"…Me?"
Carrie turned back in shock, looking at Sephirot with a panicked expression.
"No… I can't do it…"
But the only response she received was the heavy thud of the door closing.
Carrie pounded on the wooden door in despair, but there was no reply.
She turned her head hopelessly toward those hideous demons.
Fear washed over her like a tidal wave.
At school, facing the wanton bullying and ridicule of her classmates, her heart was filled more with a desperate rage and humiliation.
That rage allowed her to subconsciously trigger the telekinesis within her body.
But now, facing these monsters that looked like they had crawled out of a horror movie, fear, to a mere student, was like a mountain, crushing any will to resist.
Several half-breed demons had already shed their human disguises.
Their mouths split open to their ears as they bared blood-red maws, closing in on her step by step.
Carrie's legs gave out, and she slumped onto the concrete floor. She clutched her head tightly with both hands, curling her body into a small ball.
One demon, its head dangling at its chest, opened its massive teeth and lunged at Carrie.
At the very moment its teeth were about to touch her, a Greatsword burst through the door, piercing straight through the demon's skull and pinning it to the opposite wall.
The demon dissipated into black mist.
Sephirot stepped out from the doorway and looked down at the huddled Carrie, letting out a sigh.
He had intended to use this life-or-death environment to push her, forcing her to feel the power within her body.
But now, it seemed he had failed.
"Looks like this method isn't working… Let's take it slow."
He picked Carrie up and threw her back into the cistern room.
Sephirot pulled the pinned thunder sword from the wall, sheathed it, and drew two uniquely shaped deer blades.
He looked at the terrified demons on either side, his lips curling into a smirk:
"Let me play with you."
Hearing these arrogant words, the demons craned their necks and roared, trying to intimidate the man before them with their aura.
But in the next second, a head with its mouth still open flew high into the air, blood gushing out and staining the ceiling pitch black.
After shearing off one head, Sephirot didn't pause for a moment, crashing directly into the pack of demons like a tiger among sheep.
In the narrow corridor, the twin blades whipped up a localized storm of blood and gore.
These monsters, who usually relied on their Demonic Bloodline to act with absolute impunity and slaughter ordinary humans at will, couldn't even withstand a single strike from Sephirot.
Wherever the twin blades passed, severed limbs fell like rain.
A few minutes later, the last demon was cut down by Sephirot, turning to ash as it vanished.
There wasn't a single demon left standing in the area.
Sephirot stowed the deer blade into Silent Hill.
Papa Midnite, who had been hiding in the room the entire time, watched the corridor filled with unrecognizable remains, his throat bobbing as he swallowed hard.
He suppressed the horror in his heart: "Now… can I leave?" "It's not like I'm stopping you. You're the one who ran back here."
Sephirot turned his head and shot him a look, the red glow in his eyes gradually fading.
The look made the hair on Papa Midnite's neck stand on end. He didn't dare move for a moment, terrified that this maniac had lost himself to bloodlust and might turn his blade on him next.
Even though he carried the curse of eternal life and could not be killed, he couldn't escape the agony of being hacked to death.
He subconsciously rubbed his bald head. Memories of the last time this kid blew his brains out came flooding back, even causing a twinge of phantom pain.
Seeing that Sephirot wasn't going to strike, Papa Midnite let out an instinctive breath and turned to walk toward the other side of the corridor.
He didn't want to stay in this cursed place for a single second longer.
"Wait."
Just as Papa Midnite reached the corner, the voice from behind made his entire body tense up, his skin crawling.
Sephirot had suddenly remembered something.
Although Mammon was descending here, the ritual was being orchestrated by the Archangel Gabriel.
Where would he hide when the time came?
If he hid too far away, he wouldn't be able to kill Mammon at its weakest moment.
If he hid too close, Gabriel would surely discover him.
He needed a way to deceive the other's senses.
And Papa Midnite, a master of voodoo, was bound to have some strange artifacts that could pull it off.
"Do you have anything special that can hide someone from the senses of angels?" Sephirot asked.
Realizing he wasn't about to be attacked, Papa Midnite relaxed his rigid posture slightly.
He turned his head stiffly. "What kind of angel are we talking about?"
There were vast differences between angels.
Even among two-winged angels, the gap could be enormous.
The angel Sephirot had previously imprisoned in Silent Hill was merely a low-level grunt from the bottom of Heaven's ranks, a common sentry.
Above him, there were only Michael, the fallen Lucifer, and Metatron.
But Michael and Metatron never deigned to descend to the human world.
In other words, unless some other entity intervened, Gabriel was the literal ceiling of power on this planet.
It was only natural for the man to look so terrified.
"You might as well just chop my head off right now!" Papa Midnite roared, reaching his breaking point.
"Don't be scared. No matter Gabriel's rank as an angel, the form descending to Earth is just a mortal vessel."
Sephirot walked over and patted him on the shoulder. "Locked within this mortal frame, Gabriel has barely a fraction of their true power left. Besides, we're only masking ourselves from their perception, so what are you afraid of?"
He wasn't lying. In the film, Gabriel's manifested form possessed only two wings, and even Constantine had the nerve to act out in their presence.
Clearly, it was merely a fragment of consciousness descending upon Earth.
"..."
Papa Midnite fell silent. Having spent years walking the edge between the human world and Hell, he had encountered countless individuals.
At this moment, he felt a chilling dread.
He had never seen a madman bold enough to scheme against an angel.
It felt like watching a mortal poke and prod at a nuclear warhead about to detonate; not only was the man completely unafraid, he seemed intent on carving "I was here" into the casing.
"What do you want me to do?"
Downtown Los Santos was bustling.
An unexpected downpour began to sweep through the sky, washing the streets clean.
A sedan pulled slowly to a stop through the veil of rain.
"Cough, cough..."
Inside the car, Constantine covered his mouth and crumpled a blood-stained handkerchief into a ball, tossing it aside.
He then fished out his lighter and expertly lit a cigarette.
Seated in the passenger side, Angela stared intently at the building across the street.
Since her psychic gift had been restored, the city looked entirely different through her eyes.
In her vision, a mass of black aura, which no amount of rain could wash away, was coiled atop the roof of the office building.
Click.
The car doors locked.
Angela turned back, glaring at Constantine as he exhaled a cloud of white smoke. "Open the door!"
"Isabel's death is definitely connected to the bastard in there. I'm going to catch him myself!"
"Stay in the car and wait for me. There's a Magic circle inside that can shield you from external detection."
Constantine took one last drag of his cigarette.
He didn't look at Angela, instead turning to grab his weapon from the back seat: the Holy Shotgun.
He slid the breech open and began loading specialized gold-cast shells, one by one.
"The things inside aren't something you can handle with a handgun."
Constantine pushed the door open, the wind and rain tousling his hair.
"Going up there like that wouldn't accomplish anything, except giving them a tasty little snack."