Few people ever stop to realize that, if one looks only at the history of the Western world, the oldest institution is neither an ancient kingdom nor a glorious bloodline—it is the Gospel Church.
Its name appears in the earliest surviving records. One could even argue that it stands at the very beginning of Western history itself. It witnessed kingdoms crumble into dust and empires rise from their ashes. It saw the age of cold steel give way to an era where muskets roared like living flame.
Across the endless march of centuries, the Gospel Church accumulated knowledge and secrets far beyond the grasp of ordinary minds.
Among those secrets were the Demon Hunters.
To wage war against the fiends, the Church deciphered forbidden truths hidden within the Book of Revelation, and from that blasphemous wisdom the Demon Hunters were born.
They possessed strength that dwarfed ordinary men, vitality as tenacious as wild beasts, speed swift as lightning itself. Yet none of those gifts defined their true might. Their greatest weapon was the uncanny Authority they wielded.
The power to command the supernatural.
Armor blessed beyond destruction. Holy flames that burned with the brilliance of noon. Eyes capable of glimpsing fragments of the future...
Even today, the full catalog of Demon Hunter Authorities remains a mystery. Before the Night of Divine Descent, not even the Gospel Church had fully deciphered every secret concealed within the Book of Revelation. Some Authorities, though discovered, were deliberately sealed away for countless reasons—Gabriel being one of the most unsettling examples.
What the world knew was only a fraction of what the Church truly possessed.
Moriarty watched the people trapped within his illusion.
Their eyes were vacant, their expressions dull, yet their bodies continued to move as though nothing had changed.
This was no ordinary illusion. Reality and fantasy had been woven together so seamlessly that truth and falsehood became indistinguishable, making even the smallest flaw almost impossible to detect. It was through this very Authority that Moriarty had fabricated his entire identity and quietly infiltrated Blackmount Hospital.
The incessant alarm had never stopped.
The Geiger counter had been screaming for quite some time, but the illusion had distorted everyone's senses. To Joy and the others, the device sat in eerie silence, reassuringly calm. Everything appeared perfectly normal.
Everything except Joy.
Within the illusion, Joy stared at Moriarty, an unfamiliar pressure weighing heavily upon him. He could sense that something was terribly wrong, yet judging from everyone else's reactions, no one else seemed to notice.
What's happening?
Until this very moment, Joy still trusted his instincts.
But one doubtful gaze after another settled upon him.
Each look pierced like a steel needle.
A freezing chill suddenly flooded his body, as though the entire world had abandoned him in a single heartbeat, leaving him utterly alone.
In a world consumed by madness, remaining sane was itself an unforgivable crime.
"I can understand why Joy bears such hostility toward me," Moriarty said gently. "He doesn't want to be treated... After all, nobody likes Blackmount Hospital."
He controlled the situation completely.
From beginning to end, Night Owl had never sensed even the slightest trace of fear from the man. For one brief moment, a strange thought crossed his mind.
Moriarty reminded him of someone.
After only a second's thought, the answer surfaced.
That damned Lloyd Holmes.
Anyone in their line of work carried scars.
Joy had his nightmares.
Shrike had his gun.
Night Owl had once considered himself fortunate for having no psychological trauma at all.
That illusion shattered after the Divine Armor trial.
The monstrous Black Angel, intoxicated with murderous frenzy, had pummeled the Sword Dancer without mercy.
At the time, Night Owl had felt almost nothing. Convinced he was about to die, his mind had emptied beneath the weight of death itself. Yet he survived. The seemingly berserk Black Angel had remained chained by reason all along.
The true fear came afterward.
He found himself growing uneasy inside enclosed spaces.
Every confined room dragged his memory back to that test.
The Sword Dancer's indestructible Divine Armor had become a prison, slowly collapsing inward beneath the Black Angel's relentless assault, crushing his body inch by inch.
For a fleeting instant, he had truly believed he would be flattened inside it, reduced to nothing more than a mound of reeking flesh.
Lloyd himself would probably never have imagined receiving such an evaluation.
Yet it fit.
Moriarty and Lloyd shared the same unnerving composure.
No matter how absurd the situation became, they remained utterly calm, as though every possible outcome had already been calculated long before anyone else realized a game had even begun.
Even if the heavens themselves were about to collapse.
The comparison became all the more fitting the longer Night Owl thought about it.
Lloyd had been exactly the same during his desperate battle against Lawrence.
Everything had remained under control.
Even his own death.
"Being a doctor is a difficult profession, isn't it?"
Moriarty continued, wearing an expression touched with quiet melancholy, like a parent whose concern was forever misunderstood by an ungrateful child.
"People expect us because we save lives. Yet whenever we appear before them, we're also a reminder that something has already gone terribly wrong. To many, a doctor looks no different from Death itself."
His eyes settled on Joy.
"Just like you. You're afraid I'll send you back to Blackmount Hospital."
His voice alone filled Joy with unease.
If he could, Joy would have pulled the trigger and blown this bastard's head off.
But he couldn't.
Even if Moriarty truly was suspicious, he remained both a physician of Blackmount Hospital and a member of the Purification Bureau. Procedure demanded investigation—not execution.
"And proving it is actually quite simple."
Moriarty picked up the Geiger counter, still glowing with its soft emerald light, and slowly stepped toward Joy.
Lightning split the sky once more.
Thunder rolled overhead.
Somewhere beneath its roar came the faint snap of fingers.
The human will could never truly be controlled.
Those who claimed to dominate minds spoke only fantasies.
But will could be guided.
Given enough subtle suggestions... enough careful design... enough invisible barriers closing off every alternative...
Eventually people would walk willingly toward the destination prepared for them.
In many ways, psychologists did precisely that.
They guided a person's thoughts toward healing.
Or toward the abyss.
The illusion began to dissolve.
Fantasy and reality overlapped one final time before separating, like a train switching tracks, abandoning falsehood to return to the world as it truly was.
Their imprisoned senses were suddenly released.
The shrill alarm they had unconsciously ignored grew deafening.
It sounded almost like a woman's desperate screams, tearing at every eardrum.
Joy's face drained of all color.
As Moriarty dismissed his Authority, the hidden screaming flooded everyone's ears.
The Geiger counter's gentle emerald glow vanished.
It burned crimson instead.
The color of fresh blood.
Moriarty still wore the same tranquil smile.
Only now it appeared horrifying.
He pressed the Geiger counter firmly against Joy's chest.
At that instant, the Authority blanketing everyone shattered completely.
The alarm screamed like a swarm of maddened insects.
Moriarty adored his Authority.
Nightmares were amusing enough.
But driving people into madness...
That was true art.
Such a simple sequence.
Yet through meticulous preparation he had transformed it into a flawless trap.
One designed to utterly destroy Joy.
"No... impossible..."
Joy could not believe it.
The awakening of the Secret Blood had triggered the alarm.
Yet under the illusion, every piece of evidence had pointed toward him instead.
"Don't move, Joy!"
Night Owl immediately leveled his pistol.
They were comrades.
But he also knew exactly what duty required.
Any hesitation now would only doom Joy completely.
Even Red Falcon's expression hardened.
He trusted Joy.
Yet every accusation now pointed directly at him.
"Calm down, Joy. You're letting your emotions control you."
Looking every bit the compassionate physician, Moriarty strode forward.
One hand rested gently upon Joy's shoulder.
The other softly cupped his face, forcing him to meet his gaze.
"Look into my eyes."
Light reflected across his lenses.
For an instant they seemed to ignite with blinding white radiance.
Then—
Silence.
Absolute silence.
"You still hate those memories... You're still trapped inside that nightmare. You need treatment. You need rest..."
His voice was soft.
Tender.
To everyone watching, Moriarty looked exactly like an experienced psychiatrist trying to soothe a patient on the verge of collapse.
The truth, however, was far uglier.
He knew nothing about psychotherapy.
He simply enjoyed watching people descend into madness.
Everything else was performance.
Pretending to be a doctor was infinitely easier than becoming one.
As for genuine expertise...
His supernatural Authority handled that for him.
He whispered meaningless comforts while dragging Joy ever deeper into illusion.
Authority—Raphael.
It was an invisible power.
Much like the uncanny Shandafon, unseen forces inspired a terror far greater than anything visible.
Everyone had unknowingly inhaled generous amounts of mandrake smoke.
Its hallucinogenic properties amplified Moriarty's Authority, just as they once had in the Valley of Terror years before.
The moment they stepped into this place, invisible threads of domination had already wrapped themselves around every one of their senses.
An icy dread swallowed Joy whole.
Years of battling fiends had sharpened his instincts to a razor's edge, and every instinct screamed the same warning.
Moriarty.
Something is horribly wrong with him.
Joy tried to avert his eyes.
Too late.
His exhausted mind was kneaded like clay.
Torn apart.
Reassembled.
Suddenly the room held only the two of them.
Night turned crimson.
Children began crying somewhere beyond the darkness.
Joy knew something had come for him.
Moriarty disappeared.
A child now stood where he had been.
Molten iron covered its head.
Raw wounds glowed with searing red heat.
Its lips split wider and wider until the smile stretched beneath both ears—
A smile like the jaws of something waiting to devour him whole.
"Joy!"
Red Falcon called out anxiously.
As Moriarty continued speaking, Joy's body began trembling violently.
The Geiger counter shrieked without pause.
His bloodshot eyes locked onto Moriarty.
"You bastard!"
He roared, struggling against the nightmare.
His pistol snapped upward.
Before he could fire, Robin lunged forward, trapping the weapon and wedging his finger behind the trigger, making it impossible to pull.
Night Owl struck Joy hard across the neck.
A syringe flashed into view.
The tranquilizer emptied into his bloodstream in seconds.
The injection had originally been prepared for Moriarty.
Instead, it found its way into Joy.
Any lingering trust his companions still possessed vanished the moment his sudden madness unfolded before their eyes.
After all...
On one point, Moriarty had never lied.
Since that incident, Joy had undergone psychological evaluations.
But he had never received proper treatment.
Moriarty calmly returned to the sofa.
As the Secret Blood settled, Joy drifted into unconsciousness.
The Geiger counter finally fell silent.
It had been a perfect frame-up.
Find the cracks hidden inside someone's mind.
Apply just enough pressure.
Soon enough, they would doubt themselves...
And willingly fall into madness.
Heavy breathing echoed through the room.
Red Falcon stared at the unconscious Joy, unable to believe things had ended like this.
He had seen teammates corrupted by fiends before.
He had watched comrades become monsters.
But never like this.
Never had someone seemingly rational collapsed into insanity outside the battlefield.
A strange realization crept over him.
Perhaps nowhere in this world was truly safe.
Whether facing corruption...
Or merely living an ordinary life...
Everyone would, at some cursed moment, lose themselves to madness.
As though it were an unavoidable curse woven into humanity itself.
"This was all part of your plan, wasn't it?"
Night Owl fixed his gaze upon Moriarty.
From beginning to end, the man's expression had never changed.
That same warm smile.
That same gentle demeanor.
A face that invited trust.
Had Night Owl encountered that smile inside Blackmount Hospital, perhaps it would have reassured him.
Here...
It inspired only quiet revulsion.
"Like a script written long before the curtain rose," Night Owl continued. "Every reaction Joy had... you predicted every single one."
"I am a doctor," Moriarty replied with an easy smile. "Doctors understand their patients."
He glanced toward the unconscious Joy.
"Besides, scripts have always been part of Blackmount Hospital's treatment methods. We reenact painful memories so patients may relive them... and change the tragic past from within the present."
He lowered his eyes once more.
"I simply know my patients... exceptionally well."
Night Owl studied him in silence before turning back toward the restrained Joy.
The unconscious man murmured faintly, though no one could make out the words.
"You're still under suspicion, Doctor."
"I understand."
Moriarty smiled pleasantly.
"If an inquiry becomes necessary, please notify me in advance. I still have a mutual aid society to oversee."
That smile never changed.
It was as though he wore a mask no one in the world could ever remove.
Yet somehow...
The smile seemed even broader now.
As though everything that had just transpired had been nothing more than an amusing game.
And perhaps it truly had.
Humans were astonishingly fragile creatures.
They could scarcely distinguish reality from illusion.
Given enough deception...
And the perfect moment...
They could be led anywhere, never realizing they had strayed from the path by their own feet.
Moriarty loved that feeling.
Watching people sink into ruin.
Watching them surrender without ever understanding why.
For someone whose emotions had long since withered into numbness, there were few pleasures left in the world.
But holding another person's fate in the palm of his hand...
That still brought him the faintest thrill.