Security & Containment Center.
Inside the cold monitoring room, indicator lights flickered across the screens.
Suddenly, one monitor flashed a blood-red warning.
"Sir! Texas asset #312 has been eliminated."
A researcher stared at the spiking data on his screen.
"Newt County? The one with the chainsaw?"
Strack stood at the console, his face expressionless.
"Let me guess. Was it that demon hunter named Soren? Or the witch Bayonetta?"
"I—it was Soren."
The researcher stammered as his hands kept moving, pulling up the hidden camera feed.
On the screen, Soren killed the asset #312 demon with a single slash. The aftershock even tore half the house apart.
Strack watched the footage in silence.
"Compile his recent movements, every person he's contacted, and a prediction of his next route. Package it and send it upstairs."
"As for the man himself, leave him alone for now."
The researcher hesitated. "But if the higher-ups come down on us for this—"
"The last supervisor who liked making his own decisions was named Westen, wasn't he?"
Strack turned his cold gaze on the researcher. "He's currently being fed to demons. Or would you like to join him as an extra meal?"
Night.
A van rolled down an empty highway, its yellow headlights pushing back the darkness.
"What the hell is going on? Why are we driving through the night like this?"
A couple in the back kept complaining.
They had been in the middle of a very good time inside the old house when Jerry and Sally burst in, faces white with terror, and dragged everyone out without explanation. No matter how much the couple asked, Jerry and Sally refused to say a word. They just kept screaming that they had to leave right now.
After a while the complaints died down.
The couple leaned into each other and started whispering.
The van fell into an uneasy silence, broken only by the engine and the wind outside.
Jerry's hands were locked tight on the steering wheel. Every few seconds he glanced at the rearview mirror, checking on the white-haired man in the back seat. The moment Soren shifted even slightly, Jerry's whole body twitched.
He was terrified that Soren might get annoyed and give him the same treatment he had given the cannibal brothers.
Sally sat with her arms wrapped around herself, curled up in the passenger seat and staring blankly out the window.
In the very back, Franklin sat in his wheelchair, hardly daring to breathe. He was doing everything he could to make himself invisible.
Of everyone here, he had spent the most time with Soren. He knew better than anyone just how dangerous the man really was. The fact that Soren had calmly helped him out of the van earlier still felt like a miracle.
None of them could treat Soren like an ordinary hitchhiker anymore.
In their eyes, the man who called himself a private detective was a hundred times more terrifying than the masked butcher with the chainsaw.
Soren sat quietly in his seat, watching the dark landscape slide past. He let out a soft sigh.
He had tried to keep things normal with them. Instead he had only managed to terrify them even more than the monsters had.
After he finished off the rest of Leatherface's twisted family, Jerry and Sally's nerves had completely snapped. They found gas in the basement and insisted on leaving immediately. At least they were still too scared to abandon him on the side of the road.
Soren closed his eyes and pushed the thought away.
He thought back to the Dimensional Slash he had used upstairs with the Shura Blade. The results had been better than expected. The destructive power was excellent. Most demons wouldn't survive it. Even a lord-class demon would take serious damage.
And that was just the basic version.
If he used his exclusive talent—Overdrive Armament—to compress his demonic power to the absolute limit, the damage would multiply dramatically. The downside was that it burned through weapons fast, sometimes destroying them completely. But in a life-or-death fight, it was a powerful trump card.
Only the living got to worry about equipment loss.
A system notification suddenly appeared in his mind.
[Ding!]
[Detected legitimate income: $10,000,000]
[Side Quest: Debt-Ridden Sparda — Progress updated.]
[Current progress: $22,500,000 / $100,000,000]
[$10,000,000 automatically deducted from debt. Reward: 10x Devil Arm draws.]
Soren's eyes opened slightly. Angela's house money had finally come through.
This time the system didn't offer him any choices like it had before. Either his bloodline no longer needed that kind of breakthrough, or his current awakening percentage wasn't high enough to trigger it.
"System. Draw."
No wheel appeared. After a short pause, a string of notifications flooded his mind.
[Obtained weapon: Ebony & Ivory]
[Obtained weapon: Agni & Rudra]
[Obtained weapon: Nevan]
[————]
Soren frowned.
Besides the first few weapons, the rest were just ordinary firearms—revolvers, sniper rifles, even Lady's multi-purpose rocket launcher. Heavy weapons like that were basically useless to him now.
He hadn't been hoping for something on the level of the Yamato experience card again, but a sword like Rebellion wouldn't have been too much to ask.
Apparently that was asking for too much.
He shook his head and focused on the pair of pistols now resting in his system space.
Ebony and Ivory. He knew these guns well. Nico's grandmother had built them. Dante had personally assembled and upgraded them. They were his favorite weapons—Ebony for overwhelming fire rate and suppression, Ivory for massive single-shot damage and long-range precision. Fast and heavy. Perfect for handling most demons without Dante even needing to get involved.
Then there was Agni & Rudra.
He hadn't expected to pull the twin blades of fire and wind. Dante had found them too chatty and eventually sold them to Enzo. That didn't mean they were weak. The red blade, Agni, commanded flame. The blue blade, Rudra, commanded wind. Together they created devastating firestorms that were excellent for clearing groups of enemies.
"Just hope they keep their mouths shut when I use them," Soren thought. "Otherwise I'll have to shove so much demonic power into them they'll learn to be quiet real fast."
As for Nevan…
An electric guitar-shaped Devil Arm.
He couldn't picture himself in the middle of a serious fight suddenly pulling out a guitar and starting to play. He especially couldn't picture himself swinging it like a club to smash demons.
He wasn't nearly as flashy as Dante. The idea of turning a battlefield into his own personal rock concert was a step too far.
That particular Devil Arm could stay in storage collecting dust.
A small, nervous voice broke through his thoughts.
"Um…"
Jerry swallowed hard and glanced at the rearview mirror again.
"Soren… sir. Where should we head next?"
The van kept rolling through the dark.