"So this is your guess?"
Outside the window, the rain washed over old Dunling as though it meant to cleanse every trace of filth from the city. Inside, the candle burned in silence, melted wax spilling over the edge before slowly hardening once more. The Plague Doctor listened to Lawrence's story. It was neither long nor complicated, merely the condensed shadow of an old man's life, with all its rises and falls.
"Yes. I suspect Lloyd Medici never died. He governed the Gospel Church for so long. I refuse to believe he never read the Book of Revelation." Lawrence's eyes darkened as he spoke, feeling as though an invisible enemy had suddenly appeared before him. "If even I could find a way to achieve something resembling 'eternal life' within it, how could Lloyd Medici possibly have failed to find a form of 'immortality' of his own?"
As he spoke, Lawrence picked up a black-and-white photograph from the table. A familiar face stared back from within the faded image—Lloyd Holmes.
"Lawrence…"
The Plague Doctor suddenly realized something. A chill of terror ran through him, and when he spoke again, there was an unmistakable trace of fear in his voice.
"You weren't the first person to discover this Authority, Gabriel."
Lawrence gave a stiff nod, his voice heavy.
"Lloyd Medici… That man dominated my entire life. I became his slave, a tool he used to control the Demon Hunters, until one day he grew old. But even then, he was unwilling to simply accept death. In his final years, he deliberately began making preparations for something. Some people said he was searching for a way to achieve 'immortality.'"
"Is that really what happened?" the Plague Doctor asked.
Lawrence fell silent for a moment before letting out a long sigh.
"He really was searching for 'immortality.' At the time, he said he needed a Demon Hunter to serve as his long-term bodyguard. Then he took a newly initiated Demon Hunter away from the Order."
He spoke casually, yet the memory he had stirred up filled him with fear.
The distant past gradually became clear in Lawrence's mind, and in an instant, the knot of uncertainty within him was pierced through. His pupils contracted. Suddenly, everything made sense.
"Yes… That's it. Lloyd Medici found the Authority of Gabriel as well. He used that power to usurp the life of that Demon Hunter, and through him, he survived."
The Plague Doctor's heart sank. He had thought that they were already the ones manipulating everything from behind the scenes. Yet deeper still, hidden within the darkness beyond the darkness, there remained another pair of eyes watching it all.
"Was the Demon Hunter he took away Lloyd Holmes?"
That was the reason Lawrence had been so suspicious of Lloyd. After the deadly struggle aboard the train, it was not merely the name "Lloyd." The countless strange details surrounding him had inevitably pushed Lawrence toward this possibility.
He was the greatest winner of the Night of Advent.
Lloyd Medici was the true victor.
"No… In truth, I don't know who that Demon Hunter was. At the time, Lloyd Medici's hidden influence was still immense, and I needed his help myself. After all, once Lloyd Medici fell, those nobles wanted me dead. The thought of a Demon Hunter becoming a Cardinal terrified them."
Lawrence recounted a past known only to himself.
"Lloyd Medici was extremely good at keeping secrets. Even now, all we can do is infer what he did from fragments and conjecture, can't we? But the Demon Hunter he took away wasn't Lloyd Holmes. I remember him. He was 047, the Demon Hunter who had been given the name of Metatron…"
"What exactly happened?" The Plague Doctor was beginning to lose the thread.
"I don't know either. And that is precisely what we need to find out now. The Demon Hunter who was taken away has remained missing to this day. Yet the Lloyd Holmes who has appeared now bears suspicious similarities to Lloyd Medici… Just as I told you, Plague Doctor, this Authority comes with a tremendous side effect."
"Confusion of memories?"
"Exactly. We move between different wills, and different lives become mixed with our own. Everything becomes confused. In this suffocating night, we need a morning star to show us the way."
Lawrence frowned as he continued to analyze the situation.
"Lloyd Medici never underwent the [Divine Baptism]. He never received those bizarre memories. Therefore, he needed something else to serve as his 'morning star.'"
"His name," the Plague Doctor said.
Lawrence nodded in confirmation.
"That is also why I suspect Lloyd Holmes. He turned his own name into the morning star."
"But that is still only a suspicion."
"Indeed. But suspicion alone is enough to warrant vigilance. Plague Doctor, you never met Lloyd Medici. He was a pure human being, with an utterly pure will."
There was reverence in Lawrence's voice. In all his life, he had never truly feared anyone, but Lloyd Medici was one of the few exceptions. Whenever Lawrence stood before him, he could feel a pressure as solid as a mountain of stone, as though death itself were waiting just beyond the next breath.
He had once believed Lloyd Medici was dead.
Yet now, the man had returned like a ghost.
And in an instant, Lawrence felt as though he had once again become that powerless servant, unable to resist, allowed to cling to life only at his master's discretion.
"Something else must have happened on the Night of Advent. But I don't know what it was, and I have no way of knowing anymore. Just as we have no way of determining whether this theory of ours is true."
Lawrence picked up the remaining photographs. One familiar face after another stared back from the black-and-white images.
"But the solution is simple enough. Kill them all. Whether or not they are Lloyd Medici, we kill them anyway."
A sudden knock sounded at the door.
Lawrence and the Plague Doctor exchanged a brief glance. The Plague Doctor turned and called out.
"Come in."
The door opened, and a familiar man stood beside it with a case in his hand.
It was Ender. He was responsible for smuggling the inferior mystic blood, and during Lloyd's pursuit, it had been he who transported the inferior mystic blood back here.
"Is everything ready?" the Plague Doctor asked. A quantity of inferior mystic blood this large could unleash another disaster upon the city.
"Yes." Ender nodded and raised the case in his hand. "Everything is prepared for deployment."
"Should we begin now?" The Plague Doctor turned toward Lawrence.
"No… There's no need for us to act personally. We only need to follow the current and let the New Order and Lloyd turn against each other." Lawrence's voice remained calm.
"Can you guarantee that?"
"Of course. I'm an excellent watcher. Every move they make is within my sight."
Lawrence was utterly confident. After spending these past days traveling through the [Gap], he had grown increasingly proficient with the power.
"The pieces I planted earlier should be put to use now."
Lawrence gestured for Ender to leave. Then he glanced at the Plague Doctor before closing his eyes.
The candle flame flickered.
When he opened his eyes again, he was already standing in a ballroom filled with the soaring strains of music. Dressed in magnificent attire, he was dancing with a beautiful woman.
"Your steps have become better and better," the woman praised.
"So have yours."
Duke Salicado gently kissed the back of her hand before stepping away from the dance floor. His gaze sharpened, and in an instant, he seemed like an entirely different man.
Lawrence's assault on the Salicado estate had been somewhat successful. He had managed to corrupt the Duke of Salicado and, in the time that followed, operated under Salicado's identity.
That was why Shermans had encountered Salicado in the first place. Shermans had believed that he was the one who had sought Salicado out.
In reality, it had been Lawrence who sought him out.
Through this method, Lawrence had established a connection with the Purification Bureau in a manner so bizarre that it was almost impossible to comprehend, and that infiltration continued to spread.
Sometimes, Lawrence even felt fortunate that the beacons he had casually planted in the past had now become channels through which he could observe the world, allowing him to manipulate the entire situation from the shadows.
Like an invisible poisonous spider, he spun an invisible web from invisible threads, and that web had long since settled over everyone.
Lloyd could never have imagined that the letter had been sent by Lawrence.
And letters like it continued to spread throughout old Dunling, one after another, quietly steering every faction toward the direction Lawrence desired.
Like a ghost, Lawrence stood behind the curtain of darkness, silently pushing this restless city toward the abyss.
…
It seemed as though something had come to him.
Something that existed beside him.
Something that borrowed his body to gaze upon the world.
Hig found the sensation difficult to describe. At first, he had paid it little attention, but as time passed, the feeling became more and more frequent. Sometimes, Hig even felt as though there were another version of himself buried deep within his consciousness.
He shook his head hard, trying to drive all those strange thoughts away.
Dim light filtered down through the stained-glass windows, falling upon his body. The light was faint, almost as though it had lost all its color.
Hig looked at the familiar White Chapel.
When he had first come here, it had been nothing more than an accidental discovery. Back then, it had not yet become a gathering place for the Mutual Aid Society. It had simply been an abandoned church inhabited by a plain, unassuming priest.
The priest had been very old. When Hig first arrived, he could hardly believe that the man lived there alone. And ever since that encounter, Hig had occasionally felt that strange sensation, as though a ghost had attached itself to his body, watching whatever he watched and seeing whatever he saw.
Hig still remembered that night.
He had just been fired from the factory after being caught using hallucinogens. Depressed and directionless, he had spoken with the priest for a long time. He later returned to the chapel, but the priest was gone. It seemed he had simply left without a trace. Hig had asked the people living nearby, but none of them knew where he had gone.
Raindrops struck the glass. Damp rain-mist seeped through the cracks around the door. The sudden cold made Hig shiver.
But then a thunderous cheer shattered everything.
Everyone sat together in a circle, telling one another about what had happened to them lately—their happiness, their sorrows, their failures and small victories. Then, amid laughter and cheers, today's meeting of the Mutual Aid Society came to an end.
Hig seemed somewhat absent-minded.
He had thought Joey would come, but Joey had not shown up today, leaving him slightly disappointed. Then again, Joey had his own work to deal with. He wasn't like Hig.
People said their farewells, opened their umbrellas, and left one after another.
Happiness had arrived so suddenly, and the ending came just as quickly.
By the time Hig came back to himself, he was the only person left inside the chapel.
Everything was in disarray. Hig had nothing urgent to do anyway, so he began putting the chairs that had been knocked out of place back where they belonged.
"Aren't you in a hurry to leave?" someone asked.
"No. I don't really have anywhere to be." Hig smiled as he answered.
Then a voice came from the other end of the chapel.
The doctor approached.
"Well, you seem to be doing quite well lately. Do you feel like you're finally able to fit back into ordinary life?" the doctor asked.
Hig hesitated.
But when he thought about his recent life, he eventually nodded firmly, a trace of happiness appearing in his voice.
"Yes. It feels really good."
"Is that so? Hig, do you think there's something wrong with you?" the doctor asked again.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm a doctor. Ordinary people don't come looking for doctors. Only patients do. Do you think you're a patient?"
The doctor spoke words Hig found difficult to understand.
"I…"
Hig began to think.
Deep down, he knew the truth. Even before he began using hallucinogens, he had always felt different. He didn't know whether it was what people called introversion or something else entirely, but he had always been different.
Different from ordinary people.
"Human beings are social creatures. When an individual differs from the group, they become an outsider. And an outsider is therefore a disease. Diseases must be cured at their root… That is what I believe. Everyone in the Mutual Aid Society came together because of hallucinogens, but the truth is that even without hallucinogens, we would still be outsiders among ordinary people."
The doctor stood on the steps and continued.
"That is the world. It strips away everything that makes us unique, forcing us to become ordinary until, eventually, we are no different from everyone else."
"You think this is something unique about me?"
Hig did not understand.
His flawed personality had made his life miserable, yet in the doctor's eyes, that very pain was something that made him special.
"Isn't it? We were born this way, just as we were born with different colors of eyes. Just because we are different from others, must we change something that was given to us at birth?"
The doctor smiled.
He looked into Hig's confused eyes and continued.
"You are special."
"Me?"
Hig pointed at himself, bewildered.
"Yes, Hig. I want to have a proper conversation with you. About yourself."
James Moriarty brought over a chair and sat down opposite Hig. He still wore that same calm expression, like sunlight beneath the rising sun, making it almost impossible to feel any instinctive sense of danger around him.
"About myself?"
"Everyone lives ordinary lives, but very few people truly understand themselves, don't they?"
As Moriarty spoke, he reached out and gently tapped a finger against Hig's heart.
The gesture was not forceful in the slightest.
Yet Hig felt as though a great hammer had slammed into his chest.
He stared blankly into Moriarty's eyes. His own dazed face was reflected in the lenses of Moriarty's glasses.
Then a blaze of searing white fire swallowed everything.
All at once, every sound began to roar.
They sang at different frequencies, rising and overlapping, until at last they merged into the sound of rain surging like a tide.
An invisible downpour enveloped Hig.
It existed everywhere, carrying a bone-deep chill as it fell endlessly from above. Amid the rushing currents, the White Chapel vanished.
When Hig finally came to himself, he found that he was standing alone in an empty wilderness, drenched beneath an icy storm.
His gaze moved slowly across the horizon.
And through the curtain of rain, Hig suddenly saw it.
At the very edge of the storm…
The seaside town.
The town he could never return to.