Everyone stood motionless like statues. It was obvious that the enemy was far more troublesome than they had imagined. They had come prepared, and worse, they had moved with terrifying speed.
"The power lines were damaged during the fighting. A lot of people died trying to restore the power. Swallow was injured too. Arthur is trying to establish contact with the outside, but the interference from the Corruption keeps disrupting the signal. Right now, the only people we can rely on are ourselves."
As Kestrel spoke, he gestured for Eve to follow. In the wake of the sudden ambush, they had temporarily transformed the safe house into a fortress, desperately holding back the wandering demons.
"According to Arthur's theory, the enemy probably belongs to Lawrence's faction. After all, they're the only ones who possess the Apocalypse, and therefore the only ones capable of producing that inferior arcane blood that turns people into demons. There's something else, too. The enemy should possess an extraordinary level of individual combat ability, just like Lawrence himself... There's a chance he's a demon hunter as well. One of the hunters who defected alongside Lawrence."
Kestrel had always been somewhat careless by nature, but even he had become unusually solemn now, speaking with a seriousness rarely seen in him.
"That's the only way the enemy could have infiltrated the research sector through all our layers of defense. He must have carried the inferior arcane blood with him and used it to turn the patients in the research sector into demons."
"And that's not even the worst part. We prepared extensively for this operation. We put up every defense we could. So how was this enemy able to infiltrate so easily? Unless we have an insider, he must possess an extraordinary level of strength, perhaps even comparable to Lawrence. Only someone like that could conceal his movements so perfectly... perhaps even kill anyone who might have seen him."
The enemy was far more complicated—and far more powerful—than they had imagined. There was an even more troubling possibility that Kestrel had not voiced aloud.
If everything had truly happened according to their deductions, then what exactly was that person trying to accomplish? And if the enemy was still somewhere inside the research sector, then given the strength required to accomplish all of this, the weapons they had on hand would hardly be enough to stop him. Yet he had not come to kill Kestrel and the others. What, then, was he doing?
No one had an answer.
Gunfire continued to erupt through the facility, but even that gradually began to fade.
This was the research sector of Black Mountain Hospital. Ultimately, it was merely a medical research institution. Unlike the Perpetual Motion Pump, it had no vast stockpile of weapons of its own. Most of the people who worked here were doctors, and the weapons they were using now had been brought in by the soldiers during the recent redeployment.
There was something worse that everyone understood perfectly well, yet no one dared to say aloud.
Black Mountain Hospital itself possessed no sufficiently powerful defenses. What protected it was the antimeme. Through the long years of operation by the Sweepers, the endless rain had washed over the city known as Old Dunling, constantly erasing everything connected to Black Mountain Hospital from the minds of the people outside.
With the exception of the Purification Bureau itself, virtually no one in the outside world knew where Black Mountain Hospital was, let alone anything about its internal structure. But this time was different.
The enemy clearly knew this place. They knew its layout intimately. What appeared to be a diversionary assault had, in reality, been nothing more than a feint. Their true target had been the research sector from the very beginning.
Eve remained silent. None of this truly needed to be explained to her, yet Kestrel had told her anyway, as though something awaited her beyond these words.
After crossing the hastily constructed defensive positions, Eve saw the man sitting in a corner.
He looked utterly exhausted, yet his eyes remained fixed upon the blueprint spread before him, desperately searching for the slightest possibility of survival within the labyrinthine structure of the research sector.
"Arthur."
Kestrel called softly.
Arthur slowly raised his head. When he saw that Eve was safe and unharmed, the coldness in his expression eased slightly. But it quickly hardened again.
Eve's survival was only temporary. Unless they could come up with another plan, everyone would die here.
"The power has been restored. The entire sector is still under lockdown, and we don't know the enemy's current location. But judging from the fighting just now, most of the demons inside the research sector should have been drawn toward the battle. Now that the power is back, the main elevator shaft can be used again. We can reach the surface directly from there. And judging from how our defenses are distributed, there should also be an unmanned Divine Armor standing by there."
Kestrel reported the situation. There was every possibility that they would all die here, but some people simply could not be allowed to die here.
People like Eve, whose value to their research was immeasurable.
And then there was...
Kestrel's gaze shifted to the side.
Not far away, an area had already been sectioned off. Ovis sat quietly in a wheelchair, watching everything unfold. Beside him, a doctor was attempting to wake another patient.
It was a silent child. Yet judging from the protection Arthur had given him while issuing orders, his value was no less than Eve's.
Kestrel had heard a little about Eve's importance.
But who was this boy?
He had never seen the child before. Stranger still, although he did not recognize him at all, every time he looked at the boy, an inexplicable sense of familiarity arose within him, as though the child were an old friend he had known for years.
"We don't know what's happening on the surface, but at least it has to be better than staying here, right?" Kestrel tried to make his voice sound as light as possible. "It's like stepping from one narrow hell into another, much larger hell... At least the air on the surface should be a little fresher. Right?"
Arthur seemed amused by the remark. He smiled and shook his head before speaking.
"I understand. Get the equipment ready... Give us some private time."
Kestrel nodded.
He was beginning to understand Arthur.
This was a damned moment. A moment when soldiers were supposed to fight demons to the death. Yet here they were, staging a reunion between father and daughter.
If this were a play, it would be an absolutely terrible one.
A father could not bear to watch his child die.
And a child could not bear to see her father helpless.
"Damn demons..."
Kestrel muttered under his breath as he walked toward Ovis.
His gaze remained fixed on the boy, but he asked nothing. As he approached, he simply passed Ovis and went straight to the stretcher.
The doctor was still trying to wake the patient. During the evacuation, this particular patient had reacted the most violently, so the doctor had significantly increased the dosage of the sedative. He was now sleeping deeply.
"Excuse me."
His words were perfectly polite, but perhaps because of the oppressive presence of the Corruption, Kestrel was visibly irritable. He pushed the doctor aside, grabbed a vial of Florend, and drove the needle straight into the patient's neck.
"Wake up! Joey!"
It was like being punched in the face in the middle of a beautiful dream.
Joey, strapped to the stretcher, suddenly jerked upright. His eyes flew wide with alarm.
...
The silence dragged on for so long that it became almost unbearable.
Arthur kept his head lowered, seemingly studying the blueprint, but Eve knew better. He was merely thinking about something she did not yet understand.
The two of them sat quietly together until one of them finally broke the silence.
"I'm sorry."
Arthur could no longer endure the endless quiet. He slowly straightened himself in his seat. His cloudy eyes were filled with bloodshot veins.
He was already an old man, but in this brief span of time, he seemed to have aged another decade.
"Ah... One damn problem after another. We have to deal with that treacherous New Church, keep an eye on Lawrence's remnants, and sometimes even deal with Her Majesty the Queen."
Arthur muttered to himself as he rubbed his temples forcefully, but no amount of pressure could massage away the pain inside his head.
"I'm sorry, Eve. In the end, I still dragged you into this. I tried everything I could to keep you away from it, but it's like a curse. No matter how hard I try, it all ends up being futile. What is destined to happen will happen. Mortals cannot change anything."
Arthur sighed, took a cigarette from inside his coat, and placed it between his lips.
For the first time, Eve showed the slightest reaction.
Not because of what Arthur had said. She had heard those words countless times before. She had long since grown accustomed to them.
But Arthur rarely smoked.
As far back as Eve could remember, there had only been one other time when she had seen him smoke. It was when her mother died. He had sat quietly beside her grave, smoking alone.
And now, somehow, it felt as though history were repeating itself.
"She died back then, and I was more or less like this. Sitting in a corner, quietly smoking... And now everything feels strangely similar."
Arthur, too, remembered that time.
Back then, his wife had died.
This time, perhaps it would be his daughter.
"I..." Eve began, but he interrupted her.
"This is our private time. I'm not Arthur right now. I'm your father. A chance to... teach you something? I suppose that's what it is. We don't get many opportunities like this."
The Duke of Phoenix looked at Eve and drew deeply on his cigarette. The tip glowed with a fierce orange light, but the brilliance lasted only an instant before fading away again.
"When you get out alive, stay away from Old Dunling. As far away as possible. I've already planned your future. It's in the drawer of my desk. Follow my instructions, and you'll live your whole life in safety. As for who you marry... Ah, that's a headache. You can decide that yourself. But I'll do my best to stay alive too. After all, you're far too unreliable to take care of yourself."
The Duke of Phoenix rambled on, a crude plan slowly taking shape inside his mind.
For once, Eve did not argue with him.
Normally, the moment the Duke of Phoenix began talking about her future, Eve would loudly interrupt him, pushing their father-daughter relationship straight toward another breaking point.
That did not mean she agreed with his arrangements.
She simply could not bear to make the old man worry about anything else.
The lives of every survivor in the research sector depended on his decisions.
It was an unbearable burden.
Just imagining it was enough to make Eve feel suffocated beneath the pressure.
"All right. I apologize for what I said just now. I know you hate it when I try to arrange your life for you. It's just... this is the only way you can survive. Stay far away from the demons and live like an ordinary person. You've seen what this hell looks like, haven't you? This is what an ordinary person looks like when faced with demons."
He clutched his head tightly.
For the first time, he looked like an ordinary man.
The face that had always remained rational and composed was now filled with fear.
"I... I don't want you to suddenly be killed by a demon one day. I don't want to find your body afterward, torn apart and half-eaten, with your organs and shattered bones scattered all over the ground. Sometimes... I keep having nightmares like that."
His voice dwindled into a fragmented whisper.
At this moment, the Duke of Phoenix was the person in the most unstable state of mind.
He was the man in command.
He was the one who had to make the decisions.
He carried the lives of countless people upon his shoulders, standing atop mountains of corpses.
"Eve!"
The Duke of Phoenix suddenly shouted.
His expression twisted as he stared at her.
"You've always wanted to know what's behind all those strange things about you, haven't you?"
Eve froze.
This was the answer she had been searching for all this time. She had simply never imagined she would learn it under circumstances like these.
She nodded stiffly.
The Duke of Phoenix continued.
"Go find Merlin... You probably don't know him, but it doesn't matter. Find him. Merlin knows the whole truth about what happened back then. He'll tell you everything."
Another long silence followed.
Then the Duke of Phoenix asked again.
"Can you promise me these things, Eve? You're a good girl."
Eve silently nodded.
The Duke of Phoenix had never looked so pitiful.
Whether his words were truth or lies, either seemed enough to bring him some measure of peace at this moment.
She said nothing.
Her eyes remained lowered.
No one knew what was going through the girl's mind.
"Leave..."
He seemed to have returned to his usual composure.
At the same time, Blue Jade came in from outside and immediately began discussing matters with Arthur, leaving Eve no chance to say another word.
She felt like a pretty little doll, being moved around wherever others pleased, until finally she left without making a sound.
"You're lying to her, aren't you?"
After Eve had gone, Blue Jade suddenly asked.
"You know the truth too, yet you chose not to tell her here."
Arthur's expression stiffened for a moment before he replied,
"Eavesdropping is a bad habit."
"But I'm your guard. I have to make sure you're safe."
"I'm perfectly safe... Do you really think Eve is going to kill me?" Arthur said as he traced a route across the blueprint.
"Who knows? She's unpredictable. And while she was listening to you, she kept a scalpel hidden on her wrist."
Blue Jade paused, then asked with some confusion,
"You didn't know your daughter has a habit of hiding weapons? I heard the doctors say that when they first caught her trying to escape, she had an entire collection of surgical knives hidden beneath her clothes."
Arthur actually laughed when he heard that.
"Good habit. At least she's always had a weapon to protect herself with... Fine. I did lie to her."
"This is hell. Mortals need hope to survive in a place like this. She wants that secret so badly. If she wants to learn the truth, she has to survive. She has to leave this place. That secret will become the motivation that keeps her moving when everything else has fallen into despair."
"And what is your motivation?"
"To keep her alive."
Blue Jade looked at Arthur with a complicated expression before asking,
"How many people will survive?"
"I don't know. But Eve and Ovis have to be evacuated first. Their value to our research is immense. Perhaps they can help us break the King's Curse."
"There's more to it than that..."
Blue Jade had clearly noticed something. She stared intently at Arthur.
"I just want her to live."
"So you'll deceive even more people and send them to their deaths, is that it?"
"I'm sorry..."
"There's nothing to apologize for. You're the commander. We'll do as you say. But Arthur... have you ever felt guilty?"
Arthur hesitated for a moment before answering.
"Yes. Always. Every second. It follows me like a ghost. But I don't think about it. If I did, I'd become trapped in it. And once I became trapped, I would hesitate. Then I wouldn't be able to make decisions."
"At first, it was painful. But little by little, I became numb. Maybe it's because of the demons. The longer we fight them, the more we begin to resemble them."
"I see... I'm haunted by my father's death too. You could say I killed him with my own hands. Sometimes there are so many things I want to ask him. Unfortunately, the dead don't speak."
Blue Jade paused.
"I suppose I'm a little jealous of Eve."
"Jealous because she might survive?"
"No. I'm jealous because someone is willing to swallow her sins for her, while still believing they're doing the right thing. It sounds foolish, I know. But if I could... I'd like to have someone like that too."
Blue Jade's expression had barely changed from beginning to end.
She had always been like this, as though nothing in the world could stir the slightest ripple within her heart.
Yet now, her eyes were bright.
"But she really should live. We're all people who belong to hell now. Even if we escape, one day we'll step into it again, and then we'll die. That is the future destined for us—to die at the hands of demons while trying to eradicate them."
"You should try imagining retirement," Arthur said. "Perhaps... perhaps we'll all survive."
Whether he was trying to deceive himself or truly holding on to that hope, even Arthur did not know.
Blue Jade smiled at that.
"Save that kind of lie for Kestrel. He's been looking forward to retirement for far too long."
The smile faded from her face as she became serious again.
"What's the plan?"
"We aren't far from the elevator shaft, but there are demons between us and it. We need to find a way to break through and reach the surface. We don't know what condition the surface is in, but there's an Old World Divine Armor stationed there. With it, even if we're confronted by a horde of demons, we should at least have a chance of surviving. You understand that, don't you?"
"I know. Back then, Oriole and I relied on a second-generation Divine Armor to hold back the demons... but even that was barely enough."
Blue Jade sounded worried.
"It'll be fine. That's a first-generation Divine Armor. Its power is enough to help us fight our way out."
A first-generation Divine Armor that had already been gradually sealed away had somehow appeared here.
"But who can pilot a first-generation Divine Armor?"
Blue Jade asked anxiously.
Back then, the burden of piloting the second-generation Divine Armor had nearly killed Oriole. So what kind of terrifying Corruption would a first-generation Divine Armor bring upon a human, when its very framework was almost entirely forged from demons?
With the people they had here, and without a Knight Commander present, there was simply no one capable of resisting such Corruption.
"I'll pilot it."
"What?"
Blue Jade wondered if she had heard him incorrectly.
"I'll pilot the first-generation Divine Armor. I'm the final product of the Ranger Program. My resistance to Corruption is stronger than any of yours. If someone has to do this, it should be me—not anyone else."
Arthur looked directly at Blue Jade.
"We're going to survive. More people are going to survive."
Then Arthur began to laugh softly to himself.
"Just like Eve. Her birth was a miracle. And we'll create miracles of our own..."
"One miracle after another, piled upon the last..."