Staring into her eyes, he whispered, "Full release."
His vision began to fade into oblivion, drenched in sweat from head to toe just like the first day it all happened against Iyi. The brutal tug-of-war for his humanity began all over again. His canines elongated, but this time, only his left eye filled with a deep, crimson liquid. Staring into that eye felt like staring into the bloodbath of a thousand ancient wars. The blood within it defied gravity, pooling to the brim without spilling a single tear—his right eye remaining the sole, stubborn anchor of his humanity.
With every breath Michael took, thick steam billowed from him like a burning furnace. As he locked eyes with the demon, a chilling realization hung in the air: looking at them now, one had to wonder who the real monster was.
"Well, not only are you that bastard's offspring, you're also a fallen one," Gina smiled ear to ear, her eyes flashing. "I must take you to my lord. My name is Gina, the seventh devil of my lord, Lucifer Morningstar. With his power, I shall return you to my land."
"Full release."
She adopted a transformation nearly identical to Michael's, yet terrifyingly controlled, as if she executed this ritual routinely—save for the single, blazing horn erupting from her forehead. Her muscles contracted sharply, leaning out her frame until she looked less like a person and more like a human-shaped missile.
Gina stood right in front of Michael. Neither said a word. To Michael, the rest of the world dissolved entirely. Stripped of speech in this form, he retained absolute intellect, channeling every ounce of his willpower to delete everything from his perception except Gina, who stood before him like a monolith.
The wind howled; the rain dropped. Neither moved, staring at each other like statues waiting for the trigger.
Then, they vanished.
The raindrops seemed to crawl in slow motion as the ground behind them erupted. Their fists collided head-on. Michael's entire fist split open and bled, but the bones didn't shatter—proving his body had truly transcended its limits. He didn't waste a microsecond, launching himself backward.
Gina smiled, repeating her bullet-speed rush over and over. Michael didn't care. He charged straight at her as new holes punched through his flesh, healing back at lightning speed. At this point, Michael was neither human nor demon; he was a rabid, loose bull.
"I see you've lost your mind, huh?" Gina sneered.
Michael ignored her entirely as a massive reservoir of energy bubbled up in his throat.
Gina's eyes widened. "Wait—he can't—!"
She instantly channeled energy into her horn as both of them fired blazing beams of destruction. A cataclysmic energy explosion tore through the earth, setting the ground ablaze. But Michael didn't stop there. Even after taking the brunt of the devastation, he slammed his hands onto the floor, using his legs to launch himself upward into a vicious, overhead-driving kick.
Gina ducked, pivoting for a devastating right hook meant to smash his head clean off.
In mid-air, Michael snapped his own neck backward to dodge the blow, driving his teeth downward to bite clean through her passing hand. Channeling another massive surge of energy into his core, he screamed—
"ROOOAR!"
It was the roar of a dragon. The raw energy output literally shredded his own face from the inside out, leaving his tongue and teeth exposed as blood sprayed everywhere.
Yet Gina's hand didn't instantly heal back. She hissed, staring at the wound. "I see... just like him, huh? I notice your energy slows down my regeneration. Whatever kind of EMO this is..." She looked up at his ruined, half-charred frame. "...Look at you, though. You're half-dead."
Michael's head rebuilt itself from scratch in real-time. "No... I am not."
He lunged forward like a projectile.