At the end of the corridor, the Le Domas Family members marched forward aggressively, clutching shotguns and various weapons.
Sephirot raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over the murderous group of aristocrats as he chuckled lightly.
"It seems your game of Hide and Seek isn't going very smoothly."
Before the patriarch standing at the front could speak, Helene lunged forward brandishing a battle axe, shouting shrilly:
"Where is Grace?! Where have you hidden that bitch?!"
"In a very safe place."
Sephirot remained unmoved, his fingers lightly tapping the armrest. "She should be having a very good time right now."
The middle-aged patriarch suppressed the agitation in his heart, took a deep breath, and said, "Mr. Sephirot, you are a guest brought back by Alex."
"But this is a private family matter, a sacred covenant ritual. You should not interfere."
"Hand Grace over. We can act as if nothing happened, and you will remain our honored guest."
"You'll have to take that up with your precious son, Alex."
Sephirot looked at him, his tone calm. "He is the one who paid me ten million US dollars to ensure Grace's safety."
"To be precise, the one breaking your family tradition is him."
Seeing that Sephirot was unmoved by either soft words or threats and refused to give them any face, the patriarch's expression turned grim.
He raised the double-barreled shotgun in his hands and growled, "Since you insist on dying in her place, we shall grant your wish!"
At that moment, a woman with a flushed face suddenly lunged out from the back of the crowd.
Without wasting a single word, she raised her gun at Sephirot and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The gunshot exploded.
Sephirot didn't even blink, composedly shifting into a blocking stance.
[Royal Guard]
A purple shield flashed briefly in front of Sephirot.
The moment the bullet collided with the shield, it instantly flipped around, hurtling back the way it came at an even greater speed.
Whiz!
The woman's expression froze as a bloody hole appeared between her eyebrows. Her body fell backward, blood staining the expensive carpet.
Silence fell over the corridor.
After a brief moment of shock, the members of the Le Domas Family erupted into screams of terror and rage.
"Emilie! Damn it!"
"FUCK!"
Sephirot slowly stood up, smoothing the hem of his suit, his tone remaining flat. "Don't be so angry. She made the first move; I didn't do a thing."
"Die! You monster!"
Helene's eyes were bloodshot as she let out a shriek, raising her battle axe high and charging at Sephirot like a wild beast.
Sephirot's eyes remained cold as he raised his right hand, closing it into a light grip in the air.
Violent electrical currents converged in his palm, and the devil sword Alastor manifested instantly.
The crowd saw only a blinding flash of lightning before their eyes, accompanied by the crackling sound of electricity.
Helene remained frozen in place, her battle axe still raised high. A straight line of blood extended from her forehead down to her crotch, and the scent of charred meat instantly wafted through the air.
A second later, her body split down the middle, falling away in two halves.
Having delivered the blow, Sephirot paused for a brief moment as if realizing something. No longer hesitating, he gripped the thunder sword and charged into the crowd.
Screams, curses, and the sound of accidental gunfire erupted within the mansion. Within seconds, everything fell silent.
Sephirot was the only one left standing in the corridor.
Looking down at the middle-aged patriarch who reached out a hand for help, Sephirot calmly delivered a finishing stroke.
Standing in a pool of blood, he gave a casual flick of his wrist to shake the residual blood off Alastor's blade. The devil sword dissolved into sparks of electricity and vanished.
Just then, Alex, drawn by the gunshots and screams, came running over, drenched in sweat.
When he saw the mangled corpses littering the floor and his relatives dying with their eyes wide open, his legs gave out and he collapsed to his knees.
"I paid you to protect Grace! Why… why did you kill them all?!"
Alex looked up at Sephirot standing before him, his eyes bloodshot. His breakdown left him trembling, his voice filled with utter despair.
Sephirot's tone remained cold as he spoke. "Even if Grace hadn't died, if they had lasted until dawn and failed the game, the covenant's backlash would have taken their lives regardless."
He pointed to the surveillance camera on the ceiling and added,
"Furthermore, they attacked me first. I was merely acting in self-defense. If you don't believe me, you can check the footage."
Watching his parents and friends die before his eyes, without even a whole corpse remaining, Alex's mental defenses shattered completely. He clutched the remains and began to wail.
Sephirot ignored him. To him, as long as the employer paid on time, it didn't matter; whether they suffered a psychological breakdown was not within his scope of service.
He stepped over the severed limbs and walked toward the room where everyone had been drawing cards earlier.
Before acting, he had actually weighed whether slaughtering these participants would provoke the demon lord behind the scenes, Belial.
After all, with his current strength, conventional means alone were not enough to go toe-to-toe with a full-fledged demon lord.
But then Sephirot reconsidered. Even Valak had required the summoning magic circle of Constantine and Papa Midnite to manifest in the human world.
Belial, though a fellow demon lord, likely only had a wisp of consciousness attached to the covenant here; he couldn't stir up much of a storm.
Pushing open the door, a blurred silhouette flickered atop the main seat of the round table in the center of the room.
"Should I call you Belial, or Mr. Le Bail?"
Sephirot spoke.
The shadow writhed slightly, and an ethereal voice rang out: "Are you Dante? No… that's not right."
"This bloodline aura is so dense, it's almost comparable to that man from back then. However, why is your strength so weak?"
The shadow paused, a hint of suspicion and surprise entering its tone: "Why do you have the scent of Valak on you?"
Sephirot rolled up his right sleeve, revealing the viper tattoo wrapped around his forearm. He wasn't worried about the entity seeking revenge for Valak.
For these demons, their peers were rivals; one less demon meant more souls for themselves to harvest.
They wanted nothing more than for their own kind to go extinct.
The black figure flickered violently, its voice tinged with a newfound wariness: "It's actually dead? No wonder there was such an upheaval in its territory within Hell a while back."
It re-evaluated the young man before it, its attitude becoming considerably more serious: "You killed my toy and summoned me. What do you want?"
"Two questions," Sephirot said.
"First, regarding Mammon's descent into the human world — who is involved, and what is their objective?"
"Second, how exactly are those demons smuggling themselves out of Hell and into the human world while evading the scrutiny of the Council of Angels?"
Hearing this, Belial fell silent.
After a moment, it spoke slowly: "I can tell you these things, but we must sign a contract."
"What are the terms?" Sephirot asked.
"I give this information to you, and in exchange, you will no longer interfere with or sabotage my games. I will harvest the souls of the losers."
"Deal."
Sephirot nodded in agreement.
Before the words had even faded, a parchment scroll emitting a pungent odor appeared out of thin air, drifting slowly toward him.
Sephirot glanced at the Hell script written upon it but did not reach out to take it.
"Forget the paper contract. A verbal agreement is enough. I don't have the time to look after those death-seeking billionaires anyway."
It wasn't just that he couldn't read Hell script; even if he could, he wouldn't dare touch it.
Who knew if these demonic contracts were triggered by a mere touch or a signature?
Who knew what kind of hidden clauses were buried in the corners?
When dealing with demons, one could never be too careful.
Belial fell silent once more, seemingly weighing the pros and cons of the trade.
After a moment, the mass of shadows let out a low chuckle, and the scroll spontaneously combusted in mid-air, turning to ash.
"As you wish. A verbal covenant is established."
"Regarding the matter of Mammon, I will not utter a single word."
Belial's voice carried a hint of treachery. "The schemes of that Prince are not for you to go prying into."
"As for your second question..."
The shadow gradually became transparent, its voice turning ethereal.
"How do demons bypass the scrutiny of the Council of Angels to descend into the human world?"
"Perhaps you should pay a visit to the town of Haddonfield. There, you might find the answer you're looking for."
With those final words, Belial's shadow vanished completely from the seat.
(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 provide the context needed to understand them without leaving the page.
SOURCE UNIVERSES
Halloween — A long-running American slasher horror franchise, beginning with John Carpenter's original film. The series centers on the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois, where a young boy named Michael Myers committed his first murder on Halloween night before being institutionalized for fifteen years. Upon escaping, he returned to Haddonfield to kill again. Myers, known simply as "The Shape," became one of the most iconic figures in horror cinema, characterized by a white mask, near-supernatural endurance, and an apparent inability to be permanently stopped. Multiple sequels, reboots, and timelines have expanded the franchise. Belial directing Sephirot to Haddonfield signals the beginning of the next crossover arc.
PLACES
Haddonfield — The fictional small town in Illinois at the center of the Halloween franchise. It is where Michael Myers first killed as a child and the site of his repeated returns. In the context of this story, Belial implies that something in Haddonfield holds the answer to how demons are bypassing the Council of Angels to enter the human world.