2023, late autumn.
Northern Florida, Orland, midnight.
One hundred and eighty feet underground, the subway thundered along its tracks, startling the rats that had made their homes near the rails.
Diana Pollier listened to the creaky metal grinding of the old car and instinctively turned up her headphone volume.
Ever since she'd stepped into this car, she'd been feeling some inexplicable unease.
At first, she thought she was just being overly sensitive, but even after that group of drunks who'd been eyeing her up and down had left, the feeling remained just as strong.
"How's it going?" came a text on her phone from her colleague Schroeder. "For a rookie on her first field assignment, you're being eerily quiet."
"Same old Orland as always. Drunks, homeless folks, and me—a hick with a fancy purse, cheap shoes, looking like some country girl who's clean, busy, and has a bit of taste but is still totally out of place."
Rookie cop Diana quickly texted back: "Maybe there's no so-called 'serial killer' on this train at all. We're just wasting our time."
"Oh honey, you really should see what a shitshow the outside world has become. Wasting time isn't such a bad thing—at least someone's covering our insurance."
Outside the terminal station, Schroeder sat in a police Chevrolet, put down his burger, and licked his fingertips with satisfaction.
"Besides, in the past twelve days, fifteen people have gone missing on the train you're riding. The taxpayers need a reasonable explanation."
"Come on, Schroeder. Nobody gives a damn about junkies and illegal immigrants," Diana sighed softly. "And you don't actually believe in urban legends like the 'Midnight Cannibal Train,' do you?"
"Honestly, I don't care. I just want to protect the prettiest girl at the station."
"Well then, my knight in shining armor, there's a suspicious... uh... high school student sitting across from me right now. Think I should check his ID?"
Diana looked up. The empty car now held only her and a young man with black hair.
She'd actually noticed this well-dressed "suspicious individual" early on. Compared to those same-age guys who only knew how to hit on women and get wasted, he seemed much more mature. Ever since she'd sat down, his eyes hadn't left the paperback book in his hands.
But why would someone like that show up on the late-night last train?
Diana began unconsciously sizing up the guy across from her.
A fitted black shirt under a custom-made black trench coat—refined and aloof. Even with her picky standards, she had to admit this was quite the guy women would go for, with distinctly curved features like some ancient Greek sculpture.
"I appreciate your work ethic, Officer Pollier. But I wouldn't recommend doing that—after all, this is civilized Florida, where most people express their disagreements with shotguns." The phone screen lit up again.
Diana chuckled despite herself and stopped replying, but the humor had clearly eased her inner anxiety.
"First time on field duty?"
Just then, the young man who'd been quietly reading suddenly spoke up.
"Sorry, what did you say?" Diana noticed he had a pure British accent.
"A hand holding a gun shouldn't be holding anything else," the young man said flatly. "Didn't your academy instructors teach you that?"
Diana's expression froze. She instinctively reached for her service weapon but could only fumble to put down her phone first.
"For a police officer, you seem a bit green."
He turned a page calmly, completely composed.
"I heard quite a few people have gone missing on this line recently. No kidnappers demanding ransom, no bodies found, and the surveillance outside the stations didn't even catch these people leaving—like they were eaten by the train itself."
"So I take it your being here isn't a coincidence?" Diana slowly reached into her purse and gripped her service weapon. "Your name."
"L. A traveler."
The young man looked up, brief and to the point. His deep purple eyes were like lavender blooming in the valleys of Provence.
Diana and L looked into each other's eyes, as if there was something more in each other's gaze beyond just corneas and irises.
After a long moment, Diana seemed to let her guard down around this polite young man.
She quietly revealed the badge hidden inside her jacket, her tone extremely serious: "Listen, I don't know where you heard these ridiculous stories about this train, but I need you to sit here quietly until the next stop."
Though she was trying to seem friendly, Diana's casual display of her badge was clearly asserting her law enforcement authority in this territory.
Of course, sometimes that authority went hand in hand with pulling the trigger.
"Please don't misunderstand, Miss Pollier. I don't believe this train actually eats people—that's just a metaphor." L looked down, his slender fingers stroking the pages. "But do you really think they just disappeared?"
Diana fell silent, the corner of her eye twitching unconsciously.
"ACPD searched the entire subway network. In those run-down tunnels, luminol reagent couldn't detect even a trace of blood," L said quietly. "This means the bodies weren't transported out in pieces."
"Obvious deduction," Diana secretly sent a text. "What exactly are you trying to say?"
"Why go through all that trouble to move bodies? Maybe this train is already a slaughterhouse for processing food."
L's voice was calm, completely emotionless.
"Food?" Diana was horrified, cold sweat beading on her forehead.
"Exactly." L paused, then continued, "After all, the best way to dispose of bodies is to eat them."
The car began to shake slightly. In the pitch-black underground tunnel, the 8th Avenue train that should have pulled into the station suddenly veered onto another track and began picking up speed.
Diana's expression froze like a cold stone sculpture. The old car now felt like a prison, trapping L and her together.
Or rather, she was trapped with this guy.
"Don't look so surprised, Miss Pollier. Since the world's first historical documents were written, human civilization has existed for only about six thousand years.
Originally, our ancestors sat around campfires in dense forests, in awe of those existences they couldn't understand or describe, worshipping them as gods.
But as civilization progressed, we learned to make weapons, to resist attacks from wild beasts and enemies, and eventually established our own order.
However, this doesn't mean 'those things' never existed."
Somehow, the car had become completely quiet, with only L's narration and the harsh sound of wheels grinding against rails. Nothing else.
"Of course, order is what matters most. This is exactly why the 'Secret Party' has always followed the Pista Convention, trying to coexist peacefully with 'those things.'"
L's voice was soft, but like a reef in flowing water—sharp and hard.
"Unfortunately, flesh and chaos are the source of evolution for undead beings. In unbearable hunger, they only amplify the madness carved deep in their souls, until they fill the bottomless appetite in their hearts with killing, easing the torment that comes with eternal life.
So, when necessary—"
At this point, he closed his book and smiled casually.
"We clear, we guard, we fight until death."
A shriek rang out.
Diana's petite body rapidly expanded as her bones deformed. She lunged forward, her sharp finger bones piercing through skin as they stabbed toward L's heart.
She knew her identity had been exposed. This encounter could only end with death.
In that very instant, L separated his hands and pressed them against the sword handles at both sides of his waist. The Yatagan swords named Oath and Ten Commandments unsheathed with a single ringing sound.
He leaped forward, his figure blurring into a twisted shadow. The silver blades crossed over his chest precisely blocked the sharp finger bones, as practiced as if he'd done it ten thousand times.
"Understandable. After all, I've never been popular with the ladies."
In the clash of blade against bone, L met Diana's gaze.
Gray-white horns pierced through her skin as her human features began to fade from that pretty face.
"A Secret Party hunter... I hope you... can keep... that sense of humor... in a minute."
Diana let out an unclear, sinister laugh. Her falling teeth were replaced by curved fangs as she finally stopped suppressing her bestial nature and revealed her true form.
A terrifying shriek echoed through the speeding train once more.
Both the person and beast retreated simultaneously to reset their positions, and in an instant, both figures exploded into action.
L gripped his sword handles in reverse with an expressionless face, his coat tails fluttering. The silver blades and sharp finger bones crossed in a split second, sending up a shower of bright sparks.
But facing strength and speed beyond human limits, he could only keep retreating, seemingly at a disadvantage.
"Oh... how cute. Where did all that confidence go?"
Diana's hoarse, monstrous laughter filled the air. Her grotesquely bent joints gave her greater mobility. Like a prowling spider, she constantly used her agile form to cling to various parts of the car, attacking L from different angles in endless cycles.
Actually, she wasn't worried about her secret being exposed.
In her view, L's earlier confidence was absolutely insane and meaningless. Human strength had limits after all—no matter how hard an ant tried, it couldn't resist being trampled by a wild beast.
All she had to do was eat him and leave this city, same as always.
But soon, Diana noticed something was wrong.
Although she seemed to have the upper hand in this fight, no matter what tricky angle she attacked from, L could always raise his blade at just the right moment to block her.
Once might be luck, but twice? Three times?
Pressure built in Diana's mind. She kept increasing her speed, yet was deflected by those silver blades again and again, like facing an impregnable fortress that stopped her cold.
No, this definitely wasn't luck!
Diana suddenly understood—that lean young man had never been at a disadvantage. He was keeping up with the speed she was so proud of just by watching with his naked eyes.
But why wasn't he choosing to counterattack?
The train finally began to slow down. Between their clashing figures, sparks flew everywhere. In the buzzing of metal collisions and roars, L also showed a brief moment of imbalance from the shaking.
Diana, keenly capturing that instant, leaped high like an eagle pouncing on an antelope. After putting all her strength into it, her superhuman body was enough to destroy the world's strongest defense.
Looked like she was going to win this fight after all.
A dull roar rang out—the sound of metal twisting and deforming under extreme force.
No doubt Diana's attack had worked, but her smile froze.
Facing this thunderous strike, the floor beneath L's feet dented slightly, but his figure remained steady as a mountain. The Ten Commandments raised with one hand even calmly blocked those sharp beast claws.
Turns out he wasn't some fragile human after all—under that black shirt was also hiding a body of powerful muscle.
"No need to be confused. You were never that big a deal to begin with."
Diana's moment of shock lasted only a second, but in that brief instant, L swung Oath and severed both deformed hands at the wrists.
Only now did L show his true strength.
The so-called impregnable fortress was nothing but extreme violence.
And now, he just needed to—roll right over her.
Sticky blood sprayed across the entire car along with the blade and the wind it brought.
In her terrified retreat, Diana stared into those ancient, calm purple eyes and saw her own twisted expression for the first time.
Just like those humans she had skinned and carved up.
"Now, it's your turn."
As if reading Diana's thoughts, L's body flickered like a light going out for an instant.