The Florend Elixir coursed through his veins like a living current, driven by the relentless rhythm of his heart. In mere moments, it spread to every corner of his body.
His consciousness sharpened, rising from the depths as though cast into a biting gale. Cold seeped across his skin, numbing yet clarifying, sweeping away every trace of drowsiness and fatigue. In its wake came a heightened acuity of the senses—a clarity difficult to name. It was as if the world had long been veiled in some unseen mist, and now, at last, that veil had lifted. Lloyd could perceive the essence of all things with piercing precision.
"Lloyd…"
Seliu's voice trembled faintly as she called to him. She lingered behind the door, watching him with a mix of worry and fear.
Everyone had felt it—the moment Lloyd made contact with the soldier. A vast and dreadful corruption had surged outward from the demon hunter, like a nightmare forced into waking reality. Frenzied wails and twisted, clawing shapes seemed to rake across the minds of all present.
For a single instant, Seliu lost the ability to think. Like prey in the wild caught in a predator's gaze, a crushing despair seized her—so absolute that even the thought of resistance failed to take root.
It was terror in its most profound and hopeless form.
Yavi stood nearby, equally on edge. Sweat beaded across his aged face, and whatever courage remained to him had been spent in that desperate rush forward, injecting Lloyd with the Florend Elixir. Now he wiped his brow with his sleeve, abandoning all pretense of decorum—this was no time for such things.
"I'm fine," Lloyd said curtly, his expression grave.
And then he proved it. He folded away his knife, and the remnants of the divine armor sloughed off his body, clattering onto the ground in scattered metallic echoes.
"It was Bishop Lawrence," he said to the approaching Red Falcon. "He reached this place by traversing the Interstice. Fortunately… I drove him back."
At least, he believed he had. Otherwise, Lawrence would already have claimed him.
Red Falcon's face paled. "Are you certain?"
This was the Mechanical Institute—a fortress masked as a research facility, bristling with heavy weaponry, its foundations anchored above the enigmatic Perpetual Pump. The sprawling industrial mines beyond served as a perfect battlefield; even a legion of demons could be repelled by sheer firepower.
And yet, that very bulwark had proven useless. An unseen enemy had slipped through with effortless ease.
Lloyd nodded, though the admission weighed on him. Their enemy had grown more cunning—more terrifying. Red Falcon had never witnessed the Interstice; to him, Lloyd's words were abstractions, distant and unreal—until now.
Only when faced with it directly did the true horror of such power become undeniable.
Lloyd slipped the folding knife into his coat, ignoring the subtle shift in Red Falcon's expression. His voice lowered to a murmur.
"It is the unseen that breeds fear."
Such was the nature of demons—such was the terror of the unknown.
"Seliu. Come with me."
He turned abruptly toward the girl. Though uncertain, she obeyed, guided by a quiet, instinctive trust.
The air had grown strange—ever since Lloyd awakened, something about him had changed.
Red Falcon began to speak, but Lloyd cut him off without hesitation. "Collect the body and send it to the Perpetual Pump. There may be something to uncover."
"But—"
He faltered. Lloyd's gaze silenced him utterly, as though his thoughts themselves had been severed.
Those were not the eyes of a man. They were an echo of something infernal—like the lingering presence of a demon god, within which flickered a trace of crimson.
"Yavi, prepare yourself. Arm up and follow Red Falcon. He'll see you equipped."
"Me?"
"Yes. Our enemy is formidable. Even an old man must take up arms, wouldn't you agree?"
The coldness of Lloyd's tone left no room for argument. After a brief hesitation, Yavi moved to Red Falcon's side.
The others sprang into motion, carrying out Lloyd's directives. Footsteps echoed hurriedly through the corridors. Lloyd, however, seemed pressed by a deeper urgency. He seized the case containing the Florend Elixir, grasped Seliu's hand, and strode swiftly down the passage. His pace was long and relentless; she struggled to keep up.
"Where are we going?" she asked, unease creeping into her voice.
"A mousetrap," Lloyd replied lightly. "You're the cheese. Bishop Lawrence is the rat. We need to lure him in."
"But you said you drove him back."
"If he were the sort to give up so easily, he wouldn't be Bishop Lawrence."
He halted abruptly, pulling Seliu into a nearby storage room as a squad of soldiers passed outside.
She watched in silence. Lloyd was avoiding them—for reasons she could not yet grasp.
…
"This doesn't feel like we're heading to any 'mousetrap,'" Seliu said at last.
They had long since left the fortress behind. A cold wind swept across the barren expanse, carrying thick dust mixed with ash and slag, howling like a gray storm. Seliu shut her eyes against it, while the demon hunter stood unmoving, like a pillar of stone.
When the gale subsided, a desolate train platform emerged through the dust. In a place this vast, trains were the only way out.
"I know," Lloyd answered casually.
He watched her, his gaze lingering long enough to unsettle her. Ever since awakening, he seemed like someone else entirely.
The train began to move. Strangely, only the two of them were aboard. The wasteland blurred past as they sped away—away from the Institute, away from its layers of protection.
"You were trying to send them away, weren't you?" Seliu asked into the silence.
Red Falcon. Yavi. There had been no real need for them to act—except that Lloyd needed them gone.
He nodded, resting his chin on his hand as he gazed out the window, toward the distant horizon. It eased the strain in his eyes.
"And we're not really heading to any 'mousetrap,' are we?"
Again she pressed him.
Lloyd turned to meet her gaze this time. His gray-blue eyes revealed nothing—only a dense, impenetrable fog.
Then, suddenly, he smiled. It was an unsettling expression.
"I've been thinking about something, Seliu."
"What?"
"About sacrificing Eve."
He folded his hands neatly before him, sitting upright. It was the very question she had once thrown at him—a question that had become a snare even for a demon hunter.
"I've been wondering… whether I'm a hypocrite."
"For the same goal—eradicating demons—why could I sacrifice Eve without hesitation… yet hesitate when it comes to you?"
Fragments of his past thoughts aligned, forming an answer at last.
"And what is that answer?" she asked, lowering her guard.
"Not some optimal solution," Lloyd said. "Anger."
"People need fuel, like machines. We burn something to keep moving. Ideals, emotions—these are the finest fuel."
Like in those absurd tales—when the hero burns with rage, even gods can be struck down with a single blow.
"Remain angry," Seliu murmured.
"An unquenchable fire—that is the perfect fuel," Lloyd said softly. Beneath that calm exterior, something fierce and molten roiled.
It was that anger that had carried him through the Night of Descent. That anger that had brought him to Old Dunling. That same anger that made him draw the nail-blade once more.
"At that time, sacrificing Eve meant nothing. Even if I had died myself… as long as I could kill Bishop Lawrence, it would have been enough."
Life, to him, had become trivial.
He leaned back, a cigarette between his lips, exhaling smoke toward the sky.
"Is that all?" Seliu scoffed, her reaction sharper than he expected. "Lloyd, people like you deserve hell."
"The perfect end for you? Dying alongside the demons you hate so much."
She spoke with theatrical intensity now, her once-cold face animated with exaggerated expressions.
"Imagine it—great Mr. Holmes, after a night of relentless battle, all weapons shattered, reduced to fists, claws, teeth… tearing enemies apart. Biting through throats, crushing them with your bare hands—until, at last, you're impaled and die beneath the rising sun."
She paused, then added lightly, "You're easy to read. Just assume everything leads back to demons."
"But don't you think your life is unbearably monotonous? The only difference between you and an ascetic monk is that you're a blood-soaked one—praying before sleep that your blade will cut deeper tomorrow."
She continued, almost cheerfully, "I've attended grand banquets with Yavi. The powerful are all like you—driven by ambition and anger. The difference is, they crave power or wealth. You… you crave the death of demons."
"So why? Doctrine? Faith? Or some ridiculous notion of love and peace?"
For once, Lloyd had no answer.
"Seliu," he said after a pause, "anger that burns too fiercely will consume you. It's a dead end—a path of self-destruction."
She met his gaze steadily. "Then for that dream, I can be sacrificed too… can't I?"
A long silence followed.
"I don't know," Lloyd admitted at last, a hint of bitterness in his voice. "Before Eve, I never thought I was capable of such a choice. But when the moment comes… only then do you see who you truly are."
The honorable fall, the coward stands tall—human beings are contradictions made flesh.
"Do you regret it?"
"…I don't know."
He let out a quiet, self-mocking laugh. "I wasn't thinking about any of that. I just wanted to kill him. I knew I might die… but who cares about what comes after?"
Death, after all, was nothing. No hatred. No anger. No gods. Only a gray, endless void.
"You're just running away," she said flatly.
"Of all people, I didn't expect that from you."
They held each other's gaze briefly before she sighed.
"So what now? Some grand path of destruction?"
"You've lured me out here on purpose. You must have decided something."
"Does this count as betrayal? Arthur would love to kill you for it."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Lloyd replied dryly.
The train slowed to a halt. Beyond this point lay freedom—from the reach of the Purge Agency. Strangely, no pursuit had come. It was as if someone had paved an escape in advance.
"Aren't you afraid, Seliu?"
The doors opened. Neither moved.
She glanced at him, a trace of mockery in her expression. "You abduct me all the way out here, and only now you ask how I feel?"
She rose and walked toward the exit without hesitation.
That was Seliu—impossible to read. A child who carried herself like an adult.
"Lloyd," she said, turning back to him, her voice steady as iron, "you brought me out of Gaulnaro. Now I'll help you finish this damned path of destruction."
She met his eyes.
"We're even."