Chapter Text
Morning came too quietly. Sunlight spilled across the cathedral’s stained glass windows, painting the stone floor in fractured colors—gold, crimson, and violet. It should have felt warm. Holy, even. Instead, the light seemed… thin. As if something unseen drank from it before it could reach the ground.
Outside, the bells rang for Easter. Inside, something answered.
Nero stepped through the massive wooden doors, their groan echoing far longer than it should have. His boots struck the marble floor with sharp, deliberate rhythm, each step swallowed by the vast emptiness of the sanctuary.
“Yeah… this is already creepy,” he muttered, flexing his demonic arm. It pulsed faintly, reacting to something in the air, something wrong. At first glance, everything looked normal. Candles flickered along the aisles. White lilies adorned the altar. Rows of figures stood in silent prayer.
Too silent.
Nero frowned. “Hey,” he called out, voice carrying. “Church service ended or what?”
No one moved.
Then slowly one of them turned. The motion was stiff. Delayed. Like a puppet remembering how strings worked.
The man’s face was pale, eyes glassy and unfocused. A faint, unnatural glow shimmered beneath his skin, tracing veins like cracks in porcelain. “You shouldn’t be here,” the man whispered.
Nero’s grip tightened. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
The rest turned.
Dozens of heads, all at once.
The candles flickered violently. Shadows stretched, bending toward the altar as if pulled by gravity. Then the first scream came not from fear, but from something deeper. Hollow. Empty.
The “worshippers” moved too fast.
Nero reacted on instinct, Red Queen roaring to life in a burst of flame as the first figure lunged. Steel met flesh—but it didn’t cut clean. The body staggered, split… then kept moving.
“What the hell—?!”
The creature’s mouth opened wider than it should, jaw cracking as something inside it tried to crawl out. A faint halo of light flickered above its head broken, jagged, like shattered glass.
Not human.
Not demon.
Something in between.
“Great,” Nero exhaled sharply, revving his blade. “Zombie angels. That’s new.”
A gunshot rang out.
The creature’s head snapped back, collapsing instantly this time. Smoke curled lazily from the barrel of Ebony & Ivory as Dante strolled in through the doorway, coat catching the morning light.
“Man,” Dante sighed, glancing around. “I leave for five minutes and you start a whole apocalypse without me?”
Nero didn’t look back. “You’re late.”
“I’m fashionably late.” Dante smirked, though his eyes were already scanning the room, sharp and calculating. “…But this?”
Another body twitched. Then another. The air thickened. The light dimmed.
“Yeah,” Dante muttered, his grin fading just slightly. “This isn’t our usual gig.”
From the altar, something moved.
The stone cracked—not shattered, but peeled, like it was being reshaped from within. A low, resonant sound filled the cathedral, somewhere between a heartbeat and a hymn sung backward. Both hunters turned and for the first time that morning the bells outside stopped ringing.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
The crack in the altar widened.
Not outward but inward, as if space itself were folding open. A slow, dragging sound followed, like stone grinding against bone. The lilies decorating the altar withered instantly, their petals blackening and curling into ash before they even touched the ground.
Nero took a step forward. “Okay… that’s definitely new.”
Dante didn’t answer. For once, he wasn’t smirking from within the altar, a hand emerged.
It looked human at first long fingers, pale skin but the longer it stayed in the light, the more wrong it became. Veins of dull gold pulsed beneath the surface, glowing faintly like dying embers. The fingers stretched just a little too far, joints bending with unsettling elasticity as they gripped the edge of the broken stone.
Then came the second hand. And with it… silence. Every creature in the cathedral froze. Mid-motion. Mid-breath. Their hollow eyes turned not toward Nero, not toward Dante but toward the altar watching, waiting, Something pulled itself free.
The figure rose slowly, unfolding to an unnatural height. Its body was draped in what might have once been ceremonial robes, now fused into its flesh, flowing like liquid marble. Fractures of golden light spread across its form, mimicking the patterns of stained glass but broken, misaligned.
And above its head a halo shattered. Floating in jagged fragments that orbited slowly, each piece humming with a low, distorted resonance.
Nero exhaled under his breath. “Yeah… I hate this guy already.”
The figure tilted its head, as if hearing him from a great distance. When it spoke, its voice layered over itself multiple tones, overlapping, echoing like a choir that had forgotten harmony.
“Children of defiance…”
The words didn’t just sound.
They pressed.
Against the walls. Against the air. Against the mind. Dante rolled his shoulder slightly, adjusting his grip on his guns. “You always talk like that, or is this an Easter special?”
The figure’s gaze shifted to him. And for a moment just a flicker the entire cathedral dimmed. “You carry the blood… of rebellion,” it said. “And yet you stand beneath the promise of resurrection.”
Nero scoffed. “Get to the point.”
A pause the he said, “I am the answer.”
The broken halo spun faster. The “worshippers” twitched in unison.
“I am the hollow dawn… the truth beyond your fragile hope.”
The floor trembled. Cracks spread outward from the altar, thin lines glowing with that same sickly gold light. Dante’s expression hardened. “Yeah, nah. I’ve heard better speeches from demons with half a brain.”
In a blur, he fired.
The shots tore through the air, striking the figure dead center and stopping suspended. As if time itself refused to let them land. “Okay,” Dante muttered. “That’s cheating.”
The Hollow King raised one hand. The bullets dropped harmlessly to the floor.
“Violence… is a language of the incomplete,” it said calmly. “You cling to it, because you do not understand what it means… to return.”
Behind them, the creatures began to rise again. Not stumbling this time. Standing straight still, Eyes glowing brighter.
Nero glanced back, then forward again. “Alright, I’m done talking.”
His sword roared to life, flames bursting along its edge as his demonic arm surged with power.
“If you’re the ‘answer’…”
He stepped forward, planting his foot against the cracked marble. “then let’s see how you handle the question.”
For the first time The Hollow King smiled and the cathedral… breathed.
The walls pulsed. The stained glass windows warped, colors bleeding into one another as if reality itself were softening. The air grew heavy, thick with something unseen, something watching from beyond. “Then come,” the Hollow King whispered and the world broke.
The world didn’t shatter all at once. It peeled. Like reality itself was shedding its skin.
The cathedral stretched impossibly tall, pillars elongating into jagged spires that disappeared into a ceiling now swallowed by darkness. The stained glass windows melted into rivers of color, dripping downward—yet never reaching the ground.
Nero moved first. He always did.
“Stay outta my way!” he barked, launching forward in a burst of speed, Red Queen screaming as flames trailed behind him. The nearest hollowed figure lunged—but this time, Nero didn’t hesitate.
One clean strike. The body split and exploded into golden dust.
Nero skidded to a stop. “…That worked.”
“Good,” Dante replied casually, already weaving through the crowd. “Means we’re not completely screwed.”
Ebony & Ivory roared to life, each shot precise, controlled. This time, the creatures didn’t rise again. Each impact shattered them into fragments of light that dissolved into the warped air. But for every one that fell Two more stood perfectly still waiting.
“Yeah,” Dante muttered, flipping Rebellion into his grip. “There’s the catch.”
A low hum filled the cathedral. The Hollow King hadn’t moved. Yet everything moved for him.
The floor beneath Nero shifted suddenly cracking open as golden light surged upward like spears. Nero twisted midair, barely avoiding the eruption, but the force sent him crashing into a warped pillar.
“Tch—!”
Before he could recover, the light followed. Not randomly intentionally like it was learning from him.
“Oh, that’s just unfair,” Nero growled, forcing himself up as his demonic arm flared. He slammed it into the ground and launched himself straight toward the altar.
“Hey!” Dante called after him. “Try not to die, kid. I just got here.”
Nero didn’t answer. He closed the distance in an instant, blade raised high, flames roaring brighter, “Let’s see you stop THIS!”
He brought Red Queen down in a blazing arc and the world slowed not completely, but just enough.
The Hollow King lifted a single finger. The blade stopped inches from its form. Nero’s eyes widened. “You’ve gotta be…”
The pressure hit next invisible and Crushing. It slammed into him from all directions, driving him into the ground with a deafening crack. The marble beneath him fractured instantly, spiderwebbing outward as his body was forced down.
Dante’s expression sharpened. “Alright,” he said quietly. His aura shifted. In a flash, he vanished and reappeared behind the Hollow King, Rebellion already mid-swing. This time it connected.
The blade carved through the figure in a burst of fractured light. The halo above its head shattered outward, pieces scattering like broken stars.
For a moment everything stopped. Then the Hollow King’s body… unraveled. Not falling apart but rewriting. The cut sealed itself instantly, the golden fractures rearranging into new patterns, more complex than before.
“…Adaptation,” Dante murmured. “I hate adaptation.”
The halo reformed stronger and sharper And now Spinning faster.
The Hollow King turned its head slowly. “You resist,” it said.
“Yeah,” Dante smirked faintly. “Kinda our thing.”
Behind him Nero pushed himself up, coughing. “Next time a little warning!”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
The Hollow King raised both hands. And this time the army moved not in chaos but in formation.
They advanced in perfect synchronization, each step echoing like a drumbeat. The air thickened further, the golden light intensifying until it became almost blinding.
Nero wiped blood from his lip, grinning despite it. “Alright… now we’re talking.”
Dante rolled his neck, gripping his sword tighter. “Guess subtle’s off the table.”
Their eyes met. No words were needed. Then they charged together. Fire and steel tore through the advancing wave, Nero carving a blazing path straight ahead while Dante danced between enemies, each strike effortless, precise. The cathedral roared with the sound of battle gunfire, steel, and something deeper something watching.
Yet through it all the Hollow King remained untouched observing, learning, evolving. And as Nero cleaved through another wave, he felt it That pressure again stronger now and closer. “Dante…!”
Too late the Hollow King appeared between them. Not moving just… there. Its voice dropped to a whisper. “You fight for life… yet understand nothing of its return.”
The halo flared and both hunters were thrown back violently, crashing through warped stone as the cathedral itself seemed to recoil from the force.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Oppressive.
The Hollow King stepped forward unchallenged for now.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
The silence didn’t last. It never does. Dust and fractured stone slid from the ruined pillars as Nero forced himself upright again, breath heavy, body aching but eyes still burning.
“Okay…” he coughed, gripping Red Queen tighter. “…now I’m pissed.”
Across the shattered cathedral, Dante rose more slowly, rolling his shoulder as if shaking off the impact meant nothing.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “That one actually hurt.”
The Hollow King advanced unhurried, and certain.
Each step echoed not just in the cathedral, but somewhere deeper. Like the sound was being repeated across layers of reality itself. “You break… yet rise again,” it observed. “Imperfect resurrection. Fragile. Temporary.”
Nero spat to the side. “Keep talking.”
The halo above the Hollow King flared brighter then a cut.
Not a sound.
Not a flash.
Just a line.
Thin. Precise.
Reality split open.
Everything froze.
Even the Hollow King stopped. A second cut followed, then a third. The air itself seemed to slide apart, and from that impossible fracture. A figure stepped through calm ,composed and untouched by the chaos.
Vergil had arrived Yamato rested lightly in his hand, its blade humming with quiet authority. His eyes swept across the warped cathedral, taking in everything—the broken geometry, the golden light, the Hollow King judging and measuring. “…So,” Vergil said, voice cold and even. “This is the source.”
Dante let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “Took you long enough.”
Nero blinked. “Wait you knew he was coming?!”
“Please,” Dante smirked faintly. “You think I’d miss a family reunion?”
The Hollow King turned fully now. For the first time its attention shifted completely. “You…” it said, voice lowering. “…are not bound by this cycle.”
Vergil’s gaze sharpened. “I do not belong to your… imitation of power.”
A pause then Vergil vanished. A flash of blue cut through the cathedral faster than sight, faster than thought. Yamato sang as it moved, slicing through space itself as Vergil appeared directly before the Hollow King and struck. This time there was no stopping it.
The blade passed cleanly through. The Hollow King’s form split not with light, but with absence. A void carved through its body, the golden fractures around it flickering violently as if struggling to understand what had just happened.
“…Impossible,” the Hollow King whispered. Vergil stood still, blade lowered slightly. “Your existence is flawed,” he said. “You reshape what already is. I…”
He lifted Yamato again. “separate what should never have been joined.”
The Hollow King staggered. For the first time it was damaged. Nero’s eyes lit up. “Oh, now we’re getting somewhere!”
Dante cracked his neck. “Alright. That’s our opening.”
The three of them moved as one. Nero surged forward, this time faster stronger his demonic arm blazing as energy coursed through him.
“Let’s turn it up!”
His body ignited Devil Trigger. Flames erupted around him, wings of energy flaring outward as his strikes became a storm of raw force. Each hit now shattered the Hollow King’s constructs completely, leaving no trace behind.
Dante followed. “Wouldn’t wanna be left out.”
A pulse of crimson exploded from him as his own Devil Trigger activated—speed, power, and chaos perfectly controlled. He blurred through the battlefield, carving through enemies and striking the Hollow King from impossible angles.
Vergil didn’t transform. He didn’t need to. Each movement was absolute. Every slash of Yamato severed space itself, cutting through the Hollow King’s attempts to regenerate before they could even form.
The balance shifted. Finally the Hollow King lashed out with golden light erupting violently, no longer controlled, no longer precise. The cathedral warped further, reality bending under the strain as it tried to compensate.
“You defy the design!” it roared, its layered voice breaking apart. “You corrupt the perfection of return!”
Vergil’s eyes narrowed. “No,” he said quietly. “You misunderstand.”
In a single motion He sheathed Yamato.
The world stilled.
A heartbeat passed.
Then everything cut. Dozens of invisible slashes erupted at once, tearing through the Hollow King from every direction. The halo shattered again, fragments scattering wildly as its form destabilized completely. Nero drove forward with a final, blazing strike. Dante followed, blade crashing down with overwhelming force And together they broke it.
The Hollow King’s body exploded into fragments of golden light. But instead of fading the light froze hung in the air watching, waiting. Then slowly it began to pull back together. Reforming, evolving, stronger than before.
Dante exhaled sharply. “…Yeah. Knew it wouldn’t be that easy.”
Vergil’s grip tightened slightly on Yamato. “…It is not complete yet,” he said.
The Hollow King’s voice returned—distorted, fractured, but growing steadier. “You cannot end… what has already begun.”
The cathedral trembled violently and far beyond its walls something answered.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Too quietly.
In New York City, the crowds gathered for Easter morning services. Churches overflowed, voices lifted in hymns, hands clasped in prayer.
And then the dead opened their eyes. Not violently, Not suddenly, but gently. Like waking from a dream.
A mother embraced her son—gone for three years. Tears streamed down her face as she whispered thanks to the heavens. Across the street the boy’s shadow didn’t match his body.
——
In Rome beneath the towering presence of St. Peter’s Bacilica, thousands fell to their knees as a radiant light filled the square. Figures appeared, Lost loved ones, Saints, Miracles made flesh. But the longer they stood the less they moved. Smiles frozen, eyes… empty.
—
In Tokyo, hospital monitors flatlined then reversed. Patients declared dead hours earlier sat upright in unison. Doctors cheered. Families wept. Until one nurse noticed no one was breathing.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Inside the warped ruin, Nero wiped sweat from his brow, staring at the reforming fragments of the Hollow King.
“…It’s spreading, isn’t it?”
Dante didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t have to. Because Vergil did. “Yes,” he said coldly. “This was never confined to a single point.”
The golden fragments pulsed stronger now, reacting not just to them but to something far beyond.
“Every act of belief,” Vergil continued, “feeds it.”
Dante exhaled slowly. “So every prayer… every ‘miracle’ happening out there…”
“…is making this thing stronger,” Nero finished.
The Hollow King’s voice echoed again, more stable now. “Hope is the gateway,” it said.
“And you have opened it willingly.”
The golden light shifted. Not attacking, Showing, Visions flooded the space around them fractured, layered, like memories torn from time itself.
Long before modern faith… Before churches. Before names, there was an attempt.
A ritual performed by a forgotten order humans desperate to conquer death itself. They did not pray. They demanded. They reached into the boundary between life and the demon world and something answered not a savior, not a god,But a concept given form.
Not a demon in the traditional sense. Not even a singular being.
It is: The embodiment of artificial resurrection. A parasite that mimics life but cannot create it. A collector of souls… emptied and repurposed
Every resurrection it grants is not life But replacement. A hollow echo wearing a familiar face.
Vergil’s eyes narrowed as the vision sharpened “Timing is not coincidence,” he said.
The Hollow King responded “This day… is saturated with belief.”
“Billions focus on one idea—return. Renewal. Defiance of death.”
The golden light pulsed stronger. “I do not create power.”
“I harvest it.”
Dante’s smirk was gone now. “…So the more people believe this is a miracle…”
“It becomes one,” Nero said quietly. Vergil corrected him. “No. It becomes unstoppable.”
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Vatican Archives, Beneath St. Peter’s Basilia. The world above was celebrating a miracle. Below Father Elias Varn was trying to prove it was a lie. Candles flickered along the ancient stone walls, their light barely touching the towering shelves of forbidden texts. Dust hung thick in the air, undisturbed for centuries until now.
Elias turned another brittle page, his hands steady despite the tremor in his breath. “…It’s the same,” he whispered.
Symbols etched into the parchment matched what he had seen hours earlier—reports, sketches, eyewitness accounts from across centuries. Different cultures. Different names. Same phenomenon resurrection,and wrong. Footsteps echoed behind him.
“Father… you need to see this.” A young archivist stood at the entrance, pale, shaken. Elias didn’t look up. “If it’s another ‘miracle,’ I’ve already.”
“It’s not that,” the archivist interrupted, voice cracking. “It’s what happens after.”
That made him pause. Slowly, Elias closed the book. “…Show me.”
They stood before a small monitor, broadcasting live footage from New York City.
At first it looked like salvation. Crowds gathered in the streets, embracing loved ones returned from death. Laughter. Tears. Relief. Elias’s expression softened, just slightly. “…God help us,” he murmured.
Then the camera shifted. The “resurrected” stood still. All of them at once. Their heads turned in perfect synchronization toward a single point in the city. The broadcast glitched and cut to the returned, now closer. The crowd wasn’t celebrating anymore. They were following.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Mean while in Midtown New York City the streets were no longer streets. They were rivers flowing with people.
Thousands no, tens of thousands moving in absolute silence. No panic. No resistance. Just… movement purposeful and Unified. At the center Times Square. But it wasn’t Times Square anymore.
The screens flickered not with advertisements, but with light. Gold. Pulsing. Alive. The buildings themselves seemed to bend inward, architecture warping subtly as if reality were being rewritten around a single focal point. And above it a halo massive and broken. Visible even in daylight.
A man stumbled backward through the crowd, clutching his head. “No no, this isn’t right…!” His wife dead for five years stood before him smiling.
“Come with me,” she said softly. Her voice was perfect. Her face was perfect.
But her eyes were empty. He shook his head violently. “You’re not her…”Her smile didn’t change. Behind her thousands of others turned watching him and waiting. Then they stepped forward.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Elias stared at the screen, unmoving. “…They’re being gathered,” he said quietly. “Not revived.”
“Collected.”
The archivist whispered, “For what?”
Elias didn’t answer immediately. His eyes drifted back to the ancient text in his hands.
To a single line he had almost missed: When enough vessels return, the gate will no longer need to open…
His breath caught. “…It won’t stay in one place,” he said. “It won’t need to.”
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Back in the cathedral the Hollow King’s voice echoed faintly, stronger now. “You see it now.”
“Not death.”
“Not life.”
“Completion.”
Vergil’s grip tightened. Dante exhaled sharply. “…Yeah. I’m officially over this.”
Nero looked between them. “So what cities just start dropping one by one?!”
Vergil answered “Yes.” He waits a moment before saying, “We are already too late to prevent it.”
The golden fragments hovering in the cathedral did not reform into the Hollow King immediately.
Instead they rose. Streaming upward like reversed rain, piercing through the broken ceiling and vanishing into the sky beyond.
Nero frowned. “…Where’s it going?”
Vergil didn’t hesitate. “It is gathering.”
Dante glanced upward, eyes narrowing. “Yeah… I got a bad feeling I already know for what.”
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Across the world every city touched by resurrection began to change. In New York City, the massive broken halo above Times Square expanded, stretching higher into the clouds.
The gathered “resurrected” stood in perfect stillness. Then they dissolved not violently, not painfully but softly. Their bodies breaking apart into streams of golden light, rising upward in spirals.
In Rome, the same phenomenon erupted above St.Peter’s Basilica.
In Tokyo, Hospitals emptied. The “returned” ascended. All of it converging.
High above the earth, where clouds should have drifted peacefully something else now existed.
A shape.
At first, indistinct then clearer.
Smooth.
Massive.
An egg but not natural. Its surface shimmered with fractured gold and white, like porcelain stitched together with light. Cracks ran across it not breaking it, but veining it, pulsing with energy.
And inside something moved.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Back in the cathedral, the Hollow King’s voice returned not from one place, but everywhere “You mistake the vessel… for the purpose.”
The hunters looked up. Even Vergil’s expression darkened slightly.
“This world celebrates rebirth through symbol,” the voice continued. “An egg.”
“A promise of life.” The golden light pulsed violently. “I will fulfill that promise.”
The surface of the massive egg shifted. From within a silhouette pressed outward.
Long.
Distorted.
Ears.
Too long.
Too sharp.
Claws scraping faintly against the inner shell.
Not cute.
Not harmless.
Something ancient.
Something wrong.
Nero stared. “…You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Dante exhaled slowly. “…Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
Vergil answered, voice cold, “It is not what you think.” A pause then “It is far worse.”
🐣🐇🐣🐇
At the Devil May Cry Shop the bell above the door rang softly. Lady reached for her weapon instantly. Trish didn’t move,but her eyes locked onto the man entering.
Father Elias Varn stepped inside, exhausted, carrying ancient texts clutched tightly in his arms.
“I don’t have time to explain everything,” he said quickly. “But you need to listen.”
Lady narrowed her eyes. “Bold way to walk into a demon hunter shop.”
Trish tilted her head slightly. “He’s not lying.”
Elias stepped forward, placing the book on the table, flipping it open with shaking hands. “It’s not just resurrection,” he said. “It’s construction.”
He pointed to an illustration: An ancient depiction. A massive egg surrounded by kneeling figures.
“The ritual was never meant to bring people back,” Elias continued. “It was meant to build a vessel.”
Lady frowned. “For what?”
Elias hesitated. “…For something they called…” He swallowed. “The Harbinger of Perfect Return.”
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Dante cracked his neck, staring up at the forming egg. “…So let me guess. We smash it.”
Vergil didn’t respond immediately. His eyes remained fixed on the sky. “…No.”
Dante glanced at him. “No?”
“If it is incomplete,” Vergil said, “destroying it now may accelerate its evolution.”
Nero blinked. “Wait what?”
Dante scoffed. “Since when do we not hit the big glowing thing in the sky?”
Vergil’s voice sharpened.
“Since the consequences outweigh your impulsiveness.”
Dante’s smirk returned but there was an edge to it now.
“Oh, here we go.”
Nero groaned. “Seriously? Now?!”
“You would rush blindly into a force you do not understand,” Vergil continued.
“And you’d stand there analyzing it while the world ends,” Dante shot back.
The air between them tightened familiar, and dangerous.
Vergil’s hand rested lightly on Yamato. Dante’s grip tightened on Rebellion. For a moment the greater threat almost didn’t matter.
Above them the egg pulsed faster. The silhouette inside shifted again pressing harder, closer to breaking through.
🐣🐇🐣🐇
High above the fractured world the egg cracked.
Not fully.
Just enough.
A jagged line split across its surface, golden light bleeding out like a sunrise gone wrong. And from within something pushed back.
The shell bulged outward, stretching unnaturally as the silhouette finally took shape. Long ears, yes, But not soft more blade-like. Tearing through the inner surface as they emerged first, slicing open the crack wider.
Then a face pressed against the shell. Not fur, not flesh, porcelain, smooth, white, and expressionless. With a carved smile that never changed. And eyes Empty sockets filled with swirling gold.
The Hollow King’s voice echoed, reverent now.
“Behold…”
“The perfection of return.”
The shell split further. A clawed hand emerged jointed wrong, too many segments, each movement jerky and unnatural like a puppet learning control. This was no creature. It was a constructed god form.
As it forced itself closer to emergence, reality reacted violently: Soul Conversion Field → Any living being near its presence begins to “rewrite,” their soul hollowing without death.
Miracle Override → It can overwrite natural life/death rules in an area instantly. Egg Spawn → Smaller eggs begin forming, each capable of creating lesser hollow beings. Faith Amplification → The more witnesses believe it’s divine… the stronger it becomes
Nero stared upward. “…Yeah, I’m officially done calling it a bunny.”
Dante smirked faintly. “Good. Because that thing’s not hiding chocolate.”
Vergil’s eyes never left it. “It is not born,” he said. “It is being assembled.”
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Meanwhile back at Devil May Cry, Lady leaned over the table, staring at Elias’s notes.
“So let me get this straight,” she said. “The world’s turning into a battery… to hatch that thing?”
Elias nodded grimly. “Yes. Every soul it collects completes it further.”
Trish crossed her arms. “Then we don’t fight the monster.”
“We starve it,” she finished.
Elias looked at her, surprised. “…Exactly.” He flipped to another page. Ancient symbols circles within circles.
“A disruption ritual,” he explained. “If we can break the flow of belief interrupt the gathering points and we weaken the structure.”
Lady smirked slightly. “So instead of shooting demons…”
She loaded her weapon. “…we shoot the system.”
Trish’s eyes sparked faintly with electricity. “And where do we start?”
Elias pointed to a map and highlighted zones.
“New York,” he said. “The center of convergence.”
🐣🐇🐣🐇
Beneath the Egg the air cracked. Not from the Harbinger, but from them. Dante stepped forward. “We hit it now. Before it finishes.”
Vergil didn’t move. “You will fail.”
“Oh yeah?” Dante’s grin sharpened. “Wanna bet?”
A beat.
Then Vergil drew Yamato. Dante laughed once. “Knew it.”
Nero groaned loudly. “ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!”
They vanished. Steel met steel in an instant Rebellion against Yamato, shockwaves tearing through the already broken cathedral. Each strike bent the air, their speed blurring into streaks of red and blue.
Dante pressed forward wild, and aggressive.
Vergil countered precise, controlled. “Still rushing in without thinking,” Vergil said coldly.
“Still overthinking everything,” Dante shot back.
Their blades locked and their energy surged. Then they exploded apart. Nero jumped between them, skidding across the ground. “ENOUGH!”
For a moment they actually stopped. Breathing heavy and eyes still locked. Above them the egg cracked wider. A massive piece broke away and fell burning straight toward the city.
Vergil’s eyes shifted upward. “…We are out of time.”
Dante exhaled sharply. “…Yeah. No kidding.”
Nero tightened his grip on Red Queen. “Then we stop fighting each other…” He looked at both of them. “…and start ending this thing.”