Thanks for the chapter. Okay so, V literally cannot get any stronger? He can only rely on his familiars for strength and his human body is only going to break down as time goes on no matter what he does? That actually makes a lot of sense (though it does kill the happy ever after you get if you beat Urizen in the prologue). Neither V nor Urizen should even exist. The Yamato is powerful, but it can’t create two completely autonomous, self sustaining life forms that can still adapt and grow from one. Urizen had to pump himself with human blood until he ate the fruit of condensed human blood and V had to make contracts with demons. Both had to find a substitute for their missing half. Which was the fatal flaw in Urizen’s plan to gain strength. V seems to have realized it. Neither half of Vergil could reach his full potential, much less catch up to a Dante that did. On that note can we just acknowledge how insane Nero’s growth is? Sure he doesn’t beat Urizen in the next fight, but he’s the first one to break his crystal guard and force him to stand up and fight. Something we see in the game that not even Dante in DT with the Sparda could manage. Nero basically said “Aight, Imma get stronger”, did a month’s worth of physical training, got the devil breakers, and straight up surpassed 4 games worth of Dante. I mean, Dante showed him up by basically achieving god mode and saving the day, but that’s the thing Dante fused with the Sparda and rebellion and awoke his true power (2/3 of Sparda’s full power); Nero just tried. He doesn’t use a devil arm, lost his devil bringer arm, and his new weapons keep breaking (and can only use full power once). The devil breakers are really powerful gameplay wise (if used properly... so like everything gameplay wise), but they cannot be that broken story wise. I know this is “Visions of V”, but I have to admit I’d really like to see the kid’s training regime. How many push-ups did he do? How many sit-ups?! WHAT KIND OF JUICE DID HE DRINK?!!
On a completely different note, I’m really curious what the authors does with V for the month long gap. There’s nothing really left to explain. V doesn’t have any particular information or is using anything that he wasn’t in the prologue. He doesn’t find out about the Sparda until later in game. The author could pretty much do anything to expand V’s character during the next arc, but whatever happens needs to disappear and/or die before the month long gap ends. I’d like to see V interact with other humans (maybe familiar faces) and/or that he got some evacuated. But I really don’t know what the author could make V do during the gap (which makes me so interested to see what happens; nearly anything is possible. We could even get something like Lucia showing up to help out and then learning she left to help out in other places after learning Dante got beat and she wouldn’t stand a chance against Urizen).