In that moment, Eve finally felt the weight of her own helplessness.
Before that true and overwhelming threat, there was nothing she could do. The face before her—serene yet grotesque—loomed close, like a ghost that had clawed its way out of a nightmare.
Beside her, Celue seized Eve's arm and tried to drag her away. But against such speed, they were far too slow.
Everything unfolded in a single flash—like lightning splitting the sky.
A sharp greatsword tore through smoke and the sea of flame. Lloyd knew he could not stop Bishop Lawrence, but a few seconds—just a few seconds—might be enough. He clung to a foolish hope: that if he could delay him for those brief seconds, Eve might live. That somehow, hope itself might arrive in that sliver of time.
So he hurled the greatsword from his hand.
Yet nothing truly changed.
The blade never struck Bishop Lawrence. It slammed into the ground beside him, buried deep in the scorched earth.
Perhaps the only difference came in the final instant—when Eve shoved Celue away with all her strength. The frail girl was light, almost like a feather, tumbling helplessly to the side.
And then the broken blade rested coldly against Eve's throat.
Everything stopped.
Bishop Lawrence held Eve hostage, smiling calmly at Lloyd.
He had won.
And he had won completely.
The entire situation froze the moment Eve fell into his grasp.
"Never let others see your true purpose, child."
It sounded like instruction.
Or perhaps mockery.
Lloyd drew a slow breath, the iron-clad knight halting in a position that offered what little safety remained.
"So what now?" he said coldly. "You have nowhere left to run."
Soldiers emerged from the darkness. This time they did not shift their aim or advance cautiously. Bishop Lawrence simply stood there, while thermite rifles locked onto him with unwavering precision.
Deeper within the shadows came the grinding sound of machinery turning. At some unknown moment, the howls of the demons had already ceased.
The Purge Agency had taken full control of the battlefield.
"But I have a hostage," Lawrence said lightly.
"That hostage is worthless," Lloyd replied. "Besides—wasn't she your objective all along?"
"Ah… child. It seems you still haven't learned my lesson."
Bishop Lawrence smiled, speaking words only Lloyd could truly understand.
The flames rising from Lloyd's armor faltered for a brief moment.
Once again, he had been played.
Or rather—misled by Lawrence's intricate schemes.
Lawrence was a deceiver as well. Until the moment he chose to reveal the truth, no one could ever know his real purpose.
Lloyd's thoughts raced.
Was Eve truly his goal?
If she was, then were his words now merely another layer of misdirection—an attempt to make Lloyd lower his guard?
But then again, if Eve truly was the objective… what motive could Lawrence possibly have?
To Lloyd, Eve was little more than a hot-headed, reckless child. If there was anything unusual about her…
The strange secret blood flowing through her veins.
And her father—Arthur.
Something clicked in Lloyd's mind.
The chaos of the Holy Advent Night.
The theft of the Apocalypse.
The crude experiments with inferior secret blood.
And now—Eve herself, carrying that very blood.
Yes. Only the Order possessed the technology of secret blood.
So where had Eve's blood come from?
Or perhaps… as the head of the Purge Agency, had Arthur himself conducted research into secret blood?
The entire situation became more tangled by the second.
Yet the more Lloyd thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
"No," Lloyd said at last, his voice cold and steady. "You won't kill her. She is your objective."
Given Eve's relationship with Arthur, the Purge Agency could not possibly be as ignorant of secret blood as they claimed. Perhaps they had found another path to develop it.
After all, this was the land where the steam engine had been born—the pinnacle of the world's scientific progress.
"Oh?"
Lawrence sounded faintly surprised by the confidence in Lloyd's voice.
"The authority of Shangdafeng isn't omnipotent," Lloyd continued calmly. "You can't foresee the distant future. And you can't keep that foresight active forever, can you?"
The stronger the power, the heavier the burden on the body.
Just like Michael.
At the height of his burning radiance, even he had been consumed along with the flames.
"There will always be a moment," Lloyd said quietly, "when you cannot see the future."
"And what of it?" Lawrence replied with a faint smile. "All it takes is the slightest motion—and she dies."
The broken blade remained steady against Eve's throat.
The entire Purge Agency had already sealed off the area. Over the past six years, Bishop Lawrence had secretly studied the strength of their forces.
Perhaps he could kill everyone present.
But with the immense logistical power of the Serpent of the Courtyard, an endless stream of steel constructs would pursue him relentlessly—
until the tide of iron itself swallowed him whole.
The time had come to retreat. He truly could not see a future beyond this point—had he been able to, he would never have crossed paths with Lloyd so directly.
"You'd better let her go."
A voice rang out from the other side. From the darkness, Arthur stepped forward slowly, his body smeared with blood, his appearance wretched and battered.
"Duke Phoenix?"
Archpriest Lawrence's voice rose a few notes, his gaze filled with provocation as he looked at him.
"If I remember correctly… this one is your daughter, isn't she?"
What a damned situation.
Arthur said nothing. In the darkness, soldiers edged forward. Every weapon they carried was trained unflinchingly on Archpriest Lawrence. Even a man gifted with foresight could not evade such a dense storm of bullets—after all, some futures are deaths that cannot be escaped.
"What do you want?"
Arthur asked coldly.
"To leave. What do you think? Let me walk away, and I'll spare your daughter."
Silence. Only silence.
Arthur stared at Lawrence with unwavering intensity, until another voice rose.
"He's the Archpriest of the Demon-Hunting Order. If nothing unexpected happened… he's the one who manufactured that inferior secret blood."
Beneath the burning iron steed, Lloyd spoke slowly. There was no restraint in his words—he exposed Lawrence's identity without hesitation.
"Arthur. He must die."
The voice was calm, like the surface of a quiet sea—yet no one could see the monsters drifting beneath.
"So you've joined the Cleansing Bureau now?"
Hearing Lloyd's voice, Archpriest Lawrence asked with mild surprise.
"The Demon-Hunting Order has already been disbanded. Finding a new job doesn't seem like a problem to me."
Lloyd replied.
A cold laugh echoed through the air.
Eve watched everything quietly.
At this moment, her fate rested in the hands of these few people. It was a strange sensation—not fear of death, not dread of pain. It was the realization that everything she was, everything she might become, had been placed entirely upon the decisions of these few individuals.
Her father.
The vengeful detective.
The eerie archpriest.
For a fleeting instant, it felt like an auction.
Three bidders taking turns raising their price.
And she… was the merchandise.
"Now is the time to show your value, girl."
The smile on Archpriest Lawrence's face gradually cooled, and even the roaring sea of flames around them seemed to grow quiet.
Eve's worth would determine the direction of this night.
Would they allow Lawrence to walk away?
Or would the guns roar in unison and kill them both where they stood?
A faint unease crept into Eve's chest.
Yet it did not come from the broken sword at her throat—but from the two men facing one another in the distance.
"Arthur… I hope you'll make the right decision."
The voice spoke again.
"Though that decision will be a difficult one."
Arthur turned his gaze toward the burning iron rider. The jagged divine armor gleamed with a cold light in the flames, like a sculpture cast entirely from steel.
He looked at the girl behind the broken blade.
To be honest, although they had not known each other long, Eve was rather interesting. At times she could even keep pace with Lloyd's neurotic rhythm. The two of them had often seemed like fellow patients in an asylum, singing and dancing through madness together.
But in truth, they were different people.
Lloyd was a ghost who had survived the Night of Sacred Descent. There were still too many things he needed to do. And for those things, he did not mind becoming a weapon—just as the teacher before him had once instructed.
He needed to become that again.
Only an absolutely cold rationality could stand firm amid the tides of despair.
As though engraving the girl's face into his memory one final time, the warmth in Lloyd's eyes slowly froze… until it became an ocean of ice.
The words he spoke were ones no one else could understand.
But after a long silence, Arthur understood.
"You… what the hell are you saying?!"
Arthur roared at Lloyd.
Others might not grasp it, but he could.
Because they were the same kind of man.
"It's difficult… but when faced with two evils, you choose the lesser."
The iron rider spoke in that same frigid tone, like a machine devoid of humanity.
"But she's your friend, isn't she? You heartless bastard. I should've put a bullet in your head long ago."
Arthur cursed furiously.
"That's why the decision is so difficult, Arthur."
The twisted visor of the helmet slowly turned toward him. Beneath that impenetrable armor, the gaze within was filled with sorrow—though no one could see it.
Sometimes fate works like this.
You struggle with everything you have… yet the reward it gives you is far from beautiful.
In the end, Lloyd had become another weary adult.
The voice beneath the armor sounded again. It carried fatigue… and distance, like the sigh of an old man.
"Arthur… we're already standing beside the railway tracks now."
"The lever that decides fate… is in our hands."
"Demons… must be eradicated."
Arthur's figure froze in place, as though he had turned to stone.
It was just like that first conversation beneath the shattered dome.
Except this time, the one lying upon the railway tracks was no chess piece. Not Shrike, not Red Falcon.
This time, the one on the rails… was his daughter.
And the train of demons was roaring toward her.
In truth, we are all utterly cold-blooded monsters.
And only monsters like us can make the most rational judgment in the face of such things.
Archpriest Lawrence could never be allowed to live.
Never.
In the darkness, every weapon was ready. Even the mysterious Lancelot had already arrived—though it was not yet their moment to step forward.
Because the one who would decide everything… was Arthur.
With a single order from him, the torrent of steel would crush Archpriest Lawrence completely.
No matter how powerful a demon hunter might be, he was still merely a human who had stolen the power of demons.
Humans grow old.
And humans die.
Or Arthur could surrender.
He could abandon reason, allow Lawrence to walk away, and let that man—bearing immense secrets—vanish into the world beyond their sight.
It was a cruel choice.
On one side—his daughter.
On the other—the convictions he had upheld all his life.
The girl herself understood none of this.
She simply watched the two men speaking.
One had stripped himself of emotion, becoming cold as steel.
The other, a once-mighty lion, seemed at last to have reached the twilight of his strength. He looked upon everything before him, lost and uncertain.
Only Archpriest Lawrence seemed to understand it all.
And he laughed.