When heading downstairs, Roy opted for the fastest method: jumping.
Earlier that year in Los Angeles, he'd leapt from a helicopter, but that was only about ten meters off the ground.
This time was different. Armacham's 80-story skyscraper was at least 400 meters tall. The jump was exhilarating, to say the least.
Roy hit the ground, leaving a massive crater.
"Whew! That was a rush! Wonder what it'd feel like to jump off Namcha Barwa?"
Sure, Mount Everest is the world's highest peak at 8,844 meters, but it doesn't have the greatest vertical drop. That title goes to Namcha Barwa, also in the Himalayas, standing at 7,782 meters with a maximum drop of 6,800 meters—nearly double Everest's 3,600-meter drop.
Jumping off Namcha Barwa's summit would be absolutely thrilling. Roy made a mental note to try it someday.
The commotion drew Crowley out from where she'd been hiding in the Armacham headquarters' first-floor lobby.
"Roy, did you handle things upstairs?"
"Not yet. We're heading to meet someone at the Bay Area docks."
"Got it!"
San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 39.
The Bay Area's most famous tourist pier was now a chaotic mess.
Like elsewhere, the wharf was crawling with mutated corpses—emaciated, glowing faintly orange.
Unlike the hyper-aggressive scorched corpses Roy had encountered before, these stood eerily still.
It was all because of the man sitting on a bollard, strumming a folk guitar.
His beautiful music had turned the mutated corpses into a quiet audience—until a blue compact sports motorcycle roared in, its engine drowning out the guitar and causing a stir among the corpses.
"Don't worry, it's just my friend," the guitarist said.
His voice carried a strange, calming magic, soothing the corpses back into stillness.
The motorcycle stopped at Pier 39. Roy dismounted, stunned by the concert-like scene.
"Adrian?"
"Hold on, let me finish this song."
Adrian kept playing, and more scorched corpses gathered, crowding the pier.
As the final note rang out, the tens of thousands of corpses collapsed, falling into a deep sleep.
Roy was floored.
Adrian—or Raphael—had never shown much combat prowess, mostly sticking to resurrection and healing abilities. Roy hadn't expected him to handle so many scorched corpses with just music.
"Done," Adrian said, stowing his guitar and standing up.
"Roy, what happened with Iris?"
Roy filled Adrian in on what he knew.
"I suspect Iris has been taken to Armacham's experimental facility. I was going to head there directly, but then you called, so I came to meet you."
Adrian's expression darkened.
"You're saying Iris was taken by a malevolent spirit?"
Based on Beckett's description, Genevieve Aristide did seem possessed by a malevolent spirit, but Roy felt it wasn't that simple.
Iris shouldn't have been defeated so easily by a spirit. Spirits are naturally countered by angels, and Iris was no ordinary angel.
Even with a nuclear explosion in the mix, it shouldn't have gone down like this.
"I suspect whoever's controlling Genevieve Aristide is a powerful psychic, maybe manipulating Iris remotely from dozens of kilometers away!"
Roy's worst-case theory was that the psychic's true body was at Armacham's facility, controlling Iris from afar.
That's a staggering level of power.
Even an Omega-level mutant like Professor X could control minds within a 250-mile radius, but it's questionable whether he could overpower Iris.
Angels are known for their mental and spiritual strength, and Uriel, as a spellcasting angel, had far stronger mental and willpower stats than warrior angels like Michael or Gabriel.
What Roy didn't know was that his earlier actions with Iris had cracked the wisdom angel's psyche.
A perfectly sealed mind is nearly impossible to invade, but a single crack drastically lowers that defense.
Adrian's expression grew graver.
"Psychic control? For someone to override Iris's willpower, they must be incredibly powerful. This world's getting more dangerous by the day. Roy, do you know what's up with these corpses?"
Roy looked at him, surprised.
"Aren't they like this because of the nuke?"
Adrian shook his head.
"It's not that simple. I've examined them briefly—their souls are gone, not in heaven, and they carry the aura of the apocalypse."
Roy knew about the missing souls. Using his True Sight, he'd seen a massive torch in another dimension at Armacham's facility.
But this "apocalypse aura"? That was new.
"What's an apocalypse aura?"
Adrian sighed before explaining.
"War, Death, Famine, Pestilence—these are the signs of the apocalypse, the ultimate weapons created by the Nephilim."
He gave Roy a meaningful look.
Roy's Nephilim heritage was becoming less of a secret. Elizabeth, Lilith, Samael, Michael, Iris, Adrian—they all knew.
Yet, for their own reasons, they kept it quiet.
"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?" Roy asked. "What do you know about these ultimate weapons?"
Roy had already encountered two: War and Death. War's whereabouts were unknown, and he held a piece of Death.
From what Adrian was saying, the strange scorched corpses in San Francisco might be tied to another of these weapons.
Since Lucifer and Samael were the ones who destroyed the Nephilim, and Adrian was close to Lucifer, he might know something.
After a moment of silence, Adrian spoke.
"I do know a bit. Lucifer told me about the ultimate weapons before he was cast into hell. I've kept it buried for years."
He looked up at the sky, as if a weight had been lifted.
Roy didn't interrupt, waiting for Adrian to continue.
"You've heard about why the Nephilim were destroyed, right?"
"I heard they tried to rebel."
Adrian shook his head.
"It's not that simple. Would God care about a Nephilim rebellion? Would God care about a human rebellion?"
Roy wasn't on God's level, but if he had that kind of power, he wouldn't sweat human rebellions. They couldn't touch him.
It's like an adult dealing with a three-year-old's tantrum. The kid might scream and threaten, but you'd just laugh it off.
"Then what was the real reason?"
"The Nephilim were seduced—not by Earth's false gods, but by evil deities from the dark universe."
Roy raised an eyebrow.
"Evil deities from the dark universe?"
"Yes. The universe is vast, made of positive and negative energy. Their collisions create matter. But energy concentrations vary across regions and shift dynamically. Human lifespans are too short to notice these changes."
Roy looked intrigued. This was a fresh perspective.
"Go on."
"Your Earth lies in a positive-energy zone, so it's relatively bright. Planets in negative-energy zones are terrifying—some darker than hell itself. The evil deities born there are desperate to invade positive-energy zones, using every method imaginable. That's why God unleashed the Great Flood to cleanse the world."
Roy was surprised.
"The Great Flood? Wasn't that to cover up God's secrets?"
Adrian gave him a strange look.
"Cover up secrets? Who told you that? God doesn't need a flood to hide secrets—humans can't even touch them!"
Roy's expression turned awkward. That idea came from Lilith, clearly colored by her own assumptions.
"So what really happened?"
"Before the Flood, dark universe deities began quietly invading Earth. God didn't notice at first, not until Tartarus changed."
Tartarus—another name for hell, first mentioned in the ancient Greek poet Hesiod's Theogony. It was hell's original name.
Back then, Tartarus wasn't the reviled place it is now. It wasn't exactly paradise, but it was better than the Middle East's deserts.
So God used Tartarus to imprison defeated Earth gods.
"No one expected some of those gods to be so resentful. Swayed by dark universe deities, they channeled their power into Tartarus, transforming it into the hell we know today."
Roy nodded thoughtfully.
He hadn't heard this from Elizabeth. Now he suspected Belial might be one of those ancient Earth gods imprisoned in Tartarus, keeping quiet about her role in its transformation.
"What about the Nephilim?"
"It wasn't just them. Many ancient humans were seduced, but the Nephilim caused the most damage. Dark universe deities excel at tempting people with vague, lofty ideas—freedom, equality, democracy, that sort of thing. Even hell's demons can't match their skill."
No wonder. Same old tricks, just a different day.
"The seduced Nephilim went down a dark path. They slaughtered uncooperative tribes, sacrificing countless lives and souls to create the ultimate weapons: the Four Horsemen. But God caught on before their plan succeeded, sending Lucifer and Samael to stop them.
You probably know the rest. When the Nephilim saw their plan falling apart, they sacrificed their own people and unleashed a vicious curse, claiming the Four Horsemen would destroy the Christian world.
Lucifer and Samael tried to retrieve the Horsemen to present to God, but they never found them—or even saw what they looked like."
Roy finally understood the truth.
"So that's why God cleansed the world?"
"Yes. The dark deities' influence had polluted Earth. To prevent it from becoming another hell, God and the Eastern sages joined forces, unleashing the Great Flood to reshape the world and give it a fresh start."
"And San Francisco now?"
Adrian looked at the motionless scorched corpses.
"I think this is the work of the Famine Horseman. Its direct destructive power isn't as great as War's, but it can fundamentally alter nature and humanity. If we're not careful, the disaster could be worse than War's."
Roy nodded.
"Got it. Let's go rescue Iris first. Adrian, where's your boat?"
San Francisco's roads were a mess, and the scorched corpses posed a constant threat. The sea was the best route, especially since Armacham's facility was on an island connected to the city by a single bridge.
Adrian looked embarrassed.
"Well… my boat broke down on the way back. We can't use it."
You can break a boat by sailing it?
"No problem. The docks are full of boats. We'll find one that can make a short trip."
(Found a nun picture)