West Virginia, a forest highway.
A stylish convertible zoomed past.
As a minor local celebrity, Kimberly was arriving in this remote mountainous area today as an invited guest to film a wilderness survival reality show.
Truthfully, she looked down on this production, which radiated cheapness from every angle.
A grassroots director who had just graduated, paired with a few college students scouted from campus - what could they possibly film that would be worth anything?
With her looks and talent, her future stage should be the star-studded Hollywood, not eating dirt in some godforsaken backwater where you couldn't even get a signal.
The pop music playing on the car radio suddenly turned into a burst of harsh static.
"What a dump. Not even a bar of signal."
Disgust written all over her face, Kimberly suddenly regretted spending the money on such a high-end makeup job.
She reached out and looked down at the center console, wanting to turn off the irritating noise.
In that moment of distraction -
Thud!
A dark shadow flew directly over the open top of the convertible.
Did I hit someone?!
Kimberly's face went pale with fright as she slammed on the brakes.
Panic-stricken, she pushed open the car door, instinctively reaching for her phone to dial 911.
But on this desolate road in the middle of nowhere, there wasn't a hint of a signal; the emergency call wouldn't go through at all.
Not far behind the car, the figure that had been sent flying lay motionless in the middle of the road.
Kimberly forced herself to suppress her terror and stepped forward. When she clearly saw the person's face, her stomach did a violent flip -
This person's eyes were misaligned, one high and one low, his mouth was crooked, and even his nose seemed to have a mind of its own. It was hard to imagine this was a human being.
Just looking at him made her feel incredibly nauseous, but the thought that her star career would be utterly ruined if a hit-and-run scandal were exposed drove her forward.
Trembling, Kimberly reached out her hand, intending to check for a pulse to see if he could be saved.
In that split second, the previously unconscious deformed man snapped his eyes open.
Moving like a zombie, he lunged and tightly pinned Kimberly, biting down savagely on her jaw.
"AAAAHHH!!!"
A blood-curdling scream shattered the silence of the forest.
Kimberly struggled desperately, her hands clawing frantically at the deformed man's skin.
Tear -
Her jaw was ripped clean away.
Her mind went blank. Enduring the agonizing pain, she stumbled toward the sports car, her only thought to escape this place immediately.
But to her horror, another deformed man was standing by the car.
He held a blood-stained fire axe, standing quietly by the driver's side door.
Kimberly stood frozen in despair, her shadow split in two under the sunlight.
—--
Los Santos, International Airport.
"No commission? Alright then, talk to you later." Sephirot frowned and put his phone away.
He had already purchased his ticket for West Virginia.
He had only made that call to double-check if the authorities had posted a bounty or commission regarding the disappearances in West Virginia.
If they had, he could have earned a payout from both sides.
He recalled the experience Nico had described yesterday in front of the Agency -
While she was driving past a certain primordial forest in West Virginia, the magic detector in her van had reacted.
She later learned that a large number of backpackers and tourists had gone missing in that area, leading her to conclude that there was a high probability of a demon being present.
Nico wanted Sephirot to make the trip and bring back the demon's corpse to use as research material.
In return, she promised not only to buy back the corpse at a high price but also to personally forge a Devil Arm tailored specifically for Sephirot.
Of course, Sephirot would have to provide the materials himself.
At the same time, a system quest in his mind confirmed that Nico's deduction was correct.
[Ding!]
[Side Quest Triggered: Ritual of the Black Forest]
[Quest Description: In the depths of the forest sea of West Virginia, an ancient dark presence has taken root. Here, the decay of the flesh is worshipped as a divine blessing; they fanatically breed deformed fetuses, using imperfection and the grotesque as a means to please the forest in exchange for savage power.]
[Quest Objective: Locate the demon within the forest and kill it.]
[Quest Reward: 2000 points]
[Bloodline awakening degree increased by 2%]
What puzzled him was that the internet had been buzzing with discussions about these incidents for a long time.
Strangely, however, the authorities had never issued any kind of response. They weren't controlling the narrative, deleting posts, or even issuing a symbolic public notice.
The result of the file search he had commissioned from a friend at the police station was the same: there were no records of any operations in that region.
For a moment, he couldn't quite tell if it was because the location was too remote and the local state government simply didn't care to intervene.
Or... was it intentionally left open to lure the overly curious into exploring and meeting their deaths?
Just then, not far away.
A burst of heated arguing caught his attention.
"FUCK! Let go of me!"
"I told you the plane is going to explode! Why won't you believe me?!"
A group of five or six people was being forcibly shoved out of the boarding gate by air marshals, drawing stares from the surrounding travelers.
In the center of the group was a young man wearing a plaid shirt.
His face was drenched in sweat, and his eyes were filled with terror. "I saw it in a dream! Every detail!"
The man in the shirt gestured incoherently with his hands.
"Once the plane takes off, the cabin will start to shake, the left wing will fall off, and then the plane will explode..."
"I really did dream all of it!"
Beside him, an older woman was trying to calm him down. She appeared to be the group's teacher.
Another young man in a white T-shirt did not share her patience. He rushed forward, grabbing the man in the dress shirt by the collar and roaring, "Because of your stupid dream, we're going to be half a day late reaching Paris! Are you going to cover the cost of these tickets?!"
As the two shoved each other, several surrounding students and security personnel hurried over to break up the fight.
Boom!
Just as the scene descended into total chaos, a deafening explosion suddenly erupted from above the airport.
The floor-to-ceiling windows of the departure hall shattered instantly, sending countless glass shards blasting into the interior like a torrential rainstorm.
"Ahhh!!!"
Panic gripped the hall as every traveler and staff member instinctively crouched on the floor, shielding their heads.
Amidst this turmoil, only Sephirot remained sitting quietly in his chair.
His eyelid flickered as he watched the fireball in the sky outside the window.
Final Destination?
This really was a mess.
If West Virginia hadn't been so far away, he wouldn't have considered taking a plane at all.
For someone who couldn't fly yet, leaving the ground meant handing his life over to this amateur crew at the airport.
If something happened high in the sky, he could only try to rely on Air Hike and a well-timed double jump to reset his fall damage upon landing.
Forget it. He'd just rent a car and drive the whole way; it would be more dependable.
Sephirot thought it over and eventually let out a sigh.
—--
In the depths of the primeval forest in West Virginia.
Two deformed men were moving through the woods, each dragging half of a corpse.
As they ventured deeper, the surrounding landscape began to undergo an eerie transformation.
The once-lush trees became desiccated, their bark peeling away and their trunks turning pitch black, as if they had been scorched into charcoal.
After walking for a short while, a small wooden cabin appeared ahead.
Eight torches burning with flames were planted around the cabin's perimeter.
The deformed men stopped, pieced together the corpse they had been dragging, and laid it respectfully at the cabin's entrance.
A moment later, the wooden door opened, and a darkness as thick as ink slowly spilled out.
Even though it was daytime, and even with the surrounding torches providing light, not a single beam could penetrate this darkness.
A pair of small, pale hands darted out from the dark, grabbed the corpse on the ground, and dragged it into the endless void, followed by the sound of gnawing.
Seeing the corpse disappear, the deformed men kneeling on the ground stood up excitedly, performing a bizarre dance while shouting and hooting.
—--
A few days later.
Sephirot held the steering wheel with one hand and a phone with absolutely no signal in the other, feeling somewhat speechless.
"What garbage infrastructure..."
In America, as long as you strayed slightly from the cities and headed into sparsely populated areas, mobile signals vanished completely, and sometimes even the built-in navigation would stop working.
He picked up the paper map from the passenger seat, carefully comparing the surrounding landmarks.
It should be around here.
Although he couldn't obtain the exact coordinates of that demon, as long as he headed toward areas with high disappearance rates, he was bound to find clues.
Whiz!
A small whistling sound of breaking air suddenly came from the heights to the left of the road.
Hiss -
The sound of leaking air hissed from the front-left tire, and the car's body tilted along with it.
Fortunately, Sephirot had been driving at an idle speed to check the map. The car only jolted slightly before coming to a steady stop at the side of the road.
He got out of the car and looked at the flat tire. Without even turning his head, he caught another incoming arrow, his face full of annoyance:
"I'm going to have to pay for damages again!"
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES - CROSSOVER GUIDE
Some references in this chapter come from source universes that may be unfamiliar to some readers. The notes below are here to help readers unfamiliar with these universes follow along more easily.
Crossover References
Final Destination - A horror film franchise centered on the concept of Death's design. In these films, protagonists escape a catastrophic disaster (plane crash, highway pileup, etc.) due to a premonition, only to be hunted down by Death itself, which eliminates survivors in the order they would have originally died. The series is known for elaborate Rube Goldberg-style death sequences. In this story, Sephirot witnesses the aftermath of a Final Destination-style event at Los Santos International Airport, where a would-be passenger's premonition leads to him being removed from the flight moments before it explodes.
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Bonus chapter @50power stones, ty for your support