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Chapter 17 Marvel's Corrupt Exorcist
🕑 Added 2025-05-10 02:28:16 +0000 UTCLooking at Daniel—barely standing, bloodied, and about to be cut down by Belasco—the Avengers finally snapped out of their daze.
"Should we go help him?"
"Well, what do you think!?"
Tony was the first to move. He suited up in the Mark 17—Heartbreaker armor—and shot into the sky. A flash lit his chest as he fired a high-caliber particle beam straight at Belasco.
It didn’t do real damage. But it hit hard enough to throw off Belasco’s swing.
That was a first.
Tony’s hit had actually interrupted one of Belasco’s attacks.
It didn’t last.
Cap, Natasha, Sam, and the others followed close behind, leaping into the fray.
Thanks to the Lightweight Charm Daniel had cast earlier, everyone had Hulk-like jumping power.
They shot through the air like missiles, bounding over ten meters at a time. It gave them speed. It gave them reach.
But it didn’t give them stopping power.
Even with magic-enhanced mobility and shields, their attacks barely scratched Belasco.
“Enough!” Belasco growled, eyes blazing. “You noisy ants!”
The demon lord’s patience snapped. Despite a few cuts and scrapes, he was done playing.
He locked onto Tony, who was darting around above like an annoying fly.
“Uh oh…” Tony muttered as he saw the ten-meter-long demonic sword raise toward him. “That’s not good.”
Belasco swung.
Then—
The world dimmed.
Shadows from every direction lunged toward Belasco like ink being sucked into a void. A pitch-black sphere bloomed around him, swallowing the light.
“ROAR!”
“My shadow! Come back!” Hulk bellowed, charging after his own fleeing silhouette like a kid chasing a balloon.
Every shadow on the battlefield rushed in. The air darkened. In seconds, Belasco stood at the center of a perfect globe of darkness.
“...What the hell?” Natasha muttered.
Confusion rippled through the Avengers.
Daniel took the chance to fall back, dragging himself away from the chaos. He groaned, clutching his side. “Finally… a breather.”
Tony stared down at the vanishing shadow under his feet, mouth open.
He wanted to say something. Maybe science-y. Maybe clever.
But he just shut his mouth.
“Optical phenomenon? Light distortion?” he muttered. “Screw it. I’ve seen gods. Who cares if a shadow runs away.”
……………
Inside the darkness—
Belasco lowered his sword. Slowly. Carefully.
“So. You’ve got more than one trick up your sleeve,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Tell me—did you lie to the others too?”
He turned, watching a figure walk calmly out of the void.
It was Luke.
The so-called 'pure soul.' The human who’d just wiped out an army of demons.
Or maybe… something else entirely.
Luke had dropped his demon form. But his presence still crackled with power. The demonic energy pulsed faintly beneath his skin, runes glowing along his arms.
“Lie? Come on,” Luke said casually. “Let’s not use such harsh words.”
He stepped closer, smirking. “It was just… strategic cooperation. A little misunderstanding.”
Belasco didn’t answer. He didn’t care what Luke called himself.
What mattered now was figuring out what the hell he was up to.
“You’re not here to fight?” Luke asked, raising an eyebrow. “What then?”
“Planning to surrender?”
Seeing that Luke had activated his demon form, Belasco couldn’t help but laugh mockingly.
Sure, Luke’s power was impressive—for a low-level demon. But in Belasco’s eyes? It was barely a spark compared to the inferno he commanded.
Luke knew it too. He hadn’t completely absorbed the Shadow Demon’s essence—just a portion.
The rest of his strength came from demonic fragments he’d collected from other encounters.
Against a Hell Lord just under the level of a Skyfather, this wasn’t nearly enough.
Even so—Luke didn’t flinch.
Not even a little.
Because tucked safely in his pocket was a card etched with a high-level exorcism ritual.
A last-resort trick he could trigger anytime.
"System, can you make my holy soul a little more... visible?"
As soon as the words left his mouth, a soft, radiant glow spread out behind him.
A warm, hazy light wrapped around his body, giving him a surreal, almost angelic presence.
"Nice work," Luke thought, mentally nodding at his system’s smooth execution.
Then he looked straight at Belasco.
Bingo.
Just as he expected.
The Hell Lord froze.
Belasco had never expected a human-demon hybrid to pull this kind of stunt.
The holy glow practically screamed: Look at me—I’ve got a real pure soul.
"You... is that actually a holy soul?" Belast muttered, narrowing his eyes.
Until now, he had always believed that “holy souls” were a hoax—just bait tossed around by low-tier demons who didn’t know better.
But this? This was different.
Belasco’s gaze darkened with hunger.
The last time a genuine holy soul appeared on Earth was over two thousand years ago… a man named Jesus, if he recalled correctly.
———
Luke saw that look—the greedy, obsessive stare—and grinned.
He knew that look all too well.
“Heh... so what now?” Luke said with a casual shrug. “Truth is, you’ve always been the one I’ve truly worshipped.”
“I summoned all those other demons just to get your attention, mighty Bera… uh…”
His smile twitched.
Crap. What was this guy’s name again?
Thankfully, Belasco didn’t seem to notice—or care.
He was too focused on Luke’s words.
In the world of demons, souls weren’t just trophies.
They were fuel. The right one could mean a leap in power, maybe even evolution.
And right now, a real holy soul was standing right in front of him.
If he could absorb it… he might finally break through that cursed "sub" rank.
He could become a true Skyfather-tier demon.
"You want... to make a deal with me?" Belasco asked, eyes burning with greed.
Luke shivered a little under the intensity of his stare.
“Why does it feel like he’s checking me out for something else…?”
But he kept a straight face.
“That’s right,” Luke said, puffing out his chest a little. “Those lesser demons don’t deserve my soul. That’s why I tricked them.”
“Only someone like you—a true Hell Lord—deserves the purest soul on Earth!”
Luke dove headfirst into the nonsense.
He knew exactly how this would translate in demon-speak:
“Lord Belasco, I’ve stayed pure just for you~”
[T/N: Wai ar u gey?]
"...really."
After hearing Luke's words, Belasco fell into an unusual silence.
Then, with a sharp look, he asked, "So what do you want from me?"
"Not much," Luke replied casually, waving his hand. "Just thirty to forty percent of your power."
Even just 30 to 40 percent of Belasco's strength would more than double the demonic power flowing through Luke’s veins. With the system backing him, Luke didn’t need to be greedy. If he could trade a little, that was enough.
"Thirty to forty percent of my strength?" Belasco muttered, lowering his head in thought.
But after a moment, he lifted his gaze—eyes still greedy, but now tinted with a cruel glint.
Was this guy serious?
It wanted the holy soul to increase its power, not give some of it away!
Give up strength in exchange for a holy soul? What a joke!
"Do you think I'm some kind of fool?" Belasco’s voice dropped, cold and threatening.
His monstrous mouth curled into a vicious smile.
"If I kill you, your soul becomes mine anyway!"
Luke's face twitched.
Well, crap. He just ran into a demonic con artist who was ready to rob instead of bargain.
"Ha! Deal with me?" Belasco laughed darkly, raising his sword slowly.
Reality was cruel—without power, you didn’t even have the right to negotiate.
Now, Belasco was done talking.
Time to kill this bold human and seize his rare holy soul.
But just as he began to strike, a burst of blinding white light flared between them.
"What the hell?!"
Luke gritted his teeth. "You want consequences? Fine, I’ll deliver them myself!"
He’d had enough. The hunter got hunted.
As Belasco lunged, Luke activated the Exorcist Ritual encoded into his card. White light exploded outward!
Even with power rivaling the a Pseudo-Skyfather, Belasco couldn’t escape the force of a direct expulsion.
So, no more talking.
Game over.
Though Luke triggered the ritual, he wasn’t one to hold grudges—still, getting played like that? It stung... well, at least he now knew how the demons he scammed felt, even if its just a little.
As Belasco was wrapped in the purging light and started fading, Luke made a sudden dash forward.
He snatched the hilt of Belasco’s demonic blade at the last second.
"You...!" Belasco managed, shocked.
But before he could finish, the light swallowed him whole.
Then came another surge—an even stronger blast of white energy flooded outward from the dark realm.
In the blink of an eye, every single demon across the New York battlefield vanished.
Gone.
Not even a corpse remained.
It was as if they had never existed.
"Where did all the demons go?" Steve Rogers asked, scanning the now eerily quiet streets.
If not for the wreckage and destruction around them, he might’ve thought it was all a dream.
"That was... an exorcism circle. A powerful one..."
Daniel Drumm, bleeding but conscious, forced himself up.
Only one being on Earth could set up something like this, in his mind.
"The Ancient One? Are they here...?"
He looked around, searching the battlefield.
But after several long seconds, he found nothing.
No sign of the Ancient One.
Only silence remained.
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Moustafa Al_taweel
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