"This place is a snapshot of that massacre from years ago," Nico said, keeping her voice low and urgent. "Break the sacrifice and you shatter the whole loop. You might even pull the survivors back in the real town out of this nightmare for good."
She ran a frustrated hand through her tangled hair. "But every single time I've tried, this dried-up old bastard in yellow robes shows up. My guns don't do shit to him. I've had to bail through the faraway tree just to stay alive."
Nico stared out at the square, voice heavy with exhaustion. "And when I come back, everything resets. These people just keep running the same blood ritual on a loop."
Soren listened in silence, a cold knot forming in his gut. The prisoners in the dungeon had talked about a black-robed stranger who brought miracles. Now Nico was describing a yellow-robed old man. A subordinate, maybe? Didn't matter. If he stood in the way, he died.
"I'll handle him," Soren said.
Nico's eyes lit up like someone had flipped a switch. She slapped him on the shoulder, hard. "That's what I've been waiting to hear."
Soren looked down at the packed crowd filling the square. "So how do we break the ritual? We killing every last one of these lunatics?"
"No need to get that messy." Nico grinned, sharp and mean, and pulled a small remote from her shorts pocket. She held it up between them. "I've got this covered. I'm sending every one of these brainwashed idiots straight to hell."
Her voice carried a wild edge. She'd clearly been sitting on a lot of rage after too many failed attempts. "After the last few times I got my ass kicked, I came prepared. I buried enough explosives under that square to level the whole damn thing."
Nico gripped the remote tighter and met his eyes. "I'll hit the trigger at the exact moment the ritual hits its peak. After that, it's all on you."
Soren nodded once.
A deep, rhythmic drumbeat rolled across the square. The chanting townspeople fell silent and parted like a tide, clearing a path down the center. A middle-aged man in heavy, ornate robes stepped forward, head held high.
Only then did Soren get a clear look at what waited in the middle of the square. He had expected a bonfire piled high with bound children, some medieval-style pyre. Instead there was just a dark, circular opening in the ground—like the mouth of a well.
"That's their new mayor," Nico muttered beside him. She caught the question on his face. "Yeah, weird, right? No altar, no obvious sacrifice. That's because the kids are already down in that pit."
Soren kept his eyes on the hole. "How's the sacrifice supposed to work? Fire? Blood?"
"Don't know," Nico said. "I always cut it short before it gets that far."
She had never been willing to stand by and watch children bleed out just to see what came next.
Down in the square the mayor stopped at the edge of the pit, lifted both arms, and began to shout. The crowd answered with a raw, frenzied roar that shook the night air.
Nico glanced at Soren. "Ready?"
"Give me two seconds."
Soren sank his mind inward and called up the system. He still had the points from killing Mammon. Without hesitation he dumped them into [Sword Saint Style]. The knowledge slammed into him—every stance, every flow of power, every killing pattern burned into his instincts like he had spent a lifetime mastering them.
The balance dropped back down to thirty-five hundred points.
He tightened his grip on Alastor and looked at Nico. "Do it."
The explosion tore the square apart.
Fire and screaming bodies flew upward in a single violent column. Nico's charges had been shaped to rip through the crowd while leaving the pit itself mostly intact. Soren was already moving, vaulting over the low wall and charging straight for the well. Silent Hill's domain rippled outward from him as he ran. Monsters clawed their way out of the dark, falling on the survivors with savage hunger.
Soren reached the edge and leaped into the pit without slowing.
The space below was far larger than it looked from above. The dirt had been hollowed out in a wide, bulbous chamber. Seven stone slabs ringed the central shaft. Seven unconscious children lay on them.
Two townsmen covered in blood were already raising their knives.
Soren didn't give them the chance. Two precise slashes of sword-light dropped from above. The men's heads came off clean. Their bodies crumpled beside the slabs.
Soren touched down, gathered the children with a thought, and sent them straight into the Silent Hill domain where they would be safe.
A crushing pressure slammed down from above.
The air above the pit seemed to collapse inward. Heavy gravity pressed everything toward the ground. Clouds swallowed the moon. An old man in tattered yellow robes appeared in the air over the square, hovering like he had always been there.
The monsters Nico had summoned screamed and dissolved into black mist the moment they felt his presence. Only Pyramid Head remained, planted on one knee, great blade driven into the earth as it fought to stay upright under the weight.
The yellow-robed elder looked down, face empty of expression. His voice was dry and grating, like old paper tearing. "The master said you would come here, Soren—"
Soren's expression didn't change. He launched himself out of the pit in one explosive leap. Purple demonic power flooded his body. Dark bio-armor wrapped around him, silver-white hair whipping in the sudden wind.
High above, the elder watched Soren enter his demonized state. A flicker of contempt passed through his cloudy eyes.
"You have no idea what you're trying to stop."
Soren didn't answer.
He bent his knees and poured every ounce of strength into the jump. The already-weakened ground beneath the square gave way completely, collapsing into a crater as he rocketed upward. Alastor blazed with lightning in his hands. He swung the greatsword in a downward arc that split the air itself.
The elder didn't dodge.
He simply reached out and caught the blade barehanded.
Lightning crackled and spat against his palm. The old man's arm barely moved. With a casual twist he shoved Soren backward several meters through the air.