The street was deserted. The streetlamps flickered uncertainly.
Beside him, Ginny moved, paws skimming over puddles of stagnant water.
— "Finding the ones who sell curses like toys for children," Jin muttered.
"And making them pay for the joke."
He cut through the city's filthiest districts.
Alleyways crawling with garbage, graffiti-scrawled walls, prostitutes staring at him and drug addicts sprawled on the ground.
Duraand was a rather dirty city, but it was a reflection of Kovalia's politicians.
In underground bars, heads turned away the moment he entered.
He traded crumpled, dirty bills for half-spoken truths.
Finally, in a grimy backroom, a drunk informant, slumped over with fear and drink.
— "The Chrysalid Counter... They deal in tailored curses. That's what you're after, isn't it ?"
Jin leaned closer.
— "Where ?"
The man swallowed hard, then pointed a trembling finger down a hidden alley behind a antique shop.
— "Be careful... it's not just a shop. It's a slaughterhouse."
Jin straightened, the glint of death flickering in his eyes.
— "That's perfect, so I'll be the butcher."
---
The Chrysalid Counter blended in with the district's decay.
A rotting wooden facade, grimy windows, and a rusted bell.
Jin pushed the door open.
Inside, chaos lay still. Dusty shelves bore grotesque artifacts.
Dulled talismans, jars filled with strange creatures, carved bones, glass skulls.
An oily old man hobbled forward with a smile.
— "Welcome, traveler... Looking for something special tonight ?"
Jin tilted his head slightly, feigning weariness.
— "I was told you had rare items. Special ones."
The old man chuckled, revealing rotten teeth.
— "Follow me... Our most precious treasures are kept in the back."
They passed through a groaning door. Then… the backroom.
Rusting cages lined the walls.
Inside—broken beings.
Some still human, others twisted by failed curses. Half-beasts, half-human scratched at the bars, bloodied nails scraping hopelessly.
A guard passed Jin without a glance, dragging a heavy silver chain.
— "What would please you ?" the old man speak behind him.
Jin stopped.
He raised his eyes to the cages, to this charnel house disguised as commerce.
Then he turned.
— "Oh... It's not something you can offer me."
He raised his hand.
With a punch he old man flew backward, crashing into a wall.
Jin stepped forward, he feels a cold anger.
— "I've come to offer something," he paused. "Judgment."
The northern wall had exploded, stones and shards of bone across the room. A figure stood in the dust.
Not a human figure.
Something else.
Dante.
His coat, soaked in black blood, dragged behind hi. On his back, Ginny crawled.
The prisoners didn't even dare scream. They looked at the shadow standing in the mist… and thought they saw Death itself.
A guard screamed : — "GET HIM! HE'S A FUCKING HERETIC!"
He raised his sword but before any move, Dante ripped the man's jaw off with his bare hands. A spray of blood splashed across the wall.
The guard tried to scream, but only a grotesque gurgle came from his open throat.
He staggered backward, choking on spit, blood, and scraps of tongue hanging from his teeth.
— "Scream again. I dare you," Dante said coldly.
He grabbed the man by the throat, drove his fingers into the flesh, and tore out his spine through his neck.
The others stepped back.
Another courageous guard lunged at him, sword raised. Dante, without even turning his head, lifted one hand.
— "Funeral Wave…"
The man's body folded in half with an invisible shockwave. His ribcage burst from within.
His heart shot out of his mouth, still beating, and landed on the ground.
— "Filthy demon!" bellowed the commander, a massive man clad in armor made of human skin, stitched together from the hides of captives.
He brandished an axe infused with dark energy.
— "I'm gonna split you in two, bastard!"
Dante smiled.
He opened his arms. — "Go ahead. Try."
The commander leapt.
Dante pivoted, dodged, and drove two fingers into the man's eyes with savage violence.
The eyeballs burst. The scream was inhuman.
Dante grabbed his head and twisted slowly… very slowly, until each vertebra popped with a drawn-out.
He released the body, which convulsed.
— "Three," he said, still counting.
A fourth guard screamed and began to pray, invoking a defensive technique.
— "Ligatura Doloris !" Chains erupted from the ground and wrapped around Dante's limbs.
— "Call on the Berlin Wall if you want, it won't stop me from making you pay."
But Ginny, materialized as a black wolf, lunged, and bit deep into the man's throat.
She tore out an entire chunk of trachea. The technique dissolved.
The awakened soldier tried to crawl, choking on his own blood.
Dante approached.
— "You're the one who seals the slaves, aren't you ?"
The man nodded frantically in supplication.
Dante placed his boot on the man's back, pressing down until his ribs cracked against the floor, the shards driven into his lungs. He suffocated, in an endless rattle.
The last one was the overseer, a fat man with a wart-covered face. He wept on his knees, hands clasped.
— "I-I have children, please… I-I'll give you all the gold!"
— "Do you feed your children with the flesh of others' ?"
The fat man shook his head, trembling.
— "No! I-I was forced, it was the others, I-I…"
Dante raised his hand.
A thread of black energy curled around the man's skull.
He screamed in agony until his head exploded.
His body stood upright for a second, then collapsed.
Dante looked around. He breathed deeply.
The survivors in the cages stared at their liberator. None spoke. They were afraid—not of him, but of what he was.
Their liberator… was worse than their tormentors.
Dante knelt beside a child.
His eye glowed with a dark light. He placed two fingers on the boy's forehead.
— "You will forget. This nightmare. This place. These faces."
A black halo enveloped the child.
He did the same for each of them. A form of mercy.
Then he stood.
— "Go. All of you. And never come back."
The captives ran. Barefoot, bloody. Dead inside—but alive.
Ginny sat at his side, her fur matted with blood.
Dante turned to the desk.
A chest, jewels, bags of gold, damning letters, human trafficking contracts, mutant sales, and curses for hire.
He made a sign with his hand. A sphere of shadow engulfed everything.
He tucked it into his coat.
— "Ill-gotten gains do not benefit the purchaser in any way."
He turned away.
The smell of blood, the warmth of still-fresh corpses.
This… was his peace in Hell.