297 Sudden Conflict

While Dante was pondering what to do, his face changed as he received a report from his AIs that handled the war front. It seemed that he had been stopped by a strange being that had annihilated an entire fleet by itself and was rapidly piercing through his forces, making a beeline for his control center.

Dante recollected his quantum clone and teleported to his Stellar Vanguard 11 flagship that hovered outside the Zero Gate area. It seemed that the strange yet powerful being was rushing towards her, and its speed was truly cataclysmic as it caused space cracks wherever it passed.

Dante stood on the edge of the ship’s exterior, glancing into space as he felt the existence approaching through his spirit sense. When he sensed their presence, his eyes narrowed greatly because it was exactly who he expected it to be.

In a flash of blazing light that seemed like a miniature sun had been careening through the universe, the entire area was swept by heat and shockwaves of the like that could shatter entire planets.

Dante waved a hand and isolated all his ships and property in another space so that they would be unaffected by the damage. He then glared at the center of what was previously the burning sun which retracted itself, revealing a familiar figure.

“Lara Sanguis.”

That’s right, it was Lara. Still dressed in her black and red tight-fitting military attire with her cape billowing behind her, she looked domineering and majestic. Especially that lush white hair paired with those glowing red eyes, she made anyone she looked at feel inferior.

Lara glanced at the area and saw that nothing was damaged. She flicked a finger and Dante’s spatial spell was cracked easily, sending all his items back into the material plane.

Despite this show of power, Dante was unfazed. He might have been bothered if he didn’t know, but Levi had revealed most of Lara’s secrets long ago. .

He knew that she possessed higher-dimensional authority over all elements, so his meager space spell, even if it had been at the 9th rank, could not hold up against the authority of space, even when it was diluted to 0.01% in all of Lara’s clones.

Seeing the unsurprised Dante, Lara frowned slightly. “Lesser being, how dare you try to claim sovereignty over this universe’s Zero Gate without my permission?”

Lara’s eyes held infinite disdain for Dante. As Levi also revealed the clones were not mentally linked, so this Lara clone which originated from the Centralis Universe did not know about Dante.

To her, he was just another lower-dimensional being.

This made Dante smile.

“Are you mentally inept along with being existentially mediocre? Do my words warrant a smile from one such as yourself? Quickly answer me or I will-” Lara frowned as she folded her arms and began to speak arrogantly, but her words were cut off when Dante suddenly appeared before her.

“I didn’t get a chance to smash your stupid face in the last time, but now you come to my home base and make noise? Die.” Dante whispered to her as Lara was stunned from shock, unable to fathom how such a lower being could move so quickly.

Dante launched a punch filled with his Martial God level blood qi that was as thick as an entire planet, striking Lara in the gut with his full force. Feeling her soft flesh receiving the full extent of the damage, Dante initially thought she would burst into blood mist on the spot.

Rather than that, she was simply sent flying through space like a speck of light. Dante was surprised and summoned Levi out to ask about this, who had been observing everything through his eyes.

Levi was speechless at Dante’s inquiry. “She calls you a lower-dimensional being and your thinking proves her right. Long story short, higher-dimensional beings can only be killed by higher-dimensional methods.”

“Like, you’re a human, so only a human on earth can kill you, using his fists, a weapon, a gun, or something else from the 3rd dimension. A game character manifested from a two-dimensional game in the 2nd dimension CANNOT directly kill you no matter the kind of power they possessed in the 2nd-dimensional world.” Levi explained slowly.

“Huh? So if I were a normal human and Superman jumped out of the pages of a comic to punch me, I won’t die?” Dante asked with confusion.

“Not directly. Depending on how he manifests, he may or may not keep his great power, but even if he does, what would happen would be the same as right now. He would punch you, but it won’t be enough to one-shot you, only cause great pain.”

“What would kill you would be the friction from being sent flying, crashing through buildings, etc. If he takes a building and smashes it on you, you will turn into people because that building is a 3rd-dimensional object.”

Levi then glanced at Dante. “But you won’t be able to easily kill Lara here. After all, you are in your dimension, not hers. Using the same example, it is like you are sucked into the comic book world and meet Superman. No matter how he punches you, no matter how many buildings that you crash through, you cannot die in that world through the means of something naturally born in that world.”

“And there is also that fact that when a higher-dimensional being goes down a dimension, they become stronger and more godlike while the reverse happens for lower-dimensional beings. When they ascend, they suffer suppression until they raise their level of life accordingly.”

Dante absorbed this information and glanced at where Lara was sent flying. He hesitated. “So it’s not worth it to fight her?”

“No, it’s the biggest waste of your time until you can truly possess a higher-dimensional method of fighting.” Levi answered honestly.

“I see, so this is your source of information then?” Lara’s voice sounded right beside Dante, as a hand streaked out of the void and grabbed Levi by the throat.

Dante was startled and immediately used his great physical speed to move at Lara, who smiled as she squeezed the fellow’s neck tightly. “Ah, ah, ah, don’t try to save him or I will extinguish his existence with Heavenly Annihilation White Fire.”

Dante stopped just as he was about to break Lara’s arm off her body to rescue Levi, his face changing as Lara already infused specks of white fire into Levi’s body, ready to remotely detonate at any time. 𝑖𝘦.𝒸𝘰𝑚

He then stepped back and glared at Lara coldly. “Let go of him and I promise to leave your dignity intact.”

Lara looked at Dante as if he was stupid. “You? What makes you think you have any right to negotiate or speak your mind here?”

Dante looked Lara up and down slowly. “You may just be a clone, but you still have the consciousness of your main body, as well as its arrogance. I can suppress you easily in every way possible.”

“If you kill him, fine. I will spend the rest of my time, taking you and every clone I can find of you in every universe through the most vile and filthy ‘lesser species’ for them to soil your body, spirit, and soul. So fine, do it.” Dante stated with conviction, looking at Lara with his body tensed.

Lara’s face changed to one of disgust, as the fate Dante mentioned was one she would not evendream of occurring in her worst nightmare. Despite that, she smirked at Dante like he was a fool.

“Is that so? Then…”

She squeezed her hand and broke Levi’s neck before igniting him in flame, turning him into ash within seconds. Suddenly, Lara’s own body ignited in flame, burning into nothingness rapidly as she left one final message.

“…what if I choose not to?”

Dante roared as she appeared before Lara the moment she lit herself in flames and even pressed his hand into the fire to grab her, but her body was rapidly combusting. In fact, if he didn’t cover his own arm with his hellfire true qi, he would have combusted along with her.

Feeling the grasp of nothing in his palms, Dante fell to his knees and roared to the heavens.

“NOOOOOO!!”

Lara woke up while shaking her head, feeling slightly dizzy. She noticed that her body was constrained with some strange chains that locked her up in a very humiliating way. Her usual military attire had been stripped off, leaving her in her underwear which was surprisingly made of woven leaves like she was some sort of Eve from the bible.

Shocked, she gazed forward and saw Dante seated in the air with his legs crossed while arguing with the bird beast she literally just turned into nothingness. The two noticed her presence and stopped their argument to focus on her with different expressions.

Dante glanced at her coldly, with a hint of amusement while Levi was full of anger and hatred. Lara could not fathom what she was seeing, because what happened was that this clone should have returned to the main body through the fire authority.

“Confused? It’s normal for you to be. Let me enlighten you piece by piece.” Dante stated as he leaned forward calmly, smiling playfully the entire time.

𝑖𝘦.𝑐𝘰𝘮