22 Titan

Dante made the first move.

Swinging his massive club down at the stone ground, he smashed the tiles on the floor to pieces, leaving behind a sizable crater. Zane evaded with a simple dodge to the left, disappearing from sight with [Invisibility].

Dante, however, was unfazed. Despite having become a monster, his experienced fighting instincts still remained. Calmly, he stood, steel club held tight in his hand, as he tried to pinpoint his enemy's location.

Zane, rolling forward on the ground, fired off a few small bursts of white fire from his hand as he tumbled, seemingly meant for just distraction more than anything. However, in reality, this attack was so much more—upon hitting Dante's weird black, almost gooey flesh made from corruptive energy, the flames sizzled like acid, and burned his skin.

Seeing this, Zane smirked. His test had worked.

Back in the Training Dungeon, Zane had already considered the possibility of the final boss being Taken given how much time had passed since the Scourge first appeared in the catacombs. As such, he'd simulated battling against various Taken enemies to try and find their weakness—and while they were all stronger and more ruthless than their non-Taken counterparts… Ascended magic seemed to work especially well against them.

More precisely, Zane's purgatory flames.

Annoyed and still oblivious to what the puny human's intentions were, Dante stomped the floor with its massive feet, like an impressively large stone golem stepping through ancient ruins. In this case, Zane was the dust that had accumulated over the years—completely insignificant, yet utterly irritating.

The only difference was—Zane was incredibly difficult to hit. The fact that he was invisible only made matters even harder for Dante.

On the other hand, dodging the Titan's attacks was quite easy for Zane. In fact, eventually, he canceled his [Invisibility] skill since there really was no need for it against an enemy this slow, and the skill unfortunately drained mana very quickly. Much like in the Azakiel fight, Dante's main weakness—along with pretty much any other Titan-class enemy—was its lack of speed and agility. If it weren't for the special circumstances of the Ascended, Azakiel most likely would've been classified as a Titan-class as well. It's just that… well, for the Ascended, an angel like Azakiel would be considered 'small'.

Dante, lifting one foot, prepared to smash down again to crush Zane, but he quickly used [Teleportation] to avoid the strike and cut apart the resulting flying debris with his twin daggers, before jumping up onto one of the statues and climbing towards the head. With a low roar of irritation, the colossal titan spun around and swung his club to destroy the statue, but it was already too late.

Zane, jumping from the top of the enormous sculpture's head just as it was reduced to dust, shot another few blasts of white fire from his palms. This time, he was aiming for the Titan's singular right eye, blazing blue with anger. The left one already appeared to be gone from the start, so if Zane could get rid of this one as well, Dante would be rendered completely blind—at least, that's what should've happened.

Instead, however, the colossal Titan suddenly concentrated his energy around his eye, and fired off a powerful blue laser beam.

Instantly, Zane's flames were eviscerated.

Caught off-guard, Zane's eyes widened and quickly attempted to teleport out of the way, but having just used a skill, re-channeling mana and casting another one took time—time that Zane did not have.

"Tch…!"

Gritting his teeth and bracing for impact, Zane shut his eyes tight and brought his arms up to his face out of instinct—but the impact never came. Opening his eyes again, he instead found a stream of blood-red fire colliding directly Dante's laser beam, and immediately knew what this was.

"Scarlet…?"

"Arwr…!"

The Dragon had a strained expression as it attempted to hold on, but being out-leveled, it wouldn't be able to last long. The fact that it even was able to block Dante's laser for a few seconds was already impressive, and thankfully, those few seconds were all that Zane needed.

Quickly, he teleported back down to the ground—but the danger wasn't over yet. As Scarlet was no longer holding Dante back, the Titan aimed his laser downwards, blasting everything in its way. Zane, calmly yet swiftly, looked around to find something to hide behind, and made his split-second decision.

Speedily, he dove behind one of the large statues in the room, and let the laser blast the rock sculptures instead. This wasn't going to work as a long-term plan, however—these ancient carvings weren't exactly built to modern-day architectural standards, and hell, even if they were, Zane doubted they would be able to last against a death ray for long. To make matters worse, Dante showed no sign of stopping his laser as he continued firing off that disintegration ray of his all around the chamber, as it had lost sight of his target.

'Tch… I have to find some way to stop that laser… otherwise even Azakiel would simply get reduced to dust if I summon him…'

With only a few seconds to think, Zane quickly thought up a plan, and turned to Scarlet, who was still perched on top of his shoulder.

"Alright, Scarlet… you think you can blind that bastard for a few moments?"

In response, the Dragon nodded its head a few times, signaling that it believed it could. Zane, seeing this, smiled.

"Good. I know you're low on energy after what happened just now, so here."

Saying that, he used his dagger to make a cut on his arm, and lifted the wound up to Scarlet so it could drink. Eagerly, the Dragon sipped on Zane's blood, recovering strength and mana. After all, as much as it was a Dragon, it was also a vampire. It probably didn't drink before since it never needed to, but after using up a lot of energy back there blocking Dante's laser, it required more food.

They only had a short amount of time to work with. Dante, stomping around the chamber, was bound to find them eventually—and when that happened, they'd be dead meat.

Instantly, Scarlet grew in size once more, now about half Zane's height. It could no longer safely rest on Zane's shoulder, so it hopped off and landed on the ground with a thud. Wiggling its wings, Scarlet showed that it was ready, and opened its gaping jaw as crimson energy leaked out from it. Zane, seeing this, rubbed its head a few times and smiled deviously.

"Alright… now, wait for my signal."

With that, Zane vanished, teleporting up onto the back of the statue they were hiding behind, before summoning Dahrka beside him and giving an order.

"𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒉𝒊𝒎."

Invisibility was an option for Zane, but because of how randomly Dante was firing around, there was still a chance he'd get hit completely by random. As such, he needed someone else to focus Dante's fire towards a different area, to be fully fool-proof.

The fallen paladin bowed in acknowledgment, and vanished the moment after. Then, on the other side of the room, a shadowy figure began dashing and teleporting from statue to statue, causing Dante to immediately turn and begin firing the laser in its direction. Zane, seeing this, knew it was his time to move, and quickly climbed to the very top of the statue's head.

Then, he gave the signal.

"Scarlet!"

The Vampire Dragon, waiting for those words, quickly emerged from behind the statue, and opened its jaw, lined with rows upon rows of still-immature teeth. Immediately, a burst of blood-red dragonfire shot out of its mouth, striking Dante's eye while he was still focused on Dahrka and causing the Titan to topple backwards a few steps as it groaned in pain.

Zane smirked. "Now… it's my turn."

The timing needed to be perfect. Leaping from the statue's head, Zane landed on top of Dante's, using [Teleport] mid-air to close the gap. From there, he charged up [Bloodfury] with his own blood to maximize damage potential since he didn't know how tough Dante's eye would be, and instantly, he could feel power surging through the daggers he held within his hands. They began to heat up, and like hungry wolves eager for food, they called out to their wielder.

Zane, smiling like a demon, fed them.

Just as Scarlet stopped its Dragonfire, Zane stabbed downwards. He felt his blades stab into something that shattered like glass—the Titan's laser eye. Instantly, it exploded into beautiful blue fireworks and Dante lost control, bellowing in deep rage as he spun and sprawled uncontrollably from pain.

Zane tried desperately to hold on, but the Titan's strength was simply too much. Harshly, Zane was thrown off of Dante's head, and sent flying towards another statue. His body crashed into hard stone painfully, and began falling to the ground.

"Ngh!"

Scarlet, however, had reached a point where it could fly—barely. Without any training, it forced itself to take off, and soar towards Zane. Its flight pattern was still deranged and imbalanced—clearly having no prior flight experience—but it was determined to catch its master to prevent him from falling.

And that it did.

Even though the fall wouldn't have done much damage to Zane's incredible vampire body, Scarlet didn't care. Catching Zane on its back, it involuntarily plummeted towards the ground from the sudden weight, and the child Dragon landed face-first on the floor.

"Gawr…."

"Scarlet…? Scarlet!"

Quickly, Zane, who'd landed on top of Scarlet's soft scales, climbed to his feet to see how hurt the Dragon was. In response, Scarlet groaned softly as if to say it was fine, but Zane could see the bruises and cuts on its face from the crash landing.

"… Don't worry, Scarlet. The fight's almost over."

Without a doubt, the Dragon would be fine. In fact, Zane could already see the wounds slowly closing up—it was a vampire, after all. Incredible regeneration was part of its natural capabilities. But Scarlet was his companion—and Zane would not let anyone hurt his Dragon and get away with it.

Glaring at Dante—no, the Titan that was once known as Dante—Zane narrowed his eyes.

"𝑪𝒐𝒎𝒆, 𝑨𝒛𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒆𝒍."

Immediately, from Zane's shadow on the ground rose an enormous dark-winged nephilim, menacing and powerful. Holding its massive black blade out in front of him, Azakiel hovered in the air, ready to strike the instant Zane said so. Dante, now blind, slowly turned at the sound of the voice and attempted to wildly swing with its massive club, but it was already too late.

"My flames may still be too weak to cleanse you, but… what about his?"

As if on cue, Azakiel charged his massive blade up with demonic black flames, and lifted his sword high up into the air as he prepared his strike. Zane, narrowing his eyes, gave his verdict.

"𝑹𝒆𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒔."

<Yes, my lord.>

With those few, brisk words, Azakiel sliced the air with his holy blade, shooting out a deadly phoenix-shaped plume of black fire. Dante, still wildly swinging his club around, had no idea what even killed him as the purgatory demonic flames caught onto his massive body, and began eating away at it.

Like wildfire, the flames spread, consuming Dante's body whole. He began stomping around the arena like a robot whose program had gone haywire, but nothing could save him now. As Zane watched on with cold, emotionless eyes, the Titan finally fell to the floor, now nothing more than a burning heap of corrupted mass. Slowly, the body began melting away like any other Taken enemy, revealing the enormous shining blue Monster core that it held inside.

[Dante, the Dishonored — Defeated!]

[+ 2,600 EXP]

[Lv. 16 -> 18]

[+35 SP]