I think you are mistaken jestercolony. Yes, the description of the combat cross did say that there were two chains created for it. But, Gabriel had both of them. When the game started, it just had the regular chain with no spikes and then during the quest, Gabriel found the the spiked one. Also, when Gabriel broke the combat cross, the chain was retracted. In other words, he completely destroyed it and left the pieces behind in the dimensional rift. The only way for Rinaldo to make a new combat cross would be to go into the rift and retrieve the pieces or build it from scratch. No human can survive the rift. Then again, we don't know what precisely Rinaldo is. All we know is that he is rumored to still be alive and has lived for centuries.
Maybe the weapon the hero wields in the next game, regardless of if it is a whip or not (it should be, if it is a "Belmont"), will be magical instead of a ordinary weapon soaked in holy water.
She agreed to it. And the whip seems to have a certain degree of sentience, or emotion.
Leon sensed rage from it, and when Chaos was defeated in Aria, Julius felt the whip weaken. Which I would interpret as "relief"
And why would there be drawbacks? She agreed to sacrifice herself.
You make a good point Flame, but keep in mind that this may not be correct. The whip has the power to destroy vampires and the other "children of the night". That's it. Chaos has nothing to do with it. Let's remember that LoI along with the creation story of the whip came out after AoS. Also, at that point, it was only the Belmonts (and humanity) against the evil count Dracula. There was no mention of a despite between Dracula and the Belmonts other than simple good versus evil. In essence, Dracula is evil and evil needs to be destroyed. In other words, classic good versus evil. Nothing more.
With that in mind, I can't really explain why the whip's power started to weaken. It's true that Dracula was considered the incarnation of evil in that game. So, I guess we could say that by Soma defeating Chaos, he severed himself from the Chaos. The cycle of resurrection following defeat that had persisted with Dracula had been stop, which is he reincarnated. That fact is that his soul may have still be bound to the Chaos and by defeating Chaos, Soma severed his link with it. The lack of a being of complete darkness bound to Chaos may have had such an effect on the whip. It is never truly explained. I guess this is just another example of IGA's spectacular story writing (sarcasm).
Speaking of IGA's method for how he makes a CV game (gameplay first and then story, which is then shoehorned into a storyline with more plotholes than DBZ), I wouldn't be surprised if he was the real host for Chaos. With that in mind, I guess that makes him the real Dark Lord.