Like an endless chase, the two of them rushed and tore at each other like wolves—charging through heaps of butchered flesh piled into low hills, cleaving apart layer after layer of obstructing steel. Blinding white flames roared madly as their figures flashed in and out of sight, colliding like meteors in flight.
Ed's sword carried detonating fire. In a blur of motion it slammed squarely into Lloyd, then drove him back with brutal force, like a raging bull hurling its prey aside.
Ed remained where he stood. His body began to change in a grotesque way—tattoos akin to Lloyd's crawled across his skin, and with their movement his muscles swelled, growing denser, stronger.
"What are you waiting for?" he snarled. "Witcher—if you don't release your secret blood now, I'll kill you."
The burning spike-blade pointed straight at Lloyd. Ed's face was twisted with fury. From beginning to end, Lloyd had never revealed his true strength, as if he were deliberately toying with him.
Lloyd said nothing. His gaze was fixed on the markings writhing across Ed's body, as though he had discerned something within them.
"You're… from the Michael Squad."
The designation was painfully familiar. Lloyd had believed himself the only survivor of the Night of Descent. Now it seemed that was not the case.
"So you recognized it?" Ed sneered. "Is that why you refuse to activate your secret blood—because you're afraid I'll recognize you too?"
He tore open his clothing, fully exposing the living markings. They looked like tattoos, but in truth they were alchemical sigils—alchemy engraved upon the human body itself.
To perfectly control the secret blood and prevent it from eroding a witcher's will, every ritual of absorption included the engraving of alchemy. A witcher's body became the vessel that sealed the blood, while alchemists carved sigils into flesh and bone, reinforcing the seal like sacred prayers.
Lloyd was no alchemist—indeed, there were scarcely any left in the world—but he understood these aberrant sigils well. When the secret blood awakened, the markings came alive. The Order classified its squads by the patterns of these engravings, and from Ed's markings it was clear he belonged to Michael.
"I simply don't want to remember the past," Lloyd replied coldly. "I've forgotten it for so long."
He lunged, forcing Ed back with a sudden, decisive strike.
Feeling the heavy weight transmitted through the blade, Ed bared a savage grin. Lloyd's secret blood was awakening—whether he willed it or not.
Secret blood was born of demons, and its potency was directly tied to the strength of the demon from which it originated. The stronger the witcher, the more terrifying the demon that had birthed his blood.
But power exacted a grievous price. Once consumed, demonic erosion gnawed day and night at the witcher's humanity. The demon sought to conquer the will entirely. Many failed to resist, their bodies becoming fertile ground for rebirth—allowing long-dead, powerful demons to return to the world. For safety's sake, every witcher was implanted with a silver binding bolt.
Lloyd had always refused to reveal the deeper layers of his secret blood, yet its inherent corruption pressed him toward activation all the same. Witcher and secret blood existed in a warped symbiosis—only the question of who held dominance remained.
"Can't we just talk this out?" Lloyd said.
Twin arcs of white flame collided. Lloyd caught Ed's strike head-on, steady and unyielding. Their eyes met—one calm, the other mad.
"You'd refuse me, wouldn't you?" Ed rasped. "I want to know what happened to the Order. Will you tell me?"
He already knew the answer. From the very beginning, this witcher had intended to reveal nothing—not even his name.
Lloyd fell silent again. Just as Ed had said, he would not speak of any of it.
"Then I'll have to subdue you," Ed roared, "and pry it out of you myself!"
He brought his heavy blade crashing down once more, smashing Lloyd aside.
From the moment the battle began, they had never stopped shifting positions—steel ringing, flames roaring, blades carving through hardened flesh as scorching fire devoured what remained.
"Looks like these years haven't been kind to you either," Lloyd said, studying Ed. That madness—strangely familiar—reminded him of himself when he first arrived in Old Dunling.
"What are you trying to say?" Ed snapped. Perhaps because Lloyd spoke so rarely, he slowed his assault to listen.
"Just like I once was," Lloyd continued, "we witchers spend our lives fighting for the Order, slaughtering demons. And then one day, we're no longer needed. We're told we can retire."
He laughed softly, memories of Old Dunling flickering through his mind.
"That's how I felt at first too—like all purpose had vanished. After all, that was what I lived for. Like the minstrels in the old tales: once communication became convenient, they too were discarded, relics of a bygone age, swept into the trash without mercy."
Then his tone shifted.
"But you know, Ed—people need dreams. Endless killing is dull, don't you think?"
"Everything you're doing now is just to give yourself a reason to live. A reason to keep swinging that sword."
"Whether it's the Night of Descent, the Thirteenth Secret Decree, or anything else—they're all just excuses."
He looked at Ed with something like pity.
"That's a miserable way to live."
Silence fell. The two men stood facing each other across the scorched ground.
Ed was another survivor, besides Lloyd himself. Like castaways meeting on a desolate shore, Lloyd did not wish to make him an enemy. Yet he could not speak of those ill-omened truths—the darkest chapter in the Church's history. It was enough that he alone bore that knowledge. There was no need to turn others into sacrifices as well.
"So you've been hiding behind 'dreams' all this time?" Ed said at last, lifting his head as flames surged anew. "Witcher."
Lloyd's words had not moved him in the slightest. Rage consumed him.
"You have no idea what we went through—after the Night of Descent!"
They could not understand each other. Just as Ed could not comprehend Lloyd's silence, Lloyd could not fathom Ed's fury.
And so the secret blood surged once more, breaking past its critical threshold.
Blinding white fire boiled upward, burning flesh into spectral flame. Ed stood proudly at the summit as his body twisted toward something demonic. The spike-sword in his hand began to melt, liquid metal fusing seamlessly with his palm. More silvery spikes burst forth from beneath his skin, arming him like a living arsenal of blades.
"You are traitors,"
Ed pronounced at last, his condemnation ringing through the fire.