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"Round up every family member who ever spoke to the dead through your rituals," Soren told Papa Midnight, voice flat. "And dig up the actual remains too. Bring the bones."
He gave the voodoo priest a calm stare. "Then you and Constantine are going to bless these bodies, burn them, and put the restless spirits to rest for good."
"Relictum spiritum expurgationis," Constantine added around his cigarette, translating the Latin for "remnant soul dispersal spell."
Papa Midnight stood up, brushing dust off his red cloak. He hated every second of this, but he wasn't stupid. Refuse and he'd be dead before he hit the floor.
Face cold, he waved over his people and gave the orders in a low voice.
It didn't take long. A handful of confused family members were brought in. The dug-up bones and remains arrived soon after.
The corpses were piled in the open space in front of the platform and doused with accelerant.
Soren stepped back and gave a small nod.
This was exactly how it went down in the original story. Should work.
"Constantine, your show."
Constantine spat out his cigarette butt. In the short time they'd been waiting, the ground around his feet had become an ashtray.
He and Papa Midnight took positions on opposite sides of the corpse pile.
Both men turned solemn and began chanting the ancient rites of release.
The words grew faster, more urgent.
Papa Midnight suddenly threw his head back and roared, "Lost souls—return to where you belong!"
WHOOSH!
The bodies burst into flames on their own. Orange fire shot skyward. In minutes the pile was nothing but ash that scattered on the wind.
At the exact same moment.
On a deserted highway outside Los Santos.
A lonely little boy standing on the roadside with his thumb out suddenly froze.
He looked up. For the first time, a peaceful smile crossed his blank face. His body dissolved into specks of light and vanished on the breeze.
In a dark alley downtown.
A female model clutching a pair of scissors—about to ask the next passerby if she was pretty—suddenly stopped dead.
She dropped the scissors, clutched her ruined face in agony, and faded into nothing.
[Ding!]
[Side Quest: The Truth Behind the Urban Legend]
[Completed]
[Reward: 500 points]
Soren felt the notification ping in his head. His total now sat at 4,700 points.
Halfway to Alastor. Still slow as hell.
He'd need to find better ways to farm points. Or maybe… straight-up claim Devil Arms.
His mind raced.
Constantine said a ton of demons had already snuck topside and were hiding.
What if he started hunting those contracts on purpose? Beat the demons into submission until they surrendered and turned into weapons for him?
His eyes lit up. Solid backup plan.
Even if the resulting Devil Arms weren't a perfect fit, he could always sell or rent them to black-market dealers like Enzo for steady cash flow.
He snapped back to the present.
Papa Midnight had pulled out a human skull covered in glowing runes. He pressed it against his own forehead, eyes closed, muttering under his breath.
This was his strongest artifact—the skull of his own sister, carved by his hand. Through it he could use her soul as his eyes and ears in Hell, listening for secrets from the abyss.
"Sister… what the hell is happening down there? Why did my ritual go so wrong?"
A few minutes later he lowered the skull. His voice shook with fear.
"The Darkness Is Coming…"
"The Son of Satan… Mammon… is about to descend."
Constantine's eyes snapped wide. He whipped around to stare at Soren in pure shock.
Just a little while ago Soren had casually dropped the exact phrase "Darkness Is Coming." Constantine hadn't known what it meant then.
But now? This world-shaking intel—Soren had already known it cold.
Just how many secrets is this kid hiding?
Papa Midnight took a deep breath and kept going. "Mammon sent an army of demons ahead as scouts to soften the human world."
"He seems afraid of something, so he stayed in the shadows, testing the waters through his advance forces."
"But the testing phase is over. He's ready to step onto the field himself."
"How the hell did the barrier between Hell and Earth get shattered?" Constantine demanded, voice tight.
That was the question burning him up inside.
The barrier had been built by the Heavenly Host and generations of the world's strongest exorcists. Even Mammon—or Satan himself—should've needed centuries to punch through it.
"…"
Papa Midnight glanced at Constantine and shook his head. "I don't know."
Soren, however, rubbed his chin, everything suddenly clicking.
How the fuck did I forget this part of the plot?
Mammon hated the way his father ran Hell. He'd been secretly planning his descent for years, wanting to turn Earth into his own personal kingdom.
Connect the dots and it all made sense.
The reason Papa Midnight's necromancy had spiraled out of control was because the barrier between worlds was already damaged. Magic laws were breaking down.
If Mammon was ready to move, that meant the single most important artifact for the ritual—the Spear of Destiny—had already been dug up.
Legend said a Roman soldier used it to pierce Jesus on the cross to confirm he was dead. Whoever held the spear was said to control the fate of the world.
Most people wrote it off as royal propaganda, like the imperial seal back in his old world.
But in a world where gods and demons were real? That spear packed actual god-level power.
Soren's mind started spinning plans.
Whether it was useful to him or not, he wanted that spear in his hands first.
Right then the system panel lit up again.
[Ding!]
[Main Quest Triggered: The Darkness Is Coming]
[Quest Description: Forces lurking in the shadows are paving the way for the abyss to descend.]
[Objective: Completely eliminate the mysterious organization behind it all.]
[Reward: Calculated based on final completion and exploration rate.]
[Ding!]
[Darkness Is Coming Node Quest Triggered: The Demon Prince's Ambition]
[Quest Description: Mammon, herald of the coming darkness, seeks to cross the boundary and turn the human world into his private hunting ground.]
[Objective: Stop Mammon's descent ritual.]
[Reward: 10,000 points, Bloodline Awakening +5%, Mammon's Original Sin Soul ×1]
Soren stared at the flood of notifications, brows furrowed.
Mammon's descent was just the opening act for "The Darkness Is Coming"?
And the main quest wanted him to wipe out some secret organization pulling strings on Earth.
Just like Constantine suspected—there really was a traitor in the human world setting this up.
Soren's thoughts flashed back to the tiny high-tech device he'd crushed inside the Creeper's heart.
Was that organization behind it? Or was that organization?
Implanting monitoring equipment in an immortal ancient demon? That screamed "research data collection."
He'd destroyed their toy days ago and they still hadn't come knocking.
That meant they had way more samples than just the Creeper.
Maybe every escaped demon carried one.
The barrier damage, the demons hiding from Heaven's radar—everything pointed back to them.
These people were playing for the biggest stakes imaginable.
Soren refocused on the system.
He stared at the "Stop Mammon's descent" objective.
Then a crazy, dangerous idea hit him.
Why stop it?
He didn't want to stop it at all.
In fact… he wanted to secretly help Mammon finish the ritual.
Then, the second the Son of Satan was at his absolute weakest—right after birth—he'd strike and kill him for the massive rewards.
This was Satan's own son. Taking him out might even trigger extra system bonuses.
And if Satan came looking for revenge afterward?
Soren smirked in his head. Take it up with my uncle Dante.
Satan's power was mostly soul-level torture and ruling Hell.
When it came to raw combat, Dante had solo-cleared the demon world and killed multiple Demon Emperors and ancient devils. If Satan showed up pissed, Dante would probably just smile and say, "Sweet, new Devil Arm."
According to the original story, Mammon needed three insanely strict conditions to descend successfully:
1. A powerful medium with strong psychic ability to serve as a physical vessel for his soul.
2. The Spear of Destiny—stained with divine blood—to grant him new life on Earth.
3. A high-ranking angel with immense power to guide the ritual, wield the spear, and trick the ancient contract between Heaven and Hell.
Even with the barrier full of holes, Mammon couldn't just waltz through without an angel shielding him. The second he poked his head out, Heaven would notice.
In the original timeline, that angel was none other than Archangel Gabriel—the one who hated humans and wanted to test their faith through destruction.
Soren didn't have to worry about any of the complicated prep work.
In the canon story the ritual went off without a hitch. Gabriel set everything up perfectly.
The only reason it failed was because Constantine slit his wrists at the last second and summoned Satan himself.
So all Soren had to do was sit back, watch, and make sure Constantine didn't pull any dramatic suicide stunts at the critical moment.
A spark of excitement flared in Soren's chest. He glanced at Constantine, who was chain-smoking like his life depended on it.
He didn't know how far along Mammon's ritual was yet, but Constantine still looked relaxed. That meant the main plot hadn't kicked off.
He still had time to power up.
Worst case…
Soren's eyes flicked to the Yamato resting in his system inventory.
That top-tier Devil Arm would be his ultimate insurance policy.
Constantine suddenly felt a chill crawl up his spine.
He turned around and locked eyes with Soren's intense stare.
His asshole clenched on instinct.
"What the hell is that creepy look for? I don't swing that way," Constantine muttered warily.
"I've done everything you asked," Papa Midnight said coldly. "Even gave you that priceless piece of intel. Now can you three get the fuck off my property?"
Soren's gaze snapped to the voodoo priest. Killing intent flashed in his eyes.
Papa Midnight was a master of every twisted curse and black magic in the book.
Piss off someone like that and you'd spend the rest of your life watching your back.
Soren could handle it. But Patty and Lady were still human. He couldn't take the risk.
Leaving the man alive was a massive loose end.
In the next instant Soren moved.
Everyone only saw a blur.
He was suddenly right in front of Papa Midnight, hand clamped around the tall man's throat, lifting him clean off the ground.
Crack.
One sharp snap.
Papa Midnight's head lolled sideways, face still frozen in the middle of speaking.
"Ahhh!!"
The attendants screamed in terror.
Soren looked at the body in his hand and decided it wasn't safe enough.
He slammed it to the ground and stomped down with demonic power roaring through his leg like he was popping a balloon.
BOOM!
Constantine finally reacted. "Are you fucking insane?!"
He and Papa Midnight weren't exactly friends—there'd been plenty of bad blood—but he never expected Soren to go from polite negotiation to cold-blooded murder in a heartbeat.
Soren wiped the blood off his shoe, voice calm. "When you piss off a curse specialist, you don't leave them breathing. Better to kill them outright and sleep easy."
"I'd rather not wake up with a voodoo doll in my bed someday."
Lady, who had been watching the whole time, raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Nice work. I was about to do it myself, but you beat me to it."
Then the impossible happened.
A sickly green glow wrapped around the crushed corpse.
Flesh and bone knitted back together like time was running in reverse.
In seconds Papa Midnight's head was whole again.
He gasped for air, eyes wide with terror and barely-contained rage as he stared at Soren.
"I'm a businessman!" he snarled. "Killing you brings me zero profit if there's no conflict of interest!"
Soren looked at the perfectly healed man and just shrugged, a little disappointed.
Papa Midnight might look like a man in his thirties, but the guy was probably as old as the United States itself.
He carried an ancient curse: he would live forever until the continent was no longer ruled by white people.
Soren had only tried on the off-chance it would work.
Killing him outright would've been ideal. Since it didn't, at least the show of force would make the man think twice before trying revenge.
"Better be true to your word, businessman," Soren said with an easy smile, like nothing had happened.
——