The coliseum had long ceased to be called a battlefield, and insisting on that now was almost an insult to the scale of what was happening there, because it had become something far beyond confrontation, far beyond strategy, far beyond even survival.
It was a continuous collapse, a point where absurd forces collided without pause, without rhythm, without any space for recovery, as if the very concept of combat had been broken and replaced by pure brute resistance against something that simply wouldn't stop growing.
Lilith understood this.
She had understood it first.
And so… she was no longer trying to win.
Her movements ceased to seek fatal openings, ceased to carry the intention of finishing, and became exactly what they needed to be: containment. Each of her blows was no longer an attack… it was a delay, a push, a way to deflect, to redirect, to prevent Dante from simply crushing everything in a straight line to the inevitable end.
And even then… it wasn't enough.
