Joy's head felt as though it had been filled with lead, unbearably heavy, while violent pain reverberated through his skull, as if razor-sharp knives were repeatedly carving through his nerves. He sat on a stretcher, wanting desperately to clutch his head and ease the pain, but the restraint jacket wrapped tightly around his body left him barely able to move. The effects of the drug still lingered, leaving his consciousness sluggish and hazy, as though he might slip into sleep at any moment. Yet at the same time, with the injection of the Florend compound, his body was slowly coming back to life. His heart hammered violently against his chest, beating faster and faster, like an overloaded machine that might explode at any second. That was the drug's side effect—a tremendous burden on the human body. And this was already the degraded version. In the beginning, the Rangers had endured side effects far worse than this.
"Stay awake!"
Someone slapped Joy hard across the face. His vision gradually cleared, and he recognized Kestrel.
"What... happened?"
"No time to explain all this nonsense. Just get up. Now!"
As Kestrel spoke, he hurriedly unfastened the restraint jacket and strapped a Geiger counter to Joy's chest. The device clicked on, immediately filling the air with its incessant ticking.
"There's still some contamination on you... Forget it. There's no point worrying about that now. Every one of us has been contaminated."
"What happened?"
Joy was in terrible shape. His mind remained sluggish, while his body struggled beneath the burden of the drug. Yet the medicine was steadily forcing his consciousness back into clarity. Heat spread through his entire body. It was a normal reaction—the drug was awakening the body's instinct to survive. It felt awful, as though his heart might simply stop the next second.
"A lot has happened... but all you need to know right now is that we need you. Otherwise, we wouldn't have dragged you out of there."
Kestrel hoisted Joy onto his back. Every second they delayed would only make the situation worse. The survivors had to gather every remaining scrap of strength and carve a path through the demonic horde toward the elevator sector. If they could seize the Old World God-Armor stationed there, then even in this hopeless situation, there would still be a thread of life left to grasp.
"According to regulations, you're supposed to be on medical leave, but you know how it is. Fighting demons always comes with unexpected incidents, right? Just think of it as overtime."
Kestrel carried Joy onward. Joy's body needed time to recover its senses, but there was no time to give him.
"Still, you'd better try to stay alive. You only get paid for overtime if you're alive to collect it. If you die, well... you're just dead."
Whether he was trying to reassure himself or simply being his usual reckless self, Kestrel kept talking.
"Ah, damn it. We absolutely cannot die here. This place is Black Mountain Hospital, for God's sake. There's a cemetery not even that far away!"
At last, Kestrel dropped Joy onto the ground. A group of people had gathered here, apparently the only combat force they had left. Eve and Ovis were among them. The two children looked as though they had just been reprimanded by someone—both wore blank expressions, their faces dark and sullen.
"Wait here for me. Your mind isn't clear yet. When we move, just follow my orders. Understand?" Kestrel said.
"You?" Joy covered his head with one hand and braced himself against the floor with the other, half-kneeling. "You want me to put my life in your hands? Are you serious, Kestrel?"
Under the damn corporate culture of the Purification Bureau, these people were not particularly afraid of death. In Joy's eyes, everyone had their own value. Soldiers had the value of soldiers, commanders had the value of commanders. He wasn't afraid of dying. What frightened him was dying without purpose—especially when he was following Kestrel.
This time, Kestrel had no time to argue with him. For all the nonsense spilling from his mouth, his expression was more serious than anyone else's.
Swallow had already been wounded. Joy's condition was unstable. Arthur was the commander, and charging into the front line was not something he should be doing. By process of elimination, the only people still capable of effective combat were Kestrel, Robin, Blue Jay, and the ordinary soldiers.
In other words, the knights who possessed resistance to demonic contamination would form the vanguard. They were the only ones who could maintain their sanity and fight under such brutal conditions. Only they could carve open a path to the elevator sector.
Everyone who was still capable of fighting gathered beside the hastily constructed defensive line. Gunfire thundered without pause, and the soldiers were nearly out of ammunition. They had very little time left.
"The plan really isn't complicated," Arthur said as he stood before the defensive line and addressed the others. "Kill all the demons. Reach the elevator sector. Return to the surface."
"Who is going to pilot the God-Armor?" Swallow asked.
None of the upper-rank knights had any experience piloting an Old World God-Armor.
"That's not something you need to worry about."
Arthur answered without elaborating. He had no intention of telling them the truth. Knowing them, they would immediately conclude that the commander outranked the knights, and therefore he should be the one to pilot the God-Armor.
Blue Jay knew the truth, but remained silent. As Arthur had said, the resistance of an upper-rank knight was not enough to withstand the contamination of a First-Generation God-Armor. Only Arthur could do it.
"What about the patients?" Joy asked.
"We can't take them with us. And the contamination pressure in the research sector will only continue to rise. They'll eventually turn into monsters just like the demons..." Arthur said.
"Execute all the patients here?" Blue Jay suggested.
It was the correct choice—or perhaps, in a twisted way, even the more humane one. These patients had no hope of escape. Rather than leaving them to face the terror of the demons, it would be better to kill them here.
Yet even when wrapped in the guise of a "correct" decision, the psychological burden of slaughtering them would weigh heavily on everyone. Suppression and faint traces of fear appeared on every face. The dam holding back their rationality was already trembling on the verge of collapse.
"No. Do what Robin suggested. Release them and use them to draw the demons away."
Arthur gave the order in a cold voice.
The command sent a subtle tremor through everyone's hearts. Some sank deeper into despair, while others quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
They would not have to kill the patients themselves. The patients were doomed to die anyway, but at least their deaths would not be at their own hands. That was how they comforted themselves, desperately clinging to whatever fragments of sanity remained in this hopeless place.
"Again..." someone whispered with a faint sigh. "It's happening again..."
It was a contradiction with no easy answer. The Purification Bureau fought the demons precisely to preserve humanity's sanity, yet now, in order to preserve that very sanity, they were forced to sacrifice other human beings.
The train came roaring past, and Arthur knew exactly what the situation was. Blue Jay and the others were sharp weapons, but only he could be the one to wield them. They merely carried out his orders. Everything else—the burden, the consequences—belonged to Arthur.
No one said a word. They silently obeyed his command and began to move. Joy had only just recovered enough to stand, and he still had no idea what was happening, but from the grim atmosphere around him, it was obvious that everything had reached a critical moment.
Abandon the patients...
Joy's head throbbed. His gaze lingered on Kestrel for a moment before drifting away.
Only a few minutes ago, he had been one of those patients, lying unconscious on a stretcher. If Kestrel had not come for him, he might have been one of the people left behind. Of course, there was another possibility—perhaps Arthur simply refused to abandon any remaining source of strength and had ordered him brought back into the fight.
No one knew the truth, and there was no time to find out.
When the others saw Joy awake, surprise flickered across their faces. But before anyone could say a word, Blue Jay tossed him a thermite rifle. Blood still stained its surface. It had clearly been taken from the corpse of a fallen soldier.
No explanation was necessary. In such dire circumstances, everyone silently accepted Joy's return to the ranks.
"Eve is the first human ever born with innate enhancement through the womb after the Ranger Program," Arthur said. "You could say she was born to be a Ranger."
"Sounds like the offspring of two demon hunters," Kestrel couldn't help saying. "Can demon hunters even reproduce?"
Arthur ignored the man's endless nonsense. Although Kestrel spoke as lightly as ever, everyone who knew him understood what it meant. He was somewhat like Lloyd. The more frightened he became, the more he talked, as though chatter itself could keep fear at bay. Judging from his current state, Kestrel was already close to breaking under the pressure.
"The Queen has decided to restart the Ranger Program and continue researching Eve's unique characteristics. She must survive. Perhaps the age of the knights will eventually come to an end, and the Rangers will replace us in the fight against the demons."
Arthur's voice grew solemn. Then his gaze fell upon Ovis.
"And him... he is connected to the royal family. The primary protection targets are Eve and Ovis. Prioritize getting the two of them out."
The others nodded and immediately began to move.
The upper-rank knights took the lead, opening the way ahead while the important targets remained in the center of the formation. Because Ovis could barely move on his own, Kestrel carried him on his back. The boy looked like an exquisite porcelain doll. He said nothing, his eyes fixed stubbornly on the path ahead. Kestrel had no idea what he was looking at.
Before leaving, Joy cast one final glance toward the safe room.
The patients were staggering out. They looked like bewildered children, utterly unaware of what was happening.
Higg should be in there too...
Joy still remembered the last thing he had seen before the doctor injected him with the sedative. Higg had been wearing the same patient uniform, and by then his body had already begun to mutate.
Joy shook his head hard, gritting his teeth as he forced himself not to think about any of it. Those thoughts would only interfere with what came next.
Yes. He should be like a weapon.
Weapons had no emotions.
Only then could he do the cruel things ordinary people could never bring themselves to do.
Just like Lloyd. Just like the demon hunters.
Perhaps that had been the true meaning behind the doctrine of the Demon Hunter Order from the very beginning. Perhaps it had never been about controlling the demon hunters at all. In that age before steam engines, in the age of armor and blades, perhaps in those impossibly harsh and dark years, demon hunters had no choice but to become something other than human if they wanted to keep fighting.
Abandon everything.
Become a monster.
Become a weapon.
Gunfire erupted, its thunder shattering Joy's thoughts. Without the slightest pause, the formation surged forward. Demons came charging from the far end of the corridor, but a dense barrage of thermite rounds forced them back for the moment. The squad did not stop. They pressed onward.
They could not afford to be held here. If they were pinned down, they would never reach the elevator sector before their ammunition ran dry. Voices and gunfire tangled together into a chaotic roar.
The operation went surprisingly smoothly. According to their calculations, once they crossed the corridor ahead, they would reach the elevator sector.
A trace of excitement appeared on everyone's face.
They had expected a savage assault from the demons. Instead, everything had gone almost too smoothly.
So smoothly that it felt wrong.
Although Ovis was being carried on someone's back, every violent jolt sent another wave of pain through his body. His eyes were vacant, almost humiliated.
He hated this.
His free spirit had been imprisoned inside this weak body by some inexplicable curse. No matter what Ovis wanted to do, he needed someone else's help. He was like a corpse that could still breathe, or perhaps a pampered pet dressed in the title of royalty.
The feeling was unbearable.
Absolutely unbearable.
But at least Ovis could pilot an Old World God-Armor. Inside that unholy creation, he could once again experience what freedom felt like. There, he was no longer a useless cripple who needed others to carry him. He was Lancelot—the nightmare of the demons.
He was Lancelot.
The powerful Lancelot.
The youngest Knight Commander in the Purification Bureau...
Not anymore.
It had been a beautiful dream.
And now that dream was shattered.
He could never pilot an Old World God-Armor again. Like every other member of the royal family, he would spend the rest of his life in some luxurious oversized baby carriage, surrounded by people who fussed over his every need.
Alive.
Pampered.
Humiliated.
Countless thoughts surged through his mind. Ever since they had begun their escape from that desperate situation, Ovis had been thinking about all of this.
His gaze slowly became terrifying.
To Ovis, the thought was selfish.
He no longer wanted to offer the last remnants of his life to the royal family. He wanted to die here, as a human being.
He did not want to escape only to become some pathetic laboratory rat, kept alive and carefully tended by others.
That was why he had actually been rather happy back in the safe room.
He was going to die.
But at least he would not die in a wheelchair.
He would die as a member of the Purification Bureau, carrying his honor with him.
It was almost beautiful.
But that dream was ending too.
His surname was Victoria. He carried the Royal Curse.
He was a laboratory rat.
He had to survive.
Ovis clenched his fist. His fingernails cut deep into his flesh, and blood flowed freely between his fingers.
"This shouldn't be my ending... It shouldn't..."
His whisper was swallowed by the thunder of gunfire.
Kestrel noticed nothing unusual about Ovis. With the tension surrounding them, he simply had no spare attention to give the boy.
Kestrel flicked open his folding knife and swung it with all his strength, hacking into a fallen demon until it was completely dead. Blood had soaked through his clothes. He looked as though he had been drenched by the rain, except the rainwater running over him was mixed with blood, and steam rose from the heat trapped beneath his sticky, soaked garments.
It was strange.
Some people wanted to die.
Others were fighting with everything they had just to live.
Whether it was the contamination or simply the madness of killing, extreme fear had filled Kestrel with an almost frantic energy. The elevator sector was just ahead. If they could open that door, their escape plan would already be halfway to success.
Yes.
There was still hope.
All their earlier assumptions had been based on the worst possible scenario. Perhaps Gawain and the others had already slaughtered every demon on the surface. Perhaps beyond those doors, the elevator sector was completely empty.
Maybe there wasn't a single demon waiting for them.
In the midst of his fury, Kestrel desperately clung to optimism.
Then the doors opened.
A freezing gale swept toward them, carrying countless strands of rain.
Everyone froze.
At some point, the dome above the elevator sector had already opened. Torrential rain poured through the breach, gathering into a shallow layer of water across the floor. On the enormous elevator platform below, flames raged, accompanied by the deafening roar of gunfire.
Before anyone had time to process what they were seeing, the roar of demons filled the air.
An Old World God-Armor fell from the edge of the dome and crashed onto the enormous elevator platform. Several demons clung to its body, their claws repeatedly tearing at its external armor. Sharp scratches covered the metal until one of them finally ripped open the fuel tank mounted on the armor.
A violent explosion erupted.
The entire God-Armor was slammed into the ground. The demons clinging to it were blown apart, their bodies engulfed in flames.
After a brief moment of stillness, the God-Armor slowly rose.
Its outer armor was shattered and twisted beyond recognition. Wires and pipes hung completely exposed.
"Night Owl..."
Arthur recognized the paintwork on its armor.
It was the Third-Generation God-Armor piloted by Night Owl.
But why was he here?
Another sound drew everyone's attention.
On the enormous elevator platform, a fallen God-Armor struggled to its feet. Its condition was hardly any better than that of the other Third-Generation armor, yet the flesh covering its frame was rapidly regenerating, forcing the severed steel back into place.
Its engine roared to life.
Steam poured from its joints as the First-Generation God-Armor once again pushed itself upright, leaning heavily on its greatsword.
No one knew how many demons it had killed, nor how much damage it had suffered itself. Rain mixed with blood and streamed down the edges of its steel frame.
"Arthur, you're still alive. Hah... I don't know whether that's lucky or unlucky."
A woman's voice came through.
She had always been lively, almost carefree, but now exhaustion weighed heavily on her voice. At such close range, the sound was finally strong enough to break through the interference of the contamination.
"Percival."
Arthur's pupils contracted.
The situation was even worse than he had anticipated.
Percival and the others had already returned to defend the facility. They had encountered an enemy on the surface—something that had broken through Gawain's defensive line.
Something that had infiltrated the research sector.
Judging from what stood before them now, there was little doubt.
Percival and the others had lost.
They had been driven back step by step before that mysterious enemy.
"What do we do, Arthur?!"
Blue Jay's shout dragged him out of his stunned silence.
They were doomed.
Everyone was doomed.
Every one of them was shackled by the despair before their eyes, paralyzed by the terror that had descended upon them.
Say something, Arthur.
Say something.
Even if it was a lie.
Keep lying to them.
Paint a picture of hope in the middle of despair. As long as there was another order to follow, they would not be devoured by hopelessness. They could keep fighting for that faint, perhaps entirely imaginary, possibility of survival.
Lie to yourself.
Keep lying until you die.
"No. We haven't lost yet!" Arthur roared. "Someone has to survive. Someone has to make it out safely. Continue with the plan! Kill every last demon!"
His voice thundered across the battlefield.
Then a black figure appeared at the edge of the dome.
The place resembled a vast cage, and he stood high above it, looking down upon the slaves trapped inside.
"Looks like Lloyd Medici isn't here..."
The Plague Doctor's gaze swept slowly across the crowd before he spoke with a hint of disappointment.
On the surface, demons tore apart the shattered God-Armor. Countless corpses lay scattered across the flooded ground, some belonging to demons, others to human beings. Blood poured from the warmth of torn flesh, gathering into crimson streams that flowed together before finally spilling down into the dome below.