"Feels good… really good."
The man swayed on his feet after injecting the serum, surrendering himself to the bliss flooding through his veins.
In the shadows of Old Dunling, hallucinogens had become as essential as bread. For a handful of coins, one could purchase a kind of happiness that the iron city above would never grant.
The authorities had cracked down on it countless times, yet greed for money and pleasure only made the trade more resilient. Under martial law, prices had soared. This shipment alone would earn them a fortune.
Mounted patrols rode across the streets overhead, never imagining that beneath their hooves, deep within the city's hidden veins, contraband flowed through the darkness in this manner.
"Don't overdo it," another man warned. "I'm not carrying your ass home."
The words sobered him slightly.
Only a few days earlier, someone had taken too much and collapsed into one of the channels. Perhaps an interception net had caught him. Perhaps he had drowned. Or perhaps he had ended up in one of the furnaces.
"Whew... this new batch is incredible."
He rubbed his eyes vigorously. Like a powerful stimulant, it made him feel as though strength surged through every muscle in his body.
"You know, I've always wondered where they make this stuff."
He picked up a vial. Behind the exquisite container lay liquid wealth itself.
"I'd suggest you stop wondering," the leader replied coldly. "This is the kind of money that belongs to important people."
His tone was sharp enough to cut.
They were rats living in the dark. Even the smallest ray of light could kill them.
"Yeah, yeah... still, this stuff is amazing."
The man traced a finger along the icy surface. Beneath the fading glow of a searchlight, the liquid shimmered with brilliant colors. Whether it was the drug affecting his vision or the fluid itself, he could not tell. It seemed to contain fragments of starlight, swirling in iridescent hues.
The men resumed unloading the cargo.
They were deep underground, near one of the exhaust systems connected to the Pillar Furnace. Scalding steam threatened their lives every moment.
Fortunately, they had traveled this route countless times. The labyrinthine passages had become familiar, and the rusted ladders corroded by decades of neglect had been reinforced by their own hands.
Perhaps it was the illusion of safety. Perhaps it was the excitement of wealth.
Whatever the reason, none of them noticed the strange shadow that had emerged from the darkness behind them.
Neither too close nor too far.
Maintaining a delicate distance.
Lloyd moved through the blind spots of their vision, advancing with measured caution as he listened to their conversation.
The moment the man injected the hallucinogen, Lloyd had sensed it clearly.
The scent of a demon.
Or more precisely—
The scent of Secret Blood.
Hallucinogens mixed with Secret Blood.
Only Lawrence had ever done such a thing.
But Lawrence was dead.
So where were these drugs coming from now?
The thought sent a chill through Lloyd.
The answer the Purge Agency had sought for so long had appeared before him almost by accident. Or perhaps it was no accident at all. Perhaps those unseen hands lurking in the darkness had pushed events together once more.
Just as Lloyd's abduction of Eve had once set an entire story into motion.
The smallest actions.
The most insignificant decisions.
Each one leading inevitably toward the center of the vortex.
If he followed this shipment, he might uncover its source.
Lawrence's accomplices.
That alone was enough to suppress the murderous impulse rising within him.
For now, these men needed to stay alive.
At least until they guided him out of this underground maze and revealed where the cargo was truly headed.
His folding knife and pistol remained hidden beneath his coat. There was not a single unnecessary metal ornament on his clothing to catch the light. Holding his breath, he moved like a shadow among shadows.
And in the darkness, other shadows moved alongside him.
Rats crawled from hidden cracks and scampered across the interception nets the smugglers had erected. Dead fish. Rotting refuse. Discarded waste.
Enough to feed an army of vermin.
Their teeth gnawed relentlessly, producing tiny scraping sounds like blades lightly grinding against metal.
The smugglers no longer paid attention to them.
Underground, rats were everywhere.
But Lloyd glanced toward them with a grim expression.
Because another mystery weighed on his mind.
Who was the Rat King?
What did he want?
And how much did he know?
People tainted by darkness were inevitably drawn toward it.
Everything connected to that abyss exerted a strange pull.
Even if one wished only to live quietly, demons would emerge from nowhere to shatter the illusion.
That was simply how the world worked.
Lloyd had long grown accustomed to it.
Yet this particular chain of events unsettled even him.
From the moment he saw Camus seeking information brokers—
No.
Even earlier.
From the moment he visited Press and casually selected a case.
A mundane investigation had gradually dissolved into darkness.
Calling it coincidence felt absurd.
It seemed far more likely that everything had been destined from the beginning.
That Lloyd would reach out and choose that file.
That one event would lead to another.
And another.
Until he arrived at the deepest reaches of the abyss.
Strange things were drawn to one another.
They spiraled downward together into the dark vortex.
And at its hidden center—
They met.
Ahead, part of the group prepared to leave while others remained behind.
After years of operation, this place had become something resembling a permanent outpost.
A searchlight swept toward the far side of the cavern, illuminating a long ladder bolted against an iron wall.
That appeared to be the route out.
The departing men vanished into the darkness.
Those left behind resumed their duties.
Some gathered around the interception nets, chasing away rats while rummaging through the garbage in hopes of finding something valuable.
"Life's good."
One of them grinned as he pulled out a vial of hallucinogen he had secretly hidden away.
The darkness made theft easy. Whenever shipments were inspected, there were always opportunities to pocket a few doses.
Several others gathered around him, smirking.
"Lucky bastards," one man muttered. "They get to travel around. We just rot down here like rats."
His voice carried a note of bitterness.
The job paid better than surviving in the Lower Districts, but that didn't mean he liked it.
His name was Em.
He had been here for a long time.
He slept in corners.
Food arrived alongside shipments.
Life was stable enough.
Only the environment was unbearable.
Like many in the Lower Districts, Em was an illegal immigrant. He had come to Old Dunling dreaming of opportunity.
Instead, he ended up surviving like this.
"Cheer up," another man said as he handed him a vial.
"At least they let us have these."
He sounded almost excited.
"Do you know how expensive this stuff is outside? Down here, we can use it whenever we want."
"This is the newest version too. Don't you want to try it?"
Em looked at him helplessly.
The man appeared unhealthy, almost sickly. In the faint light, his skin was ghostly pale.
He had arrived before Em. How long before, Em didn't know.
But judging by his appearance, he clearly hadn't seen the sky in a very long time.
"Doesn't this place bother you?" Em asked.
The man's voice caught in his throat.
The searchlight moved away.
Darkness swallowed them once more.
For a long moment, there was silence.
Then he finally spoke.
"Of course it does."
"But what choice do we have?"
"Life outside is just surviving."
"Life down here is just surviving."
"Same thing."
He lit a cigarette.
A tiny ember bloomed in the darkness.
Em hesitated.
Then he leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"What if we escaped together?"
None of them had volunteered for this.
At least not knowingly.
When Em was brought here, he had been blindfolded. Considering the nature of the business, secrecy made sense.
But he had never imagined this.
He didn't know the route out.
Only the transport crews did.
He had searched for other exits.
One passage led toward a ventilation shaft.
He had watched a man attempt to escape through it.
The fugitive never reached the platform above.
Scalding steam cooked him alive.
The underground world was filled with dangers and unknowns.
Eventually, Em abandoned all thoughts of escape.
"Em," the man said flatly, "the last guy who said that is dead."
"He tried swimming out through the channel."
He pointed toward the rushing water emerging from the darkness.
The tunnel connected to the Thames.
If one was strong enough, it was theoretically possible to fight the current and reach freedom.
"But there's an iron grate outside."
"He failed."
"The current dragged him back."
"Lucky for him, he managed to grab the interception net."
"And then?" Em asked.
"Then?"
The man thought for a moment.
"Everyone gathered around."
"The boss was still here back then."
"You think he saved him?"
Something in his voice became strangely twisted.
"N-No?"
Em's instincts prickled with unease.
"Of course not."
"The searchlights focused on him."
"Like the star of a stage performance."
The man laughed softly as he remembered.
"Everyone watched."
"No one dared help."
"The boss forbade it."
"So they listened."
"He begged."
"He cried."
"And when he finally lost his strength…"
The man's gaze drifted toward the darkness beyond the channel.
Below lay one of the water intakes feeding the Pillar Furnace.
"He fell."
"Maybe he drowned."
"Maybe he went straight into the furnace."
"Either way, nobody tried escaping after that."
Cold spread through Em's veins.
But the other man simply chuckled.
"Em, we're rats living in the shadows."
"So stop dreaming about sunlight."
"Come on."
"Try it."
He pressed the vial into Em's hand.
Its surface felt cold.
Within the darkness, the liquid glimmered with an eerie radiance.
"Just try it."
"It's wonderful."
The man injected a dose into his arm.
His body convulsed violently.
Then he slumped against the wall like a drunk.
Em stared at the vial.
Hesitating.
Part of him wanted relief.
Another part felt as though he had already given up on life.
He pressed the mechanism at the bottom.
A thin needle sprang from the tip.
Just as he prepared to inject himself, a thought flashed through his mind.
He stopped.
And then—
A stranger's voice emerged from the darkness.
"Why aren't you injecting it?"
"I... I don't want to end up like him."
Em answered automatically.
Then realization struck.
There were only a handful of people stationed here.
He recognized every voice.
Except this one.
Two burning white eyes ignited within the darkness.
Lloyd stepped forward with a folding knife in hand.
Fresh blood still stained the blade.
"Is that so?"
"That decision just saved your life."
He walked past Em.
The knife never turned toward him.
"W-Wait... what do you mean?"
Em couldn't understand.
He didn't know who Lloyd was.
And he certainly couldn't explain those blazing eyes.
The pressure radiating from him felt unnatural.
Yet strangely, Em sensed no intention to kill.
"People love saying that a lotus rises unstained from the mud."
Lloyd's voice was cold.
"But avoiding drowning in the mud is already hard enough."
He had been listening the entire time.
Perhaps it was pity.
Perhaps something else.
Whatever the reason, Lloyd had left Em's fate in his own hands.
And because Em had chosen not to inject the drug—
He survived.
"There's something wrong with the hallucinogen."
"At least it's no longer something humans like you should be taking."
Lloyd's gaze sharpened.
This wasn't the first time he had encountered drugs mixed with Secret Blood.
But before, the blood had been heavily diluted.
This time was different.
Only minutes after injection, the man beside Em had begun reacting violently.
Under normal circumstances, multiple doses were required before mutation occurred.
Now—
A single vial was enough.
This wasn't merely a new hallucinogen.
It contained freshly refined Secret Blood.
Far purer than the degraded versions used before.
Lloyd approached the man.
Curled upon the ground, he trembled uncontrollably.
His eyes bulged.
Incoherent words spilled from his lips.
Muscles twitched beneath his skin.
Hallucinations and the agony of Secret Blood consumed him simultaneously.
Lloyd had witnessed this countless times already tonight.
Rather than immediately pursuing the transport crew, he had spent his time hunting down those who had begun transforming.
Because he knew exactly what awaited them.
"What are you doing?!"
For perhaps the first time in months, fear failed to stop Em.
He moved to intervene.
The figure before him was terrifying.
A specter emerging from darkness.
A reaper carrying death.
Yet the man on the ground was one of the few friends Em had in this cursed place.
"He's already dead."
Lloyd's answer was merciless.
Em opened his mouth to protest—
Then the man rose.
His legs bent backward with a sickening crack.
"No..."
Horror seized him.
The creature's flesh swelled and split apart.
White bone erupted from beneath the skin, multiplying and growing.
An abomination was being born.
Lloyd had no intention of wasting another second.
His knife flashed.
Just as it had countless times before.
The blade pierced the heart.
Then severed the head.
The execution was completed in an instant.
The half-transformed body collapsed to the floor.
Blood spilled across the darkness.
Em's stomach lurched violently.
He turned away and retched.
Behind him, Lloyd spoke calmly.
"I suggest you come with me."
"Because the people transporting these drugs know exactly what they're carrying."
His voice remained emotionless.
The moment those men left hallucinogens behind, the workers stationed here had already been abandoned.
More accurately—
They had been marked for disposal.
Lloyd didn't know why the organization had suddenly decided to erase a hideout built over years of effort.
But something had happened.
Something significant enough to force such a decision.
Em slowly raised his head.
In the darkness, those bright eyes stared back at him.
"Is this... pity?"
"It's a chance to stay alive."
Lloyd shrugged.
"You're young."
"You can still refuse temptation."
"That makes you one of the better pieces of trash in this pile."
He clearly had no desire to explain further.
There was humanity within him.
But only a little.
As for saving Em...
Lloyd glanced at the frightened young face struggling desperately to remain composed.
This was merely a boy who wanted to see the sky again.
And for Lloyd—
It was nothing more than an insignificant act of kindness.