At the far edge of their vision, the lighthouse standing within the dim, viridian veil was already close at hand.
Whether it was the nature of a dream, or the effect of that immense source of contamination, Eve and Red Falcon felt their sense of time and space twist and warp as they drew nearer to the tower. At first, they were certain they had been walking for at least an hour—yet when they turned back, the Radiant was still clearly visible behind them, as if all that time they had never truly moved at all.
Then, abruptly, the distance between them and the lighthouse began to collapse. When they looked back again, the Radiant was gone.
Red Falcon first suspected that the shifting masses of blood and flesh had altered the terrain, but he dismissed the thought almost immediately. A transformation on that scale would have been impossible to miss.
The world itself seemed to be slipping into madness. The hands of the pocket watch in his grasp began to turn backward. Space lost all coherence. That indistinct source of corruption loomed just ahead, and Eve's eyes were filled with caution and gravity.
"In truth," Red Falcon said quietly, "this is a suicide mission. The contamination source is, at its core, an unimaginably powerful demon—and we're already within its proximity."
Large beads of sweat slid down his neck. As a high-ranking knight of the Purification Order, he was enduring pressure beyond imagination. The closer they came to that grotesque intrusion, the heavier the erosion became. Though hallucinations had yet to appear, his perception was already beginning to fail.
His hand had gone numb. If he couldn't still see it, Red Falcon might have believed it no longer existed.
Demon hunters were forged through childhood conditioning, extreme specialization, forbidden secret blood, and occult alchemy—only then did they earn the right to fight monsters. Red Falcon had none of that. He was merely a mortal. The only training he'd received allowed him to be eroded a little more slowly than most.
What he held now was the most advanced weapon the world could offer—his only remaining trump card. Like so many knights before him, he advanced with the resolve of one who had already accepted death.
This was how the world endured. Those who marched to their deaths became the wall that held the demons at bay. And now, Red Falcon was about to become part of that wall.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
If there was anything more abnormal than the crushing mental pressure, it was the girl beside him.
Eve showed no sign of strain at all. Aside from a slight heaviness in her expression, she moved as casually as someone hiking up a mountain.
That ease—unnervingly calm—felt as though she had undergone countless rounds of unknown conditioning.
"I'm fine," Eve replied shortly.
From the very beginning, she had sensed the strange summons. Now, as they approached, the voice grew louder, more urgent, pressing her onward.
This was the heart of the vortex—the place that dragged all things into itself.
Lead-gray clouds churned above the lighthouse, within them glowing flecks of green like inlaid agate. It was an instinctive warning, born of life itself—like an animal that needs no knowledge to know it must not approach fire. Everything was screaming at Eve to stay away.
And yet, with every warning, she stepped closer.
In this dead end, it was the only thing she could do. She didn't even know how many people might still awaken.
"This is far enough," Red Falcon said suddenly.
They were already very close to the lighthouse. The warped space made exact positions impossible to judge, but no matter the margin of error, the tower could not be far from where they stood now.
He drew out the incendiary launcher and raised it high.
"Will they be able to see it from here?" Eve asked after a moment's thought.
She, too, felt the distortion. With communications completely down, this primitive signal was their only option.
"Whether they can or not, this is all we have," Red Falcon replied. Then, after a pause, his voice faltered. "And… honestly, the mission has already failed. I just don't want to admit it."
His words grew heavy. The operation had been doomed from the start—before they ever laid eyes on the enemy, the entire unit had fallen into a dream. They were the backbone of Old Dunling. If all of them died here, it would be a devastating blow.
He wasn't ready to give up. Not yet. He clung to a fragile hope—that someone would awaken, see the signal, and destroy the contamination source. Even if it meant dying, he wanted that death to matter.
He pulled the trigger.
The white-phosphorus round arced upward, carving a blazing trail through the sky before bursting at its apex. A rain of fire cascaded down, baptizing the land in incandescent ruin.
The flames would burn for a few more minutes.
This was their final effort.
Red Falcon turned back to Eve.
"You think that's the center, don't you?"
All along, he had been following her intuition. Eve nodded firmly. She believed the lighthouse was the core of the vast contamination.
As if understanding something at last, Red Falcon strode toward the tower.
"Your journey ends here, Eve. I'll go on from here."
"Wait—aren't you going to wait for them?" Eve protested. She was still hoping someone would see the signal.
Red Falcon shook his head.
"No need. I'll scout ahead."
He said it lightly, but Eve felt no lightness at all.
"Are you insane?"
"This is what I can do," he said seriously. "And what you must do is survive. Someone has to remember what happened here."
He wasn't joking.
"But… how can you—"
Everyone connected to the Purification Order was like this—carrying a readiness to die, as if death were not an end, but an ascent into heaven.
"Because—Eve!"
His words were cut short.
Red Falcon suddenly grabbed her and yanked her close, firing past her shoulder. Thermite rounds streaked through the air in crimson lines, piercing the onrushing demons—but they came like a tide. It was useless.
There would be no choices, no resolve to weigh. Everyone here was going to die today.
Without thinking—perhaps guided by another unseen force—Red Falcon dragged Eve toward the lighthouse. To him, its solid walls were the only barrier here that might withstand the demons.
The distance had been great—yet in an instant, they were beneath the tower. The monsters followed like shadows, carrying hatred, terror, and the stench of blood.
Red Falcon seized the rusted handle. He no longer cared what awaited beyond the door. He only prayed it wasn't locked.
As if answering that prayer, the door opened easily.
He didn't even look inside. Grabbing Eve, he slammed them through, then threw his weight against the door, bolting it shut. Heavy impacts thundered from outside, accompanied by the shrill scrape of fangs against metal.
"…Hah. We're alive. For now."
Red Falcon collapsed to the floor. Though he had accepted death, no one truly wished for it when even the smallest hope remained.
Eve did not share that relief.
The girl's expression was darker than ever. She looked at Red Falcon, then into the surrounding darkness, and spoke as if unveiling a dreadful truth.
"It succeeded."
Yes. It had succeeded.
The voice that had lured Eve here—step by step—had won.
A profound, bone-deep cold flooded their hearts. And somewhere in the darkness, something more terrifying than death itself was waiting.