Soren's expression didn't change. He kicked Upsher aside with one boot.
He raised his right hand, left hand dipping slightly, settling into an odd stance.
[Royal Guard].
Purple demonic power flared across his body, forming a transparent shield.
"Hum—hum—hum—"
Bullets hammered the shield in a relentless storm, sending ripples racing across its surface.
Deformed slugs pattered down around Soren's feet like rain, quickly building into a small pile.
He looked up into the spotlight. Above the elevator shaft, a line of soldiers in full tactical gear stood shoulder to shoulder. Heavy machine guns barked in their hands. On the ceiling overhead, sentry guns hung upside down, red laser sights painting Soren's forehead and chest.
The soldiers fired in overlapping groups, rotating through reloads so the stream of fire never once let up.
In their center, shielded by the wall of bodies, stood a lean figure.
The man exhaled, slowly polished his single gold-rimmed lens, and slipped the glasses back on.
"Allow me to introduce myself."
He tapped the communicator clipped to his collar, chin lifting as his voice boomed through hidden speakers. "I am the director of this facility. You may call me Dr. Vernick."
"Soren, correct?"
Dr. Vernick stared down at the man pinned beneath the gunfire, arrogance thick in his voice. "A human carrying Sparda blood. You've destroyed more than a few of our observation sites across the states. You even ruined Mammon's descent ritual."
He paused, eyes gleaming with naked hunger as he looked at Soren below.
"With blood that pure, if we could capture you, drain you dry… perhaps we could finally give ordinary humans the same godlike power. An army of demons that nothing could stop."
Soren listened, then let out a short, cold laugh.
"All that firepower, and this is the best line you've got?"
"Hahahaha!"
Dr. Vernick threw his head back and laughed like he'd just heard the funniest joke in the world, as if Soren's defiance was nothing but the last gasp of a cornered animal.
"This facility holds enough ammunition for these guns to fire nonstop for a full day and night. Your little shield is impressive, I'll admit. But it must burn through an enormous amount of energy to maintain, doesn't it?"
The doctor smirked. "How long can the power inside you actually last?"
"Not that long."
Soren's voice stayed calm.
The moment the words left his mouth, white mist bloomed behind him out of thin air.
The fog churned and parted. A massive black shape stepped forward and planted its great rusted blade in the floor in front of Soren.
"Clang—clang—clang—"
But the shape lasted only seconds. Pyramid Head's form shattered into drifting black particles, revealing Soren once more.
Dr. Vernick looked down at the trapped man and sneered. "In the face of overwhelming firepower, struggle is pointless."
Then the bullets struck Soren again.
He still held the defensive pose, but the shield never flared. The rounds passed straight through his body and punched into the wall behind him, sparking on impact.
"What—?!"
Dr. Vernick's eyes flew wide. He shoved the nearest soldier aside.
Soren's figure rippled like disturbed water, then vanished completely.
An afterimage?!
Alarm bells screamed in the doctor's head. A raw, primal sense of death wrapped around his spine.
He started to turn, to run—
"I told you. It won't take that long."
A cold, iron-strong hand shot out from behind him, clamped around Dr. Vernick's skull, and lifted him clean off the floor.
The surrounding soldiers reacted instantly. The moment Soren grabbed their boss, every barrel swung toward him. The ceiling sentry guns rotated with mechanical speed, lasers painting bright red dots across Soren's chest and head.
Dr. Vernick, dangling in midair, didn't thrash. His voice stayed eerily steady. "Let me go, Soren. Even if you kill me, you won't get out of here alive."
Pressure built on his skull. He forced the words out anyway. "Surrender. Give us a blood sample. Cooperate, and the company will give you more wealth and power than you can imagine."
He stared into the faint purple glow rising in Soren's eyes and added the final threat. "That lord is already on his way. When he arrives, you won't even have time to beg."
"There's an old saying where I come from," Soren said quietly, unmoved. "A gentleman doesn't stand beneath a crumbling wall."
"Too bad you failed at both parts."
Dr. Vernick didn't understand the words, but the sudden chill in his gut told him everything he needed to know. He opened his mouth to speak—
"Pshht."
Something wet and warm spilled between Soren's fingers and pattered onto the floor.
The soldiers saw their commander die and opened fire in a blind, screaming rage.
Bullets tore Dr. Vernick's headless corpse into a ragged sieve.
But Soren was already gone.
Blade light flashed through the packed soldiers like lightning through a storm. Bodies fell in pieces. Blood sprayed across concrete and metal. In seconds the elevator landing had become a slaughterhouse.
Corpses lay in spreading pools. The air stank of copper and cordite.
Only then did the facility's alarms finally catch up—shrill, earsplitting, red lights strobing across the carnage like the heartbeat of hell itself.
A rope hissed down from above. Luca swung in on it and landed lightly beside Soren.
He took one look at the mess of limbs and blood and gave a low whistle. "Damn. You work faster than my Roomba on max setting."
He straightened his scarf with one hand. "Of course, part of that is because I'm quick on the uptake. Got to the high ground the second things went loud."
Soren glanced at him. Maybe that razor-sharp survival instinct was exactly why the reporter kept walking away from places that should have killed him.
Then Soren turned sharply and snatched at empty air.
"Clatter—clatter—clatter—"
Black iron chains slammed into his grip, pulled taut from the other end hidden in the void.
He felt them struggling to retract. His eyes narrowed.
"This attack pattern…"
He twisted his arm and yanked hard. The chains came ripping out of the air and clattered to the floor, suddenly lifeless.
Soren lifted his head and looked down the long corridor deeper in the facility.
Several figures drifted toward him out of the red-lit dark.
The one in front wore a tight leather outfit. His head had been sliced into perfect little cubes, each cube pierced by a long iron nail. Both hands were held loosely in front of his lower abdomen, idly turning a small puzzle box between his fingers.
Behind him floated several other twisted shapes.
One had its lips torn away completely, exposing raw gums and teeth, its body shaking with constant, violent tremors.
"Pinhead?"