In the hazy curtain of rain, a black shadow raced relentlessly after the speeding train. Billowing steam poured from the seams of the machinery, sharp as blades as it tore effortlessly through the wind and rain.
Lloyd leapt high from his galloping steed and seized the edge of the train. His nail sword pierced into a narrow gap in the steel, and with all his strength, he slowly pried the door open. It was a freight car. He forced the door wide enough for a single person to squeeze through, then immediately slipped inside.
The cargo did not fill the entire carriage, leaving him a small space in which to rest. Lloyd leaned against the stacked goods as rainwater and cold wind poured through the gap he had pried open.
Breathing heavily, Lloyd rested for a while before slowly sitting upright. Even the slightest movement tugged at his wounds, drawing a grimace from him.
Fortunately, Lloyd had only been caught in the aftermath of Canterella. The deadly toxin was not enough to kill him, and with the healing power of his Secret Blood, he had already recovered considerably. Even so, blood still trickled from his nose from time to time.
He wiped it away casually and looked outside the carriage. The rain had swallowed everything beyond the train. For a moment, Lloyd felt as though this train were traveling through a world of nothingness, forever rushing onward without ever reaching its destination.
After staring blankly for a while, Lloyd pulled the notebook from inside his coat. Sherman had handed it to him at the very end. The fury in the old man's eyes had been unmistakable. It seemed that he had held on until that very moment for no other reason than to place this notebook in Lloyd's hands.
"Knowledge that is cursed…"
Lloyd recalled those words. This was not the first time he had heard such a phrase. Perhaps the wording had been different, but alchemy had long contained ideas that carried much the same meaning.
It felt as though he had brushed against something.
Lloyd's breathing unconsciously quickened.
The notebook was thick and plain, with tiny spots of blood staining its cover. Lloyd could no longer tell whether the blood belonged to him or to Sherman.
He was just about to open it when he noticed a bookmark tucked between the final few pages.
Lloyd remembered what had happened when he infiltrated the place. Sherman had been writing something in the notebook at the time, only to be attacked moments later.
Lloyd had every reason to believe the notebook was precious. Everything Sherman had done during those final moments had been to protect it—or perhaps, more accurately, to ensure that its knowledge was carried away from that dead end by Lloyd.
Following the bookmark, Lloyd opened the notebook.
The ink on the page had not yet completely dried. It appeared to be the last thing Sherman had written. At first, his handwriting was neat and orderly, but something seemed to have happened to the old man. The farther Lloyd read, the more frantic the handwriting became, until the words devolved into crooked scrawls. Great swathes of blood had even spread across the pages.
Lloyd felt a strange pressure building inside him.
The demon hunters of the New Church had already been shaken off. He was sitting aboard a speeding train, with no enemy in sight. He should have been perfectly safe.
And yet, as he read Sherman's handwriting, an inexplicable sense of danger slowly descended upon him.
"What… exactly are demons?"
Demons were strange creatures. Even after all these years, the knowledge accumulated by the Demon Hunter Order was insufficient to provide anything resembling a complete understanding of them.
In simple terms, a demon was an extraordinarily powerful living being. They possessed exceptional strength and speed, terrifying vitality, and an insatiable thirst for blood. In the end, that alone would merely make them powerful beasts.
But once their corrosive nature was taken into account, the terror of demons underwent a fundamental transformation.
Every demon was a source of corruption, carrying within it a contamination that could spread. That invisible, oppressive force could drive a person insane until they too became a hideous creature resembling a demon. Given the right conditions, if a sufficiently powerful corruption covered a broad enough area, it could even transform everyone in an entire city into demons.
That was why humanity, despite possessing advanced technology, still struggled to fight demons.
Swords and gunfire could easily tear a demon apart, but they could not kill the invisible corruption. That intangible contamination could penetrate even the strongest divine armor and drag a person's sanity into the abyss of madness.
And so the demon hunters of the Demon Hunter Order, the High Knights of the Purification Bureau, and others like them came into existence. Through experimentation, alchemical enhancement, or other means, they had developed resistance to corruption and became humanity's primary weapons against demons.
After the steam engine ushered in the Industrial Revolution, humanity was no longer short of weapons capable of fighting demons.
What humanity lacked was sanity that could withstand corruption, minds capable of staring directly into despair without being swallowed by it.
Lloyd tightened his grip on the notebook, trying to carve every character into his memory. The farther he read, the more intensely he felt the terror of glimpsing the truth.
The wind and rain grew colder.
Heavy rain mist enveloped the train. Apart from the lonely railway beneath his feet and the endless green wilderness stretching in every direction, there was nothing else.
Lloyd reached out and gripped his nail sword, pulling it close against his chest. There was no enemy around him, yet somehow, holding the weapon made him feel a little safer.
For a fleeting moment, he seemed to hear Sherman's aged voice again, speaking as the old man wrote down this horrifying truth.
"How are the strengths of demons distinguished?
"Because of corruption, even after nearly a thousand years, we still have not established a sufficiently detailed system for classifying demons. It is possible that we attempted to do so in the past, but just like so much knowledge lost to corruption, those records failed to survive.
"Even so, the Demon Hunter Order does have records of the general types. Depending on their nature and specific effects, they were given names such as the Stomach-Biting Grass and the Phantom of the Nightmare Realm…
"But these are merely classifications. They do not distinguish the strength of individual demons. Some demons are exceedingly ordinary and can be killed with ease. Others are terrifyingly powerful and nearly impossible to destroy.
"They once attempted to classify demons according to their size and physical strength.
"But I believe they should instead be classified according to the intensity of their corruption.
"Yes. The intensity of corruption.
"Ultimately, this invisible spiritual contamination is the true source of a demon's terror. Sometimes I even think that those grotesque bodies are nothing more than vessels. What is truly terrifying is that madness within them—the will that has gone insane."
Whether it was sweat or rainwater, a crystalline droplet slid down Lloyd's forehead.
He wiped it away.
The weather was bitterly cold, yet he felt unbearably hot.
Lloyd looked around in alarm. Only after realizing that he was completely alone did he feel slightly reassured. Then he suddenly became aware of how ridiculous his behavior had been.
What was he afraid of?
Lloyd lowered his gaze to the notebook.
There was no sensation of corruption. The book itself had not been contaminated. Yet, much like a familiar form of cognitive hazard, the more Lloyd read, the more uneasy he became.
It was an unease born from instinct.
Some primitive part of the human mind was warning him.
What in the world was happening?
Lloyd instinctively awakened his Secret Blood. A savage power surged through his veins.
For a demon hunter, awakening the Secret Blood was a process that took time. Before the Secret Blood was awakened, a demon hunter was only somewhat stronger than an ordinary human. But as the Secret Blood continued to awaken, forbidden power was gradually bestowed upon the body.
Once it crossed the threshold, the hunter would begin moving toward demonization.
It was an extremely dangerous process.
That was why every demon hunter awakened his Secret Blood according to the strength of his opponent, rather than immediately pushing himself to the limit the moment a battle began.
"The strangest thing is that every demon we have encountered throughout all these years has been transformed from a human being.
"Yes. That is correct.
"To this day… at least within the limits of my own knowledge, we have never encountered a pure demon.
"An 'Original Demon.'
"Does this mean that Original Demons, creatures born naturally from the world itself, do not exist?
"If we consider the matter from this perspective, then what appears to have been humanity's thousand-year struggle against demons may actually have been nothing more than humanity slaughtering itself.
"Some strange force transforms human beings into demons. Then those demons transform even more humans into demons.
"And so we raise our swords against one another.
"Rather than thinking of a demon as a creature, or even as an unknown species, perhaps it would be more accurate to think of it as some kind of…
"Plague?
"Much like the Black Death that once ravaged Enlwick.
"Perhaps, on some forgotten day in the distant past, a plague known as demons erupted. It spread across the entire world, and we hid in the darkness, powerless to resist.
"Because corruption existed, all records concerning it were gradually forgotten.
"In the end, we even forgot what demons originally looked like.
"And we simply grew accustomed to living in a world inhabited by monsters."
By the end, Sherman's handwriting had degenerated into a mass of frantic symbols. Lloyd could barely make out the words, but then he suddenly realized that the countless chaotic marks covering the page formed an intricate and deeply disturbing image.
Lloyd could not believe Sherman had possessed the leisure to draw while writing these words.
It looked far more like the old man had been affected by something as he wrote.
During his career as a demon hunter, Lloyd had encountered similar cases. People who had been corrupted would see grotesque hallucinations and become convinced that they had been blessed by gods.
"But… is this theory really correct?
"If Original Demons do not exist, then what was the Holy Grail we once captured—the very root from which the concept of demons supposedly originated?
"And what, exactly, made them believe that the Holy Grail was the source of all demons?"
The words that followed had lost even the most basic sense of logic.
Lloyd could faintly sense the madness Sherman had been descending into.
The old man seemed to have been desperately holding on to the last fragments of his sanity. His thoughts had become broken and fragmentary, with whatever came to mind being written down immediately.
"If this truly is a plague, then who was Patient Zero?
"An Original Demon?
"Or the so-called Holy Grail…
"No.
"Something is wrong.
"If that is the case, then considering the way demonic corruption spreads, even if we increased the number of demon hunters tenfold, we would still struggle to halt the tide of demons…
"Something is limiting the number of demons…
"Everything must have an origin.
"But I cannot find it.
"I cannot find the source.
"I cannot find the beginning of the story…"
Lloyd's pupils contracted.
His heart began pounding violently.
He finished the final line of frantic handwriting, then slowly closed the notebook and carefully tucked it inside his coat.
He released his nail sword, wiped the cold sweat from his palm, and then gripped it tightly once more.
In such a short span of time, Lloyd felt as though he had endured a terrifying storm. His understanding of the world, his understanding of demons—all of it had been torn apart, only to be hastily pieced back together.
This world was nowhere near as simple as it appeared.
"So… what strange accident am I going to die from next? Or will some damned demon simply appear out of nowhere and bite my head off?"
His Secret Blood surged.
Lloyd kicked the carriage door open.
The cargo was seized by the gale and hurled backward. Freezing rain poured into the carriage as the howling wind screamed past his ears.
Lloyd still remembered the deathly resolve he had seen in Sherman's eyes.
Just as the old man had written in those final lines, Sherman Borgia was not an especially remarkable man. Aside from his faith in God, much of his current status was owed to the power his family had passed down to him.
Even a man as ordinary as him had managed to uncover these inconsistencies hidden within history.
Then how could those great sages of the past possibly have failed to notice them?
No.
They had noticed.
And after they did, they all died.
That had been the final message contained within Sherman's notebook.
He believed that some unknown barrier existed, restricting humanity—restricting everyone—from exploring the truth of the world.
Everyone who touched that boundary had died.
That was why Sherman had warned Lloyd so gravely before going to his death.
"Knowledge is cursed…"
Lloyd watched his surroundings warily.
If Sherman's theory was true, then Lloyd had already touched that unknown barrier.
The boundary of human understanding.
And as his fingers brushed against it, the things that had long been sleeping beyond it had begun to awaken.
In a corner beyond Lloyd's sight, darkness slowly churned.
It seemed as though something solid was about to emerge from within it.
But then, just as suddenly, all those strange changes stopped.
Lloyd was bewildered.
Yet it had truly happened.
That overwhelming sense of unease was fading, as though the grim reapers who had come to deliver his death had suddenly abandoned their hunt.
The train tore through the endless curtain of rain.
A vast gray silhouette appeared at the edge of the horizon.
Old Dunling was close.
Lloyd felt somewhat surprised. Sitting on the edge of the carriage, he looked out across the boundless wilderness. Gloomy clouds seemed to stretch from the heavens all the way down to the earth.
The train carried Lloyd away.
But it left something else behind.
Something far more unsettling.
Rain poured relentlessly upon the earth. Amid the countless streams of falling water, one could barely perceive that the descent of the raindrops had been distorted by some invisible force.
They stood upon the railway tracks, facing one another from afar.
Beneath the overwhelming curtain of rain, two disturbing shapes were faintly outlined in the air.
"Who are you?"
A voice emerged from the void.
"When the will of the void takes physical form, it can interfere with matter. But once it possesses a physical form, it can also be interfered with…"
The other figure did not answer the voice. Instead, it spoke to itself, as though merely confirming the situation before it.
"You… are not 'us.'
"How is that possible?"
The voice from the void came again.
This time, there was confusion in it.
And unease.
But the other figure still gave no answer.
The two ghostlike existences stood silently beneath the rain, watching one another with wary hostility.
Then, in the next instant, the sound of hurried drumming suddenly echoed through the rain.
It was the sound of a heartbeat.
Beneath that lonely curtain of rain, two invisible hearts began pounding violently.
In an instant, terrifying corruption erupted.
An invisible force tore through everything.
It seized the torrential rain and howling wind, twisting them together into a raging storm. The earth collapsed beneath its power. Fresh grass and soil were ripped apart as though slashed by invisible blades. Steel railway tracks twisted and writhed like serpents before finally being fixed into grotesque, warped shapes.
That unknown force had come to kill Lloyd.
Everyone who touched the boundary would meet the same fate.
But this time, the grim reaper that had come to deliver death encountered another grim reaper standing in its way.
Two forms of the unknown beyond the unknown clashed.
An even more violent impact erupted.
Then, just as suddenly, the newly formed storm collapsed.
Everything happened with such abruptness.
Only moments ago, the landscape had resembled the end of the world.
Now, everything was gone.
The rain continued to fall.
But beneath that endless curtain of rain, there were no longer any ghostlike, unseen figures.