Upon seeing their companion's head pinned by the shotgun, the other aggressive White men instantly went silent. Even the bearded man's agonizing groans dropped several decibels.
"I haven't had lunch yet. If I blast your brains all over the place..." Seraphina said, one-handedly holding the shotgun with a casual ease. She tilted her head and pouted in distaste. "It'll really ruin my appetite."
"So, stay quiet. Got it?"
"OK, OK. Of course," the stout man stammered, his hands raised and a stiff smile plastered on his face.
The owner stepped out of the kitchen and, seeing the scene, gasped, her eyes widening in terror. "Ah!"
Seraphina turned to her with a smile. "Is that my set meal?"
The woman stopped her scream, looking stunned. "Uh... yes. It is."
"Great. Bring it over, then."
"Right... right."
With that, the meal was set before Seraphina: a plate of fried chicken nuggets, a vegetable salad, a side of rice, and a glass of lemonade.
"Uh..." Seraphina looked at the orange-glazed nuggets and turned to the owner, who was busy in the grocery section. "What is this?"
The woman turned and smiled. "Orange Chicken."
"...OK, fine." Seraphina pursed her lips, picked up a nugget with the metal chopsticks the owner had thoughtfully provided, and popped it into her mouth. She chewed with a difficult, indescribable expression.
It was Seraphina's most hated flavor: sweet and sour. She found the combination of sweetness and meat physically repulsive.
No choice.
She turned back and asked with a grin, "Hey, do you have hamburgers? The super spicy kind?"
As she spoke with the owner, the group of truckers sneakily slipped out of the diner. Before leaving, they glanced back at Seraphina, their eyes filled with malice.
After barely finishing her meal, Seraphina left the shop with a large bag of supplies, started her SUV, and continued her westward journey.
...
The heavy curtain of night fell, and the earth went to sleep. Pale starlight flickered on the horizon, the night sky as thick as ink over the endless desert on either side of Route 66. Aside from the chill, howling wind, only the occasional desolate howl of a wolf could be heard.
Seraphina was feeling tired from driving and decided to step out for some fresh air. She looked aimlessly around, her sharp vision revealing only a void of darkness, devoid of any vehicles or people.
Bold by nature, she wasn't afraid of the dark, peering into the gloom for several moments before returning to her car.
Back in the driver's seat, she opened a few bags of snacks and placed them on the passenger seat, picking up the old book she'd bought earlier, "The Summoning of Abaddon".
Reading the preface, she discovered it recorded six distinct methods for summoning demons into the mortal realm: the first four were for spirit possession, while the last two were for physical summoning.
Spirit manifestation, as the name implies, required the practitioner to act as a medium through meditation. By reciting secret incantations, one would summon a demonic spirit body to possess them.
According to the text, when a demonic spirit body appeared in reality, strange phenomena like chilling winds or objects levitating were common.
The book noted that these seemingly terrifying occurrences weren't the main point; the practitioner shouldn't overreact. What truly mattered was the relationship and state between the spirit body and the medium. The text described three possible scenarios.
The first was spirit communication: In this state, the medium remained fully conscious and could move freely. The only difference was the ability to communicate mentally with the spirit body, gaining insights or supernatural knowledge.
The second was possession: Here, the medium's body and will were completely overtaken by the spirit body. The entity could speak or write through the medium to relay information or perform extraordinary feats, like rotating their head 360 degrees, rapid hair growth, blood turning into acid, facial features inverting, breathing fire, telekinesis, levitation, superhuman strength, or invulnerability. Afterward, the medium usually had no memory of the event, and their vitality would be severely drained, often resulting in prolonged illness, permanent disability, or a vegetative state.
The third was a hybrid state: The medium's consciousness remained, but part of their body or mind was controlled by the spirit body, leading to involuntary abnormal behavior or speaking in tongues. Some spirit bodies used the medium's hand for "automatic writing," producing undecipherable texts. In fact, some occult works were written this way.
The physical summoning methods, however, were far more dangerous than spirit manifestation. They would bring a true, physical demon into reality. No one knew how to communicate with them, nor what horrors they would inflict upon the mortal realm once they arrived. It was only known that demons were never benevolent; they were filled with nothing but malice.
"Only an idiot would summon these unknown spirit bodies into their own body," Seraphine muttered, pursing her lips. "What if they don't want to leave?"
Cursing under her breath, she skipped to the latter half of the book. According to the table of contents, the two physical summoning methods were found there.
SWOOSH— SWOOSH—
Accompanied by the rustling of pages, Seraphine found the first physical summoning method, the Art of the Death-Gate Demon.
According to the records, this ritual requires a grotesque array of components. The primary materials include:
A pair of intact, sharp ram horns; the headless, limbless, and organless carcass of a juvenile crocodile; the complete entrails of a mature sow; a dried carcass of a female calico cat; and the skull of a male criminal with the crown removed.
Additionally, one must gather three ounces of mandrake root, a pound of sea salt stained with crow's blood, a pound of honey cursed by a wicked woman for three hours, ten drops of human oil, ten drops of one's own blood, fourteen pairs of bat wings, twenty rusted iron nails, and twenty pounds of graveyard soil.
The practitioner must arrange these materials before sunrise with absolute precision. Any error in measurement or placement will result in failure.
The procedure involves using the graveyard soil to draw a perfect circle on the ground. The crocodile carcass is placed at the center, with the pig entrails and the cat carcass stuffed inside its hollowed torso.
The sea salt, honey, human oil, and blood must be mixed in a bucket and poured into the crocodile's abdominal incision. The human skull is then placed at the stump of the crocodile's neck, with the ram horns fixed to the skull's missing crown using six rusted nails. Finally, the fourteen pairs of bat wings are nailed to the four limb stumps of the crocodile, three pairs on each forelimb and four on each hindlimb.
Throughout this process, the practitioner must continuously blaspheme against God in their native tongue without interruption. Once the effigy is complete, they must prostrate themselves and recite thirteen lines of Latin incantations without pause.
Furthermore, the ritual must take place in a desolate location, far from civilization, with no other human within a one-mile radius.
Once the rite is completed, the graveyard soil becomes the "Death Gate," and the macabre construct serves as the physical "vessel" for the demon to manifest in the mortal realm. Though tedious, the text claims this method grants the demon maximum mana while effectively binding its behavior, preventing it from harming the summoner.
"This summoning art feels truly vile," Seraphina whispered, her brow furrowing. "It feels... deeply sacrilegious."
Turning the page, she looked at the sixth and final secret method. Though categorized as physical, it was actually a hybrid of manifestation and physical summoning.
Its name: Malice Accumulation.
This final method requires no physical materials, only a hexagram drawn on the back of the hand in black pigment, accompanied by a lengthy Latin incantation.
Unlike previous rituals, this art demands an exceptionally strong soul and psyche from the practitioner; it is not effective for everyone. Once activated, it must quickly absorb a large amount of malice—specifically, the hatred directed toward the summoner by wicked individuals.
When saturated, the hexagram on the hand will fill with crimson, becoming a black-outlined star on a red background. At this point, by reciting the final summoning tone, a demon from the depths of Hell will manifest upon the practitioner as a semi-spiritual, semi-physical entity.
The summoner remains conscious, but their body is controlled by the demon until the crimson within the hexagram is completely depleted.
"It sounds so real. Can it actually summon a demon?"
Consumed by curiosity, a skeptical Seraphina pulled a black marker from the glove compartment. Following the book's illustration, she carefully drew a black hexagram on the back of her left hand. Then, eyes fixed on the text, she recited the broken Latin incantation:
"Abiit dies, nox sine stellis cadit. Obliti homines, qui misericordiam perdiderunt, pessimum malum mundi bibere volunt; acerbissima miscentes, omni bonitate speque relicta, fores irae aperiunt, super vallem nigram stantes, in foveam miseriae aeternae cadentes."
As the final syllable left her lips, her mind suddenly blurred.
HUMM—
In a daze, her surroundings twisted and dissolved into a boundless, dark landscape. She saw tens of thousands of massive volcanoes spewing lava and countless dark abysses scarring the earth. Within the haze, Seraphina even heard the layered, countless shrieks and roars echoing from those depths.
The sounds were neither human nor beast, but more like the vengeful spirits of nightmares.
"Wh-wh-what is this..." She stared around in a daze, her mind going blank. Just as she was about to panic, the terrifying vision shattered. Reality returned.
"Phew—"
The girl let out a long sigh of relief. "Was that... an illusion? It felt so real. Gosh, I'm being silly. This world is materialist; how could there be demons?"
Shaking off the momentary shock, she reached for the ignition, ready to leave. Just then...
FLASH—
A blindingly bright white light cut through the gloom ahead, engulfing the SUV.
"Huh?" She let go of the steering wheel, squinting toward the distant light. Then, a second spotlight hit.
A third spotlight hit, then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh...
Over twenty blinding beams of light converged from every direction, surrounding Seraphina's SUV in a tight perimeter.
CLICK! CLACK!
From the source of the first light, a sudden, ear-splitting burst of static erupted from a megaphone.
COUGH-COUGH-COUGH!
The shrill feedback died down, followed by the sound of coughing.
Seraphina squinted toward the glare and caught the silhouette of a man in a cowboy hat standing beside the spotlight. Seeing the girl looking his way, he laughed and raised the megaphone:
"Good evening, little beauty."
The lights dimmed slightly, and Seraphina focused her gaze. It was one of the White men she'd had the confrontation with at noon. That meant the other lights were...
"OK, looks like you recognize me," the man said with a wide, smug grin, speaking leisurely into the megaphone. "That's right. It's us."
As he finished speaking, the surrounding lights accelerated, closing the distance and boxing her SUV in. The girl looked around coldly, realizing every spotlight came from a pickup truck. There were twenty-five in total, each with a burly man in a cowboy hat holding a double-barreled shotgun.
Among them was the bearded man who had provoked her earlier; his arm was now in a cast.
At that moment, the back of Seraphina's hand began to burn.
"Huh?"
She looked down and saw the hollow black outlines of the hexagram on her hand were beginning to fill with mottled crimson. The red was spreading at a visible rate, rapidly covering the entire pattern.
Her eyes widened, her mind racing.
The magic is real? There really is a Hell and demons in this world? What kind of entity is a demon?
Malice... a massive surge of malice... from the wicked...
She raised an eyebrow and looked toward the bearded man with the broken arm. Noticing her cold gaze, he grew visibly excited. His eyes were filled with pure venom as he smirked and flipped her the middle finger, mouthing the word: "Bitch!"
HUMM—
A surge of boiling malice, like a stream of hot water, flowed into the hexagram on her hand.
"Ah."
The corners of her mouth curled into a slight smirk. Looking at the crimson specks rapidly filling the star on her hand, she gave a dismissive laugh. "A bunch of idiots."
From ahead, the arrogant voice blared again:
"Hahaha, looks like my friends are getting impatient. Honestly, girl, you've got a cute face. Usually, we'd lock a trophy like you in a basement and play with her for half a month before finishing her off."
The man with the megaphone laughed loudly. "It's a shame, really, girl. But since you offended us today, you won't live to see that half-month. You're going to pay for your insolence right now."
"Oh? How so?" Seraphina asked, standing by the car and giving her shotgun a slight shake.
In response, every White man on the scene tightened their grip on their shotguns, leveling them at her. A surge of fierce malice added another splash of crimson to the hexagram on her hand. Visually, the "blood-red" had already filled more than half of it.
"Ooh, ooh!"
The first man shook his head, clucking his tongue. "You shouldn't be holding a gun, little girl. Don't you know? That's not for an inferior race like yours."
"Besides, you've only got one gun, and there are over twenty of us. We're more than enough to blow you into a pulp, hahaha!"
After his laughter died down, he said with cold brutality, "Honestly, we haven't hunted anyone of color in a long time. So thank you, girl. Thank you for showing up."
HUMM—
A wave of intense malice surged forward, turning into streaks of "blood-red" that instantly filled the hexagram on her hand.
"The entitlement is sickening," Seraphina sneered, feeling the heat on her hand and the sudden tremor in her soul. She let out a cold laugh. "You trash... I don't have time for cowboy games. Open your eyes and savor your final night on Earth."
Her expression turned icy as she spoke in a low, sharp tone:
"Ego sum Beatrix, mundum odi, et mala sum. Furens rideo, et infernum arcesso!"
HUMM—
The chilling wind froze. The swirling dust hung suspended in mid-air. The vicious grins of the men locked onto their faces.
The world suddenly went silent.
In that eerie stillness, Seraphine glimpsed the dark night sky before her suddenly split open, revealing a portal that transcended the world.
TING!
A soft chime.
The portal swung open, and out stepped a man with an extraordinary, handsome face. Yet his aura was anything but human; he felt like an ancient demon from another age. This mesmerising stranger gave her a cold glance.
Then, as if discovering something, he looked slightly surprised for a fleeting moment.
With an enigmatic smile, the man blurred and distorted, transforming into a stream of black light that appeared both pure and foul. This light streaked across the night sky, drenching every inch of Seraphine's flesh and every spark of her soul.
In the moment the black light merged with her, Seraphine felt a power that was simultaneously searing and freezing. It was a force that commanded both profound reverence and absolute terror, as if the entity were both a god and a devil.
"Is this... is this..." she thought, her shock beyond words. "The demon from Hell?!"
"Fascinating... such familiar ripples of Spirituality," a cold, biting voice, like a wind from the South Pole, echoed within her mind. "Seraphine... Ninth... Federation... Aurenthal Group. Hahaha, so this is what they call a counterpart."
As the layers of black light saturated her, Seraphine felt as if she were sinking into a freezing abyss.
"Within your seemingly refined and gentle heart, Seraphine, a demon has always lurked. You can deceive your friends, your family, but you can never deceive yourself. You know that love, marriage, family... they mean nothing to you. You've always hungered to trample life, to leave fields of corpses, to slaughter millions... to destroy everything."
"This is the real you. You were never meant to be a simple, ordinary woman. You were just waiting for a chance, a chance to truly transcend a mundane life. Now, I'm giving you that chance. Release the demon within. Let her out, master her, become her!"
HUMM!
Threads of dark, eerie power flowed into Seraphine's soul like cold undercurrents, brutally unearthing the most terrifying violence, malice, and demonic nature hidden deep within her heart.
In the physical world.
CRACK! CLICK! SNAP!
Suddenly, a massive burst of pitch-black smoke erupted from Seraphine's motionless body. Along with this dense black fog, her slender form began to distort and mutate. Long, dark tentacles as hard as steel cables pierced through her skin, lashing out wildly and churning the air with a series of shrill whistles.
HISS!
Ten thousand tentacles, like swarms of nimble, dark vipers, entwined and wove together. In a heartbeat, they solidified into jagged plates of pitch-black, shimmering obsidian-like armor, encasing Seraphine from head to toe.
As over twenty men watched in stunned, vacant disbelief, the girl's form became anything but human.
BOOM!
A wave of absolute psychic dread erupted from her, sweeping outward in every direction. This massive, violent mental field was saturated with a cold, abyssal darkness and a trace of ultimate madness.
Stung by this terrifying aura, every heart on the scene raced in panic. They stared at the swirling black mists enveloping Seraphine.
WHOOSH!
The black smoke slowly cleared. Under the horrified, trembling gazes of the men, the transformed Seraphine slowly raised her head.
Her mouth had split open to her ears, revealing a maw filled with jagged, needle-like teeth. Thick, scalding steam drifted from her throat. Within the grotesquely swollen, purple-white sockets on her elongated face, hundreds of greyish-white veins pulsed and coiled across her neck, arms, legs, and chest.
Her slender frame was now covered in teardrop-shaped armored plates. From a distance, she radiated an aura of pure carnage, savagery, and demonic malice. She was no longer a human, but a monster.
"A-a-ah!" The bearded man frantically crossed himself over and over. "This... this... I must be dreaming!"
The man with the megaphone stammered, his eyes bulging. "You... you... are you a devil?!"
"Heh... heh... hahaha!" Seraphine's sharp, malicious laughter seemed to echo from the pits of Hell. "To you, I am the devil."
The next instant, an even more violent psychic pressure slammed into the trembling trash before her. Several men with weaker wills simply collapsed, their bowels losing control as they hit the ground.
"Are you ready? The hunting hour..." Seraphine extended her long, clawed fingers and crouched slightly, a brutal smile on her face. "...begins!"
BOOM!
She shattered the asphalt with a single step, crossing a hundred meters in a flash. She slammed into the cowboy with the megaphone, her kick striking his spine with crushing force.
CRUNCH! SNAP! SPLAT!
Blood sprayed as bone and flesh disintegrated.
"Aaargh!!" A piercing scream tore through the night.
Nearby men scrambled to raise their guns, but before they could fire, black tendrils lashed out like whips, knocking them to the ground. In a series of wet thuds, several heads were brutally whipped into paste.
"Ah! You! Demon! Devil!!" With his pelvis shattered into meat and only half his body remaining, the cowboy spewed blood, staring ahead in disbelief.
Seraphina, once an ordinary girl, walked slowly out of the dark. Seeing his pupils trembling with shock, she giggled. "Confused? Despairing? Well, take it all to Hell with you."
With that, she grabbed his skull and hurled him into a nearby, dazed White man.
CRUNCH! SNAP! SPLAT!
The unlucky man was instantly crushed, his bones shattering as blood sprayed, mixing with the mangled remains of the first man into a blur of gore. To the demonized Seraphina, normal humans were as fragile as paper, easily torn apart.
SWOOSH! SWOOSH! SWOOSH!
A dozen bullets fired from every direction struck Seraphina, but none could even pierce her skin.
"ROAR!!"
She suddenly whirled her head around and snarled, her right arm swinging out a thick tendril bristling with sharp, jagged spikes. From a distance, she swept through several of the cowboys who were firing at her, cutting them in half. Flesh and bone flew; blood soaked the ground.
"By God!"
The bearded man, standing further away, was completely paralyzed by the bloody scene unfolding before him. He scrambled back into his truck, his hands trembling as he tried to start the ignition to flee, only to find the vehicle wouldn't budge. He spun his head around and nearly died of fright.
There stood the demon-woman, her hand gripping the rear bumper. She tilted her head, staring at him through the rear window, her voice sharp and eerie.
"What's the matter? The party's just started: are you leaving already?"
The bearded man's face went bloodless as he shook his head frantically. "No! No! I was wrong! I'll never do it again! Please, I beg you, spare my life!"
SNAP!
She effortlessly crushed the bumper.
"Spare you?" Seraphina looked down at him. "Ask yourself... if the roles were reversed, would you spare me?!"
"Huh?" The man froze.
"ROAR!!"
Seraphina let out a thunderous roar. The violent acoustic wave swept over him, bursting his eardrums. He tumbled out of the truck with a piercing scream, rolling on the ground.
THUD!
She crushed his head with a single step. Seraphina's claws dug into the asphalt as she leaped dozens of meters, snatching up a stout man who had dropped his shotgun and was trying to run. It was the same man she'd held at gunpoint earlier.
"No! No! Spare me!"
Relishing the pure terror on his face, Seraphina giggled. "So, how does it feel to be the prey?"
The man shook his head wildly, sobbing. "I didn't mean it! I'll never do it again! Please, let me go!"
"I asked you how it felt to be hunted, and you're giving me all this nonsense?" Seraphina curled her clawed finger and flicked it against his forehead.
THUD!
The man's expression locked. His forehead caved in deeply, blood and brain matter erupting from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
"Oh God!"
"Lord, I beg You, descend and cast out this devil!!"
"God! Save me!"
Seraphina tossed the corpse aside as the cowboys' terrified screams echoed around her. Her eyes flashed with a cold light. "God? Hahaha!"
She scanned the frantically fleeing White trash and sneered. "Where is your God at this moment? Call Him out, then!"
With that, she leaped into the air, lunging viciously toward the screaming men.
"Aaargh!!"
"Someone help me!!"
"Spare me! Spare me!!"
The desolate night was torn by howls of pain and the wet sounds of slaughter. Crimson shadows danced and black light flickered in the dark. These men, who had likely hunted untold numbers of victims, died silently and alone in a forgotten corner of the wilderness.
...
In the early morning, after several hours of driving, Seraphina crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and entered Sanisco. She'd changed into a red jacket and slim-fit pants. Her original clothes had been shredded during her transformation and were left behind in the desert.
Driving leisurely, Seraphina glanced at the hexagram on her hand, which had returned to its original state. She tentatively asked in her mind:
"Demon-lady... are you still there?"
Silence.
No reply.
"Uh..." The girl hesitated, then asked again, "Demon-lady, can I still use that... form from before?"
"You can," a faint voice resonated deep within her soul. "The embers of rage remain in your heart. Whenever you desire, they can break through the boundaries of mind and body to manifest in the material world. But to stir those embers, you must absorb malice: it is both the nourishment for your growth and the fuel for your power."
"I see..." Seraphina didn't fully grasp the words, but she understood she could use that power at any time.
Thinking back on the slaughter, she felt a bit dazed. Was that really me? How could I be so brutal?
Stranger still, despite having killed and dismembered so many people in such a horrific fashion, she didn't feel a shred of nausea or fear. Am I a natural-born sociopath? she wondered.
Yet, reflecting on the sheer exhilaration of the slaughter, she found herself captivated. It felt as if all restraints had been cast aside: total freedom, total abandon.
Deep within Seraphina's soul, Seraphine's power projection ceased its analysis of the Root Spirituality of this potential counterpart.
The result:
She was both a counterpart and not.