Chapter 487: Training

The ground still vibrated as if it had swallowed thunder. Vergil, silent, breathed amidst the rubble. The Yamato remained in its sheath, motionless, but it wasn’t weakness: it was choice. The colossus before him—that monstrous tiger, a living wall of muscle and flow, barrier and instinct—was no longer an enemy. Vergil, his eyes narrowed and his breathing measured, began to observe it as if it were a teacher in the flesh.

Titania, Zuri, Rize, and Vanny watched from afar. No one interfered. The air was too heavy, as if a steel string vibrated above their heads, ready to snap.

Vergil didn’t advance. He simply adjusted his body, lifting his chin, letting the tiger take the initiative.

The roar echoed, heavy. Claws scraped the earth, kicking up dust. The beast lunged like a black lightning bolt. Vergil didn’t try to cut, didn’t try to break. He simply received the wave of force. The paw passed inches from his skull; his eyes followed, his body recoiling at the precise moment, feet sliding across the ground like someone dancing.

“Hm,” he murmured coldly, but there was something new in his tone. There was no frustration; there was calculation.

With each blow the tiger launched, he registered it. Shoulder, hip, weight shift, the oscillation of the barrier. Vergil began to move in time, as if a delayed reflex, replicating. Was the paw coming from above? He raised his arm in the same way. Did the impact crack the ground? He copied the positioning of his feet, feeling the energy coursing through his joints.

The beast roared louder, irritated. Vergil smiled.

“Train me more.”

The tiger twisted and struck sideways. Vergil, instead of dodging completely, absorbed part of the shock with his forearm. The bone cracked, but he didn’t give in. He slid back, feeling the pain vibrate up to his shoulder. His gaze shone, not with suffering, but with understanding.

“So that’s how you distribute the weight. Excellent.”

He regained his stance, fists firm. The tiger advanced again. Vergil responded not with a counterattack, but with imitation—striking the air at the same angle, with the same movement. The difference? The human body adapted, learned. The movement that had been crude now began to gain refinement, finesse.

Titania narrowed her eyes. Zuri bit her lip. Rize and Vanny, who moments ago had been competing in carnage, were silent, fascinated. It was strange… Vergil was taking a beating, yes, but what emanated from him wasn’t defeat. It was growth.

The tiger roared again and brought its paw down in an arc. Vergil deliberately dodged late, letting the blow rip off swathes of stone behind it. He wanted to see, feel, understand the entire trajectory. And when he repeated the gesture, his own punch made the air tremble more than before.

“Interesting.” His voice was deep, low, drawn out. “Brute force shaped into flux. It doesn’t reject the impact; it redirects it.”

He took two steps forward and slammed his fist into the air. The impact wasn’t against the tiger, but against the barrier. The field wavered slightly, as if recognizing a similar signature. Vergil gave a thin smile.

“That… is useful.”

The beast didn’t tolerate the provocation and came in with a devastating leap. Vergil didn’t back down. He spread his arms, his posture firm, and took the weight as if accepting being buried. The ground sank. His body almost gave way, his muscles tore from within, but his mind was far from the pain.

He laughed. Softly, at first. Then louder.

“Magnificent…!”

The madness for evolution began to ooze from him like invisible smoke. The air around Vergil distorted, not from the tiger’s strength, but from his own. His eyes sharpened, his breathing ragged, as if every cell in his body screamed for more.

He didn’t want to win. Not now. He wanted to learn everything.

Every blow he took was absorbed. His body, wounded and heavy, still adapted. Did the tiger raise its paw? Vergil responded seconds later, almost the same. Did the tail snap to strike? Vergil rotated his hips and unleashed a leg lash, copying the same vector.

Titania felt a shiver run down her spine. “He’s… he’s getting stronger with every blow.”

Zuri clenched her fists, tense. “This isn’t normal. He’s not just fighting… he’s absorbing.”

Rize and Vanny said nothing. But there was a glint of excitement in their eyes, like predators watching another predator being born.

Vergil started laughing again, this time uncontrollably. A dry, deep laugh echoed in his chest. Blood dripped from his mouth, but he paid no attention. Each time the tiger crushed him to the ground, he rose straighter, faster, heavier.

“More…!” he shouted, like a disciple demanding the next lesson. “More!”

The tiger responded with a roar that split the air. The barrier trembled like a raging ocean. And Vergil fell into step, spreading his arms, welcoming the storm as a blessing.

His body began to move on its own, each gesture honed by immediate learning. He no longer seemed to merely defend himself: he seemed to dance with the creature. The impact that had thrown him meters away was now absorbed, redirected, used to propel a counterattack into the void. He didn’t hit the tiger—he didn’t need to. He was a student in training, repeating the lesson until his entire body memorized it.

And he did.

The madness for potential, that silent addiction that had always lived within Vergil, now seeped out like mist. The ground he stood on cracked more easily. Each punch against nothing made the air ripple as if it were about to shatter. His gaze was hungry—not for flesh, but for evolution.

Titania bit the corner of her mouth. “He will destroy himself… or he will surpass everything.”

Zuri looked away, uneasy.

The tiger took a step back, for the first time. Vergil, his face smeared with blood and his smile crooked, lifted his chin as if he were hunter, not prey.

“That’s it…! Harder. Faster. Teach me EVERYTHING YOU KNOW. SHOW ME EVERYTHING!”

The beast attacked with renewed fury, and Vergil launched himself at it, not to defeat it, but to steal every secret. He let himself be crushed, broken, only to rise and repeat the movement with greater precision. His laughter echoed through the forest, a feverish laughter, growing louder, more distorted.

And in that instant, even the tiger seemed to hesitate.

Vergil was no longer a student. No longer an adversary. He was a monster in the making, molding himself blow by blow, flaw by flaw, as if the pain itself were clay for his rebirth.