply scoffed and used her left hand - which shifted its atomic structure into metal - to swat away the blade edge of the weapon like it was a mere toy. Dante easily regained his balance and began swinging rapidly at her, while she maintained pace with him by blocking with both of her augmented hands.
Dante did this, even in its futility, because he wanted to apply pressure and create a short period of time in which he could communicate with Levi.
"Tell me what are her real superpowers and their current ranks as well as their abilities." Dante asked Levi seriously.
Levi hesitated. "She doesn't really have superpowers, at least not in the way you and everyone else does."
Dante's soul projection's face changed. "So her abilities are just natural?"
"Correct, sort of. To describe Lara's true body, you can think of her as a divine being. What she uses are not powers granted by fruits but authorities she possesses over certain elements or rules." Levi answered immediately.
He pointed a wing forward into the void of Dante's soul space, but it was likely a gesture?to point at Lara.
"The only reason you have a fighting chance is because this clone has less than 0.1% of her main body's true power and control over the authorities, or laws, as you like to call them. Because she is sealed, her main body cannot assist the clones either; otherwise, there would be no need for them." Levi explained slowly.
"Oh? Lara must have a purpose for creating a clone and sending it down here. Is it to help her true body break free?" Dante analyzed the facts he was given and inquired on this.
"Yes, but you're making a mistake. I never once said that this was her only clone." Levi casually revealed another bombshell.
This time, even the poker-faced Dante in the real world who was fighting almost made a mistake and nearly hit himself, causing Lara to show a hint of disdain on her face, thinking that Dante's stamina was running out.
However, Dante's mind was in greater turmoil from the revelation to care about her mockery.
"What do you mean she is not the only clone?" Dante asked quickly.
Levi glanced at Dante's soul projection with an enigmatic air of a seasoned master who had seen the vicissitudes of life, which annoyed Dante so much that he wanted to give Levi a knock on the head.
Seeing that Dante was truly getting annoyed, Levi stopped his nonsense and answered quickly with a cough. "I know what you're worried about. There are no clones in this universe apart from this one so you don't have to worry about reinforcements or ambushes."
Dante breathed a huge sigh of relief. "And so? Continue."
"Well, Lara's true body still has some power left because the one who sealed her had some lingering attachments and did not want to be too cruel. This allowed her to split the remnants of her power into seeds that descended to every lower universe in existence and form a clone." Levi shrugged and stated.
Dante had an incredulous expression. "You mean to tell me that every single universe out there has one Lara clone in it, hiding somewhere here out in the open? Even the Centralis Universe?"
Levi simply nodded but didn't continue.
Dante did not have the chance to continue to question him because Lara seemed to have grown tired of effortlessly blocking his pointless attack and punched his blood battle halberd head-on, causing the head to crack slightly.
Dante's expression changed as he quickly recollected the weapon into his quantum space to prevent it from being completely ruined. Even though the blood battle halberd was weaker than his level, he could nourish it with his blood qi to have it catalyze and elevate upwards into a special spiritual weapon.
If Lara destroyed it here, though, that plan would go up in smoke.
The darkness domain retracted, and visibility returned to the world. This allowed Dante to see that the black land beneath their feet had been totally destroyed and ruined by their repeated clash during this short while.
Interestingly, the outside was still populated as the various powerhouses were still around, but this time, even various important civilians and especially media houses had come to cover this tumultuous event.
When they saw the dark barrier receded and the remnant devastation as Dante and Lara coldly faced off, their expressions changed. Even the residual heat that had been suppressed by the barrier rapidly washed over them, causing many blisters to appear on the skin as well as some burns.
Those who were stronger took action to protect the weaker ones, not because they were genuinely kind, but because the cameras were rolling, and it was a free chance to look good and righteous before the public.
However, the main thought on everyone's mind was… who would come out on top? The established Empress of the Universe, Lara? Or the rising Dragon Dante, who was like a speeding train in terms of growth?
Dante's tensed body relaxed as he glanced at Lara. "Anyway, I said what I needed to say. As for killing those students, it was not what I would have done, but it's now your problem to solve. I don't have time to waste on a mere clone since the First Gate awaits me, not to mention I have classmates to save."
Dante ignored Lara and began casting a 4th Rank Mass Resurrection towards the corpses of his fellow students which he had preserved in a separate space - not his quantum space so they don't get poisoned - and began working on them.
In doing so, he purposefully turned his back to Lara and gave her a wide opening.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l