Chapter 181: Dante Awakened
"And do you know why you're here?" An unknown voice, feminine in tone, said. Dante merely treated it with indifference.
"More riddles again. Aren't you tired of giving me those dreams of my past life? Being a bullied student? Please, stop fooling around," Dante spoke, summoning a broken throne, similar to Valentina's.
"Reveal yourself," Dante said. A white being emerged, not really someone, but rather something. However, he wasn't in the mood to ponder over what it was; he just wanted the answers.
"The Thread of your destiny is tightly interwoven... Dante," the entity said. Dante could see a smile clearly forming, and the woman... she seemed to be an Administrator.
"The Administrator from another Sector?" Dante questioned, and the woman nodded. "More precisely the head Administrator, Infernal Progenitor."
"I see," said Dante, and she began to speak: "You have twenty years to prepare, Progenitor," she spoke all at once.
"What is going to happen?" Dante asked. He first thought it was something about Lucifer and the problems of Hell.
"The administrators have decided something, a bold but necessary decision for the sector to evolve," she commented, and Dante raised an eyebrow. He thought this was about Lucifer.
"And why am I being informed about this? I believe I'm just a grain of sand in this vastness of the universe," he remarked to the woman. In fact, it was quite obvious that he was nothing compared to all of them.
"Well, actually, since you insisted on evolving into a Progenitor, we can't just ignore you. A Progenitor with traits of Demon, Vampire, and Dragon. Honestly, probably if it weren't for your destiny and if we hadn't asked Lilith to help you, you would be dead again.
But since you are fine and you even managed to revive the Entity Voralith without her powers, this is your reward for the good work," she commented and soon began to disappear.
"Just make sure to get stronger. We'll use Progenitor Lilith as a phone to talk to you. Maintain good relationships until the sector evolves," she commented and disappeared.
"You didn't tell that you influenced Morgana's mind for her to learn about cultivation," the Black Administrator spoke to the White Administrator. "And you didn't tell that he had died three times before being reborn here," she retorted to him, who frowned. "Two Prime Entities in the same sector, at least that will make them ascend," the White Administrator said and he confirmed.
"What's the next stop?" He asked. "Let's inform Hades, then Hela and Yama," she replied.
Meanwhile, Dante remained in the darkness just feeling a huge emptiness. "What the hell is happening to me?" He questioned and received the answer. "Evolution, our soul is being shaped."
"And why this feeling?" Dante questioned. "Out of nowhere came life, out of the abyss came darkness, from creation came destruction, the balance of the universe is judging us."
"Stop with the riddles," Dante said, and he replied: "Your soul is being recreated and for that, it is necessary to destroy it."
"All this to create a new body?" Dante questioned. "Body and Soul are the same thing. Body is the vessel for the soul and the soul is the vessel for the body."
"Damn, he can't just be straightforward and say 'this is how it has to be', he keeps creating these riddles, I don't even like riddles!" Dante roared inwardly as he felt a mix of strange sensations.
Slowly, hours passed, days, weeks, months... well, only in Dante's mind. His entire mental body ached, his entire existence burned like a brutal flame that ignited and extinguished every second. This didn't happen just once or twice, but thousands of times.
Your body completely rebuilt itself, after several hours in your head, yet not even thirty seconds had passed in the normal world.
Dante could do nothing now but feel everything coming. He found himself in a new place.
"So this is where I was abandoned," Dante said, looking at the old orphanage where he was left. This time, however, he could see the person in full, the person who had carried the little baby Dante.
A woman, two meters tall, features lifeless, hair as red as blood, just like Valentina, but she was... different... "What is this? Who is this?" Dante quickly questioned, his whole body trembling just from feeling the person, who promptly stared back at him, not the baby, but his current body!
His whole body shook with just one feeling.
Fear.
But he couldn't do anything, even feeling threatened, the woman who seemed dead smiled at him. 'What is this!' He tried to scream, but couldn't, his mouth was no longer functioning.
As if trapped, Dante was thrown into another memory. This time, he was already with Valentina. He saw his little self and Valentina having fun, his heart calming slightly as he watched the scene.
Little Dante climbed up to her and kissed her cheek, Valentina startled, but then she heard something from little Dante:
"M-mommy," little Dante said with a mischievous smile on his face that made Valentina melt completely.
Thus, he began to jump from memory to memory. Now he saw one of his first interactions with his second wife, the one who had always loved him since he was little.
"Oh! Little Dante wants to stay close to Aunt Morgana?" Morgana noticed that Dante wanted to be closer to the table.
"Make mommy mad" "Mean lady," Little Dante said while pointing at Morgana. Dante saw that scene and couldn't help but laugh, after all, the mean lady was now one of the best women in his life.
A silence hung in the air. Valentina tried to hold herself together, she held on as long as she could, but when Dante said "Mean lady," she burst.
"PFFFFF..." Valentina started, putting her hand over her mouth to muffle it, but she wasn't the only one, Morgana couldn't hold it in anymore either.
Even current Dante saw that and started laughing with Valentina, who couldn't even see him, but he felt at home. Although she wasn't the real Valentina, he eased some of his longing.
Dante began to have small flashes, like when he married Morgana, when Valentina was furious about it, when they went to a human city and he got jealous of the humans talking about his mother's beauty, the moments training with Valentina, Morgana, Simon, Skyla, and again, a bigger residue appeared.
He saw an extremely fierce fight in front of him, Teenage Dante vs. Teenage Sara. As he watched that fight, he began to hear Valentina's voice in the background.
"One day you'll meet the intent of an enemy. On that day, you'll learn how to understand people, son."
"Now I understand everything that happened," current Dante said, looking at the scene.
Teenage Dante took a different stance. When Dante saw that position, he remembered the feeling, of ending everything with a single blow. That day, Dante and Sara were completely connected, to the point where a simple action was understood as a whole sentence.
So, soon he saw, they both ran towards each other, and an explosion occurred upon impact; much dust was raised, leaving only that iconic scene he remembered perfectly, a tall man holding both swords with just one hand each.
"Long time no see, Master Musashi," current Dante said seeing his whole world darkening.
"Damn, I should've kissed Sara after that duel!" Dante lightly blamed himself remembering what happens after they are reprimanded.
And now one more quick memory, the day he met Nagasawa.
He observed the scene and saw over fifteen sleeping students on the ground.
"Another crazy one," Teenage Dante commented aloud. He let his thoughts escape slightly when a woman began to form from the Green Mist.
"Crazy?" she said.
Brr!
Dante's entire body shivered with the cold down his spine. When he turned around, a beautiful MILF stood with her arms crossed, looking directly into his eyes.
"You were perfect, but I made you even more perfect," Dante said with a smile.
All his memories passed, like a movie, he felt various pieces of information, sensations, relationships, friendships, people who came and went, moments he wanted to kill someone, moments he loved, all of it combined into who Dante was.
And who was Dante? He once wondered that, several times he questioned himself, who was he? Was he Dante? Or someone else?
He never answered himself, but today he was certain of something.
He would be anyone, as long as he could live this life and love all those in it, especially his beautiful wives.
"I think I found what was missing," Dante said to Alter who nodded. "My own path, the world I chose to live in."
"It's time for my return, I still have vampire, witch, virtue, demon, and my princess wife to take care of, as well as those three cute idiots. And above all, my dear Valentina."
Dante's entire body glowed, and at that moment he opened his eyes again.
Now his mind, body, and soul were complete, his entire existence now made sense.
Dante awakened.