The body, battered and torn almost beyond recognition, slowly rose to its feet. Its limbs bent at unnatural angles, like those of a puppet whose strings had been carelessly manipulated into some grotesque shape.
Countless red threads swayed within Samuel's wounds like seaweed drifting beneath the waves. They tugged and pulled at one another, knitting his body back together. A smile lingered on his face, as though he could feel none of the pain.
The situation had become troublesome. Lloyd stared intently at him. In theory, a demon hunter's strength changed with the rising of the Secret Blood. Before it reached its critical threshold and the hunter began to demonize, ordinary fatal injuries were still capable of killing one. If, for instance, Lloyd had been decapitated before awakening his Secret Blood, he would simply have died.
But once the Secret Blood began to boil and that forbidden power flooded through the body, ordinary attacks could no longer kill a demon hunter so easily. As long as even a single breath remained, the hunter could drive the Secret Blood to its absolute limit and complete the process of demonization.
Samuel's Secret Blood had not reached its critical threshold just now, which meant that his fatal wounds should have been enough to restrain him. That was precisely why Lloyd had not been in a hurry to render him completely helpless. Yet clearly, there was more to it than that.
Samuel had also awakened a Dominion.
Just like Lloyd, the moment they had drawn their swords against one another, that supernatural authority had been bestowed upon the demon hunters.
"The Immortal Anar."
Lloyd murmured the words softly. Countless red threads writhed wildly through the air, like some unknown beast thrashing in a frenzy.
Decapitation and piercing the heart were both effective ways of killing a demon hunter, regardless of whether they had undergone demonization. But the Anar faction was an exception. Like the Shandahong, they were an extraordinarily peculiar branch of demon hunters.
Lloyd raised his shotgun. The scattered pellets slammed directly into Samuel's body. After revealing his Dominion, Samuel had simply abandoned all attempts to dodge. Such injuries could no longer shake him. Countless red threads twisted within his wounds, while flesh rapidly regenerated, forcing each pellet back out of his body.
That was the power of Anar.
Unlike the blazing inferno of Michael, the indestructible divine armor of Metatron, or the ability to glimpse the immediate future, Anar's power was exceedingly simple: to push a demonic vitality to its absolute limit.
No matter what kind of wounds they suffered, so long as a single breath remained, that overwhelming vitality could restore them.
It was a power that came as close to immortality as anything could.
Lloyd became even more cautious. Because of that terrifying vitality, piercing their hearts or severing their heads was often insufficient to kill them completely. The only way was to destroy them utterly.
"His Eminence said this is a power filled with honor."
Samuel looked down at his own hand. The wound had already healed, leaving only a few residual red threads clinging to his skin.
It was indeed a power filled with honor.
The crisis of the Night of Ascension had been far beyond what the Metatron demon hunters could contain. At the critical moment, they had held the gates of Hell. Then the Anar hunters had arrived. With their extraordinary vitality, even after undergoing demonization, they were not so easily killed.
They slaughtered one another within the Still Temple, where sin had been born.
The demon hunters fought the demons. Once the demons had been slaughtered, they turned upon the demon hunters who had themselves fallen to demonization. They fought one another without end. Countless demon hunters perished, yet the Anar hunters continued to survive through their horrifying vitality, carrying on the endless slaughter.
Only much later, when even those demon hunters bearing the name Anar finally fell, did the nightmare truly come to an end.
Swordlight flashed. Iron armor rang. Blood sprayed through the air.
The nail sword once again pierced Samuel's chest. As Lloyd drove the blade through him, countless red threads erupted from the wound like weeds growing madly from the earth. They spread along Lloyd's sword and wrapped themselves around its length, while the gaping wound in Samuel's chest rapidly sealed itself shut.
Samuel had no intention of defending himself.
Lloyd could not kill him.
Scorching flames surged upward. Purifying fire roared around them, enveloping both men at once. It was also a sign that the Secret Blood within their bodies was gradually breaking free from its restraints.
"Demon hunters…"
Shermans stared at the burning figures and murmured the words beneath his breath. Something seemed to have awakened within his memory. Slowly, he raised his flintlock pistol.
He was a nostalgic man.
He longed for the past, for that beautiful golden age. The flintlock in his hand was itself a masterpiece from that era, a deadly weapon whose surface had been carved by artisans into elegant and graceful curves.
But all of that had ended with the aging of Lloyd Medici. Shermans would never see that glory again. All he had left was this obsolete weapon, preserved as a relic of his memories.
"Yager! Help me!"
After indulging in his memories for a moment, Shermans' expression twisted into something vicious. He shouted at Yager, who stood nearby in stunned terror.
Yager slowly recovered from his panic. Looking at the furious expression on Shermans' face, he realized that the devout old man he once knew was gone. The contorted face before him resembled that of a demon.
He edged his way toward Shermans. Like Shermans, Yager was also a devout believer. Before their exile, he had followed Shermans faithfully. If none of this had happened, Shermans had originally intended to support Yager as his successor.
"My lord, we still have a chance! We should escape now!" Yager said anxiously.
The battle between Lloyd and Samuel inside the wine cellar had grown increasingly violent. Both were monsters that were almost impossible to shake. Lloyd possessed an indestructible divine armor, while Samuel possessed a body that was nearly immortal. Red threads and flames intertwined in a deadly dance. If Lloyd had not deliberately kept the battlefield near the entrance of the wine cellar, the two of them would have been caught in the devastation long ago.
"Escape? Why should we escape?"
Shermans smiled at him. Bathed in the flickering firelight, the old man carried an indescribable madness.
With considerable effort, he tore open his pocket and pulled out two cylindrical containers. They were finely crafted, and at first glance appeared to be some kind of storage device.
"Load my pistol."
Shermans tossed the flintlock toward him. Such weapons were notoriously slow and troublesome to reload, which was why Shermans always carried gunpowder and lead shot with him.
In truth, the weapon was much like an ornate sword blade. Most of the time, it was merely a symbol of status. If Shermans Borgia, a Cardinal who was constantly surrounded by guards, ever had to personally fire a flintlock, then it meant he was already very close to death.
Like now.
"My lord, we still have a chance!"
Yager tried once more to persuade him, but the old man stubbornly shook his head. With no other choice, Yager obeyed.
As the battle intensified, the flames continued to rise. The temperature throughout the wine cellar climbed steadily, and the air became unbearably hot. Sweat poured down Yager's face.
He poured gunpowder into the barrel, then picked up a lead ball. Just as he was about to push it down through the muzzle, Shermans stopped him.
"Lead won't kill that thing. Use this."
As he spoke, Shermans opened the other cylinder.
He had not opened it in a very long time. When he had fled Florence, he had taken it with him merely on the off chance that it might someday prove useful.
He had never imagined that day would actually come.
"What is this?"
Yager took the cylinder and poured several bullets into his palm.
"A privilege of the Cardinal," Shermans replied.
Yager asked no further questions. Following Shermans' instructions, he pushed the strange silver-white bullets into the muzzle, then used the ramrod mounted beneath the barrel to force them all the way down.
"Yager, I don't want to run anymore."
Shermans suddenly spoke.
He picked up the loaded flintlock. Only then did Yager realize that the old man had struggled to his feet, one hand braced against the wall.
"My lord…"
Yager wanted to say something more, but Shermans silenced him with a harsh voice.
"I have run for far too long. From Florence to Old Dunling, I was once a Cardinal blessed by God. And now I am destined to die in a foreign land."
Shermans picked up Yager's walking cane with his other hand. Then, with great difficulty, he began walking toward the battlefield where Lloyd and Samuel clashed.
At that moment, the old man seemed almost wooden in his determination. He simply kept moving forward.
"I regret the decision I made. Following Miguel was a mistake. He desired power, not sacred faith. Give him power, and he would never care whether the thing we worshipped was truly a god or merely a devil."
He walked into the radiance of the flames, his silhouette turning black against the inferno. Shermans slowly straightened his chest, and somehow, despite his frail condition, he seemed to grow taller.
"No one cares about those things."
"But I do."
He raised the flintlock. His lips moved in prayer, while his cloudy eyes remained fixed upon the figures slaughtering one another before him.
...
In the end, the battle had become tedious.
No matter how many times Lloyd wounded Samuel, that terrifying vitality restored him within moments. Lloyd had witnessed such horrifying regenerative power once before, in Lawrence. Back then, relying on the flesh of the Holy Grail, Lloyd had needed artillery bombardment, explosions of crude oil, and finally the severing of Lawrence's head before he could kill him completely.
"You're starting to find this troublesome, aren't you?"
Samuel asked.
The bizarre red threads writhed like weeds belonging to a madman. They did more than heal Samuel. Whenever Lloyd came too close, those threads woven from flesh would lash out at him like predatory blades of grass, tangling around his divine armor.
"Indeed. The holy silver contained within the nail sword cannot effectively restrain you."
Lloyd's voice was low.
Holy silver could inflict effective damage upon a demon hunter, but more often than not, by the time Lloyd pulled his blade from Samuel's body, the wound had already healed halfway.
"To kill you, I need an explosive attack. Something capable of killing you in an instant, before you have time to regenerate—or something that leaves you unable to regenerate."
Lloyd stopped attacking.
Continuing to trade blows like this was meaningless. Neither of them could do anything to the other, and Samuel understood that as well. He lowered his weapon.
"But your Dominion is Metatron," Samuel said. "If you were Michael, I might have something to worry about."
Michael's searing flames were the most offensively powerful of all known Dominions. Once that heat reached its absolute extreme, all matter would be destroyed in an instant.
But when that blazing temperature reached its peak, the demon hunter's Secret Blood would also rise to its limit. What burned alongside the Secret Blood was not merely blood, but flesh—and beneath that flesh, the Silverbound Shackles.
Like a falling meteor, the ultimate brilliance was followed by the absolute darkness of death.
The two men steadied their breathing. On the surface, they appeared to be conversing, but in truth, both were using the pause to recover their strength.
"Are you planning to use that thing? Aren't you afraid Shermans will die?"
Samuel stared directly at Lloyd, but his peripheral vision remained alert to every subtle movement Lloyd made.
"You noticed?"
Lloyd sounded somewhat surprised.
"I examined those corpses. Instantaneous combustion. Explosive shockwaves. That doesn't match your Dominion. Which means you're carrying some kind of weapon capable of producing those effects."
Samuel was an arrogant man, but he was also a cautious one. Facing an enemy like Lloyd, he would never afford himself the luxury of carelessness.
"So that's why you deliberately chose to fight here?"
At Lloyd's question, Samuel nodded.
That was the reason Samuel had deliberately chosen this place as the battlefield.
He was not merely protecting Shermans. He was also wary of the Astatine Throwing Knife. In such a confined space, Lloyd would never use that weapon lightly.
"Not bad. You're considerably better than those other demon hunters. At least you know how to use your head when you fight."
Lloyd stopped hiding the truth. He simply drew the Astatine Throwing Knife and held it in his hand.
"Are you planning to use it? The explosion won't kill either of us, but it will kill Shermans."
"But if I don't eliminate you, neither Shermans nor I will be able to escape, will we?"
Lloyd's pupils contracted.
In the next instant, he attacked again.
Samuel was caught off guard.
That was precisely what he had been betting on. He had assumed that, in order to guarantee Shermans' survival, Lloyd would never use the weapon.
He had not expected Lloyd to disregard Shermans' life entirely—and make the decision so decisively.
Samuel raised the nail sword and held it before himself. He drove his Secret Blood harder, and even denser red threads poured from his wounds, pushing his regenerative ability to its absolute limit.
Samuel was merely nearly immortal.
He was not truly immortal.
Given Lloyd's treacherous fighting style, there was always a chance that one of his attacks might genuinely kill him.
Then Lloyd surged forward like a war machine.
"Madman!"
Samuel cursed furiously.
Lloyd slammed directly into him.
The terrifying force behind the impact drove Samuel backward. He could not stop him.
Step by step, Lloyd forced him backward until Samuel was driven all the way to the entrance of the wine cellar.
Just a little more force, and Lloyd could push him outside.
He was trying to drive Samuel out of the wine cellar.
Samuel realized what Lloyd intended. Amid the violent collision, his nail sword hacked desperately at Lloyd, but it could not penetrate the divine armor, much less under these circumstances.
The Secret Blood surged.
A dreadful power flowed through Samuel's body. Unlike other demon hunters, he was not restrained by the Silverbound Shackles. In the blink of an eye, demonization had already begun.
His face twisted into something monstrous.
Endless red threads burst from Samuel's body like a spiderweb. Threads forged from flesh spread in every direction. They wrapped around Lloyd while also driving themselves into the surrounding floor like iron nails. Like the vines of some monstrous plant, they continued to spread while tightening relentlessly.
Lloyd's movements began to slow.
The threads wrapped tightly around his body, increasing in number with every passing moment. Purifying fire burned fiercely, but it had little effect on the red threads.
"Get off me!"
Lloyd growled.
With terrifying strength, he tore through the threads wrapped around his body. Then he drove the Astatine Throwing Knife into Samuel's chest.
But that was all he could do.
Countless threads coiled around him like venomous snakes. Lloyd no longer had the ability to draw his weapon and fire the shot that would detonate it.
"Looks like I've won."
Samuel's hideous face was veiled behind a curtain of red threads. From behind that grotesque veil, he slowly raised his nail sword.
Even this state was extraordinarily taxing for him. He had to maintain as much reason as possible, lest he fall completely into madness.
"Move! Lloyd!"
An aged voice suddenly rang out.
Shermans stood behind Lloyd, the flintlock raised in his hands.
Because he had come so close, countless red threads had also reached him. They pierced beneath his skin and began corrupting his flesh.
No one knew what the old man intended to do.
He simply roared in fury.
"You… and Sennie Lothair behind you. You are nothing but a pack of demons who usurped the sacred. What could you possibly know?"
His trembling hand suddenly became steady.
The muzzle pointed directly at Lloyd—or rather, at Samuel behind him.
"Receive it! This is the vengeance of Shermans Borgia!"
The old man's aged face twisted with rage as he pulled the trigger.
The muzzle of the flintlock erupted with dazzling fire and black smoke.
The silver-white bullet tore through everything in its path and came screaming toward them.
Lloyd's sluggish body suddenly moved with incredible speed.
The moment he heard that ancient surname, Lloyd finally understood what Shermans intended to do.
His divine armor shattered apart. The jagged fragments tore through the red threads. Although this exposed him completely to Samuel's attack, Lloyd still forced himself to evade the bullet with every ounce of strength he possessed.
It was as though countless knives had carved into his flesh. Lloyd crashed to the side, blood spraying from his body.
And at that very moment, the bullet pierced into the red web.
For an instant, every sound vanished.
Lloyd could only see the firelight blooming within the crimson threads, like a flame falling into a dead tree. Golden light began to shimmer within its pitch-black depths.
The ammunition forged from holy silver pierced straight through Samuel's body and detonated the Astatine contained within it.
In the blink of an eye, flames swallowed everything in sight.
The force of the explosion slammed Lloyd against the wall.
Amid the searing air, he caught the faintest trace of a deeply unsettling scent.
It was the poison known as Cantarella.