A brief reminder of Dante's unusual nature as a Kaijin Lord before continuing his epilogue.

The moment Dante absorbed the [Core] of his kaijin, he had completely ceased being even remotely human.

The reason for this statement: the corporeality of his kaijin.

All of Zhen Liu's kaijin, despite being made from all sources of materials from all sorts of places, were mostly made of energy.

As such, their forms were incredibly flexible and were the main reason why they were able to transform into [Taboo] and [Stigma] and why they were able to possess people.

Aether warriors were meant to absorb and manipulate the energy of the universe, and the kaijin could abuse this rule to do what they were able to do with little to no effort.

However, this wasn't the case for Dante's kaijin.

Their [Cores] were made of [Malevolent Gold] and made use of unusual patterns and runes to draw in [Chaos], while their bodies were made from the twisted forms of captured aether beasts.

These two factors combined meant that there was a lot more… muscle, metal, and other miscellaneous materials that had to be infused with [Chaos] in order to be properly manipulated into the right forms.

As a trade-off, though, Dante's kaijin were able to absorb each other to become more powerful, kind of like how various metals could be mixed together to make alloys that were greater than the sum of their parts.

And much like how a piece of metal will eventually become completely warped and unusable if subjected to too much manipulation, or how rubber bands can lose their stretchiness after being used too many times, Dante's kaijin had limited lifespans that were drastically shortened whenever their bodies became distorted beyond their usual means. At least, that's what should occur if Dante had just turned his brand of kaijin into [Stigma] and [Taboo] and nothing else.

But as stated earlier, the moment Dante absorbed the [Cores] of his kaijin, he ceased being human. Hell, the absorbed kaijin ceased being individuals in the process.

Instead, all of their collective memories and abilities had condensed into a singular [Core] that ended up absorbing a lot more of their creator than anticipated.

Which leads to a rather interesting question.

Dante's kaijin, at least the ones that absorbed their kin, were subject to a very strange law that made it so that when one dominant personality was defeated in battle, the subordinate ones gained the chance to take over and return to the land of the living.

Now, would this fact remain true if one of those personalities included the original Dante?

Would the returned individual even be him anymore?

Regardless, a being born from such circumstances would definitely be filled with an extreme amount of…[Hate].

…Now, back to the actual story…

In the skies above Valresta, Dante met his end.

The rapid ascension into the upper atmosphere had torn apart his body and greatly damaged the multiple exposed [Cores] of the various kaijin he had once called his subordinates.

The fall back down to the surface exacerbated these injuries even further.

While Dante, or whatever was left of him at this point, hadn't reached a height in which terminal velocity was achievable, he was still high enough in the air that impacting the surface would lead to instant death after every single part of their body was essentially broken...for most mortals.

Regardless, another immediate consequence of this plummet towards the ground was that Dante's body wasn't going to land anywhere near the [Mines of Malevolence] or even the cursed [Malevolent Mountain range] in general.

Instead, Dante's rapidly shrinking corpse was about to make contact with a very...special group of individuals.

Ones that would absolutely love to get their hands on something like him.

...Uh oh...

[Is that all you got, old man?! I thought the infamous Fallen War Elder would be faster than this!]

[Say that after you win, you brat!]

On the shores of a beach made of black sand, a rather unusual sparing match was taking place between a demonic whale-man and a rather noble angelic warrior.

On the surface, one would assume that this was actually a battle between the forces of gold and the forces of evil. However, if one were to use their senses, they would notice that both sides were making use of [Chaos] to fight one another.

Not only that, but if one were to take a closer examination of the two warriors, they would notice that their blows were rather friendly and that their clothes shared an emblem.

Presiding over the match was a strange insect-like humanoid with an uncanny aura around them.

[Alain, War Elder, quit playing around. I have enough data on your usual tactics. Try to amp up the power this time around!]

[As you wish, Buzza.]

[Whatever you say.]

These three warriors were none other than the surviving members of the Grafted Ones and the remnants of the Fallen, who had decided to pool their resources together to form a new faction that had been making waves in the underworld as being a band of invincible warriors that could turn the tide of any battle and could be used to acquire any treasure...for an exorbitant price of course.

However, due to this nearly invincible nature of theirs, the warriors of this combined faction had little choice but to regularly spar with one another to have any chance of feeling as if their abilities were improving.

Not that it wasn't satisfying watching the color drain from faces of warlords and criminal bosses whenever they proved themselves untouchable by aether abilities.

Either way, Alain and Gao Ao Long were having fun fighting like this, but they knew when to wrap it up when needed.

[Shall we end this with a bang, old man?] Alain taunted as he flexed his wings and began to gather multiple balls of light around them.

[Sure, I've been itching to blow you away,] Gao Ao Long taunted as drew back a fist and the shadow of a giant whale began to form around him.

The previous times that these two warriors allowed their attacks to collide, the collateral damage created was immense, hence why they were sparring on an open beach as opposed to a closed arena.

[Shining—]

[Whale King's—]

[Wait a minute....ZZZTOP!]

However, moments before the two warriors could let their attacks fly, they and Buzza sensed the presence of something very odd flying their way.

Namley, the presence of a [Chaos] aura that belonged to nobody knew. Hell, it didn't even feel like it was related to Zhen Liu.

[What the hell?]

[Whose aura is that?]

[We're going to find out zzzoon,] Buzza informed the questioning warriors as he pointed towards. [Look.]

Looking up, Alain and the Fallen War Elder saw what appeared to be a plummeting black ball of tar heading towards their direction.

The two of them began to make moves to try and destroy the ball in question, but Buzza made a gesture for them to stop instead.

[Back up, let it land.]

[Huh? But why?]

[Truzzzt me.]

[...fine.]

Doing as instructed, Gao Ao Long and Alain flew backwards and allowed the plummeting tar ball to make impact with the ground. Of course, they made sure to protect themselves with layers of [Chaos] and aether but that turned out to be an unnecessary precaution in their part.

As soon as that tar ball was close enough to be visually examined by the group, it has shrunk by a massive degree.

From being the size of a watermelon to about the size of an apple, the group noticed that the amount of [Chaos] in this strange ball wasn't getting smaller despite physically shrinking. Instead, it seemed to get more and more dense.

As if it was...a [Core].

[That can't be right,] Alain commented as he swept his senses towards the falling object. [But I thought they were made of Chaos and Desire. This thing seems to be made of gold, Chaos, and...Hate. Pure hatred against everything and everyone.]

[That izzz normally, the cazzze, yes,] Buzza confirmed the young Grafted's thoughts. [But it appearzzz that someone somewhere out there had attempted to find some sort of substitute.]

[What does that mean for us? Is this guy a friend or a foe?] Gao Ao Long asked.

[Unzzzure,] Buzza answered. [We're going to have wait for it to land before we can confirm such thingzzz.]

Thankfully, that wasn't a long wait.

Shortly after Buzza posed this question, the strange [Core]-like object landed a few feet away from the trio.

Immediately, they could see that the [Core] appeared to be made of gold, but also appeared as if a hundred different faces were all squished together to make an unnecessarily detailed marble.

On top of this visual aide, they could also hear a singular sentence coming from the golden [Core].

[Hate...True Lord...must...kill him. Must...burn him.]

[Well...I think this thing is on our side.]