Godhood Unlocked: I Choose Sci-Magic Dual Cultivation

The crystal lit up with a blinding white glow, no longer as gentle as it had been when protecting the departed souls.

Instead, it was filled with majesty and fierce aggression.

The black mist within the screen world retreated before the white light. Dane increased his magical output, and the crystal shone almost like a little sun.

Even Diana could not help shielding her eyes. She could not look directly at that light.

"Stop—!!!"

Countless shrill screams came from the tiny world inside the screen, and Diana's expression changed.

Conservatively speaking, there were at least several hundred, perhaps even thousands, of voices.

If she rashly went in, even if she managed to fight her way out, she would probably be left half-dead!

These were residents of the Dark World, devils who colluded with demons.

Unlike omnivorous demons, devils fed solely on human souls.

The more despairing and fallen the soul, the more they relished it.

Thus, this tiny world contained nearly every evil script in existence, capable of inflicting all kinds of hellish tortures worse than death upon anyone who entered it.

Now, Dane had wiped out every last one of those evil things in one fell swoop.

Dane abruptly pulled out the Scepter. Devils poured out of the tiny screen in overwhelming numbers, a vast black mass that nearly filled the entire hall.

He slammed the Scepter against the floor, spreading a spherical shield of white light twenty feet in diameter with the crystal at its center.

It completely kept the devils outside.

"Kill him!"

One devil shrieked, and the hordes of devils charged the holy light barrier in a frenzy, crashing against it with cracking sounds.

Dane sneered. You worthless remnants, how dare trash like you run wild on my turf!

He lightly brushed the crystal with his left palm, and a powerful suction force suddenly formed.

Affected by that force, the devils were all sucked against the wall of holy light.

These devils were incorporeal spirits, so their very essence was restrained by the Power of Death.

Moreover, the godhead of death within Dane belonged to the Aztec pantheon. And what was that pantheon best at?

Living sacrifices!

The devils discovered in terror that their spiritual bodies were gradually drawn taut by the suction, compressed into thin sheets like abstract paintings and plastered across the wall of holy light.

This made the holy light's burning effect upon their spirits incredibly intense over every unit of surface area, intense enough to set them directly ablaze.

It was like how a thick stack of cardboard was difficult to burn with an open flame, while a thin sheet of paper would ignite merely by approaching a scorching fireplace.

The devils compressed into sheets were forced to endure this excruciating punishment.

And Dane, as though frying pancakes, tirelessly roasted them.

"No! Spare us! Please, spare us!"

Dane could not even be bothered to speak with these devils.

To him, devils were no different from cockroaches. If he encountered them, he killed them. No nonsense.

He increased the pull of the Power of Death, pressing their spiritual bodies even thinner.

Like carrying out the punishment of roasting, he treated them as sacrifices offered to the God of Death.

Meanwhile, as the God of Death, he rapidly absorbed the devils' "tribute." His somewhat depleted godhead of death began to grow stronger.

"I curse you! You cruel freak!"

Hearing someone curse him, Dane merely smiled without saying a word.

Blasphemers deserved cruel punishment!

So he repeatedly rubbed the speaking devil against the wall of holy light, as if he had grabbed its face and polished it across an asphalt road.

The devil let out an even more piercing scream, but before long, it was barely clinging to life.

At that point, Dane stuffed other devils into its stomach, restoring its strength before continuing the torture.

It contributed an enormous amount of power to the godhead of death. The godhead of death seemed to be cheering with delight, encouraging this torture.

Even Diana found it cruel to watch, but she was not a woman incapable of distinguishing right from wrong. Especially since the targets were devils, she would never plead for mercy on their behalf.

Still, she worried about Dane's mental state. This clearly was not a method a hero should use.

No one knew how much time passed before the last devil—the one who had tried to curse Dane—finally could not bear it any longer and destroyed itself. Only then did it end.

By then, without the devils' magic sustaining it, the tiny world inside the screen began to collapse.

With no other choice left, Nirgal could only come out.

Diana raised her sword and slashed at him.

"W-Wait, wait! That little girl's soul is still in my hands!"

Nirgal hurriedly shouted.

The Sword of Vulcan was less than a centimeter from his neck. It had nearly cut him in two with nothing but the blade's air slash.

Diana clearly knew that the girl named Tracy, imprisoned within Nirgal's body, was there. She hesitantly looked at Dane. Dane understood what she meant.

Seeing that things were going badly, Nirgal immediately tried to self-destruct and kill Tracy.

But Dane activated Mercury's Speed. Nirgal's movements seemed almost frozen in his eyes.

Within Dane's own vision, everything around him seemed to have fallen into temporal stasis. He pressed his hand against the demon's chest.

With a gentle push, his entire forearm sank into Nirgal's chest cavity.

But don't worry. At this moment, the demon still could not feel pain.

After feeling around a little, Dane grasped Nirgal's heart.

Then he pulled it out, as easily as pulling a potato from the ground.

A bright red heart lay in his hand.

So demon hearts were red too.

The temporal stasis ended, and only then did Nirgal feel the agonizing pain in his chest.

He stared blankly at the heart in Dane's hand and raised a feeble arm, as though trying to snatch it back.

Diana reacted swiftly and beheaded him on the spot.

Following the Network Cable to Chop You Down

"Are you all right?" Diana asked with concern.

If anyone unaware of the situation saw Dane right now, they would probably mistake him for a psychopath.

He was clutching a bloody heart, with blood smeared all over his body and face.

Only then did Diana remember that Dane had become a "god" just over a year ago. Before that, he had probably never seen such a bloody scene.

Startled by her gentle voice, Dane finally came back to his senses and looked at Diana with a smile.

"Don't worry, I'm fine."

"Really? If you feel uncomfortable, you can talk to me about it."

"I'm really fine... But you said it yourself. If something comes up, I'll come to you."

Diana smiled and patted him, believing him.

Dane held the demon's heart and began casting a spell. Before obtaining the Power of Death, this would have been somewhat troublesome for him.

But now, it was no problem at all. Dane inserted his fingers into the heart as though entering another space, then lightly twisted them.

He pulled out a faint, illusory spirit—a crying little girl.

He soothed her mind with divine power. After thinking about it, he decided it would be better if she did not retain this experience.

A human soul in a demon's hands—anyone could guess that she must have suffered terribly.

So he cast a Forgetting Spell, erasing the memories of the time Tracy had been taken by the demon.

"Go back. Return to your parents..."

As he spoke, Dane released Tracy's soul.

Back in London, Tracy's body on the hospital bed twitched.

Beside her lay a triangular necklace emitting a faint blue glow. At that moment, it suddenly flared brightly.

Chas and Renee were alarmed and hurriedly sought help from the Nightmare Nurse.

"You don't need to worry. I haven't detected any traces of dark magic on it."

As soon as she finished speaking, the necklace flashed with blue light before vanishing. The light disappeared, and so did the necklace.

But Tracy, lying on the hospital bed, slowly opened her eyes as well.

"Dad? Mom?"

Chas and Renee nearly lunged at the bedside at the same time, clutching their daughter as they wept uncontrollably.

"Thank God, you're finally awake!"

"My Tracy..."

With a warm smile on her lips, the Nightmare Nurse quietly left.

"You did well, Johnny. You've impressed me."

Yasa softly said this, then stepped into the Yin-Yang Realm and returned to Hell.

"It's over?"

Batman, who had been guarding outside the Manor, saw that the commotion in the haunted house had ceased and could not help asking.

Constantine took a drag of Silk Cut before slowly saying,

"Yeah, it's over. No demons, no devils!"

Batman turned to Constantine. "You impressed me today."

Heh heh~

Constantine raised his nostrils toward the sky and disdainfully snorted out smoke.

Though the five demons had agreed to join forces against Nirgal, they could not enter his territory by themselves.

So Constantine proposed a plan.

Using himself as bait, he pulled off a Trojan Horse scheme, smuggling the five demons into the Manor inside his body.

It was an extremely dangerous plan, and its danger was not merely the risk of being discovered.

As the "Trojan Horse," Constantine would inevitably have to endure the demons' corrupting power.

And the demons inside his body were far from obedient.

Like the Seven Deadly Sins within The Rock of Eternity, they constantly tempted Constantine, trying to make him fall.

Yet no one expected Constantine, who seemed the most likely to fall, to remain true to himself. When he had volunteered, Batman had actually opposed it.

Batman had wanted to act as the "Trojan Horse" himself, but Constantine convinced him with the argument that "Belial would kill you outright."

Perhaps Dane was right. This guy truly was qualified to join the Justice League.

Just then, Dane and Diana walked out of the Manor.

Behind them, the haunted house burned in raging flames.

Let the flames purify all of this.

"Boss, I joined the organization, but you still haven't told me about my salary and benefits!"

Constantine was extremely poor. He was nearly unable to afford Silk Cut anymore and did not even have enough money for a plane ticket back to London.

Dane looked at him as though he were an idiot. "We're a nonprofit organization. We have no income. It's all volunteer work."