The Iron Serpent still radiated the scorching heat left behind by the explosion. The Demon Hunters clung desperately to the edges of the wreckage, struggling to keep themselves from being thrown from the speeding machine. The pain and the biting cold of the torrential rain clouded their minds, leaving them unable to understand which part of their plan had gone wrong.
Then a sharp grappling hook slammed into the Iron Serpent. Before the Demon Hunters could react, a vicious spike-blade tore through the curtain of rain, severing flesh and bone that stood in its way. A wound split open along the neck, blood spraying into the air and exposing the clean cross-section beneath. The Demon Hunter's face still wore an expression of utter astonishment, his pupils straining to look backward as he tried to comprehend what had happened in that fleeting instant. But all he could see was the whirling storm of death rushing toward him.
The moment Lloyd landed on the Iron Serpent, he released the grappling gun and gripped the spike-blade with both hands. As he swung, the weapon carried the wind with it, whipping up a storm of rain and blood. His entire body spun with tremendous force, while the downpour perfectly concealed his figure. To the Demon Hunters, it was an attack that should have been impossible. They were the hunters, and Lloyd was the prey. Yet now the prey had laid a trap and had come straight for the hunters' throats.
As one head was severed and sent flying, another enormous wound opened across the body of a second Demon Hunter. Lloyd had struck the hunter in front of him first, buying himself a brief window of defense. The man raised his spike-blade before his chest, but the next instant, the immense force of Lloyd's sword crashed into his own.
Rainwater had soaked the metal beneath their feet, and the gale blowing directly against him made it difficult to keep his balance. He staggered slightly, and then Lloyd's sword came down in a relentless barrage, as violent as the storm itself.
His movements were clean and decisive.
This was a hunt.
A counterattack.
A revenge.
Lloyd gave them no opportunity whatsoever. He kicked the headless corpse with all his strength, sending the Demon Hunter tumbling from the Iron Serpent and disappearing into the white veil behind them.
The Demon Hunters had a fatal weakness as well. Before the Mystic Blood fully awakened, they were still nothing more than humans possessing an extraordinary physique. Severing the head could effectively kill a Demon Hunter at this stage. It was much like the time Lloyd had been struck by the carriage. Back then, the Mystic Blood had yet to awaken, and Lloyd had been little more than a man whose physical abilities surpassed those of ordinary people.
The awakening of the Mystic Blood required time.
For a Demon Hunter, that period was incredibly short. A few seconds could be enough.
But those few seconds were a fatal weakness.
The severed head stared at Lloyd, its face still frozen in astonishment. The moment his head had been cut off, his Mystic Blood had finally awakened—but it was already too late. Blood poured from the severed neck. His tremendous vitality allowed him to remain conscious for a little longer, and he tried to say something, but without a windpipe, all that came from his mouth and nose was an endless stream of blood.
In his gradually fading eyes, he watched Lloyd continue his slaughter. Sword after sword crashed down upon the Demon Hunter before him. The terrible weather affected everyone, but in the freezing rain Lloyd only grew faster. His surging swordsmanship seemed to summon a violent whirlwind around him.
Time.
Lloyd needed time.
The explosion of the Iron Serpent had already achieved the element of surprise, and in that brief chaos he had taken the opportunity to kill a Demon Hunter before his Mystic Blood had awakened. But now his arrival had drawn the attention of every Demon Hunter present. An attack as deadly as the one before was no longer possible.
He had to incapacitate as many of them as he could before their Mystic Blood began to boil.
"Die!"
The Demon Hunter before him finally found an opening in Lloyd's assault.
A fatal opening.
He immediately attempted to counterattack. The Holy Silver-plated spike-blade tore through the rain, descending precisely along the path he had envisioned. The blow struck Lloyd directly across the neck. With just a little more force, he would sever Lloyd's head.
A delighted smile spread across the Demon Hunter's face.
Then it froze.
The spike-blade struck down, sparks scattering from the impact as a metallic clang rang through the storm. At that instant, the gale tore apart the curtain of rain, revealing Lloyd's burning eyes—and the sturdy God-Armor covering his body.
It had been a feint.
Lloyd had deliberately offered him that opening. Under Lloyd's sudden offensive, the Demon Hunter had been placed under tremendous pressure. He desperately wanted to counterattack, and therefore he could not resist an apparent weakness in Lloyd's defense.
All Lloyd had to do was strike back at precisely that moment.
Everything had been calculated.
Every step in the Demon Hunter's mind had unfolded exactly as Lloyd expected.
The God-Armor blocked the attack, and because the Demon Hunter had committed himself to the strike, an enormous opening appeared before his chest. The spike-blade descended like a bolt of incandescent lightning.
Two spike-blades pierced straight through both of his shoulders.
Lloyd pulled with all his strength.
Both arms were severed in a spray of blood.
Flames erupted across the bodies of both men.
The Mystic Blood boiled within the Demon Hunter.
At this moment, he was no longer merely human. Even though he had lost both arms, the protection of the Mystic Blood meant that this attack could not kill him.
At least, that was what he thought.
Then he heard the sound of a trigger being pulled directly in front of him.
Lloyd drove one spike-blade into the steel beneath his feet, anchoring himself, while gripping a short-barreled shotgun in his other hand. He pressed the muzzle firmly against the Demon Hunter's chest.
At the same time, the other spike-blade had already pierced through the side of the man's neck.
The trigger was pulled.
The Demon Hunter's body convulsed violently. A cloud of blood exploded from his back, only to be washed away almost instantly by the torrential rain.
Several metal pellets tore through his chest and shattered his heart.
Lloyd did not even look at him again. He pulled out the spike-blade and kicked the corpse from the Iron Serpent.
These newly initiated Demon Hunters were nothing more than inferior imitations.
They had never experienced that brutal age. They had never truly endured those nightmare battles. They possessed overwhelming power, but had no idea how to wield it.
"The courage to face death, the strength to cut through steel, the skill to slay demons, and the cunning to use every means at your disposal..."
This was what a Demon Hunter truly was.
The strength had never come from the Mystic Blood.
It came from the will capable of mastering it.
Lloyd shoved the short-barreled shotgun back into its case and picked up the spike-blade embedded in the Iron Serpent. Turning his back to the raging wind and rain, he stood silently, his cold eyes reflecting the chaotic world around him.
Then, one pair of blazing eyes after another began to emerge from behind the curtain of rain.
The surprise attack was over.
What came next would be a brutal frontal battle.
Lloyd slowly spread his arms and raised the blades high, crossing them before his chest to form a strange cross, like a shield.
He whispered a prayer.
"Therefore, I shall fear nothing..."
This time, the prayer was not for some distant, intangible god.
It was for Lloyd Holmes himself.
In the next instant, several spike-blades tore through the curtain of rain.
To catch up with the speeding Iron Serpent, the Demon Hunters had pushed their Mystic Blood into a full boil. Scorching flames erupted alongside the surge of their strength, blazing across their bodies like living infernos. They resembled angels descending upon the earth, their burning wings spread wide as they came for him.
Authority: Michael.
The temperature reached its absolute limit in an instant.
Under the overlapping effects of multiple Authorities, the smoke-wreathed Iron Serpent burst into flames once more. The metal glowed red-hot, while the rain evaporated the moment it touched the heated surface, producing thick clouds of steam.
But the steam had barely emerged before it was torn apart by the burning demons charging through it.
They had come bearing divine punishment.
Lloyd showed no fear.
He tightened his grip on the spike-blade.
Black serpents crawled along his body, winding around his limbs and coiling across his skin before climbing up his neck. The snakes intertwined, biting and feeding upon his flesh, and then gradually hardened.
A black suit of God-Armor formed around Lloyd's body.
Authority: Metatron.
Compared with Michael, it possessed no direct offensive power whatsoever. And unlike the Authority of Sandalphon, it lacked any of that strange and unpredictable cunning.
It was an unremarkable Authority.
The only thing it could do was cloak a Demon Hunter in a suit of God-Armor.
The moment the flames descended, Lloyd was completely swallowed by the falling inferno.
Explosions thundered within the blaze, as though he had been struck head-on by artillery.
The Iron Serpent sagged beneath the impact, grinding violently against the rails as it continued forward, leaving a trail of fire behind it.
The shrill whistle of steam rang out continuously.
Scalding vapor burst in every direction.
The Demon Hunters continued their burning assault, and the flames grew more violent, as though they intended to burn every trace of evil before them to ashes.
But then—
A spike-blade, glowing red from the heat, pierced through one of the burning figures.
A black knight stepped out from the flames like a demon emerging from hell.
The same fire burned across his God-Armor.
On a battlefield where men fought demons and abominations, the sharpness of a blade had never been the true factor that determined the outcome.
What mattered was how long the warrior holding that blade could endure the nightmare.
Authority: Metatron had been born for precisely this purpose.
The black God-Armor resisted the flames.
It resisted the blades.
It resisted death.
Lloyd drove his weapon forward, completely impaling the Demon Hunter before him.
The Demon Hunter could hardly believe it.
At such an extreme temperature, even steel should have melted. Ordinary iron weapons should have posed no threat at all.
Yet Lloyd had still driven the blade straight into his body.
That was the true purpose of the spike-blades.
During the previous battle, Lloyd had already realized how troublesome the Demon Hunters wielding Michael could be. That was why he had commissioned Oscar to forge these special spike-blades.
At the current temperature, they were still not hot enough to melt.
With a violent pull, Lloyd tore the blade free and began hacking madly at another Demon Hunter. He moved through the flames as though dancing within an inferno. The Michael Demon Hunters had believed their Authority could burn away everything, but they had never imagined that Lloyd could move beneath those flames.
The sturdy God-Armor had already been heated until it glowed red. Lloyd's flesh had fused with the metal, and beneath the agony of the burning heat, his spike-blades continued to strike with merciless precision.
Blood flowed freely, but like the rain itself, it evaporated before it could even reach the ground.
He held his breath and continued killing.
Until even the Iron Serpent could no longer withstand the searing temperature.
With a violent rupture, the machine began to break apart.
A black figure burst from the sea of flames and fell toward the ground beneath the curtain of rain.
Lloyd rolled across the ground several times before driving his spike-blade into the earth, using it to arrest his momentum and steady himself.
The freezing rain poured over his overheated God-Armor. Thick steam rose around him as the armor began to crack and peel away. Pieces of it crashed into the pools of water, still carrying fragments of flesh upon them.
Through the broken sections, Lloyd's bloodied skin could be seen beneath the armor.
But soon, a swarm of wandering black serpents swept across the damaged areas, weaving themselves together and forging a new layer of God-Armor.
The railway tracks stretched beneath his feet, disappearing into the burning figures ahead.
The flames surrounding the Michael Demon Hunters had clearly weakened considerably.
It was not only because of Lloyd's desperate assault.
The terrible weather itself had become an advantage for him.
Behind those burning figures came the sound of more blades being drawn.
The Demon Hunters had followed him here.
Lloyd slowly straightened.
He lowered his gaze to the spike-blade in his hand, then drove it into the ground.
These blades had been specially forged to counter the Michael Demon Hunters. After enduring such extreme heat, they were now being rapidly cooled by the torrential rain, much like the quenching process used by a blacksmith.
After everything they had endured, the two spike-blades were no longer reliable enough for the battle ahead.
Lloyd opened his case.
It too had been specially modified. Fireproof cloth wrapped its exterior, while multiple layers had been built into the interior to prevent the intense heat of Michael from destroying everything inside.
Fortunately, Lloyd had not spent too long entangled with them.
Most of the weapons inside the case were still intact.
He drew another spike-blade and a shotgun.
Once again, Lloyd was fully armed.
More Demon Hunters emerged from beyond the curtain of rain.
They surrounded him completely.
"Where is Moriarty...?"
Lloyd's gaze swept across the Demon Hunters lingering at the perimeter.
The heavy rain obscured his vision. To Lloyd, they were little more than one blue silhouette after another, their forms faintly glowing in the darkness.
Beyond the unknown, a pair of burning eyes stared directly at him.
The only person who could truly threaten him was Moriarty.
Even now, Lloyd still had no idea how Moriarty had managed to drag him into that hallucination.
He had been cautious enough.
Or so he had thought.
But the Demon Hunters clearly had no intention of giving Lloyd any more time to think.
They came charging forward with their blades.
At the same instant, Lloyd raised his shotgun.
He pulled the trigger.
Scorching flames erupted from the muzzle, their burning trajectory sweeping across the space before Lloyd and briefly dividing the battlefield.
For an instant, the blazing Dragon's Breath round filled his entire field of vision.
Then a sharp spike-blade tore through both the flames and the curtain of rain.
Lloyd followed the burning path forward, advancing at full speed as he swung his sword.
His twin blades crossed in a vicious downward strike.
The shriek of clashing steel rang through the storm as the Demon Hunter caught Lloyd's attack.
At the same time, a Michael Demon Hunter charged toward Lloyd like walking daylight. Wherever he passed, the water pooled across the ground boiled and evaporated.
But this time, they did not immediately attack.
Instead, they seemed intent on sealing off every possible route Lloyd could use to escape.
Then heavy footsteps sounded.
Before Lloyd could even turn to see what was coming, a fierce blade swept downward, dragging a violent gust of wind with it.
Amid the thunderous clash of steel, Lloyd raised his arm and caught the blow on the God-Armor covering it.
At the same time, scorching heat burned through his body.
Lightning flashed across the sky.
And another grotesque figure of black iron appeared before him.
Authority: Metatron.
Rain streamed across the black God-Armor. Within the gaps between its steel plates, incandescent flames rose and flickered.
The knight in black slowly raised his blade.
Then he brought it down upon Lloyd once more.