The cabin was not large, and as the craft pressed onward toward the Dawnbound course, it swayed with a faint, persistent tremor.
No one aboard seemed to care much for the comfort of this war-forged machine. The air carried the thin, metallic tang of engine oil. Overhead, the lights flickered in brief, irregular pulses, while a monotonous ticking echoed without pause—the Geiger counter fixed within the cabin. Its readings held steady, glowing with a quiet, unwavering green.
Selu sat in the corner. The turbulence had grown too severe, and Red Falcon had fastened her into a restraint harness. She did not look well—no, not merely unwell, but hollowed out. Her face was blank, her gaze locked upon the thing at the center of the cabin.
It was a cargo platform, lashed immovably in place with thick leather straps to prevent any shift. Upon it lay a man, wrapped in a heavy coat, bound within a restraint suit. He slept—if sleep it could be called—his body curled tight, like an embryo sealed within its shell.
After a prolonged and wary observation, Arthur had confirmed Lloyd's unconscious state and ordered his transfer aboard the vessel. Truth be told, after witnessing such grotesque impossibilities, the safest course would have been to summon Shrike for another bombardment. A man who had died and returned—there was no reading such a thing as anything but extreme danger.
And yet, after a brief struggle within his own mind, Arthur abandoned that thought.
What had happened to Lloyd was an aberration—an unknown. And the only true way to confront the unknown was not to annihilate it, but to accept it, to understand it, to turn it into something known. To destroy it outright would be nothing more than a quiet act of evasion.
There was one other person in the cabin. Red Falcon sat opposite, cradling a preheated thermite rifle. By the standard containment protocols of the Purge Authority, Lloyd should have been surrounded—ringed by hardened men, dozens of thermite barrels trained upon him. At the first sign of abnormality, they would ensure he was reduced to a molten statue without hesitation.
But… such measures felt almost laughable now.
That monstrous bombardment, the inferno of crude oil explosions—none of it had killed him. What, then, could these rifles hope to accomplish?
So only Red Falcon remained.
He trusted the demon hunter, to a degree. But after witnessing what had just transpired, he found reassurance in the weight of a weapon in his hands. Whether it could stop Lloyd was uncertain—but it steadied him, if nothing else.
"You holding up alright?"
Aside from the engine's dull roar, the cabin was deathly still. The silence gnawed at him until he could bear it no longer, and he spoke to Selu.
"I… I think so."
Her voice was quiet. Her mind had yet to fully return to itself. Too much had happened in too little time—her world had been torn apart and reassembled more than once in a single breath.
People need conversation. Even the simplest exchange eased the suffocating weight of the air.
"I've never seen Lloyd like that," she said at last.
"What, like that?" Red Falcon smirked faintly. "That kind of unstoppable beast mode? I've seen plenty. You should've been there the first time I ran into him—in the demon-swarm aboard the Glorious Line. The man held back a tide of death all by himself."
He let out a quiet chuckle.
"Honestly, having that lunatic around sometimes makes you feel invincible."
Selu blinked, a hint of surprise crossing her face.
"You sound… close to him. He never tells me these things. Sometimes I don't even know what he's thinking."
Red Falcon's expression shifted, just slightly, as something clicked into place.
"That's normal. We fight demons for a living. We avoid dragging ordinary people into it. So we keep our distance—cut down unnecessary connections."
He paused, then added,
"You've seen it yourself. That world should've been far from yours. But because of Lloyd… you were pulled into something like this."
A memory flickered behind his eyes as he went on.
"That's just how it is. Since I joined this line of work, I've been half a recluse. No real social life. No proper friends… Truth is, we're all the same."
Selu hesitated before asking,
"Doesn't that… make you feel lonely?"
"It would be worse," he replied calmly, "if someone close to us got targeted because of that connection."
He shrugged lightly.
"Better not to have, than to lose."
"In this line of work, you always lose something. A normal life, for one. You get used to it."
"It still sounds… foolish," Selu murmured, unable to reconcile it.
To her, it felt like a thankless sacrifice—unseen, unrecorded. Like a wall in the dark, holding back horrors no one would ever know existed. Even in death, there would be no memory left behind.
"Like dying for some grand cause?" Red Falcon tilted his head, then nodded to himself. "Yeah. That's about right. When I first started, I thought the same thing. Thought it was idiotic—like throwing your life away."
He gave a soft, self-mocking laugh.
"But… someone has to be the idiot, don't they?"
His voice lowered.
"Some things just have to be done. Some carry the fire in the dark. Others burn as the fuel. As long as someone does it… that's enough."
Selu nodded slowly, though she only half understood. Her gaze drifted back to Lloyd, her expression growing more complicated.
"So you're all just a bunch of fools, then?"
"Probably."
"Seems like only fools can understand each other."
"If you insist on putting it that way… I won't argue."
Their conversation drifted in fragments—neither shallow nor profound, like two people unconsciously agreeing not to step too far into the abyss beneath their words.
After a pause, Selu asked,
"What will you do next?"
"Do?"
Red Falcon glanced at her, puzzled.
"I mean… what will you do with him?"
She pointed toward Lloyd.
In her mind, they would label him a monster. Perhaps his remaining days would be spent in some tightly controlled prison, watched and contained until the end.
"Oh, that." Red Falcon leaned back slightly. "We'll take him to headquarters. Full examination. Then isolation and observation."
He spoke as if reciting a familiar routine. Thinking on it, their cooperation with Lloyd had always been like this—the demon hunter fought at the front, risking everything, and when he collapsed, they simply retrieved him like a fallen blade.
"You won't… kill him?" Selu asked, unease creeping into her voice.
Though she was nominally tied to this mysterious organization, even the fragments she had seen were enough to reveal its terrifying nature—a machine driven by absolute will, one that would stop at nothing to achieve its goals.
What would they do to someone like Lloyd, now that he had become something so close to a demon?
"Kill him? Why would we?" Red Falcon frowned. "Men like Lloyd don't come around often. Without him, this operation would've cost far more."
Fear lingered in him, yes—but so did a deep respect. Not everyone had the resolve to drive a train loaded with crude oil into a suicidal strike.
Lawrence had been a nightmare—cunning, twisted beyond reason. One moment of hesitation in their struggle, and he might have sensed Lloyd's intent, unraveling the entire plan.
And yet, it had succeeded.
Lloyd had dragged Lawrence into death with him—and more than that, he had freed Selu ahead of time.
In truth, within the original plan, the only moment Lawrence exposed a weakness was when he invaded another's consciousness. In that instant, he lost awareness of the external world. It was the perfect opportunity for assassination.
Which meant… in that plan, the one meant to die in the explosion had been Selu.
But Red Falcon said none of this. The mission was over. There was no need to burden her with the ugliness beneath it. After all, there were still things in this world worth preserving.
"But he… became that."
Selu spoke slowly.
Everyone had seen it—the black-winged angel of terror, the grotesque, writhing cocoon. Something beyond human understanding of demons. Something that shattered the very boundaries of reason itself.
An unknown that no longer belonged to the world they knew.
"Do you see him as a monster… and fear that we might kill one?"
It was Red Falcon who cut straight to the fault line in her words.
Celyu froze for a moment. Then, after a pause, she nodded.
"Don't worry. The value Lloyd Holmes brings is enough for us to overlook the risks. Kill him? We might instead summon the finest doctors to ensure he recovers as quickly as possible—so he can keep throwing his life away. There are far too many demons; they won't be gone anytime soon. Judging by that excited look of his… he seems to enjoy the work."
There was something strange in the girl's gaze. Under Red Falcon's flippant nonsense, her anxiety for Lloyd twisted into something else entirely—more like: What kind of black-hearted company have I invested in?
The atmosphere, at least, loosened. Red Falcon preferred it this way—anything was better than the suffocating weight from moments before. That earlier tension had clung to him like a premonition, as if at any second Lloyd might convulse, lose control, descend fully into monstrosity, and drag them all into death.
Now it felt different. As though they had gone from escorting a volatile threat… to accompanying Lloyd to a crematorium, perhaps even picking him out a fine grave in Old Dunling, and bidding farewell to the damned fool amid laughter.
Red Falcon let out a foolish chuckle. The suddenness of it sent a chill crawling along Celyu's spine.
Truth be told, Red Falcon wasn't much better than the rest—when nerves took hold, his mouth filled with nonsense, as if crude humor could bleed off the pressure. Like telling jokes before a demon; no matter how oppressive the air, he could always churn it into something vulgar and absurd.
"You still don't understand us," he said. "We're a pack of idiots bound by the same goal. For that goal, we don't even value our own lives—so why would we care whether a comrade is a monster?"
Though he spoke lightly, his grip never loosened on the thermite rifle.
"Tell me," he continued, "what do you think defines a human as human?"
He pressed on before she could answer.
"Looking human? Having a human form? Speaking? Thinking? Or possessing the same biological structure?"
The barrage of questions left the girl adrift.
"Have you heard of the Ship of Theseus?"
"A great vessel sailing the seas, its planks replaced one by one, until none of the original wood remains… is it still the same ship?"
Celyu loved books. She knew the paradox well.
"In truth, demon hunters are that very ship. From the moment secret blood is grafted into them, they begin their march away from humanity."
"The blood reshapes them—greater strength, tougher bodies, longer lives…"
As he spoke, Red Falcon glanced toward the unconscious Lloyd at the center. Less a man now, more a stable, human-shaped demon.
"Do you think he's still human? Who survives wounds like that? Tell me."
He looked back at her, but she had no answer. She had never touched this world—this shadowed, esoteric world.
"And yet… can you truly say he isn't human?"
By all biological measures, Lloyd no longer belonged to mankind. A hybrid of demon and human, he drifted between two worlds—belonging to neither, claimed by none.
And still… how could he not be human? He stood with humanity, fought for it, upheld what fragments of sanity remained. The flames he wielded burned away fear itself.
"When you strip it down, it's almost philosophical," Red Falcon went on. "Consider this: if you removed a man's brain and sustained it in nutrient fluid—no human body, no meaningful communication—would he still be human?"
"Or take a crippled man who replaces what he's lost with steel and machinery—how is that any different from a demon hunter remade by secret blood? Both are altered by external forces. So tell me… are they still human?"
He answered himself, sharp as a blade:
"No. None of those things define a person. What defines a human… is will."
"Will?" Celyu echoed.
He nodded, serious now.
"Yes. Will. The will of humanity—the unyielding will."
A faint, mocking edge crept into his tone.
"Those who commit atrocities—are they human? They have the body, the structure, the shape… but are they truly human? No. They're beasts wearing human skin."
His gaze settled once more on the sleeping man.
"Lloyd Holmes is human. A monster, yes. A dangerously unstable demon hunter. But still human—utterly, completely human."
"Inside that monstrous carcass burns a human will. Pure. Unalterable."
"He may be talented in all the wrong ways," Red Falcon added with a crooked grin, "but he has a line he will not cross—a boundary that defines him. And from that boundary, the human will is forged… a flame raised against the dark."
"Will is the measure of a man. That is what makes us human. Even knowing we are fools… we still charge forward without hesitation."
"Charging straight into the jaws of despair!"
His voice flared with heat, yet his hands clung tightly to the rifle. Then, gradually, he laughed.
"Of course… fear is only natural. We are human, after all—imperfect by nature. Fear, cowardice… nothing strange about that."
And yet, that was precisely why he held a certain reverence for Lloyd. Demon hunters seemed incapable of fear. Their fury burned like an unquenchable blaze—like some reckless, cursed child who cared nothing for terror or darkness, setting fire to it all without a second thought.
By the end, his voice softened. Silence fell.
Celyu looked at the man resting at the center, as though seeing him anew.
Within that monstrous body… beat a heart.
A human heart—obsessive, absurd, a little unhinged, and forever seething with anger.