Chapter 20

The confrontation was almost epic.

Even considering that I drugged him with a powder I'd stolen from Ramiel.

The effects of this miracle drug wore off almost immediately. If I'd been a few minutes too late, there would have been nothing left of my farm in our new confrontation. Defense was made with an emphasis on concealment and repulsion of attacks from the outside. I had no idea at the time that it would occur to me to drag the strongest demons here.

Fortunately I managed to seize the initiative; without it I might have lost, he was not only strong, but experienced. And while my angel fire had helped me with the Dukes before, I was too much of a blackguard now. I was reminded of the damage I'd received from Dagon. I was in the middle of a fight, and I was in the middle of a fight, and I was in the middle of a fight.

So that's the bouquet of debuffs I took on the King of Hell.

Darwin prize for me!

Even though he was more skilled, this time, it was the amount of strength that bailed me out. I wiped him out, and then began to absorb him.

I woke up surprised to realize that the demon defense had begun to offer me some resistance, which was very bad. I had to hurry.

There was no hurry, as I felt, to put it mildly, unimportant. I diagnose serious demon poisoning.

The whispers in my head grew louder. I felt the urge to subjugate all demons, and then humanity. Ugh, such platitudes.

I even thought for a second, yes, a second-no more.

Swapping my body for my own. I closed my bunker tightly, and lay down in a small ritual drawing, only four meters in diameter. It was the same on the ceiling. Their role is not only a powerful stabilizer of the processes inside, but also a substitute for the verbal formula of the ritual. I will not be able to "make a speech" myself for quite obvious reasons.

In short: repair what is broken, remove what is not needed, strengthen the rest, and very desirably not to die. You can not think of a simpler way.

The next step was absorption of all phoenixes that I had left, it was to protect my soul from decay, so it was a fuse, but there is no doubt that it is useful. And the last step was to absorb all the grace of Gabriel that I had, and that was a lot. The word is an activator to start the ritual, and I can only hope for the best.

Oh, I hope I don't die.

Trying to trace the process going on inside my soul was unsuccessful. At first I felt warm, then hot, and then I don't remember...

***

In the middle of the room, which looked more like a military bunker, a human body hovered in the air between two glowing drawings. It periodically flashed an intolerable white light, causing damage to that very body, but after a second all the wounds and burns disappeared.

The energy that burst out as a result of the processes going on inside was so great that the physical shell suffered, but it also cured all the damage.

With each flash, some of this energy was absorbed into the sword hanging on my belt.

If you pay attention to the dust covering all the objects in the bunker, it is clear that this light up has been going on for months.

But now, an unknown amount of time later, after a particularly bright flash, the body failed and scattered in bloody shreds across the room.

A human, translucent silhouette was left hanging in its place.

It was conspicuous enough, given the bright orange eyes and the increased number of multicolored spheres all over its body.

***

It was a strange awakening.

To begin with, I was left without a body, its parts lying everywhere I could and could not.

When I examined myself, I realized that I didn't understand anything.

My soul had changed a lot, both externally and internally. I had to figure out what I had done wrong this time.

I began in order.

All the power I'd gotten from the demons I'd eaten had taken up residence in my head, as a pale yellow orb. It was the one that lit up when I took turns using telekinesis, telepathy, and even my fire.

The dark blue orb that was in the upper half of my chest was my magic, which became clear after another round of tests.

And since they're separate, it turns out that all demons aren't mages, but some kind of psionics. And some of them just know how to do magic.

Former human souls who became mental parasites after being tortured in hell.

And it only became clear to me now. In my defense, I can say that I am not an expert in such matters. And in general, it is only a theory made on the basis of several guesses and not quite healthy imagination.

Below was the largest of the spheres, and as I realized, this is the main core of my soul. The main energy reserve into which the power of the Nephilim and all the angels had gone. It was also where all my grace was, which was good, because you couldn't get it out of me now.

It was bright white, and around it were five grains of power that I had traded with the Gods, each in its own "orbit. As I checked, it became clear that they didn't have their own supply. The energy is shared by the "star. Why? Very similar.

And the last one, just below my belly button, is orange in color. What kind of energy was in there I didn't know. My attempts to do something with it, she majestically ignored.

Yeah, I'm just a cosmos.

I was in the middle of the night, and I was in the middle of the night.

I was in the middle of the night, but I was still in the middle of the night. I was in the phase, and I was in the phase before I was ready to go to the phase. And even if I could, I don't know how.

So I decided to hammer a nail with a microscope. I lifted the index finger of my right hand, "put" it on the right place and activated the full healing.

Even with my enormous reserves of energy, I felt that it was very expensive to create a body this way. The sight must have been extremely interesting from the outside, and disgusting.

The biggest sphere lit up, followed by the one in my head and the last one, the lowest one.

Hmm, maybe that's where I have my life force. Like prana or something.

I'm not a very pleasant person, watching the skeleton grow from my finger, followed by the muscles, then the skin and organs.

The brain came last. It was the last thing I did, and the universe seemed to be telling me that I didn't use it much, so there was no point in rushing to create it.

- Oh, good! - my voice echoed through the empty bunker. - Hmm, what's that strange feeling? - I went on talking to myself.

Focusing on this feeling I could say I pulled on myself, for some reason it felt right.

Half an hour later, I was sitting on the porch of my farmhouse, drinking tea and twirling my old blade, which I had inherited from a soul-eating angel. I'd forgotten to take it off before I went through the ritual, and my head was full of other things.

Yeah, taking over the world.

I was in the middle of the night, and I was in the middle of the night. Why I was still alive. The ritual had cleaned out what used to be my brain. The desire, which I had not paid attention to before for some reason, to gain power by any means, ignoring common sense, was gone.

I used to think I was a reasonable enough person back in that life. I tried to make informed decisions.

What impulsiveness leads to is clear when you remember how I died. No, I don't regret anything, I helped and that's fine. But the fact is obvious.

Of course, you can blame it on poor, miserable Azazel. He's the bastard who made me drunk with his blood, who left me no choice, who killed my parents. But what was stopping me from crawling into a dark corner and keeping a low profile? But no, I'm a badass, so I need more power and canon.

In fact, I've never even visited my parents' graves and abandoned my aunt.

I need to make amends.

- Shit!" I was talking to myself again. - And if they write a fanfic about me, too, and I did such crap because the author is a jerk. And about G.G., who left and hid somewhere in Canada, no one will read... Nah, that's bullshit.

The whispers in my head have subsided, the lust for power has subsided. No desire to catch a tasty demon or angel, either.

That's great.

I'll consume souls only in case of emergency. If my head goes off the rails a second time, I might not survive it.

I glanced again at the sword I still held in my hands. It hadn't changed much, but that was about it. A gain of about ten centimeters in "height" and the missing name of the previous owner I wasn't even counting. It was nothing compared to the color change.

It has turned golden, like the Archangels. It's not a piano anymore, it's an organ.

- What's that supposed to mean? - Of course I know that every angel and archangel was born with his sword, and when they die, they don't disappear. But I'm not one of those feathered weirdos, so it's not clear.

Even the fact that I spent almost six months in the bunker wasn't such shocking news.

The aura disguise, or whatever it is that gives us supernatural beings, is working like clockwork again, so after getting used to my increased strength, I decided to visit my aunt first, and then my friends.

My aunt's husband lost his job, which led to frequent and excessive drinking. He was a normal guy, but his problems broke him.

Naturally, I did not wait for a second time, until everything was fine on its own, and I coded him so that he would not be able to look at booze for the rest of his life.

I visited my parents, and it was damn hard. Thanks to the fact that I was no longer an amorphous something, but quite an anthropomorphic entity, hiding became a lot easier.

Why is it hard, and why hide? I was smart enough not to go to the cemetery, but I wasn't smart enough to go to heaven.

A little diversion for distraction and I was able to watch my relatives. I did not get too close. I felt a kind of relief, relieved my soul of its weight.

I did not linger. I was still in the dark, not wanting to cause a massacre in Heaven if I got burned.

When I got to Bobby's house, it was probably the first time I'd ever knocked on the door. He used to be married to Ellen, but he lived alone in his den and she ran the bar, now that the Roadhouse had burned down, I guess they lived together. And I wasn't wrong. Jo answered the door for me.

- It's been a long time Jo, I wish I could say you've gotten prettier and all, but I can't. Were you tortured by demons? - What else can I say when there was a revived corpse standing in front of me, with huge bags under his eyes with a fur coat on his head and a T-shirt with a bunch of different stains on it.

- Adam, you're back, come in and I'm begging you, be quiet or I'll kill you and defile your remains in a hundred different ways. - It was said in such an unemotional voice that even I had goose bumps on my back. I didn't even understand the hit at first, but then I heard a child crying. - Oh no, he just fell asleep, why would I do that? - and Jo let out what sounded like a sob and ran off at the sound.

- What the fuck is going on here? - I asked the emptiness quietly, and the emptiness didn't answer.

I had to go deal with it.

Jo was trying to calm the baby, and she wasn't doing a damn thing.

- Adam, my darling little baby, calm down, I beg of you," she said in a soft, gentle, quiet voice.

Hmm, named after me? My ego is ecstatic.

- I am calm. - I didn't think it through. I was so stared at, I almost called for my blade.

- Jo's scary. - "Blue cat," said the flying cat behind me.

Illusions rule.

- What's that? - She blinked, her eyes staring up at me in shock as she pointed her free hand toward me.

- Where?" I looked around just in case.

- Oh my God, I'm already having glitches. I don't understand why he's crying. - The blonde almost sobbed herself. I silently walked over and took the baby in my arms. After running my hand over him I understood the reason.

- He is teething, so he cries. - After relieving the pain I put the baby in a crib and sent him to a medicinal sleep. - That's all, he will sleep for a few hours. And you go take a shower and go to bed too, I'll watch, and then we'll talk. - I didn't even have time to finish my sentence, and she was already gone, only the door rattled, and all without a sound, that's what a child in the house does to people.

Jo slept until lunch the next day, my namesake and I found something to occupy ourselves with. He's a quiet baby, if the pain of growing teeth is taken away.

I used telekinesis to change diapers. Yes, it was a workout and nothing else.

We went for a walk outside, weather permitting. Jo was still asleep when Ellen and Bobby came back.

And what did they see? Instead of the older sister they had left to look after the baby, there was a strange man walking around the yard with their son, but that was all right, the baby himself was flying in the air and laughing loudly.

- Get our son back, you son of a bitch. - I got so carried away, I didn't even notice them sneaking up on me. Plus, they approached me from behind, and I was wearing a hood so the sun wouldn't shine in my eyes.

Thank goodness for me-I hadn't lost control, and little Adam was smoothly back in my arms.

- How dare you order me around, you miserable mortals? - I spoke in a changed voice, still with my back to them. - I will destroy you," and laughed like a classic villain. The little one supported me, laughing infectiously, too.

And then I turned around.