Within that twisted valley, steeped in madness and unnatural dread, 042 finally managed to uncover a trace of something useful. 016 and 011 stood guard around him, their vigilance never wavering. They did not fear enemies. What troubled them was the possibility that, amidst the chaos of battle, they might fail to protect this man—the only individual left who could still communicate with them.
The last fragment of reason within this insane valley.
From a pouch at his waist, 042 withdrew a vial of medicine. Perhaps it could still help the dying man.
Whatever agony the man had endured beforehand, it seemed to have stripped him even of the instinct to resist. When 042 drove the injection into him with brutal force, he did not react. He merely lay there like a corpse, collapsed upon the cold ground, save for the faint rise and fall of his chest that proved life had not yet abandoned him.
Time crawled forward.
At last, the medicine began to take effect. The man's breathing grew ragged and violent, yet color slowly returned to his ruined expression. His clouded eyes lifted toward the grim Demon Hunters standing over him.
"W-Who... who are you people?"
Fear quivered through his voice.
Beneath the black armor of the Divine Shell, 042's mask flickered with firelight. In the suffocating atmosphere of that place, he resembled not a savior, but an unknown terror dragged from the abyss itself.
"The ones here to save you," 042 answered curtly. "Now tell me—what exactly happened here?"
The man barely seemed to hear him. Words spilled from his mouth in frantic succession, as though something unseen was pursuing him through his own thoughts.
"Outsiders... outsiders!"
His voice sharpened into a shrill cry, and displeasure immediately surfaced across 042's expression. The last thing he wanted was for that screaming to attract whatever lurked nearby.
"You... you came from outside?"
The man's pupils widened in horror, pushing the whites of his eyes to the edges until the sockets themselves seemed swallowed by darkness.
"Outside?" 042 repeated before nodding once. "That's right."
But the confirmation only drove the man deeper into madness. He struggled violently, though 042's iron grip pinned him firmly in place.
"You're demons! Demons! The Pure Land has fallen... it's already fallen!"
042 clamped a hand over the man's mouth, forcing him quiet.
Excellent.
This was always the most troublesome part of a Demon Hunter's work. Ordinary people, once pushed beyond the limits of terror, inevitably shattered. And prying useful information from the mouths of lunatics was never easy.
Instead of comforting him, 042 leaned closer, malice clear upon his face. Raising his nailed sword, he spoke with deliberate cruelty.
"That's right. I'm a demon. Your precious Pure Land has already been conquered by me." His voice lowered into something cold and threatening. "But if you answer my questions, I might allow you to keep living. Understand?"
"No... no...!"
The man wailed, but 042 showed no mercy. The blade shifted slightly downward, carving another shallow wound across the man's already ruined flesh.
"Of course, you can refuse. But then what awaits you will be far crueler than death."
011 seemed uneasy with the method, though not because of the threats themselves. What worried him was far simpler: if 042 pushed too hard, they might lose the only lead they had.
Fortunately, the man's will had not entirely collapsed. Or perhaps his desperate desire to die allowed him, for a fleeting moment, to suppress the terror consuming him. He gasped violently, fighting to steady the heartbeat that felt on the verge of bursting apart.
After a long silence, the man finally nodded weakly beneath 042's hand.
"Good," 042 said. "Then let's begin with the first question. In your eyes... what happened to the outside world?"
He approached from the side, careful with his wording. He needed to understand the world as this man perceived it.
"It was destroyed... utterly destroyed. The demons escaped their prison at last and reduced the mortal world to ruin."
The Demon Hunters exchanged glances.
The destruction of the world. That sounded exactly like the kind of doctrine the Final Covenant would preach. At this point, they could almost confirm that the entire valley settlement had fallen under the cult's control.
Yet the true question remained unresolved.
What was the source of that oppressive sensation weighing upon everyone here? It resembled corruption, yet it was not the same. Something unseen continued tightening around the mind itself, steadily increasing the pressure upon one's psyche.
"Then why did you say the Pure Land has fallen as well?"
"Because... because they came... they're everywhere..."
The man's voice dissolved into delirium, difficult to decipher.
Still, the truth was beginning to emerge. This so-called Pure Land had never been isolated because outsiders were unable to enter. Rather, anyone who entered was slaughtered. The valley's separation from the world had not merely been geographical—it had been engineered. The Final Covenant had severed the settlement from modern civilization entirely, carving out a cruel paradise of their own design.
"You claim not to fear demons," 042 said, glancing toward the corpse he had killed earlier, "then why all the killing?"
The Final Covenant pursued only one thing: death. The destruction of all existence. The final embrace of nothingness.
Everything touched by them would eventually descend into ruin. But 042 needed to know why these deaths were happening now—whether they were tied to some unknown force even the Demon Hunters did not yet understand.
"We're all going to die... everyone dies..." the man whimpered. "But we must die here. If we complete the ritual... we ascend to Heaven."
His voice trembled so badly it was almost impossible to understand him.
"So after some damned ritual, your souls ascend into paradise?" 042 muttered, genuinely caught off guard.
"You don't understand... it's real..."
The man repeated the words again and again, almost desperately, as though trying to convince himself more than anyone else. Then suddenly realization struck him, and he screamed.
"That's right! You're trying to stop me! Stop me!"
His struggles intensified violently.
"I can't die here like this! I have to die within the ritual! I have to ascend into Heaven!"
With dark amusement, 042 replied, "If you've got money on you, I suppose I could pardon your sins as a priest."
He forced the man back down. The cult's indoctrination had clearly succeeded beyond measure. These people truly believed every word of it.
Yet something still felt wrong.
Surely not everyone here could have been stupid enough to let matters descend this far. Without relying directly on demonic corruption, how had the Final Covenant achieved such complete control?
"042!"
011's sudden shout cut through the air. He only managed to bark out the name, but that alone was enough.
Danger.
042 understood immediately. Protected by the Divine Shell, he no longer needed to fear the threat itself—only determine where it was coming from.
But sometimes, danger did not arrive in the form one expected.
The man suddenly erupted with strength, wrenching himself free as though drawing upon every last fragment of life within him. Even when the nailed sword tore into his flesh, he paid it no mind. Staggering wildly, he tried to flee.
011 and 016 moved at once. They could not allow the man to escape.
Then came the shriek.
A spear-like weapon burst from the fog beyond the window.
It struck the man instantly—piercing straight through him and pinning him dead where he stood.
Everything happened so quickly that 042 barely had time to react. He rushed forward, grabbing the dying man.
"What is this so-called ritual?!"
But the man only smiled.
"This... this is the ritual."
Peace spread across his twisted face. It was not the expression of someone dying.
It was the expression of someone receiving salvation.
And in that instant, 042 understood.
The ritual was death itself.
Death within the valley.
That was why these lunatics did not fear dying. Death here was the very purpose they had been seeking from the beginning.
"Ascending to Heaven after death..." 042 spat bitterly. "What kind of insane nonsense is this?"
"No..." 016 interrupted quietly, pointing toward the ground beneath their feet. "Listen carefully to what he said. Dying here."
The problem was the valley itself.
011 paid no attention to the discussion. His eyes remained fixed upon the shattered window where the spear had entered. Beyond the sea of fog, figures were moving.
Perhaps the surviving madmen.
Perhaps worshippers seeking their own deaths through the Demon Hunters' blades.
But as 011 approached the window, the pressure inside his chest intensified. Something was there.
Something he could see.
For the first time, terror surfaced across the hardened face of the veteran Demon Hunter.
"042... it's coming..."
Within the fog, a warped and incomprehensible thing slowly approached the building.
011 could not discern its true form. Its entire body seemed carved over with symbols too grotesque for the human mind to comprehend. The Demon Hunter could neither define its shape nor perceive its structure.
He could only feel the fear radiating from it.
"So... is this where the story ends?"
Red Falcon sat quietly against one side of the room, watching the horrified Demon Hunters.
"Yes," Lloyd replied calmly. "But don't expect too much. Once you strip away the strange and incomprehensible parts, the ending itself is actually rather cliché from an outsider's perspective."
"And yet you said it was special," Robin asked.
"It was," Lloyd answered softly. "Because after that incident, I realized something profoundly important."
He rose to his feet and walked toward the window, standing beside the Demon Hunters as he gazed into the mist-shrouded horror beyond.
"Often, the moment you begin to understand the 'unknown'... the moment you assign concepts to it that the mind can comprehend..."
"The unknown ceases to remain what it originally was."
"And from that very moment onward, you have already been misled."
"You have already distorted it."