Ancient incantations spilled from the mouths of Constantine and Papa Midnite.
It did not sound like any human language.
At least, Sephirot could not understand it.
The innermost circle of the summoning circle on the floor began to glow with light.
Sephirot stood quietly at the edge of the Magic circle. The demonic power within his body was boiling completely, yet not a single trace of it leaked from his skin.
He had forcibly condensed all his power into his tightly clenched right cub.
The temperature in the room plummeted; the entire house began to tremble, and dust fell from the rafters.
—--
Outside.
Though it had been a sunny noon just moments ago, the sky was abruptly swallowed by darkness.
Above the street, pitch-black clouds formed an inverted funnel, connecting directly to the roof of the Hodgson family home.
"Boom!"
A bolt of lightning tore across the sky.
"Quick! Zoom in! Don't miss a single frame!"
The reporters outside the police line fell into a frenzy. They had originally come to film a mere supernatural incident to satisfy their station's assignment, but who could have expected to encounter such a once-in-a-century cataclysm?!
The crowd of onlookers let out cries of alarm at the sight of this phenomenon, their camera flashes clicking incessantly.
Individual daredevil paparazzi even gripped their cameras and tried to sneak into the yard for a close-up shot.
A blood-red light shone out from the second-floor window of the Hodgson family home.
The air grew heavy, making every breath a struggle.
The Warrens, busy evacuating the crowd, stopped in their tracks and whipped their heads around to stare at the second-floor room.
Lorraine, in particular, began to tremble uncontrollably.
As a medium, the moment she saw that red light, her consciousness was forcibly dragged into a Hell filled with endless pain and torment.
"God... what on earth are they doing in there?!"
Two streaks of bloody tears flowed from the corners of her eyes.
The massive malice of Hell instantly shattered Lorraine's mental threshold; her eyes rolled back, and she collapsed unconscious into her husband's arms.
—--
Inside.
The red light of the Magic circle reached its peak, and cracks splintered through the void.
A pitch-black spatial rift was forcibly torn open in the center of the room.
Sephirot looked through the rift and saw a wasteland on the other side, perpetually swept by sandstorms.
Hellfire burned in the corners, and tens of thousands of Scavenger Demons scrambled toward the rift.
Countless demonic claws gripped the edges of the fissure, desperate to crawl through this passage and into the human world.
Seeing this familiar scene, Constantine's face turned deathly pale, and the arm holding the ritual seal began to shake.
It felt as though the tragedy from years ago was about to play out before his eyes again; he forced himself to close his eyes, refusing to look any longer.
Just then, a spine-chilling shriek echoed from the other side of the rift. The little demons desperately crawling outward were instantly reduced to ashes.
Cold sweat broke out on Papa Midnite's forehead at the sight.
He was starting to have regrets.
Dealing with those small fry trying to crawl through would have required him to risk his own life to grind them down one by one just to eliminate them all.
But now, before he could even see how the main player had struck, those little demons were all dead?
Five million US dollars was asking for far too little; this was practically charity!
The next time he did something like this, he'd have to charge at least tens of millions of US dollars.
The rift was forced open by a powerful force.
Unlike the hideous, terrifying demon one might expect, a pale-skinned little boy with hollow eyes, riding a two-headed dragon, slowly stepped out from the crack.
The boy's lips did not move, but a localized, ethereal voice carrying a heavy echo exploded directly in the ears of the three men:
"Humans... has the vessel for my descent finally been chosen?"
Sephirot, who had been preparing to throw a punch, paused in his tracks.
*Vessel?*
*This demon seemed... quite familiar with humans?*
He didn't strike immediately, but instead followed along with the entity's words: "Noble Demon God, finding the perfect vessel to carry your power always takes some time."
Sephirot suspected that the humans who had supposedly prepared a body for it were likely the masterminds behind Darkness Approaches.
Even the descent of Mammon, the son of Hell, was merely one cog in their plan.
He just didn't know what connection those masterminds had with the organization secretly observing demons.
The boy's hollow eyes shifted slightly as he looked down at Sephirot from atop the two-headed dragon:
"Centuries ago, your ancestors established contact with me through sacrifice..."
"Now, I must sweep away all obstacles for the advent of my lord, Mammon!"
As it spoke, nearly half of the two-headed dragon's body had already crossed through the spatial rift.
Seeing Sephirot actually in the mood for a heart-to-heart with the enemy, Constantine roared in desperation: "Sephirot! Do something! What the hell are you waiting for?! To invite him for afternoon tea?!"
Sephirot ignored him and continued to fish for information: "Centuries is too long. The ancestors who once contacted you have long since turned to dust. The current plan..."
"You are lying."
Valak's vertical pupils constricted slightly: "They have lived for so long, how could they possibly be dead?!"
The Demon God, realizing it had been deceived, flew into a total rage. Forcing itself against the repulsion of the Contract between the two realms, the speed at which it squeezed through the rift suddenly accelerated.
One couldn't really blame it; in the eyes of a demon, all humans looked exactly the same, with no distinguishing features at all.
Outside, the world fell into utter darkness as the wind howled.
Serpents of lightning rolled through the clouds, looking as if the apocalypse had arrived.
"Then I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to head back to Hell and ask them yourself."
Sephirot sneered. His left hand gripped empty air as the Holy Flame of Exorcism manifested in his palm, and he pulled the trigger twice at the two-headed dragon within the rift.
"Bang! Bang!"
The moment the muzzle flashes ignited, Sephirot's long-primed right fist launched like a cannonball, slamming solidly into the face of the demon Valak. The little boy's face twisted and deformed under the punch, the skin shattering.
A pair of wings that could blot out the sun unfurled behind it, wedging firmly against the edges of the spatial rift in an attempt to force it wider.
Papa Midnite gritted his teeth, desperately pouring mana into his ritual tools, while Constantine accelerated the speed of his incantation.
Sephirot lunged forward, raining heavy punches fueled by the entirety of his magic power onto Valak's face one after another.
However, the demon lord seemed incapable of feeling pain.
From that face, now smashed into a bloody pulp, a hideous grin emerged as it pushed through Sephirot's heavy strikes, advancing step by step.
Just then.
On the outer ring of the summoning circle, blue and yellow magic circles flared to life!
These were the multi-layered restraining magic circles Constantine and Papa Midnite had laid out in advance.
The light from the two magic circles transformed into chains, sinking into Valak's demonic form and draining its energy.
"Roar!"
Valak let out a wild howl. The layer of human boy's skin covering its body sloughed away, and the black feathers on its back began to wither and fade.
Its forward momentum was finally forced to a dead stop.
Sephirot's gaze hardened, and he vanished from his position.
The next second, he reappeared above the two-headed dragon.
Violent magic power coated his arm as he swung a fist.
Boom!
Hard scales were shattered like tissue paper, and the entire massive dragon head was blown apart.
Papa Midnite's pupils shrank. This was a demon, how could a human body blow it apart with bare hands?
Seated atop the dragon's back, Valak sensed the magic power within him and suddenly looked suspicious: "The scent of Sparda... what is your relationship with Vergil?"
(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.
ANTAGONISTS
Valak's true form — In The Conjuring and The Nun films, Valak appears as a terrifying demonic nun. In this chapter, however, it manifests as a pale-skinned little boy with hollow eyes, riding a two-headed dragon. This appearance comes directly from the Ars Goetia (the Lesser Key of Solomon), which describes the spirit Valac as "a small boy with angel's wings, riding on a great two-headed dragon." The author has chosen the grimoire's description over the film's iconography for Valak's true demonic form.
CONCEPTS
Seventy-two pillars of Solomon — An alternate name for the 72 demonic spirits catalogued in the Ars Goetia (see ch59 TL NOTES). The term "pillars" comes from some demonological traditions that use it to denote the ranked nobility of Hell. When Constantine calls Valak "one of the seventy-two pillars of Solomon," he is identifying it as one of these named demon lords, emphasizing the scale of the threat Sephirot is provoking.