"Hey, it's pretty rude to leave your guests hanging like that!"
Nero leapt backward in a flash, slicing open a rift with Yamato and vanishing into it. The rooftop where she'd been standing was obliterated by an invisible tentacle, collapsing in a heap of rubble.
Nanna, drawn by the commotion, scanned the area. But aside from the chilly night breeze and the faint demonic energy leaking from the Demon Emperor's pocket dimension, the street was eerily silent.
Nero wasn't lurking nearby for a sneak attack—she was gone.
Yup, Nero had no intention of going toe-to-toe with Nanna right off the bat. She knew Nanna could pop up anywhere in this dreamscape at will, and the only way to take her down was with Yamato.
If Nanna didn't hold still long enough for Yamato to land a clean hit, Nero couldn't deliver the killing blow.
So, if Nanna wouldn't stop moving, trapping them both in one spot, Nero wouldn't either. She'd keep running, using the demonic daggers she'd planted as beacons to zip across the city. Then…
A piercing screech cut through the moonlight, and Nanna's figure vanished.
…she'd keep chipping away at Nanna's true body outside the dream with her barely-formed "Dimension Slash: Absolute."
When Nanna spotted Nero again, the gash Nero had torn in the "dream world" had just burst open, oozing black, putrid blood. A fresh wound also marred Nanna's thigh, soaking her black stockings red.
Nero was already trying to plunge Yamato into Nanna's corpse-like true body—the one thing Nanna feared most.
Back in ancient times, after the Demon Emperor Mundus killed Nanna, her body sank into the depths of the Demon World. Her power didn't fade, though—it lingered in that corpse, forming the seed of a new "dream world."
Nanna should've perfected this world through human dreams, gathering strength to awaken once more.
But something severed the link between the human world and the Demon World, cutting off her power supply and stalling her revival. Centuries later, a girl on her last breath fell into the underworld, absorbed by Nanna's corpse along with a special demonic artifact. That's when the dream world got a fresh jolt of life.
Through that girl, the dream world slowly reconnected to a new city in the real world, its power creeping back. The consciousness of the old "Nanna" began to sprout in a corner of the girl's soul.
The girl caught on quick and tried pulling others into the dream to dilute its power, slowing Nanna's awakening in her body—but that's a story for later. The point is, even with Nanna's soul awake in the dream world, her real-world body was still a corpse.
If Nanna's soul fully matured in the dream world, she could take it—and all its power—to find a new body. But at this stage, the dream world tethered to her corpse was fragile.
Nanna knew the weapon in Nero's hand: the demonic blade wielded by Sparda himself. If Yamato pierced her corpse, Nero could use its power to sever the entire dream world from it. The dream world, cut loose like a rootless weed, would collapse, and this half-baked Nanna would vanish for good.
And who knew how many millennia it'd take for a new dream world to form?
Nanna wasn't afraid of death. Even if she fell now, the next demon born from the dream would still be "Nanna." But… who'd give up a revival so close just to wait for some distant, uncertain future?
Nanna surged her power, forcibly sealing the rift Nero had sliced open, and fixed her icy glare on Nero, who was gearing up to bolt again.
"You annoying little fly!"
In Nanna's furious growl, Nero's vision blurred as she tried to slip through space. The scenery she'd just shifted to snapped back to the abandoned factory.
She'd been yanked back.
Nanna appeared, drenched in blood, her face twisted like a vengeful spirit. Behind her, a faint, skeletal phantom writhed, its countless tentacle-like tails swaying in the moonlight.
"Gotta say, your corpse doesn't exactly look fleshed out yet. When's that gonna happen?" Nero taunted, swinging Yamato to make her exit. She was ready—if Nanna pulled her back again, she'd hit her with, "I could play this game all day."
"Enough with the jokes."
Nanna's voice was pure venom. Nero dove into the portal, but the moment she emerged, a wave of dizziness hit her.
When it cleared, Nero's boots hit solid ground. She blinked in shock—she was standing in an endless field of white flowers.
Above her, the blood-red moon loomed impossibly close, monstrously huge, taking up a third of the night sky.
Under its glow, the white-flower field rippled like a pale pink sea in the breeze.
Here, Nero's connection to her beacons was gone. She was in a new world, completely cut off from the last one.
"A dream within a dream, huh?" Nero said coolly, looking up at the moon and the elegant figure descending from it, silhouetted against the crimson glow.
It wasn't hard to figure out. The city under the blood moon was the "dream world." So, this new world Nanna had dragged her into? A dream within the dream.
Nanna's dress billowed, her phantom tentacles swaying in the wind. She touched down on the field, her tone brimming with certainty. "Now, you've got nowhere to run."
Nero tightened her grip on Yamato. "Funny, I was about to say the same to you."
Even if Nanna ruled this dream world, Nero doubted she could be in two dreams at once. And since Nero was here, if Nanna wanted to leave, it'd cost her.
The only question now was how Nero would beat her.
"Pathetic," Nanna sneered, letting go of her wounded thigh and grasping a blood-red war scythe that materialized from thin air. "Think what you want, but…"
She crouched, ready to strike, the curved blade of her scythe aimed straight at Nero's throat.
"You don't actually believe you can win, do you?"