Chapter 41: You are a weak female

At that precise moment, a searing pain coursed through Elliot’s entire body, yet the agony did not stop with the kick. Taking advantage of his lost balance, his opponent brought the wooden plank crashing down onto his back once more, with all his remaining might.

SMASHHH!

The plank shattered over his body, the brute force of the blow driving him violently forward.

Elliot slid a short distance before slamming heavily into the wing’s massive door, his head striking the solid wood directly.

He sank to the floor, groaning feebly, then raised a trembling hand with great effort toward his forehead, touching the warm blood that had begun to stream down and coat his fingers.

His vision was completely blurred.

He lay there, panting softly, and as consciousness began to slip away at the edges of his mind, a thousand dark possibilities flooded his thoughts.

In every single one of them...

His end was worse than the last—yet he held himself together, still turning over the plan he had meticulously crafted.

Suddenly, a voice from within Michael’s body interrupted his thoughts.

It was the demonic soul speaking.

Standing in the center of the room, it looked down at him with a sick, condescending smile, and said:

"Oh... Have you realized your true place now, you vile creature? No matter how long you inhabit this powerful body, a body resembling that of a man, you will remain a weak woman at your core—a fragile thing, unfit to face the soul of a real man. Even if you filled that body with every strength-enhancing drug this world has to offer, nothing would change the fact that you are female!"

Elliot could barely process most of that drivel.

Yet one thing he recognized with total clarity.

This lunatic had completely lost his mind.

His thoughts grew ever more unhinged, his gaze ever wilder, as if he no longer saw anything before him except prey to be subdued.

The soul continued, its tone brimming with contempt:

"Do you know why, wretched thing? Because you were never born a male. You were never meant to lead. Never meant to make the decisions—you were born to submit to whoever is stronger than you."

It stepped closer, its voice growing even more unhinged.

"You will beg for mercy..."

Then it offered a cold, chilling smile.

"And you will realize that your resistance means nothing before me."

"And in the end... nothing will remain for you but submission."

Elliot kept staring at it in silence, blood dripping from his forehead, while those final words echoed in his ears.

He did not know whether his opponent was insane...

...or whether this place itself had begun driving everyone toward madness.

Yet, contrary to what that sick entity expected as it looked down on him with superiority while he lay in agony on the floor, a mocking smile carved itself onto Elliot’s face. Faint, broken chuckles escaped him, so saturated with pain that forcing out each one seemed harder than accomplishing any task in the world.

"If you believe this drivel will make me crawl to you on my knees, begging for mercy... then you are utterly delusional."

It was evident that his exhausted body no longer possessed the strength to speak without groaning, yet despite everything, he squeezed out the last drop of his willpower and stood firm, blood streaming ominously over his masculine features.

"I have always wondered what I truly am... comforting myself with the thought that I was still male despite all those absurd transformations that befell my body. But setting all that aside, I think you got one thing wrong... and hit the mark on another."

When the demon residing in Michael’s body saw Elliot’s trembling knees, barely able to support his weight, it was astonished by his composure as he continued to speak with confidence:

"The one standing before you right now is neither male... nor female... nor even merely a fleeting hybrid body! Because in this world, I do not submit to the weakness of males nor the fragility of females... I am the ideal, supreme human! I am Elliot Miles!"

Yet he did not settle for merely spouting words.

At that very instant, right before the stunned eyes of the demonic soul, the massive male form began to shrink rapidly. The broad jaw receded, the muscular build contracted, and before it formed a soft-featured, androgynous face whose owner’s gender was impossible to discern.

However, a strange, comical detail accompanied this transformation: Elliot’s arms remained at the massive size of his previous male form, appearing far larger than they ought to be relative to his shortened, contracted body.

The demonic entity mocked him, taking in that warped appearance:

"Oh... Look at this! Do you think transforming into this laughable, clownish form will change anything about your reality?"

Elliot did not bother offering a lengthy reply, settling for a cold tone and an enigmatic smile:

"It seems you are still in need of another round of suppression..."

At that moment, demonic Michael rushed with all his strength toward Elliot’s body, which now appeared smaller and more fragile, aiming to put an immediate end to this farce.

Elliot stood motionless, the unsettling smile never leaving his face, which only amplified his opponent’s rage. The demon resolved to land a decisive, devastating punch right in the middle of that handsome face, to smash it completely.

The scoundrel’s punch approached until it was a mere few millimeters from Elliot’s nose, while Elliot’s hands remained at his sides without moving an inch to block the strike directly.

Suddenly, in a movement that seemed slow and clumsy at first glance, Elliot raised his massive fist, then brought it down with swift, lightning speed—as if striking the air beside his opponent in entirely the wrong spot, to no apparent avail and without directing it at him at all.

Yet in a shocking, terrifying instant!

BOOOMMM!

That heavy fist seemed to tear through space itself, disappearing from its original position before bursting into existence directly in front of the demonic soul’s face without any warning!

The opponent’s face was shattered under the weight of the sudden punch, his body hurled backward with immense force as a line of blood sprayed from his nose into the air while he crashed to the floor.

The blow was so decisive and devastating that it knocked the demonic entity completely flat, blood pouring profusely from his broken nose.