After the eerie wind swept through, William clearly sensed a wave of malice descend upon the small park.
But this malice, upon seeing the soul Fisher had released, didn't pounce on it to devour it immediately. Instead, it cautiously scanned for danger or traps.
After waiting a while and seeing Freddy still hadn't taken the bait, Fisher—worried that his unpredictable master would run out of patience—finally spoke up.
"Freddy, you useless trash, hurry up and come out to greet the great Lord Fisher!"
"Fisher?" Startled upon hearing the bully dog speak, Freddy paused for a second before cackling darkly.
Circling around Fisher and sniffing the unique sulfurous scent of a demon, Freddy finally revealed his form.
But before he could even begin mocking Fisher, William—hidden on a park bench—snapped his fingers. In an instant, a mirror dimension enveloped the entire square.
Realizing it was a trap and attempting to flee, Freddy was caught mid-escape. With a thought, William forced him to reveal his scarred, burned visage.
"Welcome to my world, Freddy."
William revealed himself. Freddy, who had been frantically scanning for an exit, instantly changed targets and charged toward him, claws outstretched.
But with another thought from William, Freddy was horrified to find that no matter how fast he ran or how he turned, the space around him seemed to stretch endlessly backward with every step he took.
Realizing he'd been pulled into a pocket dimension, Freddy began to panic.
Though he was a nightmare demon feared throughout Elm Street—his very name treated like a curse—he was nothing more than a weakling in the face of someone who could bend space.
Even in a dream state, William, as a soul, could still wield Holy Light. Dragging Freddy back to Hell would be laughably easy.
The reason William had kicked Fisher away earlier when the demon offered to lure Freddy into a dream was simple: he didn't want a demon sticking too close to him.
William wasn't in the mood to waste time with a weakling who wasn't even a mid-tier demon. With a mere thought, he immobilized Freddy, infused spatial energy into his demon spirit, then waved his hand and expelled him back to Hell.
The moment Freddy's true body in Hell reabsorbed his demon spirit, William used the spatial trace to grab him and yank him directly into the mirror dimension.
"Hahahaha!"
Seeing Freddy trembling with fear, Fisher—still in his bully dog form—circled him a few times before sneering loudly,
"Freddy, what kind of dog should you be? A Chihuahua? A Toy Poodle?"
"Shut up, Fisher."
William flicked a finger, and a hammer formed of telekinetic energy smacked the smug Fisher into the wall of the mirror space.
"I'm William Devonshire. Either submit, or die."
A wave of Holy Light suddenly filled the mirror space. Both Freddy and Fisher began to wail in agony as their skin cracked and burned.
Fisher, being a mid-tier demon and having just received a soul coin from William, was sustained by over a hundred souls. Though in pain, he was far better off than Freddy.
As Freddy watched himself slowly disintegrate while Fisher devoured souls one by one and regenerated, jealousy and resentment burned in his heart.
Then, spotting the soul coin in William's hand and sensing the violent, murderous energy of the souls inside, Freddy—on the verge of dissolution—shouted,
"I submit! I submit!"
Ding...
The soul coin in William's hand flew into Freddy's grasp. Instantly, the Holy Light vanished from the mirror space.
Clutching the soul coin, Freddy greedily inhaled its contents, and his wounds began healing visibly.
He even let out the exact same groan Fisher had made the first time he absorbed so many souls.
Then, under Fisher's gloating gaze, Freddy was sent flying by a brutal kick from William.
William then used an empty soul coin to extract Freddy's demon spirit, smiling as he turned to Fisher.
"Teach Freddy what he needs to know. We leave in five minutes to find that skeletal demon."
"Understood, Master."
William didn't bother listening to the two demons chatter. When they departed, all he saw at his side was one bully dog and one bulldog.
With both mid-sized "dogs" in tow, William arrived at Manhattan's Midnight Bar in New York.
A flash of Holy Light glowed in his eyes as he looked at the card posted at the entrance. After confirming that the bouncer was a regular human, he smiled and said,
"Parrot."
The doorman immediately stepped aside.
Being stared at by someone whose eyes radiated holy symbols was terrifying enough. As a voodoo apprentice, he would've fled on the spot if not for his equal fear of the Midnight Bar's owner.
Once William entered the bar, the doorman—still holding his phone—hurried outside and called the bar's owner with a warning.
Inside, the bar was noticeably emptier than what Sunday had reported—likely due to an incident the previous night.
Before William could speak, a serious-looking Black man walked up.
"William Devonshire?"
Clatter—
The moment the bar owner spoke his name, all the dark creatures watching from the shadows gasped in terror, icy fear running down their spines.
Several werewolves and vampires even stood up and began fleeing deeper into the bar.
"Silence."
As William spoke, the entire bar went still. Not a single person could move or make a sound.
"I'm looking for the skeletal demon who showed up here yesterday. Tell me where he is, and I'll pretend I never saw any of you trash. Deal?"
After ten seconds of silence—fully aware none of them could answer—William grinned and gestured at Freddy.
"Time to work."
He snapped his fingers, and more than twenty dark creatures in the bar fell into a deep sleep.
Seeing this, Freddy—still in his bulldog form—grinned darkly and eagerly entered the dreams of one creature after another.
Moments later, a werewolf whose soul had been devoured by Freddy silently dropped dead.
Unbothered, William sat at the bar and examined the neatly arranged bottles until his eyes landed on a bottle of Macallan whiskey from 1981. He nodded in satisfaction and beckoned it over.
Opening it casually, he poured half a glass into a crystal tumbler and sipped it leisurely.
In his true body form, Freddy had no trouble dealing with mere projections, werewolves, or vampires. Against such low-level supernatural beings, he was unstoppable.
Before William could finish his drink, the bar was already cleared. All that remained—besides the bartender William had gestured to spare—were corpses, ashes, or flames crashing through the floor as demons were banished back to Hell.
"Well?"
After consuming over twenty souls or demon spirits, Freddy let out a fake burp, transformed back into a bulldog, leapt onto the bar counter, tongue lolling as he said flatteringly,
"Found him."
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