"You intend to… eradicate the demons."
042's voice trembled. To the boy, the old man's ambition was terrifying. From his perspective, even fighting demons was already an arduous struggle, let alone wiping them from the face of the earth.
"Is this what you have been pursuing all along?"
So many people had wondered what Lloyd Medici truly intended to do. Yet he had never revealed his purpose to anyone. He simply remained silent, leaving no one knowing what was truly going on inside his mind.
"Yes. The people in the Church are truly pathetic. Pathetic beyond words. Did they really think I had failed simply because I grew old? No."
"Quite the opposite."
"I am about to succeed."
The old man was almost feverishly excited as he told 042 about the plan he had conceived. Those thoughts had been trapped inside his mind for far too long. He was like a dancer performing alone upon a stage, with an empty audience staring back at him. Only now, after all these years, had he finally found 042.
It felt wonderful.
To finally speak aloud of the greatness no one else knew existed within him—even if his only audience was a child who understood almost nothing of what he was saying.
"You know, 042? I never became Pope, but I became something far more terrifying than a Pope."
"I will bring an end to the history of demons and usher in the Golden Age."
"But I knew that idiot was wrong to keep slaughtering them endlessly. Killing one demon only gives rise to two more. They are without number, without end…"
"I intend to kill demons at their source."
The pastries on the little table had been completely devoured. The old man leisurely lifted his wineglass. Beneath the faint light, the liquid inside looked like fresh blood.
"I secretly took control of the Pope and, eventually, of Florence itself. I searched through the entire history of the Gospel Church, trying to find the origin of the demons somewhere within its records."
"And did you find it?"
042 was becoming excited by the old man's words as well. The source of the demons—if such a thing could truly be found, then perhaps someone with Lloyd's power really could bring an end to all of this.
"No."
"But I discovered many interesting things…"
"History possesses continuity. It follows a certain logic. But the history of the Gospel Church is different."
"The records I uncovered were riddled with contradictions and gaps, and mixed throughout them were enormous amounts of doctrine. You can feel it too, can't you? There is something wrong here."
"I spent a great deal of time sorting through everything. From those scattered, broken fragments of evidence, I eventually reached one conclusion."
"The history of the Gospel Church had been altered."
"Altered?"
"Yes. Someone deliberately concealed something."
"Take the origins of the Gospel Church, for example. No matter how deeply I searched, our origins were always wrapped in mythology, without the slightest trace of anything resembling reality."
"I know this far too well. When those in power do not want ordinary people to know the truth, they dress that truth in religion…"
"Someone does not want us to know where we came from."
"Nor do they want us to know the things they deliberately buried."
The old man continuously rubbed his fingers together, as though polishing some invisible treasure between them. As he spoke, 042 could clearly sense something shifting within his expression, wavering between madness and cold reason.
"But the strange thing is…"
"Why did no one discover these gaps?"
"Or perhaps they did."
"Perhaps they discovered them, but failed to pass the information down."
The old man looked at 042.
"You're a clever boy, 042. Why don't you take a guess?"
"Why do you think that happened?"
042 froze. He hesitated, but encouraged by the old man's gaze, he slowly spoke.
"If you eliminate every impossible explanation, then whatever remains, no matter how strange or absurd it may seem, must be the only truth left."
"Hmm."
"A good principle. I like it."
"Though it sounds somewhat extreme—almost like an absolute faith in one's own reasoning. But there's no helping that. There are simply too many things in this world capable of misleading us."
"Sometimes, we have to become a little more obsessive."
The old man praised him with genuine approval.
"Go on."
"Can I?"
042 glanced at the old man before continuing with his deduction.
"If someone has deliberately concealed something from the very beginning of the Gospel Church until now, then if such people truly exist, they should belong to an organization similar to ours."
"Except theirs would be even more secretive."
"They might even exist within the Gospel Church itself, among its highest ranks. That would be the only way they could alter the records."
As he spoke, 042 felt a growing sense of dread.
If what the old man said was true, then what did these people want?
They were the ones who held power within the Gospel Church.
What were they trying so desperately to hide?
"Exactly."
"That was my conclusion at first as well. Some damnable people within our own ranks were behind it all."
"To drag them into the light, I became a cardinal. I manipulated one puppet after another, slowly dismantling the entire power structure of the Gospel Church before gathering all of that power into my own hands."
The old man's expression grew puzzled, as though even now he could not understand what he had eventually discovered.
"The Pope became my puppet."
"Under my support, Lawrence seized control of the Demon Hunter Order."
"The families that refused to submit were destroyed."
"And every potential enemy was hunted down and eliminated."
"My power reached its absolute peak."
"I became the Pope in the shadows."
"I was Florence."
"I was the Gospel Church."
"I was the Holy Gospel Papal State itself!"
His fingers tightened around the wineglass. Blue veins twisted across his arm like venomous serpents.
"But something strange happened."
"I controlled everything, yet I never found them."
"Not once."
"It was as though they did not exist at all."
"As though they were invisible."
"After that, I thought about it for a very long time. I believed I could not be deceived. I believed I could not have misjudged the situation."
"I remained troubled by it for years, and I never found an answer."
"But eventually, I stopped caring."
"And I turned my attention back to the problem of the demons."
He took a sip of wine, moistening his throat before continuing.
In the dim underground chamber, his voice was the only thing that echoed through the darkness. The Demon Hunters stood motionless like statues. Sometimes, from the corner of his eye, 042 could see past the shadows beneath their hoods.
There were pairs of tightly closed eyes.
So many eyes.
"I put those anomalies aside. Later, I began reconstructing the history of the Gospel Church…"
"No."
"More accurately, the history of humanity and the demons."
The old man called out to 042, drawing his wandering attention back.
"Listen carefully, 042. You don't get many history lessons like this."
"According to my classification, the history of humanity and the demons can roughly be divided into four eras."
"The Dark Age."
"The Silver Age."
"The Golden Age."
The old man noticed the confusion in 042's eyes and continued.
"Don't understand? It's actually quite simple."
"According to the Gospel, humanity and the demons have coexisted in this world since ancient times. But mankind possessed no means of resisting the demons. We could only cling to life in the darkness."
"That was an age of despair."
"The Dark Age."
"But then the Gospel Church was established, and the Demon Hunters appeared. For the first time, humanity possessed the power to fight back against the demons."
"And so the Silver Age began."
At this point, the old man smiled. There was a faint hint of vanity in his voice.
"Of course, during the Silver Age, humanity and the demons were merely evenly matched."
"Until I appeared."
"I gathered all that scattered power into a single whole. We became stronger than we had ever been."
"Under our relentless purge, the demons gradually began to disappear."
"That was the Golden Age."
"My age."
042 was not particularly surprised by the old man's arrogance. Instead, he continued the discussion.
"But you said there were four eras."
"That's only three."
"Yes."
The old man grew serious.
"There is one era whose existence I cannot quite confirm."
"I named it the Origin Age."
He took another drink. A trace of red wine remained upon his beard, making him resemble some bloodthirsty beast.
"Have you ever thought about this, 042?"
"Neither humanity nor the demons could possibly have appeared in this world from nothing."
"There must have been a starting point."
"And considering the power possessed by the demons, they could have wiped humanity out with ease."
"We might never have survived long enough to reach the Silver Age."
"And yet…"
"We survived."
"Isn't that strange?"
"There is something else."
"Where did the Apocalypse come from?"
"The Gospel claims that priests discovered it in the north. But when did it actually appear?"
"Was it created by humanity?"
"Or by the so-called God?"
"Interesting, isn't it?"
"The further back you trace the source of things, the more cracks you begin to discover in this world…"
"Cracks deliberately hidden by those people."
042's gaze became vacant.
It was too much information.
His mind could no longer keep up. Everything inside his head had become a thick, shapeless mass of confusion.
"After studying all of this for a very long time, I developed a hypothesis."
"Before the Dark Age, during the Origin Age, both humanity and the demons already existed."
"At that time, the two sides were… more or less evenly matched."
"Until something happened."
"The Dark Age descended."
"Civilization collapsed beneath the ravages of the demons, and countless technologies were lost."
"That would explain the mystery of the [Divine Blessing Baptism] and the Silver-Binding Bolt, wouldn't it?"
"Those things far exceed our current understanding. Technologies so advanced that we cannot reproduce them."
"See?"
"Doesn't everything suddenly make sense?"
The old man looked at 042, his eyes shining with almost childlike excitement.
But to 042, the idea was almost impossible to accept.
His voice trembled.
"Is that really how it happened?"
The old man's expression briefly fell.
Then the light returned to his eyes.
"I don't know."
"It is only a hypothesis."
"But I still have a chance to prove it."
He set down his wineglass.
A gentle smile appeared upon his face.
Soft footsteps echoed through the chamber.
At some point, all the Demon Hunters had opened their eyes.
They drew their razor-sharp Nail Swords.
They moved in a slow circle, their gazes fixed upon some invisible emptiness.
Then searing white flames rose beneath their eyes, illuminating the entire underground chamber.
"And there is more, 042."
"I found those people."
"The ones who deliberately concealed history."
The old man spoke again, pulling 042's mind back to him.
"I found them."
"Or perhaps…"
"They found me."
"Yes."
"Everything finally made sense."
"Although I suppose I consider myself a… great man?"
"Hahaha!"
"I really am a little self-absorbed."
"But think about it."
"Throughout the long history of the Gospel Church, throughout this endless Silver Age, there must have been people who stood on the same level as me."
"Isn't that right?"
The old man suddenly seized 042's hand.
His rough palm gently stroked the young flesh, almost as though he were polishing a priceless treasure.
"Yes."
"There must have been people like me who discovered these gaps."
"But why?"
"Why did they never pass the information down?"
"It's actually very simple."
"They all died."
"This deliberately hidden history…"
"is forbidden knowledge."
"They touched that cursed knowledge."
"They touched the [Boundary]."
"And so they were killed."
"Killed by the people who guard the secret."
The old man gave a hoarse laugh.
With every rasping note of his laughter, the rising white flames trembled violently. The Demon Hunters' eyes swept back and forth, as though searching for something.
But there was nothing in the underground chamber except the old man and 042.
042 felt afraid.
He could not explain the sensation.
He only knew that it was terrifying.
As though something were watching him from somewhere deep within the shadows.
Something slowly writhing.
Something crawling toward him from the darkness.
"They came to kill me…"
"It was only when I saw them that I finally understood everything."
"It was the limitations of mortal thought that had confined me."
"This world is thousands of times more complicated than we ever imagined."
"But unfortunately…"
"I am Lloyd Medici."
"How could I possibly die so easily?"
"I am the man destined to lead the Golden Age!"
The old man seemed to be losing control of his mind. One moment he was almost feral with excitement, the next he was silent and motionless as a statue.
"Who are they?"
042's pupils contracted.
His heart hammered violently against his chest.
The old man fell silent.
Then he asked quietly:
"They will die."
"Everyone who touches the [Boundary] meets a bad end."
042's face turned ashen.
He could feel it.
The truth of this world seemed to be only one step away.
All he had to do was reach out and pull aside that delicate veil.
Yet at the same time, he felt an overwhelming terror.
The old man was right.
This was the [Boundary].
The moment 042 understood all of this, he too had touched the [Boundary].
He would burn and flicker in the darkness, becoming visible to every strange and unknowable thing lurking beyond it.
But 042 could not endure the uncertainty.
He knew that asking this question would mark the beginning of a disaster.
But he was simply too curious.
No human being could easily turn away from such a mystery.
So he asked again.
"What are they?"
"What do they want?"
After a brief silence, the old man let out a hoarse laugh.
He reached out and vigorously ruffled 042's hair, as though petting some particularly adorable animal.
"Ah…"
"Humanity is burdened with far too many selfish desires."
"And I have grown too old."
"When I was young, I could still keep all of those things firmly within my grasp."
"But now I am old."
"And those people have begun to resist me."
"Even Lawrence chose to betray me in the end."
"I realized that humanity needs a single will."
"A powerful, unified will."
"Only then can the Golden Age continue."
"Only then can we exterminate every last demon."
"Instead of living like this, content with the status quo."
"Before I withdrew from the world, I met the new Pope once."
"He was extremely confident."
"After all, in all these years, he was the first Pope who had ever escaped my control."
"Back then, inside Saint Naro Cathedral, I had almost exactly the same conversation with him that I am having with you now."
"I tried to tell him everything."
"But after hearing me out, he refused."
"He refused to rebel."
"He refused to continue the war."
"I thought they would understand."
"I thought we could build that perfect age together and drive every demon from this world."
"But they refused."
"They were afraid of the truth."
"They were afraid of death."
"That was when I finally realized that these people could never lead the Golden Age."
"They were nothing but swine content to wallow in the status quo."
"What does it matter how many demons there are?"
"As long as the Demon Hunters still exist, nothing can threaten their position."
"Just like I was in the beginning."
"As long as I had food, wine, and everything else I desired, why should I care about demons?"
The old man spoke in an almost casual tone, yet every word was horrifying.
"My lord."
A Demon Hunter's voice suddenly broke into the conversation.
He stood beside the old man and reported quietly.
"011."
The old man turned toward him.
"What is it? Has someone seen them?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Approximately five minutes."
The old man nodded.
"Have you Chaldæan Demon Hunters truly reached the point where you can see that far into the future?"
"Only temporarily."
"The Holy Grail Blood is nearly exhausted. Once it is completely consumed, at most, we will be able to see a few seconds into the future."
"I see…"
The old man sighed.
Sometimes, I truly wonder what kind of future Lawrence saw."
"He consumed so much Holy Grail Blood."
"I cannot help but wonder what kind of future could possibly have made him choose to betray me."
The old man turned his head and looked at the face hidden beneath 011's hood.
Then he asked again.
"Would you betray me, 011?"
"Remember, for you Chaldæan Demon Hunters to reach this place without alerting the Demon Hunter Order would have been extraordinarily difficult."
"No."
"We also long for the Golden Age."
011 answered without hesitation.
The old man looked at his face.
Then he smiled.
"Wonderful."
"Such good children…"
"But, my lord…"
011 hesitated.
"Earlier, you had the Holy Grail Blood preloaded into our bodies."
"And together with the portion he has already consumed…"
His gaze shifted toward 042.
"Then what about you?"
"You have no Holy Grail Blood left to use."
"There is no need to worry about that."
The old man picked up the pocket watch from the table.
"Go and prepare."
"Welcome our guests."
He gently wound the watch and began the countdown.
Five minutes.
"Now, let us return to our earlier question."
"What exactly are they?"
"What do they want?"
"But before that, I want to tell you a myth."
"It should make this easier for you to understand."
The old man looked toward 042 once more.
He held the delicate pocket watch tightly in his hand. Beneath the steady movement of its mechanism, he could feel a faint vibration.
Time was slowly slipping away between his fingers, like grains of dust escaping into the air.
"Have you ever heard of the Wild Hunt?"
"The Wild Hunt?"
042 vaguely remembered the name.
He loved books, and he had read countless stories of mythology.
"Yes."
"The Wild Hunt."
"A legend that has spread throughout the western world."
"Whether in Laibach, Invig, or even among the Viking kingdoms, there are records of it."
"Though its appearance differs from region to region, they all share one common description."
The old man began telling the story of a myth.
"They are beings who bring death."
"And those humans who gaze directly upon them…"
"will join their hunt."
"Beneath the black veil of night, they will chase."
"And they will hunt."
"Think about it carefully, 042."
"Do not regard it as a myth."
"Imagine that it is something that truly exists."
"Something real."
"Something that can be understood."
"Tell me what you think."
"A group of unknown beings possessing supernatural powers…"
"They conduct some kind of hunt?"
"Perhaps they hunt a specific group of people."
"And anyone who sees them is hunted as well."
"And they exist across multiple regions?"
042's description was clumsy. Even he did not know how to put the strange idea into words.
"More or less."
"I happened to learn about this myth by chance."
"But after they came to kill me, I began connecting them with the Wild Hunt."
"And then…"
"Everything fell into place."
The old man's previous excitement had disappeared.
His expression was now utterly calm.
"They are beings similar to the Wild Hunt."
"No."
"It is possible…"
"They are the Wild Hunt from the myths themselves."
"People simply did not understand what they were."
"So they gave them the name 'Wild Hunt' and turned them into mythology."
"My lord…"
"What are you talking about?"
042 understood him less and less.
The unease inside him had become unbearable, boiling into pure terror.
"Yes."
"That is exactly it."
"The Wild Hunt are the guardians of the [Boundary]."
"Anyone who touches this cursed knowledge will be noticed by them."
"And hunted."
"The history of the Gospel Church was deliberately altered by them in order to protect the [Boundary]."
"Those people who stood on the same level as me…"
"They realized the truth as well."
"And they were all killed by the Wild Hunt."
"That's how it is."
"Not only within the Gospel Church."
"In Laibach."
"In Invig."
"Among the Viking kingdoms."
"There have always been people who discovered the origin of the demons."
"People who discovered the [Boundary]."
The old man completely ignored 042's questions.
He seemed utterly lost within the beautiful world he had constructed inside his own mind.
How wonderful.
He was not alone.
Throughout the history of mankind, there had been others who had stood exactly where he now stood.
He tightened his grip around the pocket watch.
Then he whispered:
"Look."
"They're here."
In an instant, 042 felt something touch him.
It felt like a mass of snakes.
They coiled around his body, winding themselves around his neck.
He could feel their icy touch with terrifying clarity.
Then the fear inside him boiled over completely.
Every thought in his mind was violently torn apart.
His consciousness was reduced to an empty, shapeless chaos.
A shrill wind screamed through the chamber.
It sounded as though countless Nail Swords were striking against a suit of metal armor, each blow sending brilliant sparks flying while producing a cacophony of discordant metallic shrieks.
The noise crashed against 042's eardrums.
Then blood began to seep from his ears.
"Welcome!"
"Welcome, my ominous guests!"
Lloyd Medici raised his head and spread his arms, welcoming their arrival.
Flames erupted in that instant.
The Demon Hunters swung their Nail Swords, violently striking at the flickering arcs of light.
The Chaldæan Demon Hunters had been releasing their Dominions here all along, waiting until they could see the arrival of those things in the future.
Countless black arcs of light writhed through the chamber, shattering stone walls and tearing apart everything in their path.
Beneath that terrible radiance appeared something that had not yet fully taken shape.
An angel.
Its broken wings spread behind it.
The Demon Hunters had already seen its arrival.
And at the very moment before it could completely descend into this world, they delivered a fatal blow.
Its ruined body fell from the air and crashed before Lloyd Medici.
Its exquisite face remained eerily beautiful, while its lifeless eyes stared directly at the unsettling old man.
Lloyd simply lifted his wineglass and forcefully pressed it against the grotesque wound.
Scarlet blood gushed forth, filling the glass.
"You see?"
"Now we have fresh Holy Grail Blood."
Lloyd Medici laughed delightedly.
Then he drew his Nail Sword and drove it straight through the angelic creature before him.
And above his head, with the death of the first angel, dozens of black arcs erupted one after another.
Their sinister radiance illuminated every face in the chamber.
Beneath the veil of corruption…
the abomination of the divine descended upon the world.