The wails twisted and wound through the air, weaving themselves into a mournful melody within the bitter, freezing wind.
The response from Old Dunling arrived far faster than anyone had imagined. Not far from the manor lay the Royal District, and the heavily armed Royal Guards—perhaps the most intimidating force in the city—were swiftly mobilized under orders. Yet their command was not to storm the estate. Instead, they sealed it.
No one was allowed in. No one was permitted to leave.
Cloaked in crimson greatcoats, they formed a scarlet line beneath the night, their finely crafted weapons aimed steadily at the burning manor.
But the true executors of this night had already arrived.
They came beneath the veil of darkness, borne by the thunder of a roaring train. Avoiding the public eye, they moved through shadow and silence, waging their war unseen. The Response Unit of the Purge Authority had reached the scene, and their thermite rifles fed the inferno that already devoured the estate.
Heavy gunfire echoed again and again.
No one could understand where so many aberrations had come from. According to the Watcher System's assessments, a swarm of this magnitude appearing within Old Dunling should have been detected immediately—not only after they had already begun their assault.
More alarming still was their number.
Though not as overwhelming as the swarm seen during the Ender Town operation, the monsters continued to appear without end. And no one knew from where they emerged.
Most of the survivors had been "protected"—though in truth this meant little more than barricading themselves inside their homes, doors locked tight. Outside, soldiers advanced slowly through the streets, while within the manor chaos still raged.
Beneath the pitch-black sky, towering pillars of light descended from above. Behind the deep ocean of clouds drifted a shadow vast as a leviathan, its brilliant gaze cast down upon the earth.
Horner walked through the burning castle.
The man, stiff and rigid as if carved from wood, now seemed to possess something he had never known before—emotion. Upon that once expressionless face twisted a savage grin.
"I did rather well, didn't I… Mentor Lawrence?"
Horner spoke softly.
No one answered.
He glanced around, only then seeming to remember that Mentor Lawrence was no longer by his side. Tonight was a grand ball, after all—and everyone had their own partner to dance with.
Still, what a pity.
This was the most perfect moment of Horner's life, the brightest stage he had ever stood upon. He had given everything to his performance.
And yet… there was no audience.
Disappointment flickered in his eyes. But as the cries of the suffering echoed through the night, it was as though they became fuel within him. He began to run again, slow but determined.
This was the final name on the list.
Truthfully, Horner had never intended to kill so many people. But these were the names Mentor Lawrence had given him. The mysterious mentor seemed to hope to gain something from the chaos tonight.
Though their purposes were not the same.
Horner wanted only one thing—to kill the man who had created this tragedy.
The man who had created Horner himself… as a tragedy.
He had once been nothing more than an ordinary maintenance worker. Each day his only goal had been simple: earn enough to eat his fill.
And yet even that small life had not been spared.
Someone had come for him—someone he had never even met.
His master had been the same.
A maintenance worker as well. Seeing the wandering boy Horner alone on the streets, the man had taken pity on him. In the end, he took him in and raised him.
In stories, such a man would be called a good person.
But good people did not always receive good endings.
The old man died in the factory—falling into a furnace of molten metal. Horner had not even been allowed to retrieve his body.
After all, halting the machines for even a single minute would cost far too much money.
A sharp, metallic bitterness surged up his throat.
Horner stopped walking and retched violently. His vision blurred for a moment, swimming in haze. But soon he forced himself to steady again, crushing every trace of pain deep within.
A streak of blazing fire tore through the air.
It was a weapon Horner had never seen before. The bullet burned fiercely as it pierced through steel and timber alike before finally reducing a monster to cinders.
Soldiers of the Purge Authority had broken through the manor gates.
They advanced with practiced precision, spreading out and methodically shooting down every aberration within sight.
Mentor Lawrence had once told him about people like this.
There existed within Old Dunling a strange force hidden beneath the surface.
These must be them.
During one of his earlier acts of revenge, Horner had already encountered them once. The eerie divine armor they wore had been something he could not resist at all.
A silent smile crept across his lips.
Perhaps he was laughing at the world's complexity. Or perhaps something else entirely.
He shook his head and turned forward.
None of that mattered to him anymore.
He had only one target.
…
"What are you doing? Get inside and hide!"
At the basement entrance in a corner of the manor, Duke Salicado shouted desperately at Duke Phoenix.
It was a safe room. Though disguised as a simple cellar, thick steel plates were hidden within the wooden door's core. Inside were survival supplies. No one knew what experiences had led the duke to build such a thing within his own home.
Arthur cast him a look of open disdain and continued calmly loading his revolver.
Warned earlier by Lloyd, he had left the ballroom and returned to his carriage. But he had not been fleeing.
He had been preparing to counterattack.
As the duke of a long military lineage, Arthur was far more dangerous than Salicado could ever imagine. First he notified the Purge Authority, then retrieved the revolver stored in his carriage before returning to the ball.
Arthur's objective was Duke Salicado.
Just as Lloyd had said—the most valuable people at this ball were the dukes themselves.
Arthur had little concern for his own safety. As the head of the Purge Authority, he was far more terrifying than most people realized. So he returned with gun in hand to protect the other dukes.
Yet aside from the terrified Salicado, Selu had already vanished. Though Arthur worried somewhat for the girl—about the same age as Eve—he could only prioritize protecting Salicado for now.
The usually jovial duke suddenly revealed another side of himself.
With revolver in hand, Arthur carved a bloody path through the monsters. His marksmanship was impeccable. Each shot fired only when a creature had closed dangerously near—at point-blank range, their grotesque heads bursting apart one after another.
"I still need to protect the others," Arthur said, standing at the doorway. "You stay here for now."
It was clear he had no intention of hiding inside the cellar.
"You have to protect me! I'm their target!"
Salicado screamed wildly.
The merchant truly looked terrified now. No matter how much wealth he possessed, it could never buy him another life.
"Targeting you?"
Arthur glanced into the cellar, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"Why would you think they came to kill you?"
A swarm of aberrations appearing within Old Dunling… just to assassinate him? Setting aside whether Salicado even understood what these monsters were—why would he believe such twisted creatures had come specifically for him?
"It's the Remnants! It must be those damned Remnants!"
He shrieked, voice breaking.
"Damn it."
Arthur could no longer endure the man's hysterical screams. He pulled the trigger.
The sharp report of the gunshot finally cut off Salicado's wailing.
Clearly, the poor duke had already been affected by the monsters' corruption. He had fallen into overwhelming terror, and his condition was only worsening.
Seeing the pitiful state he was in, Arthur could not help but feel troubled.
He had seen people like this many times before.
Whenever the Purge Authority carried out operations against aberrations, survivors were often found—but most had already been contaminated, their minds shattered beyond communication. In the end, they could only be sent to mental asylums, where people hoped that someday these mad souls might return to reason.
The greatest difficulty in humanity's war against aberrations was that strange corruption.
It was like a tidal wave of terror crashing against the dam of the human mind.
And once the dam broke, people drowned in madness born of fear.
That, too, was why humanity knew so little about the monsters they fought.
Many scholars who devoted their lives to studying demons ultimately perished in the madness they themselves awakened. And so the lineage of knowledge was severed. Even when books survived, most were no longer things that ordinary minds could safely read.
"Calm yourself, Duke Salicado. If you wish to live, you'd better start explaining things clearly."
Arthur forced the duke to steady himself. He was, after all, a shrewd businessman. If this man were to lose his mind tonight, the economic balance of Old Dunling would feel the tremor.
Many people could die this night.
But Duke Salicado absolutely could not.
Everyone else in this city could be replaced with little effort.
He alone could not.
Countless industries bore his name. Should anything happen to him, another storm of conflict would erupt across Old Dunling.
"It's the Remnants… those Remnants."
Salicado struggled to slow his breathing. The corrosion was already gnawing at his mind. Countless phantom faces seemed to flash before his eyes, roaring at him with silent fury.
"What exactly happened?" Arthur demanded.
"I… I hired them. You know how it is. Remnants are cheap. Easy to squeeze dry. But recently a small group formed among them."
Salicado tried to recall the letter he had received.
"They demanded fair treatment. You know how impossible that is. Then the man wrote that he would come to kill me. I thought it was just another threat. Someone like me receives countless letters like that…"
"Yes," Arthur said coldly. "Yet among all those threats, this one you chose to believe."
His voice turned sharp as a blade.
"At a time like this, you're still hiding something from me."
The duke's face collapsed in misery. Then suddenly, as if he had glimpsed some unspeakable horror, he pointed behind Arthur with trembling fingers.
"It… it!"
Arthur released him.
In the next instant, a violent gust surged through the basement.
The demon had found him.
Razor claws slashed downward.
No ordinary man could have avoided such a strike—but Arthur moved faster than any ordinary man. He pivoted sharply, evading the blow by a breath, then rammed the muzzle of his gun against the creature's chest and pulled the trigger.
The bullet tore straight through.
Blood burst outward, splattering the wall behind them in a crimson bloom.
The demon lunged again, unwilling to fall. Arthur answered with a heavy punch. His fist collided with the scarlet arm, and the crack of breaking bone echoed through the room.
But the injury was not Arthur's.
The demon's entire arm bent backward in a grotesque angle.
Before it could recover, Arthur jammed the gun beneath its jaw.
The next second—
its head exploded.
The creature's body collapsed limply to the floor. Blood drenched Arthur from head to toe, painting him like some infernal specter. He turned slowly toward Salicado.
The duke's eyes were filled with naked terror.
"Duke Salicado," Arthur said quietly, sliding fresh rounds into the cylinder, "to be honest… you're in very deep trouble."
His voice remained calm.
Yet the whole scene felt as though Death itself had come to pronounce a sentence.
…
With a sharp elbow strike, Arthur knocked Duke Salicado unconscious. He locked the man inside the basement, then stepped out into the vast courtyard of the manor.
Before him, the world burned.
Flames devoured the night.
Arthur lit a cigarette, exhaustion pressing against his shoulders.
"I've made a new discovery," he said into the channel. "These demons came for Duke Salicado. Many Remnants died in his factories. Thanks to the duke's influence, none of it ever surfaced. Their group attempted several assassinations before—but tonight the ones who came were demons."
"Remnants? You mean the situation in the south?"
Blue Jade's voice crackled through the communicator. She was on duty at Central Monitoring tonight.
"Yes. Unfair treatment breeds conflict. We believed their armed groups could only stir trouble in the south… but apparently they've somehow made contact with demons."
"Are you certain?" Blue Jade sounded incredulous.
"Not yet. But it's likely. If what Salicado said is true, these demons came to kill him."
Arthur raised his gun and casually shot down a demon that had been creeping closer.
"We've always suspected their armed forces were backed by Gaulnaro. Our century-old enemy never seems willing to stay quiet. But I didn't expect demons to appear in this matter as well."
In recent years, the Remnants from Gaulnaro had become a serious social issue within Inervig. They had even organized armed groups—causing chaos like terrorists.
Yet to Inervig, such disturbances were little more than minor unrest. Most assumed Gaulnaro had begun supporting them after the events at the White Tide Strait.
No one expected their operations to extend all the way into Old Dunling.
And no one expected demons to be involved.
Inferior secret blood.
Armed factions.
A rising shock against the aristocracy.
Arthur inhaled the final drag of his cigarette and flicked the butt to the ground.
Then suddenly he remembered—
Eve was still somewhere in this hellhole.
A splitting headache crept across his brow.
Trouble never seemed to come alone.
Arthur's breathing stopped.
A black shadow flashed before his eyes.
The next instant, a claw punched straight through his abdomen.
That damned thing had chosen the perfect moment—striking precisely when Arthur had let his guard fall.
"So… you're the one who came to kill him?"
Arthur's eyes turned cold. Though his abdomen was pierced, he stood as if nothing had happened.
His voice carried a feral edge.
Horner said nothing.
His body had already completed its transformation. Bones twisted and stretched beneath the skin. His face retained only the faint outline of humanity. His gaze was hollow—yet burning with a terrible flame.
It was the gaze of vengeance.
A hatred so absolute it had seized total control of the empty soul within.
Someone like this would never be the true mastermind.
He was only a pitiful puppet.
Arthur smiled faintly.
In that instant, he saw the man clearly.
"Blue Jade," he said softly, "Salicado was never their target. The real target is someone else."
The burning castle, the swarming demons—none of it belonged to Horner.
He was merely a solitary avenger.
This grand spectacle had not been built for him.
To construct such chaos for a single man's revenge would be a waste. The demon invasion, Horner's vendetta—both were only disguises.
A smokescreen to hide the true objective.
This poor soul had been a pawn from the beginning.
A sacrifice meant to draw every eye.
Arthur gripped the claw lodged in his abdomen and, with brutal strength, slowly pulled it free from his own body.
Horner tried to resist.
But he soon realized—
his strength could not overpower Arthur.
"How… is that… possible…"
The words scraped from his throat in broken fragments. Never once had Horner imagined that a mere human could possess such power.
"Young man," Arthur said calmly, "there's still much in this world you don't understand."
He seized the claw like an iron vise, locking it in place. Then his other fist came crashing down.
The claw shattered.
Blood and bone fragments sprayed through the air.
And in the midst of it all, Arthur stood unmoving—like a pillar of iron.
The spectacle was far more thrilling than any storm of gunfire.
A strange power flowed across the mortal body, awakening forces that had slept for a long, long time.
In truth, the members of the Purging Agency often forgot one simple fact.
Before they ever possessed the technology of divine armor…
what did they use
to fight demons?
Arthur bent down, picked up the broken claw, and held it like a blade.
Then he drove it straight toward Horner.