Floor 14 announced itself with a declaration of physics gone wrong.
The floor gate opened onto a platform of solid stone floating in an endless sky, clouds drifting lazily above and below in equal asure while other islands hung suspended in the void at various heights and distances. So were close enough to jump between. Others were miles away, silhouettes on the horizon that might as well have been hallucinations.
"Welco to the Gravity Wells," Dante said, stepping onto the platform. "Don’t fall off."
The team gathered behind him, their expressions ranging from wonder to existential dread as they processed the reality of a floor with no ground.
"Where’s the ground?" Helena asked, peering over the edge with the morbid curiosity of soone who knew the answer but needed confirmation.
"There isn’t one. The entire floor is suspended islands connected by unstable gravity currents. Fall into the wrong current and you get pulled toward a gravity well that will crush you into paste. Fall into the right current and you might drift for days before dying of dehydration."
"So don’t fall," Vex summarized.
"Don’t fall," he confird.
They spread out across the entry platform, checking equipnt and getting their bearings while a portal humd behind them ready to return anyone who realized they weren’t ready for this floor. Nobody took the exit.
Dante was watching the eastern sky when the familiar scent hit him.
The familiar scent of old blood and expensive cologne hit him.
"Beautiful view, isn’t it?" Adrian Cross stepped from behind a stone pillar where he apparently waited, his team arrayed behind him in formation that spoke to military training. "I’ve always thought Floor 14 was underrated. The aesthetics alone are worth the climb."
"Adrian." Dante didn’t turn. "You made it."
"I told you I’d be here." Adrian walked to stand beside him, looking out at the scattered islands with the appreciation of an art collector surveying his gallery. "My people scouted ahead while you were clearing the dungeon. I have comprehensive maps of the current island configuration, safe paths between major formations, and approximate locations of three different supply caches left by previous climbing parties."
"Generous," Dante noted.
"Practical." Adrian finally looked at him, and sothing flickered in those calculating eyes. "You’re different since I saw you last. Stronger. The pressure coming off you is... notable."
Dante let a fraction of his Core’s power leak into his aura, a display calculated to intimidate without revealing his full capabilities. "The Siren Queen was good training."
"I heard stories. They say you jumped onto a flying harpy and rode it down like a bronco." Adrian’s smile was appreciative in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. "I’d pay good money to have seen that in person."
"I’m sure you would."
They stood in silence for a mont, two predators acknowledging each other across a space that might as well have been a minefield.
"So," Adrian said eventually. "Partners?"
"Temporarily." Dante finally turned to face him. "You have maps. I have muscle. We clear this floor together, find the Gate Key, and then go our separate ways."
"Simple and clean. I like it." Adrian extended his hand.
Dante looked at the hand, at the man attached to it, and felt the familiar surge of hatred that he nursed since Floor 75. This was the man who would betray everyone he loved. This was the man whose actions would lead to Ren’s death, to Ravenna’s capture, to the dissolution of everything Dante had built.
He took the hand and shook it firmly.
"Partners," he said, and smiled like a shark.
---
Seira found him an hour later, standing at the edge of a different platform while the team set up base camp behind them.
"Adrian Cross," she said quietly.
"What about him?"
"I don’t trust him." She moved to stand beside Dante, her eyes tracking the other man’s team as they established their own camp on the opposite side of the platform. "Sothing about him feels... wrong."
Dante looked at her, really looked, for the first ti since the rescue in Floor 12. She was different now, harder in ways that showed in the set of her shoulders and the caution in her eyes. The girl who followed them into the jungle was desperate and naive. The woman standing beside him was sothing else entirely.
"You’ve changed."
"You made carry your bags for three floors." A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "I had a lot of ti to think about what I wanted out of this climb."
"And what did you conclude?"
"That I was weak because I kept looking for soone else to make strong." She t his eyes without flinching. "I followed Leon’s group because they seed capable. Then I followed you because you seed invincible. But strength borrowed is strength that can be taken away."
"So?"
"So I need to build my own." She looked back at Adrian’s camp. "And I need to learn to recognize threats before they beco problems. That man, he’s a threat. I can feel it."
Dante said nothing for a long mont. In his original tiline, Seira had been many things, his first love, his greatest heartbreak, the lesson that taught him trust was a luxury he couldn’t afford. But she’d never been perceptive. She’d never been the kind of person who looked beyond surfaces to see the rot beneath.
This tiline was already different.
"Keep watching him," Dante said finally. "But don’t let him know you’re watching. If he realizes you suspect sothing, you beco a problem he needs to solve."
"And if I find sothing?"
"Bring it to ." He turned back toward the camp. "You’re not wrong about him, Seira. But being right isn’t enough if the timing is wrong."
"You already know." She grabbed his arm, stopping him mid-step. "Whatever he’s planning, you already know. That’s why you agreed to work with him, isn’t it? You’re keeping him close."
Dante looked at her hand on his arm, then at her face inches from his own.
"So enemies are more dangerous at a distance," he said. "Adrian thinks he’s playing . Let him keep thinking that until I’m ready to show him the truth."
"And what is the truth?"
Dante smiled, and this ti it wasn’t cold or calculating or designed to intimidate. It was sothing worse, the smile of a man who already wrote the final Chapter and was just waiting for everyone else to catch up.
"That I’m the one playing him."
He walked away, leaving Seira standing at the platform’s edge with a new understanding of the man she’d once thought she could read.
Behind them, Adrian Cross watched the exchange from across the camp. His smile didn’t waver, but sothing in his eyes went very, very still.
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