Regression of the Tower's Final Survivor-Chapter 57: Alignment

The training ground behind the inn was a flat expanse of packed dirt with practice dummies lining one wall and weapon racks rusting in the morning humidity and absolutely nothing pretty about it, which meant it was perfect for what Dante had in mind.

"Again."

Astrid was drenched in sweat, her platinum hair matted against her forehead while she panted with her axe drooping in her grip and her arms shaking from exhaustion. They spent the last three hours drilling formations and she looked ready to collapse.

"My arms feel like wet noodles," she growled, but she raised the axe anyway because giving up wasn’t in her vocabulary. "You’re a sadist, you know that? A genuine, certified, guild-licensed sadist."

"I’ve been called worse." Dante watched her stance with eyes that missed nothing, cataloging the micro-adjustments her body made as she tried to maintain her form. "You’re compensating with your right shoulder again. It’s bleeding power from your swing."

"My right shoulder is fine."

"Your right shoulder is overworked because you don’t trust your left side." He stepped closer, and Astrid tensed like she expected him to attack. "Relax. I’m not going to hit you."

"That’s exactly what you said before you hit me the last three times."

"Those were teaching moments."

"Those were bruises, Dante. I have bruises on my bruises."

Ren laughed from where he sat on a wooden bench, polishing his old shield while he waited his turn. The big guy looked exhausted too, but there was a grin on his face that wouldn’t quit. "She’s got a point. You’re kind of intense with the training."

"Intense is what keeps you alive past Floor 20." Dante didn’t look at him, keeping his attention on Astrid as she readjusted her grip. "The factions we humiliated aren’t going to sit back and accept defeat. Vane is going to escalate. The Flame Court is going to retaliate. Every climber on this floor now knows our faces and half of them want us dead for disrupting their precious status quo."

"So we beat them too," Astrid said simply.

"You can’t beat what you can’t survive." Dante crossed his arms. "Tell me something, Astrid. In the Crystal Depths, when we faced the Iron Titan, did you notice anything strange about my performance?"

The question made her pause with her brow furrowing. "Strange how?"

"Think about it."

She stood there, sweat dripping, axe lowered while her mind churned through the memories of that fight. The Iron Titan was a nightmare, a construct of animated metal the size of a small building that required coordinated attacks to disable and Dante was everywhere at once, directing traffic while the rest of them scrambled to keep up...

"You held back," she said slowly, and something dark flickered in her grey eyes. "The way you moved, the way you fought, it was too smooth. Too controlled." Her knuckles went white on the axe haft. "You could have killed it yourself, couldn’t you?"

"Yes."

The admission hung in the air like a physical weight and Astrid’s face twisted through a rapid succession of emotions, surprise, anger, betrayal, and something that looked almost like hurt.

"Then why the hell didn’t you?" she demanded. "We almost died in there! Leon took a hit that could have killed him, and you were playing at being one of us?"

"Playing is a strong word."

"Is it?" She stepped toward him, and for a moment Dante thought she might actually swing the axe. "You let us struggle while you watched. That’s not leadership, that’s entertainment."

"Wrong." Dante didn’t flinch. "Think about what happens when I solo everything. What do the rest of you become?"

"Protected?"

"Weak." He said the word without softening it because she needed to hear it. "I watched climbers like you die by the hundreds, Astrid. Not because they couldn’t fight, but because they relied too heavily on someone else to carry them. They never learned to stand on their own because they didn’t have to, and when that pillar disappeared, they crumbled."

Astrid stared at him, the anger in her eyes mixed with something else now.

"I can’t be everywhere," Dante continued. "I can’t fight every battle and clear every floor and protect every person who might stab me in the back when I’m not looking. I need people who can handle themselves when the worst happens, and that means you need to grow stronger than you could ever become by watching me kill things for you."

"So the struggle was the point," Ravenna said softly.

She was sitting against the training ground wall with her knees pulled to her chest and her demon eyes half-lidded while she observed the exchange with quiet intensity.

"The struggle was always the point." Dante turned back to Astrid. "You gained more from that dungeon clear than you would have from a dozen easy victories. Your Core density increased. Your Path skills sharpened. You’re already stronger than you were three days ago because you had to fight for your life instead of coasting on someone else’s power."

"That’s a cold way to build a team," Ren said, though his voice held curiosity rather than accusation.

"I’m not building a team." Dante let that settle before finishing. "I’m building survivors."

The training ground went quiet except for the distant sounds of the city, merchants hawking goods and climbers arguing over equipment prices and the general chaos of Floor 11’s crowded markets.

Astrid lowered her axe completely, letting the head rest on the ground while she processed everything. "You’re scared of something."

Dante almost laughed. "What?"

"You heard me." She looked at him with those sharp grey eyes that could read combat intentions like a book. "All this talk about not relying on you, about making us strong enough to survive without your protection, it’s not just strategy. You’re scared of what happens when you’re not there. Like you’ve seen it before."

’Eight years of watching people I cared about die because I wasn’t strong enough to save them all,’ Dante thought, and the Ancient Core pulsed in his chest like a second heartbeat. ’Like Ren, bleeding out while I was too busy fighting to notice until it was too late.’

"Fight me," Dante said instead of answering.

Astrid blinked. "What?"

"You wanted a rematch since Floor 8. You’ve been itching to prove yourself since the first time I put you on the ground." He stepped into the center of the training area and spread his arms wide. "So prove it. Come at me with everything you have."

"You’re deflecting."

"I’m offering you what you’ve wanted since we met." Dante smiled that cold smile that made enemies nervous. "Unless you’re too tired?"

The taunt hit exactly where he intended it to, and Astrid’s eyes flashed red as her Berserker blood stirred and the fatigue in her muscles evaporated under a tide of rising fury.

"Oh, you’re going to regret that," she growled.

"Prove it."

She came at him like a storm.

The axe sang through the air, whistling with enough force to cleave through plate armor while her feet kicked up dust with each explosive step, and Dante watched it all happen with the detached calm of someone who fought battles that made this look like a playground scuffle.

He didn’t draw his sword. He didn’t need to.

The axe blade came down and Dante intercepted it with his bare palm, Core energy flaring green-gold as it hardened his skin to something stronger than steel. The impact drove a crater into the packed dirt beneath his feet while Astrid’s arms shook from the sudden stop.

"Power isn’t the problem," Dante said calmly. "Your technique is raw, unrefined. You’re throwing your whole body into every swing instead of channeling the force efficiently."

"Shut up and fight!" Astrid ripped the axe back and spun into a horizontal slash that could have bisected a horse.

Dante stepped inside the arc, letting the blade pass behind him while he pressed two fingers against her sternum in a touch that was almost gentle. "Dead. If I pushed energy through that contact, your heart would have stopped."

She stumbled back, eyes wild, and came at him again with a roar that shook the training ground. The axe became a blur, cut after cut after cut while her Path activated and the red glow in her eyes spread to her skin in glowing patterns that marked the Primal Surge awakening.

She was faster now, stronger, every movement carrying enough force to shatter stone, but it didn’t matter. Dante weaved through her attacks like water flowing around rocks, parrying with his bare hands and occasionally tapping her joints, her ribs and her thighs to mark openings she left exposed.

"Rage is fuel," he said during a brief pause where she stumbled and caught herself. "Not the steering wheel."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means you’re letting your anger drive the fight instead of directing it." He caught her wrist mid-swing and held it, stopping her completely despite the Berserker strength flooding her muscles. "Feel that power inside you? That’s raw potential burning itself up with no purpose. You’re not using it, you’re being used BY it."

Astrid strained against his grip, the muscles in her arm trembling under the effort, but Dante didn’t budge an inch.

"Compress it," he instructed. "Don’t let it flood your whole body. Pull it into your core and release it in controlled bursts, only when you need it."

"I don’t know how."

"Yes, you do." He released her wrist. "Close your eyes."

"In the middle of a fight? Are you insane?"

"Do it."

She glared at him but obeyed, and Dante watched as her breathing gradually slowed and the red glow pulsing through her skin began to flicker uncertainly.

"Picture all that rage as fire," Dante said quietly. "It’s burning bright, burning hot, threatening to consume everything including you. Now picture taking that fire and crushing it down, compacting it into a single point of white heat right behind your sternum. Don’t suppress it. Concentrate it."

Astrid’s face scrunched with effort and her hands curled into fists and the red glow began to recede from her extremities, pulling inward like water draining through a funnel. Her breathing became ragged, her body shaking as she fought against the instinct to let the power run wild.

"Good," Dante said. "Now open your eyes, and put everything you’ve compressed into one strike."

Her eyes snapped open, and this time they weren’t just red but blazing with concentrated light, and suddenly she was moving before Dante expected her to.

The axe came down.

He caught it again, Core energy flaring, but this time the impact was different. Instead of a wide wave of force that dispersed on contact, the power was focused, concentrated into a point that hit his palm like a pile driver and actually drove him back a step.

He had been driven back just one step.

He smiled.

"Better."

Astrid was breathing hard, sweat pouring down her face while the red glow faded from her eyes, but she was smiling too, a fierce grin that showed all her teeth. "That was different."

"That was control." Dante lowered his hand. "Do it again. A thousand times until your body remembers how it feels without thinking. When you can compress and release without conscious effort, you’ll be twice as strong as you are now without burning out in thirty seconds."

"A thousand times?" she groaned, her brief excitement fading back into exhaustion. "My arms are already dying."

"Then they’ll get stronger."

"Sadist," she muttered, but she was already settling back into her stance.

Ren stood up from the bench, and Dante noticed he was no longer holding his old shield. Instead, he lifted something from behind the bench, something Dante arranged to be there before the training session began.

The Aegis of Iron was a masterwork of defensive craftsmanship, a tower shield forged from crystallized steel with golden circuit patterns running through its surface like veins of power. It stood nearly as tall as Ren himself, the metal dark and heavy, etched with runes that pulsed with a faint inner light.

"What the hell is that?" Astrid stopped mid-swing to stare.

"Your new shield," Dante said to Ren. "I picked it up from one of the Iron Domain’s caches yesterday while you were all resting. It’s Grade 4, integrated barrier generation and it scales with the wielder’s Body Path advancement. Should be a perfect fit."

Ren lifted the massive shield like it weighed nothing, turning it in his hands while his eyes traced the intricate runework with something close to reverence. "This is... Dante, this must have cost a fortune."

"Not if you know where to look." He remembered the cache location from his previous life, a hidden stash the Iron Domain maintained for their elite forces that Vane didn’t know he knew about. "Consider it payment for the headache you’re going to cause me during the spar."

"The spar?"

"We’re not done training." Dante nodded at the shield. "Astrid, take fifteen. Ren, you’re up."

Ren looked at the shield in his hands, then at Dante, and slowly a grin spread across his face that matched Astrid’s from moments before. "You’re really going to fight me while I’m using this?"

"I need to see what it can do." Dante rolled his shoulders, loosening the muscles. "And you need to learn its limits before we’re in a real fight."

"You know," Ren said as he settled into a defensive stance with the new shield raised before him like a wall of darkness, "most leaders would delegate this kind of testing to subordinates."

"Most leaders don’t expect their teams to fight gods."

Ren’s grin faltered slightly at that, uncertainty flickering in his eyes, but Dante was already moving.

The first strike was a probe, a quick jab toward Ren’s left side that forced him to shift the shield and revealed how naturally the weight distributed across his arm. The impact made a sound like a bell ringing, clear and resonant, and Dante felt the barrier enchantment activate on contact, pushing back against his fist with reactive force.

"Good reflexes," Dante noted. "The shield reads your intent and activates automatically. Try anchoring your stance before the next hit."

Ren adjusted, planting his feet wider, and when Dante’s second strike came in he didn’t just block it, he absorbed the force into his legs and the ground beneath him, turning himself into an immovable object.

They fell into a rhythm, Dante attacking from different angles while Ren learned his new equipment through trial and error. The Aegis revealed its capabilities one layer at a time, the barrier could extend to cover gaps in his guard, the weight could shift to compensate for off-balance positions, and the runes grew brighter the more punishment it absorbed, storing energy for something that Dante wanted Ren to discover on his own.

"Now PUSH," Dante commanded after a particularly heavy exchange that left Ren vibrating with stored power.

Ren shoved the shield forward instinctively and the stored energy discharged in a wave of golden light that washed over Dante and actually forced him to dig his heels in, sliding him back three feet before he stopped.

"Holy shit," Ren breathed, staring at the shield like he was seeing it for the first time. "It RETURNS damage?"

"Stores and releases on command," Dante confirmed. "The more you take, the harder you can hit back. It rewards patience and punishes aggression, which suits your fighting style perfectly."

"You planned this." Ren lowered the shield with a look that mixed gratitude with suspicion. "You knew I needed a better shield before we left Floor 11."

"I planned a lot of things."

"For someone who claims not to care about us," Ravenna said from her spot against the wall, "you spend a lot of time making sure we don’t die."

Dante turned to look at her and found those orange demon eyes watching him with an intensity that made him uncomfortable because she saw too much, always had.

"Keeping you alive serves my purposes," he said flatly.

"Does it?" She tilted her head slightly. "Or are you just saying that because admitting you care would require vulnerability you’re not ready for?"

The training ground went quiet again, and Dante felt the weight of attention from his entire team as they waited for his response.

He thought about Ren dying on Floor 75 with that stupid grin on his face, about Astrid, a name he didn’t know in his original timeline because she died before Floor 20 without anyone strong enough to teach her control. He remembered Ravenna, hunted by mobs who saw demon first and person never, killed a dozen times in a dozen different ways across a future that no longer existed.

’They can’t know,’ the rational part of his mind insisted. ’Distance is armor. Attachment is vulnerability.’

But another part, a part he thought he killed years ago, whispered something different.

’They’re not dead yet. This time, you can keep them alive.’

"Take a break," Dante said instead of answering Ravenna’s question, turning away before anyone could read his expression. "We resume in an hour. Tomorrow we push for Floor 12, and I want everyone at full strength."

He walked toward the edge of the training ground where a water barrel sat waiting and didn’t look back at the teammates who watched him go with expressions ranging from frustrated to understanding.

Behind him, Astrid muttered something about "emotionally constipated assholes" while Ren laughed and Ravenna just smiled that quiet smile that said she already knew everything he wasn’t saying.

The Ancient Core pulsed in his chest, warm and waiting, and for just a moment Dante let himself feel something other than cold calculation.

Then he buried it, deep where it couldn’t betray him, and started preparing for the challenges ahead.

Floor 12 was next. The Whispering Jungle wouldn’t wait for his emotional growth.