"I smell something exquisite on you. The box has never answered anyone with such hunger."
Pinhead walked at the front, face perfectly calm as he turned the puzzle box in his hands. "It didn't choose you as a passing curiosity. It chose you as the perfect subject for the ultimate experience of pain. Your—"
"Your bullshit is getting old."
Soren cut him off.
Pinhead's fingers paused on the box. He turned his blank, nail-studded face toward Soren's left and right.
"Clatter—!"
Two chains exploded out of the air and shot straight at Soren.
"Clang!"
A clean flash of steel sliced both chains in half before they could touch him.
"Leave this to me."
Soren glanced back at Luca and Upsher, who had just climbed up from below.
"—You… you take care of yourself."
Upsher muttered under his breath. He clutched his camera, exchanged a quick look with Luca, and both men took off without another word—one left, one right—down separate corridors.
"—Who the hell told you two to split up in a place like this?"
Soren watched them vanish and shook his head.
Still, he had to admit the timing was lucky. Dr. Vernick had pulled almost every security asset in the facility to the elevator shaft to deal with him. Otherwise, with this many bodies already on the floor, reinforcements would have been swarming them by now.
The two cenobites saw their prey escaping and blurred forward, chasing after Luca and Upsher.
"Going somewhere?"
Soren's eyes narrowed. Several arcs of dark-purple blade light slashed out and cut off their path.
The one with the torn-away lips—Chatterer—spun around and glared at Soren.
"We will tear your soul open and drag you down into endless suffering—"
Pinhead didn't look angry that his targets were getting away. He simply kept turning the Lament Configuration until it clicked.
Dozens of chains erupted from the void and hooked into Soren's limbs and torso.
"Accept the gift of pain—"
Pinhead's voice stayed flat.
"Clatter—!"
The chains yanked outward with brutal force, trying to rip Soren apart.
He didn't move an inch. Purple light flickered in his eyes as he sneered.
"That all you got?"
He flexed both arms. Raw power exploded through his body.
"Snap—!"
The chains—strong enough to bind upper demons—shattered like cheap string.
Soren shrugged the broken links off and let them clatter to the floor.
For the first time, a flicker of surprise crossed Pinhead's otherwise expressionless face.
When Soren had yanked the chains out of Hell earlier, Pinhead had barely reacted. But now the same chains had been torn apart by brute strength alone?
Soren didn't give him time to think. He drew and slashed in one motion.
"Shhhk—!"
The blade light flashed. The fat cenobite standing in front of Pinhead didn't even have time to react before he was sliced cleanly in half.
Soren moved through the corridor like a ghost, cutting down Chatterer and the remaining cenobite with the same effortless speed. These creatures were built for psychological torment, not close-quarters combat. Against someone this fast and this strong, they never stood a chance.
In moments the hallway was quiet again. Only Pinhead remained standing among the corpses.
He looked down at the bodies without any visible reaction.
"Your soul is too strong. Too filthy. Mortal instruments cannot make you taste true suffering—"
As he spoke, the puzzle box in his hands spun rapidly, reshaping itself into a complex geometric form.
"Only the endless labyrinth created by the great Leviathan can bury you."
The moment the words left his mouth, the entire underground facility seemed to come alive.
The floor beneath Soren's feet suddenly lifted and shot upward toward the ceiling. He leapt off just in time.
Walls, floors, and sealed laboratory doors began sliding and rotating like pieces of a massive Rubik's Cube. Straight corridors were torn apart and reassembled in new patterns. Rooms shifted and locked into place with mechanical precision.
It looked like watching an enormous, perfectly synchronized puzzle solve itself.
"They turned the whole damn base into a giant puzzle box?"
Soren felt a spark of genuine surprise. He had expected Pinhead to open a gate straight to Hell. Instead the cult had weaponized the entire facility, letting Pinhead control it through the Lament Configuration.
The box clicked one final time.
The shifting stopped.
Soren landed on a completely new stretch of floor.
He looked around. The elevator shaft behind him was gone. In its place was a sterile white laboratory. The only sound was the faint hiss of air circulation.
"Clang!"
A chain shot out of the air without warning.
Soren didn't even turn his head. He sliced it apart with a casual backhand.
He sheathed his blade and started walking down the newly formed corridor.
Through the glass windows of the labs on either side, he caught glimpses of massive demon heads floating in murky preservation fluid. One of them had toppled during the restructuring; its dead, fish-like eyes stared blankly at him through the glass.
Further ahead the corridor opened into a different section—rows of individual holding cells instead of labs.
Through the observation windows he saw the same setup repeated over and over: pitch-black rooms with a single small screen in the center looping the kind of footage that never made it onto the dark web. In front of each screen sat a prisoner—some poor bastard the cult had dragged in.
Soren passed several cells. Most were identical. In a few, the restructuring had killed the occupant; bodies lay crumpled on the floor.
He was about to open one of the doors and question a survivor when the floor beneath his feet gave a faint tremor.
From the corridor behind him came the sound of panicked, running footsteps.
"Thud—thud—thud—!"
Soren turned.
A group of white-coated researchers came sprinting toward him, faces twisted in pure terror. Some had lost their shoes. One tripped and started crawling on all fours, too scared to get back up.
"Help! The monsters got out!"
They streamed past him in a blind rush, still looking back over their shoulders.
Soren glanced down the corridor they had come from.
"ROOOAAAR!!!"
A massive shape the size of a small hill came barreling through the narrow passage, smashing researchers aside like they were made of paper. Blood sprayed across the walls.
Soren's eyes narrowed.
The creature's upper body was grotesquely overdeveloped—arms thicker than a man's torso, muscles bulging so hard they looked ready to split the skin. Its arms hung low enough to drag on the floor. It grabbed one screaming researcher and slammed him into the ground with a wet crunch.
Soren recognized the silhouette instantly.
A Tank.