"According to records from previous years, the rainy season in Old Dunling should be coming to an end soon. But more often than not, it is precisely during these final days that the rainfall becomes most violent. All citizens of Old Dunling are advised to take every precaution…"
A man's voice drifted through the midnight radio broadcast. The sound came through the machinery with a faint metallic distortion. Perhaps the torrential rain and rolling thunder were interfering with the signal, for his voice was threaded with a coarse hiss of static.
Lloyd lay quietly in bed.
The Purification Bureau had not placed too many restrictions on his freedom. Perhaps they understood that if he refused to cooperate, no restraints they imposed would truly matter. And if they pushed him too hard, all they would accomplish was to deepen the conflict between him and the Bureau.
He wore a spotless white hospital gown. The lethal weapons he normally carried had all been confiscated. According to Arthur, tomorrow would mark the beginning of the formal examination of the False Grail.
This unknowable object might, for the first time, reveal its true nature clearly before the eyes of everyone.
And yet Lloyd could not shake the faint unease stirring within him.
He could not explain where it came from.
He was curious about the nature of the False Grail as well. In a certain sense, he had now reached an uneasy agreement with the Purification Bureau. But those people had yet to reveal what they intended to do next.
The New Order was hardly benevolent. They were not the sort to perform good deeds without expecting something in return. They were certainly plotting something of their own.
And then there were Lawrence's remaining followers.
"Watson…"
That ominous woman—the incarnation of the False Grail—had vanished from Lloyd's consciousness together with 047 long ago.
Lloyd felt a mixture of lingering fear and relief.
If tomorrow's examination confirmed the existence of the False Grail, then Lloyd was still an excellent jailer, still guarding that dark gate even now.
But if the False Grail did not exist—if it had escaped at some point Lloyd could no longer remember—then, despite the failure being a grave dereliction of duty, Lloyd could use that very fact to turn the tables on Moriarty and prove himself.
The flames of vengeance burned fiercely within Lloyd's heart.
He would not surrender so easily.
Moriarty and the New Order would pay the price.
Perhaps Lloyd had simply become too accustomed to relying on force. So accustomed, in fact, that many had forgotten what he had originally been: an extraordinarily cunning man.
Every player was now in position.
Black Mountain Hospital was the final gambling table.
Footsteps sounded beyond the corridor. Every so often came the mechanical cries of machinery, followed by the screams of patients.
Lloyd did not know the exact classification system used by Black Mountain Hospital, but judging by the way the medical staff looked at him, his containment level was likely the highest there was.
The other patients on this floor appeared to belong to the same category.
Their minds had collapsed into madness, making them extremely aggressive. Yet for the sake of research, the doctors could not simply perform frontal-lobe surgeries on them and turn them into empty-headed fools.
If nothing unexpected had happened, Higg and Joey should have been confined here as well.
With that thought, Lloyd climbed out of bed and prepared to leave.
Then someone knocked on the door.
After several knocks, the door opened, and a man walked in.
A faint light gleamed behind his lenses.
He wore a pleasant smile.
And somehow, it was deeply unsettling.
"You look rather well, Mr. Lloyd Holmes."
In an instant, Secret Blood surged through Lloyd's body.
He shot upright like a bolt of lightning, slammed into Moriarty, and clamped a hand around his throat.
"Not an illusion?"
Warmth and flesh met his palm.
Real.
There was no trace of Corruption emanating from the man before him.
It was almost impossible to believe.
The devious Moriarty had actually appeared before him in person.
But Lloyd no longer wanted to think about it.
He poured every ounce of his fury into his grip.
"How dare you…"
Lloyd ground the words out between clenched teeth.
It was because of Moriarty's schemes that everything had become what it was now. And that bastard had even dragged innocent people into the mess.
"Are you really going to strangle me to death?" Moriarty smiled. "Wouldn't it be rather boring to end our game like this?"
He did not resist in the slightest.
Even in the face of Lloyd's fury, his voice remained almost leisurely.
The two figures remained locked in place for a long while.
Eventually, Lloyd slowly loosened his grip.
His gaze was cold.
Secret Blood continued to boil beneath his skin.
"What is your purpose this time, Moriarty?"
James Moriarty.
He might well be the most troublesome enemy Lloyd had ever encountered.
He was different from Archbishop Lawrence.
Lloyd could never see through his intentions.
Moriarty was like a lunatic in an asylum, or a stray dog prowling the streets. His every action seemed born from chaos, impossible to predict.
Even now, Lloyd could not figure out what he was trying to accomplish.
If Moriarty truly meant to serve the New Order, there were countless better solutions available to him.
Yet for the sake of some damned game, he had deliberately made everything more complicated.
He had even come personally to stand before Lloyd.
"Ah… that really hurt."
Moriarty rubbed his bruised throat.
"But still, not bad. Secret Blood truly is a formidable power. If I were an ordinary man, you probably would have snapped my neck by now."
He sat down on the edge of a nearby table, wearing that same unsettling smile as he looked at Lloyd.
"But your condition is quite impressive. You can actually restrain your anger now instead of simply killing me."
"I have no problem killing you. I just want to know what you're really planning."
Lloyd's voice was calm.
Moriarty was a cunning bastard. He had woven an almost perfect conspiracy to manipulate Lloyd at every turn. And now he had appeared before Lloyd completely unguarded.
That alone was enough to make Lloyd wary.
There was bound to be something else taking shape in the darkness.
"Games," Moriarty said. "It's a rather good game… but I prefer them to be a little fairer. Unfortunately, the New Order doesn't want me to play that way."
"A fair game?"
Lloyd carefully scanned the room.
He was confident he could kill Moriarty with a single strike.
What he did not know was what would happen afterward.
Moriarty must have prepared some kind of contingency.
They were both cunning gamblers.
Until the moment of absolute desperation arrived, neither could know what the other would do.
"Yes. I was thinking about…" Moriarty paused. "That thing was called the Iron Serpent, wasn't it? I warned you back then. Unfortunately, you still failed."
He smiled.
"I've read your records. The Lloyd Holmes of the past was so perfect. But look at you now. You've started becoming just like those people. Ordinary. Forgettable."
"A demon hunter should be cold-blooded and merciless, killing every enemy with maximum efficiency."
Moriarty's smile widened.
"But look at you now, Lloyd. You've become no different from some street thug."
"You even fund those orphanages."
His eyes gleamed with something almost feverish.
"Do you really believe you're still human?"
At the end of his words, Moriarty suddenly laughed.
His Secret Blood remained dormant.
The room was unnaturally quiet.
"You risked this much just to tell me that?"
Lloyd was not distracted by his words.
There were few useful objects in the room, but Lloyd was confident that he could kill Moriarty before the Authority—Raphael—could seize control of him.
"Not only that."
Moriarty tilted his head.
"I'm simply curious how you became the way you are now."
"You think I should be a monster?"
"Aren't we?"
Moriarty's voice softened.
"We're the same kind of creature. We simply happened to be given human bodies."
His smile faded.
"But in truth, we are not human."
Moriarty's amber eyes seemed to glow beneath the faint light. The approachable air he had carried moments ago suddenly became terrifying, tainted by chaos and savagery.
"Isn't it unfortunate, Mr. Lloyd Holmes?"
He stared directly at him.
"You haven't realized any of this?"
"Fine. I suppose I can't blame you."
Moriarty tapped his head several times.
"It took me a very long time to understand it myself."
"We're different."
"It's difficult to explain, but that's simply how it is. We're not like the others. It isn't merely a matter of whether Secret Blood flows through our bodies."
"It's something deeper."
"Our wills are different."
He struck his head harder.
No Corruption emerged.
And yet Lloyd could clearly sense a strange madness radiating from Moriarty.
An unnatural frenzy.
He could feel the unease and agitation stirring inside himself with perfect clarity.
He wanted to kill this bizarre man standing before him.
And yet, somewhere deep within his heart, something else was beginning to stir.
"We're intelligent," Moriarty said.
"So intelligent that we can see through this false reality. We can recognize what we truly are."
"Monsters."
"And yet we wear human skin."
"As monsters, we know perfectly well that we were born monsters. That we can never become human."
"But because we wear human skin, we can never become true monsters either."
"Being trapped between the two…"
He smiled faintly.
"It's a truly miserable existence."
Moriarty's voice was soft.
And yet there was something almost magical about it, as though every word were stirring the world itself into chaos.
"Can you understand, Mr. Lloyd Holmes?"
"You can never truly become part of the human crowd, yet you cannot find others like yourself either."
"So when I first saw you…"
Moriarty's expression suddenly brightened.
"I was so happy."
"I wasn't alone."
"I wasn't the only monster."
Moriarty approached him in a sudden burst of excitement. His amber eyes reflected Lloyd's face as though he wanted to pull him into an embrace.
"This loneliness is unbearable."
"You know perfectly well that you're different, yet there is no one you can tell."
"And no one would understand you anyway."
"To them, you're exactly the same as everyone else."
"A fellow human."
"Your suffering is nothing but madness in their eyes. Your words become nothing but strange ramblings."
"That's how they always treat us."
"They lock us away here."
"In Old Dunling, they call us lunatics."
"And in Florence…"
"They call us heretics."
His speech grew faster and faster.
It was rare.
For the first time, Lloyd witnessed Moriarty losing control of his emotions.
This was not deception.
Not a scheme.
What Lloyd was witnessing appeared to be genuine.
And that made it all the more terrifying.
"Can you understand me, Mr. Lloyd Holmes?"
"I know this is a predicament from which there is no escape."
"I needed something else to save myself."
"Religion, perhaps."
"Or power and wealth…"
Moriarty laughed bitterly.
"But isn't the most tragic part of it all this?"
"I'm too 'intelligent' to deceive myself."
"So how could those false religions and beliefs deceive me?"
"How could wealth and power possibly fool me?"
Moriarty suddenly seized his own shoulder.
His words burned with a furious intensity.
For a moment, Lloyd actually forgot to resist.
Instead, Moriarty's words brought back the image of an old man walking toward his own death.
Lloyd sometimes remembered that departing figure.
And he could still hear Shellmans' answer echoing in his ears.
"People have to believe in something to deceive themselves."
But Moriarty had no way to deceive himself.
Those things had become like curses circling endlessly around him.
Until he met Lloyd.
"I'm not alone."
"I'm not the only monster."
Moriarty was almost ecstatic.
He seized Lloyd's face and held it firmly, forcing him to look directly into those amber eyes.
It was an extremely dangerous position.
Moriarty's chest was completely exposed before Lloyd.
Lloyd could strike him at any moment.
He could even kill him.
At the same time, Moriarty's eyes were locked with Lloyd's.
That was the prerequisite for the activation of the Authority—Raphael.
The moment Secret Blood surged, Lloyd would be dragged into a hallucination of madness.
Yet neither man moved.
They were both monsters of extraordinary danger.
Neither would strike without absolute certainty.
After a long silence, Moriarty's expression suddenly turned sorrowful.
He released Lloyd and stepped backward.
"What a pity."
"You're no longer a pure monster, Mr. Lloyd Holmes."
"You've become sentimental."
"More empathetic."
"More…"
"Human."
"But isn't that laughable?"
"You should know this."
"You can never become human."
"You're simply stubbornly pursuing things you can never possess."
"So you want to turn me into a monster?"
Lloyd suddenly felt that everything was absurd.
And yet beneath that absurdity lay a profound madness.
This world was so twisted.
Everything in it had been warped into something grotesque and unnatural.
"Only when you're driven into absolute desperation can you recognize your true nature, can't you?"
"That's how I realized it."
"In a hospital in Florence."
"The doctors subjected me to all sorts of treatments."
"Electroshock. Prayer. Drugs…"
Moriarty smiled nostalgically.
"It was such a wonderful time."
"The more I suffered, the more clearly I understood what I truly was."
"I'll kill you, Moriarty."
Lloyd's face disappeared into the darkness.
Only his cold voice remained, echoing through the room.
"Here?"
Moriarty smiled.
"You won't."
"Mr. Holmes, you won't do it."
"Why?"
"Because we're the same kind."
"I understand you."
"Even monsters have their pride, don't they?"
After a long silence, Lloyd began to laugh.
There was a bone-deep chill in his laughter.
"Yes."
"If I kill you here, all I accomplish is killing you."
"I won't defeat you."
Lloyd intended to destroy him completely.
To destroy James Moriarty at the very game he was most proud of.
"A game should be fair."
"If the balance is unequal, then it isn't a game."
"It's simply one side hunting the other."
"Mr. Holmes, the New Order is ready."
"Everyone has their eyes on you."
"This is your warning."
"I hope you can beat me this time."
Moriarty looked utterly satisfied by Lloyd's reaction.
"You don't seem to care what the New Order does, do you?" Lloyd asked.
Moriarty was a pure madman.
He had exposed the New Order's entire plan simply to make the game between himself and Lloyd more even.
"Yes."
"I'm an outsider."
"To them, I'm no different."
"Nothing can interfere with our game."
As Lloyd listened, he felt a deeper pressure settle upon him.
He had been misled from the very beginning.
He had thought this was a game between himself and the New Order.
But it wasn't.
It was merely a game between Moriarty and himself.
Perhaps even the New Order had never imagined that the demon hunter they regarded as so dependable harbored thoughts like these.
"047…"
"Or 042…"
"Or perhaps Lloyd Medici?"
Moriarty suddenly uttered words Lloyd could not understand.
His eyes were filled with madness and longing.
"I'm a monster with hardly any secrets."
"But you're different."
"You're a monster even more terrifying than I am."
"And yet you're trying to become human."
"Mr. Lloyd Holmes…"
"Who exactly are you?"
"What are you talking about?"
Lloyd's pupils contracted.
He knew there were mysteries surrounding his identity.
But he could not understand why Moriarty had suddenly mentioned that name.
The name of that old man.
"This is part of the game."
"Part of the mystery."
"To be honest, I want to know the answer too."
"But don't be impatient."
"We're very close to finding out."
With that, Moriarty pushed open the door and walked away.
Lloyd tried to follow.
But in an instant, his vision twisted and blurred.
The world shattered completely.
He jolted awake in bed.
Sweat soaked through his clothes.
He lifted his head.
Moriarty was already gone.
Only the half-open door remained, silently bearing witness that someone had indeed been there.
Everything had been within Moriarty's grasp.
He was no swordsman.
Nor was he particularly skilled in hand-to-hand combat.
The only thing that allowed him to control the situation was that distorted realm of hallucinations.
Cunning.
Devious.
Elusive.
Lloyd did not even know when he had met Moriarty's gaze and fallen into the illusion.
Outside, rain and thunder intertwined.
Howling winds swept fallen leaves against the window.
Lloyd slowly walked toward it and stared into the pitch-black night.
The Dawnbound, carrying the final shipment of weapons, swept over Black Mountain Hospital.
A massive iron container dropped from its hull.
Midair, it unfolded into an enormous black parachute, slowing its descent.
The personnel who had been waiting in advance moved in as soon as the container touched the ground and began unloading it.
Unlike the Old World divine armor that had been deployed previously, there was no knight inside this suit of divine armor.
Robin stood beneath the pouring rain, warm white vapor rising with every breath.
"Why are we bringing this thing here?"
Owl asked.
He stood beside Robin.
As the pilot most familiar with the Third-Generation Divine Armor, he was the backbone of the defense operation.
"I don't know."
Robin swallowed.
"I only know that thing is damned."
"Galahad nearly killed me while piloting it."
His expression tightened at the memory.
He could not help reaching up to touch the hideous scar across his chest.
"Then allow me to apologize for what I did to you, Robin."
A familiar voice came from the other side of the curtain of rain.
A slightly hunched figure emerged from the darkness.
Robin stared in disbelief.
It was hard to imagine that the handsome man he remembered had been reduced to this.
But above all else, Robin felt relief.
"Ga… Galahad?"
"You're alive."
Ever since the Black Angel had gone out of control, Galahad had disappeared.
The Purification Bureau had never publicly announced his death, but Robin knew the Bureau too well.
He had assumed that Galahad had probably been locked away somewhere inside Black Mountain Hospital, slowly driven mad until he became no different from the patients around him.
"I'm still alive."
Galahad gave a crooked smile.
"Though I'm in considerably worse shape than before."
He embraced Robin, then slowly let him go.
"But why are you here?" Owl asked.
"Given your condition, shouldn't you be receiving treatment?"
"Because I'm the Knight Commander."
Galahad spoke as though the answer were self-evident.
"That's all."
He walked toward the black iron container.
Cold rain poured over its surface, running across the carved image of the demonic veil.
"This is your divine armor…"
"It used to be."
Galahad placed a hand against the cold metal.
His voice carried a trace of nostalgia.
"Not anymore."
"This is cargo ordered for transport by Merlin."
"Open it for inspection."
"Once the inspection is complete, move it to the underground research sector."
At his command, the surrounding knights opened the iron container.
The restraints were released.
And from within the darkness, a black angel rose silently into the storm.
Cold rain streamed down its wings.
Lightning flashed across the heavens, illuminating its grotesque silhouette for a single, terrible instant.