Dante angled his feet back and flames exploded out from the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands as he launched himself through the hallway, past all the Nomu, through the doorway and out into the large white room.
From the scientists knowledge, Dante knew the Nomu would only have one target at a time, unless commanded otherwise. Right now, Dante was their target, so they followed him instead of attacking the children.
Once all of them had entered, Dante clenched his fists. "Come on."
His body started to warp straight away, his body morphing, sharp tendrils came out from his back and shoulders. His chest and arms cracked and started to glow red as fire ignited around, molten flames pouring out.
Little Dante whispered in his head. "Let's win this, for the safety of those in need."
Dante was a little surprised at the change in tone, but he launched forward nonetheless.
Two mid tier Nomu were in the front, one crawling like a spider and the other running straight at Dante with his arms perpetually spinning like helicopter blades. Dante managed to slide out of the way of the bladed hands, then he pivoted and swung a full force punch on the crawler's skull. Bone definitely smashed, but it didn't fall.
Dante avoided another swing from the spinning arm Nomu and managed to deliver a knee to the crawler's jaw, breaking it clean off, then he grabbed the top of its head and increased his flames intensity. It made a strange screeching noise and finally dropped.
Before Dante could properly ready himself, the other Nomu tried to grab him from behind, but little Dante slashed the Nomu's body into pieces of flesh.
He exhaled but couldn't relax yet, he suddenly ducked as a whip like tongue nearly slashed his throat.
All three low tiers followed by five mid tiers were sprinting at him from different angles.
Dante leapt into the air, grabbed onto the ceiling, angled himself down, shot flames from his feet, coating his body in a shell of sludge and came smashing down like a meteor. The shockwave cracked the floor. He landed directly on a low tier one and completely splattered its body. Another one staggered, the other tried to lunge at Dante but he grabbed its throat with his ignited arm and melted its throat, causing its head to come clean off.
The five mid tiers finally closed in. Two tried to dogpile him, one had really long arms and the other had really long and sharp fingernails that actually managed to slash Dante's stomach while the other punched Dante from a distance, using his arm like a whip, sending Dante skidding a few feet back.
He coughed blood and growled. "Alright… that hurt."
He rose, his sludge turning into armour on his body while his flames burned true, flames pouring out of the cracks in the armour.
One of his arms suddenly shot fire so strong that Dante started to spin around.
His armour turned into blades across his entire body, he flung himself into the crowd of 5, spinning through them like a blender.
One Nomu lost both arms.
One caught fire and started freaking out.
One's whole body was shredded.
Once Dante had stopped little Dante sent a tendril toward the Nomu that lost its arms and flung Dante toward it.
Dante caught on and grabbed the Nomu's face, igniting it point blank.
Another mid tier tackled him from the side, but Dante let it. He wrapped both arms around it and then ignited his entire upper body, frying it.
Dante was breathing heavily, these things were hard to kill, nonetheless, his arms burnt bright, Ryujin's techniques were no joke.
The wound on his stomach was slowly healing, but it still hurt like a bitch.
Dante looked at the two upper tier Nomu as they started to approach, but that's when the nine remaining mid tier Nomu let out inhuman screeches and surged at Dante like a stampede.
This was 100% gonna be Dante's roughest fight.
The first wave hit him hard, three mid tier bodies all hit him at once. He dug his feet into the ground, arms raised, sludge coated his body in the form of armour. The floor cracked under the pressure. He twisted and hurled one of them into the ceiling, then ducked and punched a hole clean through another's torso, but the third managed to tackle him flat to the ground.
The others took this chance to pounce.
Fists rained down on Dante. Claws tore at his armour, gnashing teeth tried to bite into him. Little Dante trying his best to get them off Dante by lashing his tendrils wildly, cutting deep trenches into the Nomu's skin, but there were way too many, too fast, too heavy. One got a hit in under his ribs. Another broke Dante's arm.
He roared, his eyes glowing as fire poured out of every orifice on the upper half of his body, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, skin, everything.
His body erupted into flames, sending his molten armour flying in every direction.
BOOM!
The blast cleared the immediate area—three Nomu were on fire, screeching, twitching. Dante crawled to his knees, coughing blood.
"Fuck sakes… maybe I should've absorbed more people after all," he growled, then had an idea.
He stood, battered and burning, eyes bloodshot, breath ragged, but his grin only grew brighter.
Many tendrils of sludge suddenly exploded out, wrapping around as many unconscious or dead Nomu as he could find, and then. He absorbed them.
His eyes widened and his body started to twitch all over.
"Dumbass! What are you doing?!"
Dante's eyes grew feral. 25x stronger than the average adult man now.
Another mid tier leapt at him, but Dante caught it mid air with both arms, twisted and drove it head first into the floor hard enough to make its neck snap. Then, Little Dante shot a spire of sludge from his back through another one's chest.
The next Nomu manged to grab Dante from behind, then the final two joined, pinning his arms down.
Dante gritted his teeth.
Then his body liquefied, escaping their grasp. The confused Nomu looked around just in time for Dante to reform behind them.
"BURN."
A concentrated burst of fire erupted from his hands, incinerating all of them in an instant.
That's when another mid tier swung a bone covered arm at him out of nowhere.
"There's more?!"
Dante caught the attack, twisted it's arm like a pretzel and slammed his foot down to shatter its kneecaps. Then, ANOTHER Nomu tried to blindside him, but Dante threw the pretzel one at it like a battering ram.
He was definitely moving slower now, absorbing those Nomu had refueled his energy, but they had made his head foggy.
Dante looked up, there were THREE MORE MID TIERS??
Dante's eyes widened, had he miscounted? Or were they just slower waking up? No matter.
Dante didn't hesitate.
He burst forward in a zigzag pattern, impaling one through the mouth, clotheslining another and grabbing the last by the face. He said nothing, just repeatedly slammed its head into the concrete, completely destroying its skull.
He stood there in the center of the room, barely upright, steam rising from his body, blood and sludge leaking from his wounds.
He gasped for air, but he couldn't afford to give up here.
THWOOM.
Heavy footsteps.
Two shadows.
Dante wiped the blood from his mouth, his arms shaking.
"Alright then…" he muttered, eyes narrowing. "Let's see if I really am unstoppable."
The two upper tiers closed in fast, way faster than Dante had imagined, their massive feet crushed the ground beneath them, eyes glowing with feral energy.
Dante dashed forward.
His body was already messed up, ribs broken, sludge trying its best to hold them in place. His movements were fierce, but sloppy, half run, half drag. He led with his right fist and slammed it square into the chest of one of the Nomu. It barely moved.
Then it struck back.
A single punch to Dante's gut sent him reeling, but before he could recover, the second Nomu struck from the side, it's fist felt like a literal truck.
CRACK!
Dante was sent flying across the entire chamber like a ragdoll. He crashed into the far wall near the hallway leading to the children. His bones were shattered.
He crumpled to the ground, limp, blood pooling beneath him.
His body… it wouldn't move.
He gasped, his lungs impaled by his ribs, trying to rise again, but his limbs refused. Everything was wrong. His arms dangled unnaturally, completely shattered and dislocated. His legs wouldn't obey him.
And then…
Tiny voices. Shaking, choked—but there.
"Please get up!"
"Mister, please! You can beat them!"
"Don't die! Please… don't die!"
Dante's eyes trembled.
At the end of the hallway, in the cage, the children. All watching.
They had hope in their eyes.
Hope in him.
Dante clenched his teeth so hard they cracked. A hot pressure boiled in his skull, his vision blurred, then focused, then changed.
His irises started to twist and change into a new shape, the edges of the X shaped pupils sharpened and his irises started to vibrate non stop.
BADUMP… BADUMP…
From his shoulders, two massive arms made of sludge exploded outward.
BADUMP… BADUMP…
His entire body started to grow unnaturally, his arms increasing in size as sludge increased both the size and density of his muscles, mimicking strength, binding muscle, replacing sinew.
He grew larger. Broader. Monstrous, almost looking like a Nomu himself.
And then, little Dante's tendrils emerged from his back like strings.
Little Dante's voice, calm and cruel, echoed inside him.
"I can't believe I'm doing this… but… we need to save those children, even if it kills us."
The tendrils wrapped around his arms and legs, locking into the joints. And then, as if Dante was a puppet, his body jerked upright, the tendrils of sludge mimicking strings controlling his lifeless limbs.
The Nomu stepped forward, confused, but not afraid.
Dante's body shifted into a strangely familiar stance. He advanced, every movement felt natural yet it felt unfamiliar, it was a four limbed combat technique, burned into muscle memory.
CRACK!
As the first Nomu threw a punch, Dante caught it with all four arms and twisted, shattering its shoulder with impossible torque. Then he slammed his forehead into its face, his head hardened by sludge.
The second Nomu lunged at him from the side.
Dante ducked low, wincing in pain as his shattered bones stabbed his insides, then he launched up with a two handed uppercut, catching the Nomu's jaw and sending it flying a few meters back.
But it didn't matter, they kept healing, constantly regenerating. Reforming.
Dante was starting to slow again, he had turned his whole body into sludge using the advice his father gave, but it was draining his energy faster than he could think.
But his will kept dragging him forward, no matter the cost.
One hand formed into a jagged blade, he stabbed the first Nomu through the chest and filled its whole body with sludge. It actually screamed, for once. And while it tried to regenerate—
"DIE!"
Dante detonated the sludge inside.
A shockwave rocked the room, for the first time ever, Dante had managed to use Pyroclast on his sludge, igniting it as it spread through the Nomu's body.
The first Nomu collapsed, twitching, it's regeneration stalled, organs completely liquefied.
The second Nomu appeared out of nowhere and slammed into Dante's side with a full body ram.
His torso twisted almost 180 degrees, his spine completely shattering.
But he did not fall.
He refused to fall.
Held up by Little Dante's puppet strings and sheer will, Dante lashed out with one final barrage. A barrage of punches, each one igniting on impact, exploding his hand clean off and then regenerating for another punch, he kept punching, it hurt so much, the worst pain he had ever felt, his nerves were fried, all of the bones in his body were basically dust.
And then he roared, not like a man, but a monster fed up with its fellow monsters.
The final blow was a palm strike that melted into the Nomu's chest and exploded his entire arm, taking the entire upper half of the Nomu's body with it.
The silence after was deadening.
Dante stood there, barely upright. Both arms were dislocated and shattered completely, his legs were mangled, his body was purple and bleeding from every orifice.
Then—
He collapsed.
The tendrils slithered back into his body, but before he was fully out, he made fucking sure to absorb at least one of those bastards.