When the rain came down hard enough, if you dared to lift your head into the curtain of water, you would feel a suffocating pressure unlike anything else. Endless torrents hammered against your body, washing over you until the storm itself seemed to swallow you whole.
The roar of hurricane winds and crashing thunder filled every corner of the world, as though the end of days had finally arrived. Yet even at a moment so perilous, curses still rose above the storm from time to time. For fragile mortals, perhaps that was the only rebellion they had left.
Nikola stood wrapped in a glaring yellow raincoat, both hands clamped tightly around a steel safety cable. In calmer days, he carried himself like the quintessential scientist—cold, brilliant, and touched by just enough madness to unsettle anyone around him. Now, however, he looked little different from a drenched beggar dragged off the streets, soaked to the bone and muttering profanities beneath his breath alongside everyone else, cursing this wretched weather.
It was likely the fiercest rainy season Old Dunling had endured in years. The heavens had remained open for days, pouring down relentless rain accompanied by endless flashes of lightning and deafening thunder.
Ordinarily, everyone should have been tucked safely inside warm homes, gathered around glowing hearths while trading stories to pass the night.
Instead, Nikola stood atop Dunling Tower, keeping company only with thunder.
He was far from alone. Dozens of others, clad in identical rain gear and insulated equipment, stood with him beneath the storm, not merely enduring the lightning—but attempting to command it.
This was Dunling Tower, once the beating heart of the Dunling Project. Though that grand vision had long since perished, remarkable technology had still risen from its remains.
"What a magnificent sight!"
Maxwell's voice crackled through the communicator.
The two of them stood atop the highest section of the iron tower. From this impossible height, the entirety of Old Dunling stretched beneath them. Sheets of rain engulfed the sprawling city while the Thames overflowed its banks before surging onward toward the sea.
His words were nearly drowned beneath the howling wind and relentless thunder. Whether it was the storm disrupting the signal or simply the violence of nature itself, every sentence came wrapped in shrill bursts of static. Even so, Nikola managed to catch enough. Fighting against the biting wind, he looked toward Maxwell's distant yellow silhouette and answered with an emphatic nod.
It truly was magnificent.
Scenes like this were exceedingly rare.
Normally, Old Dunling remained hidden beneath an endless veil of mist. A leaden sky hung overhead like an enormous iron curtain, pressing down upon the city until even from the summit of the tower, its true shape remained concealed. It resembled a woman hidden behind a veil—mysterious, elusive, forever inviting those who gazed upon her to uncover what lay beneath.
Nikola turned his head.
Harsh white searchlights carved through the darkness, illuminating enough of the night for him to take in his surroundings.
He stood upon one of four immense platforms protruding from Dunling Tower, each positioned at one corner of the colossal structure. According to the original design, this place would not only become the heart of Dunling itself, but also the central hub of the Midgard Serpent Project. Like Yggdrasil from Norse mythology, the immense tower was meant to rise across the land of Ingelveig like a colossal iron tree.
Deep beneath the earth, its "roots" would take the form of the Furnace Pillars and the Perpetual Pumps, supplying inexhaustible energy and technological innovation to the entire city. At ground level, those roots would merge into the nation's railway network, where countless locomotives would depart to every corner of Ingelveig.
The platform beneath Nikola's feet occupied an even more critical role.
If Dunling Tower served as the trunk of that iron tree, then these four platforms were its branches.
Originally, they had been intended as aerial supply stations. The "leaves" drifting across the heavens—massive war airships—would no longer need to descend to the surface for replenishment. Instead, they could dock directly here, allowing them to remain airborne through extended campaigns.
Everything had sounded perfect.
Unfortunately, the dream had ended in failure.
Still... not everything had been lost.
Some embers remained buried beneath the ashes, glowing quietly through the years until they evolved into what stood here today.
"You all seem busy."
Arthur's voice emerged through the chaos as he approached, wearing the same vivid yellow raincoat. Like Nikola, a safety cable circled his waist while one hand gripped the railing against the merciless gale. Hundreds of meters separated them from the ground below, and in weather like this, a single careless step could send anyone hurtling into the abyss.
For Arthur to die that way would have been almost laughably absurd.
"Busy enough," Nikola shouted over the storm, forcing every word through the screaming wind. "This opportunity is too rare—the weather couldn't be more perfect. Besides, you almost never agree to let us conduct experiments up here."
The machinery answered with a thunderous growl.
At some point, workers had erected a slender metallic spire atop the platform. Thick cables spread outward from its base in every direction while engineers in matching protective suits hurried between instruments despite the brutal conditions.
"Maxwell, it's yours for now!"
Nikola called through the communicator.
Far away, Maxwell simply raised a thumbs-up before disappearing once more into the storm.
Nikola turned and headed toward Arthur.
Together they struggled off the platform and entered the steel-enclosed interior of the tower. After wrestling the massive iron door shut against the wind, the storm was sealed outside.
Silence.
For the first time in hours, both men exhaled deeply.
Nikola was, after all, a researcher.
His life usually unfolded within the safety of underground laboratories where security teams handled anything remotely dangerous. Compared to those professionals, he was almost embarrassingly delicate. But today even the finest guards would have been useless.
This environment was pure hell.
"So," Arthur asked as Nikola peeled off his drenched raincoat, water pouring onto the floor, "what's the situation?"
"We're at a critical stage," Nikola replied. "If everything goes well, our understanding of electricity may finally break through."
"I actually came to tell you your shift is over. Merlin's taking the next watch. He's already on his way."
Nikola blinked.
"So soon?"
He had become so completely absorbed in the experiment that time itself had vanished. Then again, perhaps the storm was to blame. In conditions like these, a single lapse in concentration could easily end in catastrophe.
Arthur pressed a nearby switch.
The sealed chamber began descending slowly through the heart of the tower like an enormous industrial elevator. Rust stained its steel framework, warm light spilled through narrow seams between iron plates, and every detail of its construction favored function over beauty. It was industrial engineering in its purest form.
After a long descent, the heavy doors opened once more.
Gone were the bare steel walls.
In their place stretched an elegant corridor adorned with lavish decorations, where attendants already waited with dry clothing prepared for Nikola.
He couldn't help glancing around.
Even someone of his clearance rarely received permission to enter this place, so he seized every opportunity to study it while he could.
Following Arthur, he eventually entered a conference chamber dominated by an immense circular table. Deep sword scars and countless dents covered its ancient surface, silent witnesses to a history no one cared to explain.
"Take a break," Arthur said.
Nikola couldn't hide his surprise.
"The Round Table Chamber? Isn't this a little extravagant?"
He looked upward.
Above them stretched a magnificent dome crafted entirely from glass, now enduring the relentless assault of rain. Watching the torrents cascade overhead gave the uncanny illusion of standing beneath the sea itself.
Yet once the storm passed and the familiar iron sky settled over Old Dunling again, this would become the only place in the entire city where one could still glimpse blue skies.
The Shattered Dome.
Occupying the upper half of Dunling Tower, the mysterious Shattered Dome had been built atop the ruins of the Dunling Project itself. It now served as the command center of the Cleansing Agency.
"In the end," Arthur said calmly, "it's only a meeting room."
Nikola nodded before casually picking up one of the classified reports lying on the table.
That report represented the very reason he had been granted access to the Shattered Dome—and permission to use Dunling Tower for these lightning experiments.
Arthur had wrestled with the decision for weeks.
The Shattered Dome had remained sealed for years to protect the Agency's command center. Opening it meant allowing large numbers of researchers inside, who were now performing dangerous electrical experiments atop the tower itself. Though Nikola had repeatedly assured him of the precautions involved, Arthur could never quite shake the fear that one perfectly timed bolt of lightning might electrocute half of the Agency's leadership in a single instant.
"How's the progress?" Arthur asked.
"Exactly as expected." Nikola's eyes gleamed with quiet reverence. "The power of lightning is... extraordinary. For one brief moment, I almost understood why the Vikings worshipped Odin."
Though he had devoted his life to studying electricity, standing face to face with nature's own thunder still filled him with awe—and no small measure of fear.
"Odin... the Midgard Serpent..." Arthur murmured while reading the report. "I've never understood why everything here is named after Norse myths. This is Ingelveig. Doesn't it feel... out of place?"
Nikola looked genuinely surprised.
"Merlin never told you?"
"Told me what?"
"There's a reason for all of it. Those stories aren't just myths. Merlin believed they were closer to history... to origins."
"The origins of what?"
"Alchemy."
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
Nikola himself knew little of alchemy, but as Merlin's assistant, he had spent years immersed in its strange philosophies.
"Merlin once suspected that alchemy originated with the Vikings... or perhaps even farther north. He always said that if he ever grew old enough to feel death approaching, he'd travel north—farther north than anyone had gone—to the place where ice met the edge of the sea."
Nikola smiled faintly.
"He believed truth itself was waiting there."
Long hours inside laboratories could become painfully monotonous, and Merlin had never been shy about entertaining everyone with stories. One of his favorites involved chasing another alchemist across half a city with a sword, earning him the affectionate nickname The Sword Saint of Alchemy. Whether he truly possessed any swordsmanship remained anyone's guess. After all, if Merlin ever found himself drawing his blade for real, the Cleansing Agency was probably already halfway to destruction.
Arthur's pupils contracted ever so slightly.
Nikola never noticed.
Fresh from wrestling with thunder and rain, he was simply savoring the precious warmth surrounding him.
"The north..."
Arthur's thoughts drifted elsewhere.
Ancient beings.
Forgotten legends.
He had never imagined they might share a connection with alchemy itself.
"...Still."
Nikola suddenly looked up.
"Thank you, Arthur."
Beneath his dark, exhausted eyes burned an unmistakable light that caught Arthur completely off guard.
"For what?"
"For believing in us."
Nikola sighed.
"Ever since the Dunling Project failed, almost everyone abandoned electrical research."
Though he had joined the Cleansing Agency after the catastrophe, the surviving records alone conveyed the crushing despair those scholars had suffered.
To Nikola, the world had chosen the wrong path.
Humanity should have pursued greater sources of energy.
Others argued the scholars themselves had lost their way—that steam, not electricity, represented mankind's true future.
Steam already supported civilization upon foundations too vast to tear down.
No one possessed the courage to begin again.
Arthur smiled faintly.
"We simply have more funding than we know what to do with. The royal family hardly spends anything, so Her Majesty keeps sending the money our way."
Queen Victoria.
The mysterious sovereign and true ruler behind the Cleansing Agency.
She entrusted nearly everything to Arthur, rarely appearing in public herself. Most of her days were spent secluded within Platinum Palace under constant military protection. Even Nikola had never seen her in person. Everything he knew of the Queen came from portraits depicting her dignified figure.
"Well," Nikola said with a grin, "I suppose that works out nicely."
The meeting room doors swung open once more.
Maxwell staggered inside, rainwater dripping from every inch of him. He collapsed into a chair with all the elegance of an exhausted old hound before sprawling across the ancient Round Table.
"This table's been here for centuries," Arthur warned immediately.
"It's survived hundreds of years." Maxwell waved him off without lifting his head. "A little rain isn't going to finish it."
Unlike the much younger Nikola, Maxwell appeared roughly Arthur's age. He had served the Cleansing Agency for decades and had once stood among the original members of the Dunling Project. Back then, he had been even younger than Nikola was now.
"You holding up?" Nikola asked.
He studied the drenched old researcher.
At Maxwell's age, he ought to have been sitting beside a fireplace telling stories to grandchildren.
Instead, he stood beneath thunderclouds chasing lightning itself.
His aging body looked ready to collapse at any moment, yet the soul burning inside him blazed brighter than ever, as though he might happily die at his workstation if that was the price of witnessing this dream fulfilled.
"I've never felt better!" Maxwell declared enthusiastically.
"I feel as strong as one of the knights!"
The words rang with confidence.
His head, however, remained planted firmly on the tabletop, too heavy to lift.
For him, there could be no greater joy.
He had witnessed the death of the Dunling Project with his own eyes.
And now, decades later, he was watching it breathe again.
Whenever he remembered the scholars who had never lived to see this day, emotions surfaced that words could never fully express.
Sometimes he believed this had always been the purpose of his life.
And perhaps the purpose of his death as well.
"The trials are proceeding smoothly," Nikola reported. "A few more tests to confirm the weapon's stability, and it'll be ready for deployment. It's expensive and highly specialized, but against Demon Hunters... it may be exactly what we need."
Though peace still prevailed on the surface—and signs of cooperation occasionally emerged—Arthur knew the truth.
The Cleansing Agency and the Gospel Church remained rivals.
Anthony's Demon Hunters were, above all else, an army.
No one could predict what an army might one day choose to do.
As long as both factions continued to exist, the day would eventually come when swords were drawn against one another.
Better to prepare now than regret later.
"If possible," Arthur said thoughtfully, "I'd really like Lloyd to help test the weapon."
Nikola looked at him.
Arthur smiled.
"Not by using it."
A pause.
"By standing in front of it."
Only after firing the weapon at a genuine Demon Hunter, Arthur believed, would they finally know whether it truly worked.