Blood and rain mingled together. Beneath the hazy curtain of rain, the light was twisted into strange and distorted shapes. One demon after another came at Lloyd. They were like primitive beasts, driven entirely by instinct, utterly unaware of the strength he possessed, throwing themselves at him in one suicidal attack after another.
The folding blade struck with mechanical precision. Yet even as he cut through them, Lloyd was thinking. Looking at those rain-soaked faces, Lloyd found himself, for the first time, thinking about demons without relying on what the Demon Hunters' Order had taught him.
Within the Order, the priests explained everything about demons from the perspective of theology. But now, setting religion aside and examining it all through the cold lens of reason, Lloyd found himself confronted by countless questions.
Why were demons so ravenous for blood?
The priests claimed that they were enemies of God, abominations that had crawled forth from the shadow of the divine. Yet these supposed abominations slaughtered only human beings. They did not destroy other animals. It was far too peculiar. Their killing of humans seemed to arise purely from some primitive desire. Or perhaps, in terms of Shelmans's theory of "phototaxis," humanity itself was the light in the eyes of demons—the light they would obtain at any cost.
Amid the wailing snarls, severed limbs and crimson entrails lay scattered across the ground. Under Lloyd's exquisite swordsmanship, these ordinary demons were effortlessly hacked into countless fragments. Their blood mingled with the rainwater and poured into the sewers. It seemed the street cleaners would have their work cut out for them again.
"Moriarty... Moriarty of the New Order..."
Lloyd murmured the name under his breath. There was something different about Moriarty, something Lloyd found difficult to describe. Or perhaps the truth was simpler—Lloyd simply could not see through him.
At first, Lloyd had not even realized that such a dangerous man was standing beside him. Not until Moriarty revealed his identity himself. Lloyd considered himself a cautious man, yet this time he had sensed nothing at all. It was as though that damned smiling face still lingered before his eyes, only to twist into an expression of madness in the very next instant.
"Lloyd..."
A voice called out through the wind and rain. Lloyd's movements froze for a moment before his grip tightened around the folding blade once more.
Every demon had been slaughtered. Their corpses lay piled across the ground, and the rainwater beneath Lloyd's feet had been dyed a dark crimson. Blood and water mingled together, flowing past his boots.
Yet at the far end of the curtain of rain, blurred figures were calling Lloyd's name. They stepped through the standing water, slowly making their way toward him, until at last he could clearly see them.
"It's... you..."
They wore uniforms that stirred memories long buried within him. Yet those once-sacred robes were now soaked through by the rain, leaving their wearers looking utterly wretched.
Demon hunters.
They emerged from beyond the rain, staggering as they walked. The closer they came to Lloyd, the more apparent the unnaturalness became. At the same time, the voices calling his name grew louder. Countless voices converged into one, hammering against Lloyd's eardrums.
"You should already be dead."
There was not the slightest trace of pain on Lloyd's face, only an endless, profound doubt.
They were dead. Lloyd had killed them himself. Aboard the ship that had carried them away from Florence, he had dealt with the last of the demon hunters who had lost control, rendering them completely helpless. He had tied their corpses to iron anchors and cast them into the silent depths of the sea, hoping that they might finally find eternal rest.
Yet now they had returned, as though they had risen from the depths of the ocean through the curtain of rain. And as they drew closer, countless wounds suddenly burst open across their otherwise intact bodies. Thick blood slowly seeped from each one, staining their robes, staining the rain, turning the water beneath their feet a dark red. The crimson stain continued to spread.
It was as if something terrible were about to happen.
The restless voices began to fade. They seemed almost alive, fleeing rapidly from the scene. In the blink of an eye, the wind, the rain, the thunder—every sound vanished.
Within the endless silence, only Lloyd's increasingly heavy breathing and pounding heartbeat remained.
"An illusion from the Nightmare Realm?"
Lloyd immediately saw through these phantom-like apparitions.
They were dead, and the dead could not possibly appear here.
But then he realized his mistake.
This was not some illusion from the Nightmare Realm. The Nightmare Realm's illusions were meant to dredge up the nightmares of those they ensnared. But these things could hardly be called Lloyd's nightmares.
And Moriarty belonged to the New Order. He could not manipulate demons in the bizarre manner Lawrence could...
This was his Authority.
Or perhaps the Authority of some demon hunter hidden beyond the curtain of rain.
Authority—Raphael.
Lloyd had encountered this Authority before. It was the only illusion-type Authority among the demon hunter factions. Though calling it an "illusion" was not entirely accurate. It seemed to focus more on mental misdirection. It could not alter one's will, but it could make the things one saw change, creating something akin to a bizarre hallucination.
"So this is what you call 'deception'?"
Lloyd stared coldly at those who had long since died.
In the next instant, hideous demons burst from their corpses.
This was Moriarty's deception.
Lloyd did not understand his intentions. They were enemies, yet Moriarty had deliberately revealed the truth to him. And there was no trace of goodwill in Moriarty's attitude. If anything, it resembled the pity an absolute superior might show toward something beneath him.
Yes.
Moriarty believed himself to be the superior.
And Lloyd was merely a beast trapped inside a cage.
He stood high above, casually playing with Lloyd's mind, as though he believed that even if he handed Lloyd the answer himself, Lloyd would still be powerless to escape.
But when had Lloyd been caught by Moriarty's Authority?
The Authority—Raphael—required eye contact with the demon hunter for activation. Lloyd had learned this from 016. Her Authority was Raphael. Its bewildering illusions could drive a person into madness, but they could also bring them into a state of unnatural calm.
Eye contact was the beginning of the Authority. At that moment, the demon hunter could share an illusion with their target, seeing the same hallucinations as the enemy and thereby altering everything within them.
But this was equally dangerous to the user. While the enemy fell into the illusion, the demon hunter descended alongside them.
That was why demon hunters of the Raphael faction required something with which to distinguish falsehood from reality—something like the "Morning Star."
Then when had Lloyd made eye contact with Moriarty?
Lloyd rapidly retraced everything that had happened. Whenever a demon hunter activated an Authority, the blazing light within their pupils would be impossible to miss. Yet Lloyd could not remember seeing it. He had no idea when Moriarty had captured him.
As the final demon collapsed, the encounter finally came to an end.
Lloyd stood upright in the torrential rain, folding blade still in hand. He was already familiar with what came next. Before long, people from the Purification Bureau would arrive, guided by the Geiger counters, to clean up the carnage.
He started forward.
Then he stopped.
For an instant, every muscle in his body seemed to seize up, leaving him utterly unable to move.
Slowly, Lloyd turned his head.
And what he saw was a scene straight from hell.
Countless corpses filled what had once been the empty carriage of the Iron Serpent. Through its shattered windows, he could see twisted, grotesque shapes, as though something made of steel and flesh had been fused together. Now that creature was dead, and dark red blood continued to gush from the cracks in its ruined body.
Lloyd almost stopped breathing.
His gaze moved slowly across the scene. On the ground where he had just fought, the grotesque corpses of demons lay half-submerged in the rainwater.
He slowly stepped backward as countless emotions surged through him.
Dead people were everywhere.
Ordinary people.
Demons.
And all of them had died by Lloyd's hand.
This was Moriarty's deception.
The finest deception was always a mixture of falsehood and truth.
Lloyd felt dazed. For the first time, he began to wonder whether any of this was real.
Or whether it was all an illusion.
He could do nothing but stand alone beneath the torrential rain, utterly lost.
Authority—Raphael.
It was a power capable of driving people mad.
Within the Demon Hunters' Order, hunters of the Raphael faction served primarily as spies. With their flawless deception, they could easily topple even the most firmly established regime. Beneath countless layers of illusion, no one could distinguish truth from falsehood. And once those in power made the wrong decision, there would be no way to undo the consequences.
"No... I can't feel any corruption..."
Lloyd forced himself to calm down.
If the Authority was affecting him, he would inevitably sense that nauseating corruption. And that was something Authority—Raphael could not alter.
Moreover, a demon hunter was still a demon hunter. They possessed an exceptionally high resistance to corruption. The influence of such altered perceptions would be greatly diminished against him.
Then, without warning, the torrential rain began to subside.
The curtain of rain thinned.
And the hellish landscape was gradually exposed to the city.
Before Lloyd could do anything, piercing screams erupted from all around him. Some pedestrians threw down their umbrellas and fled. Others collapsed to their knees, their faces twisted with terror.
"So that's it..."
Lloyd's expression darkened.
He had endured too much in his life for moral questioning to have any effect on him. Just as he had once told Arthur, he was the man who decided who lived and who died upon the railway tracks.
For the sake of humanity's sanity, he was willing to become a monster.
This was Moriarty's attack.
The New Order's target had been Lloyd from the very beginning. It was simply that his connection to the Purification Bureau made it difficult for them to act against him directly.
So the best way to resolve the problem was to make the Purification Bureau itself believe that Lloyd was a threat.
But that alone would not be enough.
The Purification Bureau was itself a mad organization of violence. They were willing to shoulder risks in exchange for power. The "risks" presented so far were nowhere near enough to make them abandon Lloyd.
This was only the beginning.
There had to be something else waiting for him.
Lloyd completely ignored the terrified gazes of the pedestrians and prepared to leave.
But in the next instant, he turned violently and hurled the folding blade from his hand.
Steel flashed through the rain as the blade once again pierced the wreckage of the Iron Serpent.
Yet it was as though everything that had happened moments ago had been nothing more than an illusion.
The corpses inside the Iron Serpent were gone.
Or perhaps they had never existed at all.
Or was it that, at some point after Lloyd had boarded the Iron Serpent, Moriarty's Authority had already captured him?
Had he been trapped within the illusion from that very moment?
Lloyd could not figure it out.
Then suddenly, the rain stopped.
Everything disappeared.
The street became utterly empty.
Only Lloyd remained.
"Interesting, isn't it? This ability of mine."
An unsettling voice rang out.
Moriarty was sitting atop the wreckage of the Iron Serpent, smiling as he looked down at Lloyd.
He removed his glasses.
Those amber eyes were burning like flames.
Lloyd remained silent and vigilant, staring intently at Moriarty.
In a certain sense, Authority—Raphael was the Authority closest to the nature of "corruption." It destroyed the enemy's mind and dragged them into a bewildering hallucination, even driving them completely insane.
Yes.
From that perspective, aside from its inability to transform a human being into a demon, this power was astonishingly similar to corruption.
Or perhaps it was corruption made controllable.
Lloyd had a faint feeling that he had realized something.
But it was as though an invisible barrier stood in the way, preventing him from taking that final step in his thoughts.
"I assume this is an illusion too, isn't it?"
"Of course. After all, I suppose I've successfully 'provoked' you by now, haven't I? I'm just a liar. I'm not particularly good at fighting, let alone facing an enraged demon hunter."
Moriarty possessed a very clear understanding of his own limitations.
"Then you must still be somewhere nearby. Authority—Raphael has a range limit, just like corruption. The closer one is to the user, the more real and intense the illusion becomes."
"Impressive. You worked out so much in such a short time?"
"I've killed enough demons. It's just a guess."
More precisely, when a demon hunter activated their Secret Blood, they became a demon.
Not a pure demon.
A demon that retained its reason.
And the activation of these Authorities would inevitably provoke corruption.
"Then why don't you try guessing what happens next?" Moriarty asked, resting his chin on his hand.
"This is your Authority. Your illusion," Lloyd replied.
A trace of disappointment appeared on Moriarty's face.
"You really can't guess?"
The flames gradually weakened.
Moriarty put his glasses back on. The incandescent white light disappeared, and Lloyd could feel the clamor beginning to shatter the silence. The illusion was fading.
But...
But something did not make sense.
Moriarty still carried that damned air of superiority, as though everything that had happened was nothing more than a game he had been playing on a whim.
A gunshot rang out from behind.
A few sparks burst through the darkness.
The folding blade flashed down, viciously slicing the bullet apart.
Then the wind rose once more.
"The most perfect deception is one in which even the deceiver manages to deceive himself."
Moriarty spoke those words before striking Lloyd hard in the back of the neck.
But his strength was simply too weak. The blow did nothing to Lloyd.
This wasn't an illusion.
Moriarty had actually been sitting right in front of him.
And he had canceled his Authority right before Lloyd's eyes.
Lloyd could no longer tell whether Moriarty was truly this arrogant, or whether everything had already been placed under his control.
He didn't know.
But when Lloyd turned around, only Moriarty's voice remained behind him.
Moriarty himself had vanished.
"You've already lost the first round, Mr. Lloyd Holmes."
The voice faded.
Then the rain began to fall once more.
Lloyd stood alone in the bloodstained street.
An eerie chill crawled slowly up his spine.
Countless severed limbs and shattered corpses lay scattered across the street.
There were no demons.
There was no Moriarty.
There was only a field of corpses—
all brutally slaughtered by Lloyd himself.