"Hand over the Contract!"
Blackheart's roar tore through the ruins of San Venganza. Shadows rippled from him like a storm, black energy bleeding into the crumbling village stones.
Soren barely looked up.
He stood beneath the faint glow of dawn, lazily turning the Contract of San Venganza in his hand. The parchment shimmered with shifting glyphs, lines of text that twisted and reformed, as if alive.
They were written in Abyssal Script, each symbol pulsing with the essence of sin itself.
Soren's brow furrowed. "Tch. Ancient Abyssal," he muttered, a note of irritation in his tone.
"I really should find someone who's fluent in every plane's language… or just learn them all myself."
Behind him, Johnny Blaze ignored the confrontation entirely.
The Ghost Rider's flames dimmed as he knelt beside Roxanne, gently lifting her from the cold earth. Her breathing was shallow, but steady. For the first time, the Rider's eyes eased.
Meanwhile, Soren pressed a hand against the contract's surface, not reading the words but feeling them.
Through sheer mental force, he reached past the ink, into the structure of its power. "Just as I thought."
"A binding covenant for souls tainted by Original Sin. Every signature feeds the Abyss. A gateway between Earth and Hell."
His eyes narrowed, gleaming faintly violet. "That won't happen."
Then Soren felt something… a resonance buried beneath the countless damned voices echoing inside the parchment.
"...So, you're here after all," he said quietly, tilting his head.
He raised his voice, not aloud, but through mental projection, his words echoing through the very fabric of the plane:
"Mephisto! Hiding in the shadows again? You can stop pretending. I know you're here."
For a moment, the village fell utterly still.
Then the air warped, the shadows deepened, and the very temperature dropped.
A low, mocking chuckle slithered across the ruins.
"You very perceptive, Soren… But surely you didn't think I'd interfere directly? My… children have a tendency to make messes without my help."
From the gloom, Mephisto emerged, his form half smoke, half man, the edges of his cloak dissolving into red mist.
"I didn't lift a finger." Mephisto continued smoothly, raising both hands in mock innocence. "All this carnage? Was their doing, not mine."
Soren's lips curved faintly. "Cold-blooded as ever. Denying your own son in front of everyone."
Johnny's head snapped toward them at the words your son, but before he could react, the air exploded.
"Enough!"
The Blackheart could take no more.
Fury, betrayal, humiliation, all of it erupted as he screamed, his form twisting into a monstrous silhouette. Tendrils of black flame whipped around him as he launched himself at Soren, every ounce of abyssal magic he possessed burning in his veins.
"The world was mine to rule! The contract was mine!"
Soren hand lifted lazily.
The distorted air as Blackheart's charge shattered against an invisible barrier, his momentum collapsing inward as if striking an unseen wall. The ground fractured beneath him, stone warping like glass under pressure.
"Still rushing headlong without thinking," Soren said softly. "Just like your father."
Blackheart roared, the veins of his body pulsing with corrosive power. "Don't compare me to that old devil! I'll tear out your!"
Blackheart's aura surged violently, the shadows around him twisting and writhing like serpents. His once-handsome features melted away, revealing his true infernal form, a grotesque visage of horns, burning eyes, and a body cloaked in living darkness.
Across from him, Soren stood unmoved. The devil's transformation was nothing more than a gust of wind.
"Containment."
Soren's voice cut through the chaos like a blade. Space itself rippled, and in an instant, an invisible field expanded around them.
Mephisto found himself caught as well. Both devils paused mid-motion, their powers sealed.
The monstrous snarl on Blackheart's face fell away. Even Mephisto's usual smile faded as his form strained uselessly against the invisible walls.
Although Blackheart was among the most powerful of the fourth-tier demons, a conqueror among the abyssal legions, he was nothing before the might of Soren's spatial dominion.
The gem's power bent reality to Soren's will. There was no escape, no teleportation, no illusion that could pierce it.
"Soren!" Mephisto's voice layered with both fury and fear. "I didn't provoke you! Don't take this too far!"
Soren did not even glance at him. His cold eyes remained fixed on Blackheart.
"I gave you a warning," Soren said quietly, his tone like a whisper carried by a storm. "I told your water demon to return to the abyss or face my judgment. You chose defiance."
He lifted his hand. The air around him trembled.
"Shatter."
A web of spatial fractures tore through the air, slicing across the containment field. Blackheart's demonic body convulsed as the cracks ripped him apart, flesh, soul, and darkness consumed in silence.
In seconds, his form dissolved into nothingness, leaving only a faint echo of a dying howl and a single dark wisp that flickered out like a candle in the wind.
The distorted void quickly began to heal, space knitting itself together as if nothing had happened.
The eerie stillness of San Venganza returned, but Mephisto's eyes now held something rarely seen in the Lord of Hell.
His son was gone, obliterated utterly. But Mephisto felt no grief. He had long abandoned the capacity for such weakness. His only concern was survival and power.
He knew what would happen if this avatar of his perished again. The last time Soren had slain it, his strength had plummeted, falling perilously close to that of a third-tier demon. Another destruction, and recovery would become nearly impossible.
And yet… he could tell from Soren's expression that mercy would not come easily.
The Lord of the Abyss, master of countless damned souls, felt his own heart begin to race.