The bloody fighting was changing the city in a completely new way. Many vampires had been blasted into ash. They had no souls, so once their bodies were destroyed, that was true death. But vampires were creatures deeply attached to the material plane. They did not want to die; they would rather live like maggots than die. Their intense resentment still lingered in this world, gradually piling up as the fighting continued until it finally turned into all kinds of malignant entities.
Vampires had no souls, so the resentment they produced was not especially powerful. The problem was simply how many vampires had died tonight. The resentment, hatred, and killing intent of several, dozens, then hundreds of them gathered together, giving birth to one irrational malignant entity after another, each so distorted that its original form could no longer be recognized.
Wade Wilson charged over in high spirits and opened fire. Obadiah was full of reluctance, but he had no choice except to help.
The two of them kept firing in turn. The ammunition supplied by the R.I.P.D. was extremely powerful, and before long, a smoke-like monster seemingly made from countless severed arms and mangled limbs was shot dead.
That woman had told them to capture targets and bring them back, but neither man had any intention of making arrests. These enemies looked insanely strong. Capture them? What a joke! Just shoot them dead and be done with it!
Wade Wilson and Obadiah Stane appeared on the New York battlefield. It looked as though they had gone to another dimension, joined a new organization, collected weapons, and wasted ages talking, but in the material plane, only a single second had passed since Wade Wilson's death.
"Hm?" Bella, sitting on a rooftop in a daze, looked left and right. During that previous second, she seemed to have sensed something unusual, but when she examined the feeling closely, she found nothing wrong.
Out of deference to the New York Sanctum, all the forces she had mobilized this time—Bruticus, Tyrants, bioengineered humanoids, and the rest—were technological in nature. She had not used the undead, the nun, or the frost dragon at all, precisely because she did not want to create a situation where her own side ended up fighting itself. That made this energy fluctuation, which had appeared and vanished just as suddenly, rather puzzling.
It seemed like magic, yet also seemed not to be. It disappeared in a flash, and before she could distinguish it carefully, even the faint trace of energy was gone.
"Strange. What was that...?"
She thought it over repeatedly and soon made up her mind. No more wasting time. She would end this quickly!
She set down her teacup, and in the next second appeared directly in front of Hellstorm.
"Son of Satan, where do you think you're going? Aren't you planning to accompany your vampire friends back to Hell?"
Bruticus had beaten Hellstorm until his entire body was charred black, and the inverted pentagram on his chest looked several shades dimmer. After fighting continuously, he was in terrible condition.
Even so, the son of a demon still showed no fear. He gripped his halberd tightly, lowered his center of gravity slightly, and took an attacking stance.
"Even you can't keep me here! Why bother? Fighting me will only benefit those petty villains in Heaven."
Bella nodded. "You're right. Who knows where those angels are hiding right now, watching the show? But that has nothing to do with you!"
She pressed the index and middle fingers of her right hand together and softly uttered two syllables. Psionic energy rapidly took shape, and a ray as black as ink shot toward Hellstorm.
This was the seventh-circle spell she had gained after her recent breakthrough—Finger of Death!
Faced with an instant-death spell that was widespread throughout the multiverse, even Hellstorm did not dare take it head-on. He did not even dare block it with his divine artifact.
He tried to use a demon's innate ability to teleport, but the surrounding area had already been locked down by Bella's Dimensional Anchor. He could only make very short-range teleports.
Hellstorm dodged again and again while Finger of Death pursued him relentlessly. In the end, he had no choice but to use a nearby demon that had been following him as a shield.
Finger of Death struck the head of a massively muscled demon wielding a greatsword as broad as a door.
Death energy of overwhelming density instantly stripped the life from the demon's body. From its head to its neck, then down into its muscle-packed chest, every trace of vitality was exhausted in less than a second. A gust of wind blew past, and the demon crumbled into ash.
Hell's consciousness would revive that demon in Hell, but dreaming of recovering its former strength as a demon general was pointless. Hell's consciousness was not a charity. Back to level zero, revived with only a sliver of health—then it could start struggling upward again from the rank of a lowly imp!
Hellstorm had only just shaken off the pursuing instant-death spell when Bella's next spell arrived.
Bella raised a hand and used a third-circle Heaviness spell to restrict Hellstorm's speed. She then chose the sixth-circle Mind over Energy. This spell could make her immune to a particular kind of energy for up to fifteen minutes, and the defense she selected was hellfire.
After that came Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate, Psychic Crush, and Ultrablast, which was even higher-level than Psychic Crush.
Hellstorm had extensive experience fighting mages. He stopped using hellfire and instead relied on the sharpness of the divine halberd in his hands to hack at her shield.
"Nice weapon. What a shame," Bella praised softly.
"What do you mean, a shame?"
"It's a shame that divine artifact won't belong to you much longer."
Bella's understanding of time was growing deeper and deeper. She improved the still-immature ideas she had once developed for accelerating and slowing time. Using time spells on intelligent life consumed far too much psionic energy; dealing with a single balor in the past had nearly exhausted her. Now things were simpler. She aimed the effect at objects instead.
Bella ducked beneath a horizontal sweep of the divine halberd, rapidly traced two runes with her hand, then raised a finger. Hellstorm suddenly discovered that the divine halberd in his hands had vanished!
It was just in my hand! Such a huge, long divine artifact—where did it go?
Hellstorm was the mightiest son of Satan, so he still had some ability to sense the artifact. He felt that it still belonged to him, but he could not pin down its location; the sensation drifted unpredictably. He called to the artifact again and again, but it never responded.
Bella certainly was not going to tell him that she had accelerated his divine artifact and thrown it into the flow of time five minutes into the future. Facing an unarmed Hellstorm, she was enjoying the fight even more. It was practically a one-sided beating.
Flames? She was immune to hellfire! Weapon? His weapon was gone! Teleportation? Anchored! Hellstorm could not have been more frustrated.
In fewer than three exchanges, he had fallen into an absolute disadvantage. Ten exchanges later, he was already on the verge of death.
"Die!" Bella raised a hand. A two-meter-long (about 6.6-foot), crystal-clear ice spear, silver light shimmering across its surface and sharp enough to pierce anything, drove into Hellstorm's chest and pinned the son of Satan firmly to the wall of a nearby office building.
"I'll be back! Next time, you'll be the one who dies!" Hellstorm's eyes were bloodred, his expression vicious.
"Trash like you is still trying to threaten me?" Bella looked utterly disdainful. She fired Disintegrate into Hellstorm. The demon's son, already at death's door, could no longer resist the spell. His body broke down into ash, while his soul was dragged back to Hell by Hell's consciousness.