"Someone used a sealing technique to stuff demon cores into ordinary people's brains. That's how they've been dodging Heaven's radar."
Soren flicked his wrist again and dumped the shriveled chunk of flesh bearing the strange symbol onto the floor along with Michael's mangled corpse.
He nudged the mechanical flesh with his boot, showing off the creepy ouroboros-eye pattern to everyone watching.
Constantine stared at the rotting body, eye twitching as he fought the urge to start swearing.
"So that's how they've been slipping through."
Gabriel, still sulking in the corner, suddenly spoke up.
Soren shot him a sideways look.
Ever since the archangel had been stripped of his divinity and turned into a regular human, his personality had gotten... weird.
Constantine ignored him. He crouched, picked up the ouroboros symbol, and studied it for a long moment, brows knitting tight.
"This mark... looks familiar."
He stood and headed for the bookshelf crammed with old documents. "Give me a minute. I need to cross-check some records."
Seeing Soren still hadn't moved to leave, Constantine asked warily, "Person's delivered. Evidence handed over. What else do you want?"
"Obviously."
Soren glanced around the cramped room.
"Borrowing your place for a bit. Had some gains lately. Need somewhere quiet to sort things out."
He'd scoped out half a dozen spots on the way over, but none felt safe.
The psych-ward fight a few days back hadn't scared people off—instead it pulled crowds to the scene like it was some twisted tourist trap.
Religious nuts even showed up yelling it was unholy ground and God's punishment, pointing at the holy light that had torn the storm clouds apart that night.
Then the suburban "earthquake." Official warnings only dragged in more out-of-town gawkers.
So Constantine's little shack had become the only real option for the bloodline breakthrough.
Constantine felt the hairs on his neck rise. Something about this smelled like trouble.
But he couldn't come up with a single decent reason to kick out the guy who'd just dragged Angela back from the dead.
He sighed, face dark, and pointed toward one of the side rooms.
The door locked from the inside.
Outside noise vanished instantly—whether from the building's cheap construction or Constantine's own wards, Soren didn't care.
A cool clarity washed through his mind. Even the foggy, half-dead feeling from being unconscious for days faded fast.
He sat cross-legged on the floor and finally had time to feel what was really happening inside his body.
His consciousness sank inward.
The moment it did, a raw, alien hunger surged up from every cell—something he'd been suppressing until now.
His stomach didn't want food. It felt more like every single cell was starving for fuel that could push them across the next threshold.
"Regular matter isn't even qualified anymore?"
Soren frowned. Once the bloodline hit twenty percent, it apparently needed higher-dimensional energy just to keep climbing.
No amount of regular fighting would cut it.
With a thought, three glowing clusters of demonic essence floated in front of him.
The vibrant green [Regeneration] heart, the shifting misty [Mental] shadow, and the dense orb of [Demonic Power] the system had rewarded him.
The second he saw them, the hunger inside him became unbearable—like a man lost in the desert for three days spotting water.
No hesitation. Soren reached out and shoved all three essences into his mouth one after another.
"Hum—!"
They dissolved instantly. No weird taste, just pure power slamming through his veins.
Soren grunted as three completely different energies exploded outward, crashing into every corner of his body.
His blood seized them, broke them down, and turned them into raw fuel that fed every cell.
A crushing pressure burst out from him as the center. Gravity around him spiked like it had multiplied tenfold in a heartbeat.
The air turned thick. The floor cracked and crumbled into powder.
The pressure ignored walls and spread outward.
In the living room, Constantine was comparing the marked flesh with a magnifying glass when his cigarette tin suddenly flattened like it had been stepped on by a giant.
His hand froze. The water glass beside him exploded.
Weirdly, the shards didn't fly—they just got slammed flat against the table, trembling.
"Earthquake?"
Angela dropped into a crouch on the couch, face white.
The whole apartment groaned like it was about to come apart.
"Not an earthquake!"
Constantine tried to stand, but even that simple move felt like lifting a car. He hunched over, staring at the floorboards, pupils shrinking.
The defensive runes he'd spent years carving into the walls lit up on their own.
The same symbols meant to keep demons out were now smoking black.
Within seconds they burned down to charred marks.
"What the hell is he doing in there?! Summoning a demon king?!"
Constantine gritted his teeth, voice raw with panic.
If that aura leaked out, every demon and angel in Los Santos would come running straight to his door.
Then the house he'd busted his ass for years to buy would be gone.
Gabriel, still curled in the corner, slowly lifted his head.
A strange light flickered in his eyes.
Even without his powers, his perception stayed razor-sharp.
"Don't bother, John."
Gabriel's voice was flat, gaze cutting straight through the wall like he could see Soren inside.
"His bloodline is ascending. A true demon god is being born right here."
"With the trash running around Los Santos right now, they'd just be more bodies for the pile."
Inside the room.
Soren didn't hear a word of it.
When the last trace of essence power was finally consumed by his cells, his heart slammed once—hard.
"Thump!"
Windows in the apartment outside shattered for no reason. People on the street below scattered, hands over their heads.
[Ding!]
[Three essences fully absorbed]
[Current Demon Bloodline Awakening: 20%]
[Demonization form unlocked. Exclusive talent obtained.]
Soren opened his eyes. Purple light swirled in them.
The hunger was gone. In its place roared endless power.
This feeling of fullness was so intense he actually believed—for one wild second—that he could drop a four-winged angel or a hell lord with a single punch.
He clenched his fist. For a moment he couldn't even feel the demonic power moving inside him.
Because it wasn't moving anymore. It had fused completely into every single cell.
Not only that—his body's vitality had become terrifyingly strong.
If he went up against the Gabriel from a few days ago in this state, with Yamato in hand, he could actually fight instead of just eating hits and waiting to pass out from blood loss.
He even had the strong feeling that if he lost an arm right now, he could burn demonic power and grow it back.
Of course, feeling it and testing it were two different things. He wasn't about to chop his own limb off just to check.
He reined in the scattered thoughts and slowly stood up.
The shackles inside him had been broken. His heart refused to slow down.
Now, with a single thought, he could manifest the full might of the Sparda bloodline.