Soren's eyes turned ice-cold. He shifted his stance and smashed the second dragon head that tried to counterattack, blowing it apart in one brutal strike.
But it was all pointless.
From Hell, a vast surge of energy poured into the headless mount. In the blink of an eye, two brand-new heads regrew, roaring with fresh fury.
"Useless," Valak sneered. "As long as I remain connected to Hell, you cannot truly harm me.
But once I fully descend into the human world and shed the contract's restrictions, trash like you won't even be able to scratch me."
In that short exchange, Valak had already seen through Soren completely.
The Sparda blood inside this human was thick, yet the awakening level was pathetically low—like no one had ever taught him how to properly awaken it. He couldn't even release the most basic Devil Trigger.
The last trace of caution vanished from Valak's eyes. Arrogance returned in full force.
"Cough—cough—!"
At the edge of the array, Constantine suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood.
His body was already hollowed out by lung cancer. Forcing this massive array was burning through what little life he had left.
Soren punched Valak back half a step, brows knitting slightly.
Half the demon god's body was still anchored in Hell. Endless energy kept pouring through the fissure to heal every wound.
Unless Soren's damage output could outpace Hell's regeneration, the one who would die first was definitely Constantine.
"Drop the array," Soren said suddenly.
Papa Midnight, still desperately holding the formation together, went pale with shock.
"Are you insane?! If we drop the array, it'll be completely unrestricted! The whole city will become a slaughterhouse!"
"Constantine can't die yet. Get him out of this house."
Soren didn't even glance back.
"Without the array, how the hell do you plan to fight a Demon God?!" Papa Midnight roared.
"You two will only get in the way."
Soren slowly raised his hand. A pristine white top hat materialized in his grip.
"The cleanup radius is about to get a little big. If you don't leave, I might not have enough cash left to cover your funeral expenses."
Seeing that Soren wasn't joking, Papa Midnight instantly abandoned the array, slung the collapsing Constantine over his shoulder, and bolted for the door.
As a businessman, he'd already gone above and beyond.
The moment the array lost its controller, the glowing chains binding Valak snapped like brittle glass.
Freed from suppression, Valak fully crossed the fissure. Its grotesque demonic body unfurled inside the room, wings spreading wide.
"I can smell it… millions of delicious souls in this city."
Valak took a greedy breath, forked tongue licking its lips. It looked down at the tiny human before it.
"As a reward for offering me these souls, I'll devour your flesh first and savor your despair."
Soren stood motionless, staring up at the arrogant Demon God in silence.
Papa Midnight had just dragged Constantine to the doorway when he saw the overwhelming demonic presence filling the room. He glanced back at Soren—only to find a white top hat now sitting on the kid's head.
He's still fixing his damn outfit at a time like this?!
A long red scarf materialized around Soren's neck. The excess length fluttered behind him like a cape.
Papa Midnight's merchant eyes locked onto the scarf instantly. He recognized the Franklin portraits printed all over it—actual U.S. currency.
"Run far," Soren said, one hand pressing down on the white hat brim. Crimson light exploded in his lowered eyes.
[Faust's Hat]
[Special Devil Arm]: Wealth is power.
[Sacrifice the wielder's currency (with limit) to unleash reality-altering destructive strikes.]
The instant the words left his mouth, the long scarf behind him began burning at an insane speed.
Outside.
Ed Warren held his unconscious wife, staring at the sky in horror.
The reporters who had been fighting for camera angles suddenly fell silent, as if someone had grabbed them all by the throat.
Every lens, every gaze, snapped upward.
At the top of the thunderclouds, an unstoppable force was brutally shoving the storm apart.
A colossal meteor—over fifty meters wide—trailed blood-red flames as it slowly descended toward them.
At the same time, inside a military base on the outskirts of Los Santos, air-defense radar alarms screamed nonstop.
"Sir! Radar has picked up an unknown high-energy signature! A meteor is falling directly over Los Santos!"
The operator pointed at the flashing red warning on the screen, voice shaking.
"What?!"
The commander shoved the man aside. "Why the hell didn't the weather bureau or near-Earth satellites give us any warning?!"
"Sir… the satellites captured a clear image. That meteor… its structure…"
Another officer handling satellite footage swallowed hard, pulled up the ultra-high-res feed, and looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"It appears… to be made of countless burning dollar bills?!"
"What the—?! Are you screwing with me right now?!"
The commander grabbed the man by the collar in fury, but the moment he saw the zoomed-in image, his entire body froze.
Beneath that meteor.
Soren stood before the Demon God.
He watched the spatial fissure behind Valak finally seal shut and pressed down harder on the hat brim.
"I hope that regeneration you're so proud of can keep up with how fast I burn money."
Valak looked up. Its arrogant expression vanished for the first time—replaced by genuine fear.
It stared at the blood-wrapped meteor. The sheer, tyrannical, brute-force dominance reminded it of the ancient Demon Swordsman who had once carved a path of corpses straight through Hell.
It wanted to flee.
But the meteor's terrifying aura had already locked onto it. The very air around Valak had turned into an invisible cage.
It couldn't move!
Valak let out an unwilling roar. Its demonic body swelled once more.
The two-headed dragon beneath it raised both heads, gathering world-destroying light in their throats, desperate to blast the meteor apart.
Soren would never give it the chance.
"Fall."
His lips moved.
WHOOSH—
The meteor turned into a blood-red comet that pierced heaven and earth, smashing down with unstoppable force!
Staring at the shadow that now filled its entire field of vision, pure instinctive terror flashed in Valak's eyes.
Trapped with nowhere to run, the Demon God roared in defiance. Even facing death, the dignity of one of the Seventy-Two Pillars would never bend.
"Human! You dare provoke the majesty of Hell?! Your soul will be dragged out and tortured for all eternity!"
"Really? Then you'd better pray you drop a decent Devil Arm when you die."
Soren gave a faint smile.
"Otherwise, all that money I just burned will have gone to waste."
Valak tried to say something more—maybe even detonate its own soul—but it realized with despair that, locked under the meteor's aura, it could do nothing but wait for death.
BOOM!
The instant the meteor struck,
the colossal dollar-bill meteor created by Faust's Hat transformed into pure destructive force the moment it touched Valak.
Even though Soren had tried to restrain the impact, the sheer pressure wave from its descent still erupted outward like a visible shockwave, centered on the Hudson house.
Every car and streetlight along the road was hurled away like plastic toys.
Papa Midnight, who had retreated only a short distance, clenched his teeth and shielded the unconscious Constantine with his body.
The voodoo bone necklace he had sacrificed over a hundred years to create flared with light, trying to block the wave.
CRACK—
It lasted barely a second. The light shattered. Papa Midnight sprayed a mouthful of fresh blood. Both men were sent flying like sacks, slamming into the rubble.
Dozens of water jets shot into the sky. Every window in the surrounding blocks exploded at once.
...
When the apocalyptic storm finally died down, sirens and alarms wailed across the district.
Papa Midnight pushed aside debris, trembling as he wiped dust from his face.
He looked up in a daze.
The entire street where the Hudson house once stood—along with several neighboring buildings—had completely vanished.
In its place was a smoking crater.
At the bottom of the pit.
Valak's wings were snapped. Every bone in its body was shattered.
Cut off from Hell's regeneration, the once-arrogant Demon God finally tasted the fear of death.
Soren walked over the rubble, Faust's Hat dissolving into light particles above his head.
He grabbed Valak's broken demonic body.
The demon god's venomous vertical pupils bored into Soren. Its voice came out broken and hoarse:
"In Hell… I will be waiting for the day Lord Mammon tears you apart…"
"No need to wait. I'll be coming for Mammon soon enough. You two can have a nice family reunion."
Soren looked at it.
Before Valak could speak again, purple demonic power surged down his arm and straight into its body.
BANG!
The Demon God vanished from the mortal world forever.