"Ah… Is that so?"
Lloyd turned around, and his helmet sealed itself completely. Darkness swallowed his vision, but in the state of Threshold Breakthrough, his other senses had become extraordinarily acute. He could easily distinguish the demon hunters' movements from the slightest variations in sound.
"If you were killed by me so easily, Moriarty, that would surprise me."
Lloyd continued speaking. He knew all too well what a formidable opponent Moriarty was, and for that very reason, nothing about what was about to happen came as a surprise.
If Lloyd himself could accomplish such a feat, then surely this dangerous enemy could do the same—especially with the New Order supporting him from behind.
Lloyd tightened his grip on the nail sword. The serpents slithered up his arm and coiled around the blade, binding the two together in a vice-like embrace. At the very same moment, Lloyd launched another assault.
His heavy divine armor tore through the air with a thunderous roar. Blinded, Lloyd could only rely on instinct and deduction to guide his attacks, but he still remembered where Moriarty had been standing moments ago.
Although Moriarty had seized control of the demon hunters, who were now prisoners of their own fear, Lloyd had no real need to fight them. All he had to do was kill Moriarty and bring this nightmare to an end. Find him, then cut off his head.
The nail sword came crashing down toward the place Lloyd remembered, unleashing a succession of shrill howls as it cleaved through the air.
Beneath that overwhelming force, everything seemed unbearably fragile. Steel snapped. Wood shattered. Even the flames were driven back by the raging wind, as though some great and terrible being had issued a command, and before its decree, all mortal things had no choice but to submit.
The impact split the entire floor apart. Shattered splinters caught fire, and glowing embers swirled through the air like a storm of burning stars.
A tiny crack appeared across Lloyd's faceplate. Through the sliver of vision at the edge of his sight, he caught a glimpse of Moriarty's retreating figure and pursued him relentlessly.
The strike had failed to connect. Moriarty might not have been skilled in combat, but he still possessed the physical constitution of a demon hunter. That alone was enough.
Under Lloyd's relentless sword strikes, Moriarty stumbled backward in a manner that was almost comical. Yet he never once released the wineglass in his hand. Moriarty truly was a madman, just as he had told Lloyd on that night before everything began.
He was a lonely monster, searching for others of his kind.
Monsters were not like human beings. Things that humans regarded as unspeakably cruel were, in the eyes of monsters, nothing more than a source of amusement.
Looking at the figure riddled with nail swords, Moriarty threw back his head and laughed without restraint. At the same time, within the dreamscape he had woven, the demon hunters roared and shrieked as their Secret Blood continued to break through its limits.
Beyond the sea of fire, one grotesque figure after another rose to its feet. Their faces were twisted beyond recognition, yet each wore a smile.
Threshold Breakthrough.
In the blink of an eye, layer upon layer of terrifying Corruption descended upon the Riesenbach once more, transforming the airship into a battlefield for the demon gods.
…
A pitch-black shadow emerged from behind the churning storm clouds, resembling a colossal whale gliding through a sea of vapor. In the next instant, it smashed through the barrier of clouds and burst free of the storm's grasp.
"Course confirmed. Beginning acceleration," someone reported.
Gareth nodded, signaling for the officer to continue, then turned his gaze toward the front.
Relentless rain battered the windows. Beyond the glass, the world in every direction was a chaotic expanse of leaden gray. Within the oppressive darkness, blinding white lightning erupted in violent bursts.
For one fleeting moment, Gareth genuinely believed he had left the mortal world behind and arrived in some unknowable realm from which he would never find his way home.
"Broken Dome calling Heading for Dawn. The Riesenbach lost contact at its current position. You are about to leave the boundaries of Old Dunling. From here on, you're on your own."
The call from Broken Dome crackled through the communications channel. But as the Heading for Dawn accelerated, the transmission grew increasingly distorted until it fell silent once more.
Gareth's expression grew grave. More than ten minutes earlier, they had received a communication from Lloyd. Whatever the man intended, he had hijacked a civilian airship and fled Old Dunling.
Under ordinary circumstances, Gareth would never have pursued him. There had already been more than enough chaos to deal with that day, and Gareth's first priority should have been resolving the crisis at Black Mountain Hospital. Yet almost immediately after losing contact with Lloyd, he received a transmission from the Cleanse Bureau's sweepers.
The interference caused by the Corruption was gradually subsiding. They had eliminated most of the demons, and inside a safe house in the research district, they had found Arthur unconscious.
Arthur's condition was relatively stable. The Corruption had knocked him out, and his body was covered in wounds, but he was still alive. The only genuinely alarming detail concerned the other person who had been inside the safe house with him. The man was a patient, and when the sweepers discovered Arthur, the patient had been holding Arthur's head and gnawing at it.
Gareth should have remained inside Broken Dome to oversee the situation. Instead, at someone's insistence, he had been forced to set sail through this atrocious weather in pursuit of Lloyd.
"So what, exactly, is all this for, Merlin?"
Gareth turned to the man beside him, his voice filled with bewilderment.
One crisis had followed another. First came the discovery of Arthur, then Merlin's return to Broken Dome. Merlin had been drenched from head to toe, his clothes smeared with blood and filth. He looked utterly wretched, yet for once, a faint light flickered in his hollow eyes.
Upon learning what Lloyd had done, Merlin had immediately demanded that the Heading for Dawn take off.
"For Lloyd Holmes. He absolutely cannot die. He is the key to everything."
Merlin's voice was low. He, too, stared straight ahead as the Heading for Dawn tore through the endless downpour, sheets of water streaming off its reinforced hull.
"I don't entirely understand what you mean, Merlin… but I trust you," Gareth said after a brief silence.
It was a dangerous decision. The storm had not yet passed, and Black Mountain Hospital was still far from secure. Countless enemies remained hidden throughout the sprawling city of Old Dunling.
Yet with wolves closing in from every direction, Gareth had chosen to trust Merlin and take his forces into the skies.
"Lloyd… Lloyd may have discovered the [Truth]. The [Truth] about demons."
Merlin muttered the words over and over, as though possessed by madness.
Ever since parting ways with Lloyd, he had been unable to stop thinking about their conversation beneath the rain-soaked sky—and about the cursed knowledge they had discussed.
At the time, Lloyd had warned him not to continue pursuing it. Merlin had sensed something strange in that warning, but when he learned that Lloyd was now fleeing Old Dunling aboard an airship, that strange feeling erupted into something far more powerful.
Perhaps… perhaps Lloyd had been deceiving him all along. Perhaps he had already glimpsed the [Truth], already laid eyes upon that cursed knowledge. And perhaps he knew exactly what the [Curse] was. That was why he had warned Merlin to stop.
But what would happen now?
Lloyd had discovered the [Truth]. He had been afflicted by the [Curse]. Just as it had happened countless times throughout history, Lloyd would die, taking those secrets with him into the grave. Once again, the door leading to the [Truth] would be shut.
"So that's why you warned me?"
Lloyd knew exactly what the [Curse] was. He believed it would kill everyone, so he had kept the secret to himself.
"No. That is far too selfish, Lloyd Holmes."
Merlin seized his own head, gripping it so tightly that it seemed he meant to tear his skull apart. Then his low, hoarse voice broke through the silence.
"No… Lloyd, you cannot die yet. You cannot take those secrets with you."
The Cleanse Bureau needed that cursed knowledge. Only by obtaining it could they discover what demons truly were—and how to put an end to the nightmare that had plagued humanity for a thousand years.
"We can't find the Riesenbach," someone reported.
In weather this atrocious, pursuing another airship was out of the question. Even determining their own direction was an immense challenge. The Heading for Dawn seemed to have plunged into another world, where the same expanse of leaden gray stretched endlessly in every direction.
Gareth's expression darkened to match the sky. If they continued like this, they might not even find their way back. Just then, Merlin, who had remained silent until now, suddenly rose to his feet.
"No… Activate every Geiger counter!"
Merlin turned to Gareth. At that moment, Gareth was the captain.
"You mean…"
A sense of dread stirred in Gareth's chest. He suddenly understood what Merlin was thinking. At his command, the clicking of Geiger counters filled the airship.
For a moment, the monotonous ticking was the only sound in the cabin, and a strange stillness settled over everyone. Then, in the next instant, it was as though countless evil spirits had begun screaming inside the airship. They filled every corner, circling the crew and unleashing shrill, piercing howls with all their might.
The situation could hardly have been worse. Even the newest recruit would have understood what it meant: somewhere within the storm at this tremendous altitude lay a source of Corruption of terrifying intensity.
"The Riesenbach…"
Gareth murmured the name, feeling the blood drain from his heart. No one could say what was happening aboard that airship at this very moment.
"Now we have a lead, Gareth."
Merlin turned to him. Gareth looked back and saw that Merlin's eyes were bloodshot.
"What on earth is happening, Merlin?"
An inexplicable fear seized Gareth, yet Merlin merely smiled.
"A new era is about to begin, Gareth. Find the Riesenbach. Lloyd must not die… at least, not before revealing those secrets."
With that, Merlin left and headed toward the hangar.
As a war machine manufactured by the Perpetual Motion Pump, the Heading for Dawn was several times larger than an ordinary war airship. Its propulsion system and firepower far exceeded standard specifications. That was precisely why it had been able to take off safely in weather this violent.
Under normal circumstances, however, the Heading for Dawn was designed to bombard ground targets. Aerial combat remained beyond the capabilities of contemporary technology. Even if they caught up with the Riesenbach, there was little they could do to it. And with the weather in its current state, not even the aerial cavalry could land aboard the other airship.
There was nothing Merlin could do. He could only watch as an unknown catastrophe unfolded aboard the Riesenbach.
Or perhaps… there was still something he could do.
Merlin stopped in his tracks and stood motionless, staring at the divine armor held fast by its restraints.
As the Perpetual Motion Pump's chief technical director, Merlin had long believed that some inexplicable connection existed between divine armor and its wearer. The armor seemed like a key, one capable of unlocking a door into the unknown.
There had been plenty of evidence for such suspicions in Lloyd's case. His resurrection alone was enough to prove that something extraordinary was at work.
It was a feat beyond the limits of human understanding. Even now, Merlin had no idea what had truly happened that day.
But could such a miracle be reproduced?
If it could…
"Then let us witness another miracle."
Merlin pulled the lever. The restraints holding the divine armor began to release, one layer after another. Beneath the dim, yellowish lights, the Black Angel stood like a silent statue.
…
The fire had spread beyond the ballroom and was now advancing into the other sections of the airship. Within the burning inferno, colossal figures crashed into one another, tearing at each other in a brutal struggle to the death.
Lloyd stood atop a grotesque skeleton and drove his nail sword down through its skull, piercing straight through the spine.
Blood flowed along the grooves of the blade and seeped into the wound. In the next instant, surging white flames erupted beneath the creature's shell, consuming it from within until the demonized body was utterly destroyed.
Bolstered by Secret Blood, demon hunters could retain a trace of life even after sustaining injuries like these. The creature writhed in agony, twisting its body with all its remaining strength, but it was like a condemned prisoner strapped to an execution platform. Every desperate struggle was futile. It could do nothing but endure the searing heat spreading through its own body until the pure white cleansing flames burned away its internal organs, leaving behind nothing but glowing, carbonized bones.
Countless sparks rose from the hollowed-out carcass. Lloyd withdrew his crimson-hot nail sword and scanned the raging sea of fire and smoke.
Moriarty had disappeared. That was hardly surprising. The man was a cunning serpent, and in a direct confrontation, he was no match for Lloyd. That was why he had used Authority—Raphael to take control of every demon hunter aboard the airship. Lloyd had no idea what kind of illusion these hunters were experiencing, but one thing was clear: under Moriarty's control, their Secret Blood continued to surge and evolve.
At first, Lloyd had been able to dispatch the demonized hunters with remarkable speed. But as time passed, they grew increasingly terrifying.
Fortunately, they were now high above the ground rather than in the middle of a densely populated city. Otherwise, Old Dunling would have witnessed another Night of Advent.
"Where have you hidden yourself, Moriarty?"
Lloyd muttered to himself, keeping his gaze fixed on his surroundings and avoiding direct eye contact with anyone whenever possible.
"You're watching me, aren't you? Waiting for the right moment to capture me."
The cunning serpent was using the demon hunters to obscure Lloyd's field of vision, just as he had so often done before: hiding in the darkness, patiently waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Lloyd smashed through a door. As it swung open, thick smoke billowed out, only to be swept away by the icy gale rushing through the breach.
The Riesenbach was beginning to fail under the relentless succession of battles. The fire had not yet burned its way through the entire airship, but numerous breaches had already appeared in its outer hull.
Lloyd moved through the wreckage. The advantage he had struggled to build was once again being erased by the demonized hunters. These creatures were extraordinarily difficult to deal with. In a head-on fight against them, Lloyd had no meaningful advantage whatsoever—unless he, too, chose to set foot upon the path of the demons.
But if he did, he might be able to slaughter every last one of them, yet he would have nothing left with which to deal with Moriarty lurking in the shadows.
He needed a new plan.
Just then, a tremendous howl of wind tore through the air. On the other side of the storm, the Heading for Dawn burst out of the clouds.