Soren cut straight through the compound, dragging Johnny and Nadya along in his wake. Every cultist who dared charge them fell before they even fully realized what they were facing, bodies dropping like marionettes.
The brutality of it spread faster than any shout.
Faith meant nothing in the face of death.
And these people weren't loyal to Mephisto, they were loyal to the power he offered. Once they realized they might not live long enough to use it, their courage collapsed.
Some stumbled back. Others outright fled.
That single spark of panic set off a chain reaction…
The deeper they went, the fewer stood in their path. Soren didn't chase the deserters. He didn't even glance at them.
To him, Mephisto was already a clown performing at the edge of a cliff, these frightened mortals weren't worth lifting a finger.
But as the deserters fled, relief never got the chance to settle.
Before they could breathe again, darkness seeped across the corridor like an oily tide. Carrigan appeared at the center of the spreading black, the corrosive aura clinging to him like rotting smoke.
For the fleeing cultists, it was already too late.
The darkness swallowed them whole. Bodies decayed mid-scream, collapsing into leaking husks before dissolving entirely.
Carrigan didn't spare them a single look.
Soren's steps slowed.
A new force was approaching… dark, ugly, corrosive. A twisted echo of abyssal energy.
"Well," he murmured with a faint grin, "Johnny… your old friend decided to show up."
Johnny's expression hardened immediately. He didn't need an explanation, Carrigan had left his mark, both literally and mentally.
Flames erupted around Johnny as he transformed, hellfire raging around his skull as his chain heated into a molten red brand.
"Go," Johnny rasped, flame rolling through his voice, "I've got him."
Soren nodded once. "Nadya, come on. Let the Rider handle this."
Carrigan took one step to intercept them, only to be yanked backward by Johnny's flaming chain. Hellfire roared as the two collided, sparks and corrosive smoke bursting in every direction.
Within seconds, the pair were locked in a vicious, chaotic clash in the middle of the corridor.
Soren pressed forward with Nadya until the altar finally came into view.
Mephisto, weakened to the point of collapse, knelt beside Danny. Both of them were chanting, their mouths moving in perfect synchrony.
Their expressions were eerily identical. The air above the altar churned with dark energy. Abyssal power wrapped around the boy like blackened roots.
"Danny!" Nadya screamed, trying to run to him.
Soren grabbed her arm just in time. The darkness swirling around the altar was tangible... If she lunged in now, she'd be swallowed before she ever touched her son.
"Not like that," Soren warned quietly.
Mephisto just kept chanting faster, his frail body glowing with cracks of sickly light. He knew he was moments from destruction, but the ritual was moments from completion.
"Soren…" Mephisto hissed between syllables, voice deteriorating into a rasp, "you're too late…"
But Soren wasn't listening.
"Mephisto. I'm here. Did you really think you'd finish this?"
The old demon's body trembled. Rage and desperation warred across his crumbling face. If Carrigan could just hold Johnny off, just a little longer, the soul transfer would finalize, and he'd rise anew in Danny's body.
But Carrigan wasn't coming.
And Mephisto knew it.
Still, he refused to stop. He pushed through the chant, forcing the ritual to accelerate despite the damage it caused his avatar.
Darkness surged, thickening into something nearly physical. The room dimmed like night falling all at once.
Soren exhaled slowly.
"No more."
A shimmering blade of warped space formed at his fingertips.
With one smooth motion, the blade sliced across Mephisto's neck.
A spray of dark, corrupted blood arced through the air. The demon's avatar collapsed before the body realized it had died, the head rolling across the stone with a dull, anticlimactic thud.
What was left of the once-terrifying Lord of Hell lay twitching for only a second… and then went still.
With his death, the altar erupted in a sudden, convulsive shudder.
The abyssal aura that had flooded the chamber lost its anchor and began to unravel. Shadows peeled away from the walls and ceiling like smoke being sucked into an invisible vacuum.
Within seconds, the oppressive darkness dissolved entirely, leaving behind only the stale cold of the night.
Danny's small body slumped forward the moment the ritual broke, collapsing on the altar like a puppet whose strings had been sharply cut.
Nadya lunged and caught him before he hit the ground.
"Danny? Danny! Hey, baby, wake up! Danny!" Her voice cracked into a frantic scream.
She searched his face, his arms, his chest, expecting wounds, burns, something. But Danny's body was flawless.
Yet something was horribly wrong.
His body was warm, but hollow, like holding a body without a presence inside. Nadya's breath hitched. Her fingers trembled.
"I~I can't feel him," she whispered, the realization strangling her. "I can't feel my son… I can't feel his…his soul?"
Her voice broke. Panic tore through her like a lightning strike.
"Danny! Danny, PLEASE!"
Soren stepped closer, his expression hardening with a quiet regret. He could already sense the echo of Mephisto's failed ritual, the spiritual blow that had struck Danny's very essence.
A child's soul wasn't meant to withstand the will of a demon lord pressing to overwrite it.
He was lucky to be breathing.
Nadya clutched Danny's limp body tighter, tears falling onto his cold-still face.
"Doctor!" She spun toward him, desperation wild and raw. "You~you're the genius doctor from Everlife!"
"People say you can do anything! Please, I'm begging you, please save my son! I'll do anything! Anything!"
Her voice cracked so hard it sounded painful.
Soren watched her for a long moment. The child's soul wasn't destroyed, but it was damaged and fading. The ritual had all but torn him apart from the inside.
Saving him wouldn't be simple… but it wasn't impossible.
And this child… this half-devil, half-human boy with enormous potential… Soren already saw a future there. A future worth preserving.
He crouched down.
"I can save him," he said quietly.
Nadya froze, hope flaring so intensely it nearly sent her reeling.
"But you understand," Soren continued, eyes meeting hers with unshakable seriousness, "My treatments aren't free."
For a heartbeat, Nadya couldn't even breathe.
Then she nodded, trembling so hard it shook her whole body.
"Soren… as long as you bring my son back, whatever you want, whatever the price… I'll agree. I swear it."