Night fell once more over Old Dunling, and the moon could offer only a faint glimmer through the brooding dark, a pallid sheen that barely brightened the heavy, leaden gloom. In the freezing wind, a colossal whale of steel drifted through the clouds above the city, its searing beams of light raking downward, churning the murky fog into restless swirls.
Hig walked along the mist-drowned streets. Winter in Old Dunling was a season of merciless damp and cold; vast plumes of steam surged from the pipes beneath the ground, and the not-yet-cooled warmth stirred thin veils of vapor into the air. The chill seeped everywhere. His cheeks had grown hollow, and he staggered as though his soul had slipped loose inside him.
This was not the road that led home. Beneath the silent gaze of the streetlamps, Hig could hardly bear the agitation clawing at his chest. It felt as if another voice whispered at his ear, coaxing, urging him toward some sinful abyss.
"Damn it… damn it!"
He burst out cursing. His face, pale and sickly, twisted into something almost feral as he lashed out and kicked a lamppost. Metal rang through the street. A moment later he seemed to come back to himself. In the shallow, filthy water pooled at his feet, his reflection wavered—an ugly, broken thing.
For an instant he froze, unable to believe that the figure in the water was truly him. Then a ragged, pained cry tore from his throat. He stumbled to a corner of the street and sank down beside a heap of rubbish, clutching his hair in both hands, curling in on himself.
Passersby spared him not a glance. There were many like Hig. Every day in Old Dunling, people collapsed beneath the weight of their lives. Some chose to flee this suffocating city. Others chose to sink. The lower districts became their new homes.
In the dark, Hig slowly raised his head. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion, like those of a man already half claimed by death.
He was in pain. Terrible pain.
Contrary to what Lloyd believed, Hig had not been working overtime at the factory these past weeks. He had been dismissed long ago—after the boss discovered he was using hallucinogens.
The factory had been vying for the contract to produce a new model of steam tram, and several others competed just as fiercely. To secure the order, they had clashed more than once behind the scenes. Reporters were sent to infiltrate workshops, to inspect working conditions and other matters, then weaponize public opinion.
The owner had clearly been frightened into caution. Unwilling to leave any weakness for rivals to exploit, he fired Hig on the spot. The authorities took a harsh stance on hallucinogens; the boss had no intention of losing a fortune over something like this.
And so Hig was unemployed—cast aside for using a substance that, in truth, nearly every mechanic in the factory relied upon.
They claimed it let them step into a kind of heaven, a haze that made the sweltering, oppressive workshops bearable. The perfect relief for a place of iron, heat, and noise.
At first Hig could not accept it. He tried to stay, pleaded his case, but the guards drove him out without mercy. He drifted through the streets for a long time before, in a daze, he finally made his way back to Cork Street.
The fall had been immense. One moment he was a respected mechanic; the next he was rotting on the pavement. He tried applying elsewhere, but no one wanted a mechanic who used hallucinogens—least of all in Old Dunling, where the world's first steam engine had been born and engineers, rare treasures elsewhere, were as common as stray cats.
What a wretched day.
Hig had never come from much. Born to a family that could barely be called comfortable, he had worked in a bakery for years to feed his dream of machines, saving every coin until he could buy a train ticket to Old Dunling.
He still remembered that journey. He had leaned out the carriage window, watching the landscape race backward into the distance. There was no sorrow at leaving home—only a wild, uncontrollable joy.
To the Hig of that time, the world was split in two: the small town where he had grown up, and beyond the railway tracks, the new world. Like a stray dog bolting toward the unknown, he cared nothing for what awaited him.
There was nothing to be sad about. Though the train ride lasted days, he never felt tired. With every passing second, he knew, the distance between himself and Old Dunling was shrinking.
He was almost there. The place his heart longed for.
Moisture gathered along the window frame above him, and an unformed droplet fell, its icy touch jolting Hig a little more awake. And once awake, he thought again of Mrs. Vandewood's face.
Each time he remembered that fierce, faintly kind face, a pain unlike any other gripped him.
He had been like a stray dog crashing from alley to alley. When he shivered in the cold, it was Mrs. Vandewood who had taken him in. She had not been as ill-tempered then. He became one of the earliest tenants at 121A Cork Street.
To Hig, she was like family. She was not gentle, but she had made him who he was. Without her, he would have frozen to death on some forgotten night.
That was why, whenever he faced her, a nameless guilt gnawed at him, as though he had let her down. He did not want her to discover the truth. He had even begun to wonder if he should leave Cork Street altogether—slipping away without a word seemed easier than standing before her in shame.
Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and kept walking. When he finally looked up, an unfamiliar streetscape met his eyes. Somewhere in his dazed wandering, he had strayed into a place he did not know. He had lived in Old Dunling for years; he never imagined the city could feel strange.
Tall buildings loomed on every side, like the claws of countless monsters against the black sky. The streetlamps were different from those he knew. In this misshapen, unevenly developed city, many districts still had no electricity. This seemed to be one of them. Rows of gas lamps stood in place, and in the fog not far off, a lamplighter moved along, kindling them one by one until points of light bloomed through the mist.
The night was deep, yet Hig did not want to go home. He hated the stern kindness in Mrs. Vandewood's eyes. Warmth was something he had rarely known from others; compared to the parents who had driven him out, she was a beam of light in his heart.
And he could not bear to see that light dimmed by disappointment in him.
He wandered on, lost, until a vast structure emerged from the fog. Dots of light shimmered within it. Hig blinked in surprise—and then he heard it, faint and distant: a hymn.
It was a church.
Centuries ago, Ingervig had bowed to the mighty Holy Papal State. Through white-robed missionaries and sword-wielding Templar knights, the Gospel Church had entered Ingervig's world. In recent years, the nation had tried to forget that legacy, yet many churches still lingered in Old Dunling, hidden behind later buildings. You could hear distant hymns and prayers, but never find the structures themselves.
What startled Hig was that this church was not hidden at all. It stood openly among the streets. Beyond iron gates rose the brightly lit doors, and above them perched countless gargoyles, guarding this sacred place.
He thought he remembered it now. This was Saint Mary's Cathedral. The eastern district had once been a gathering place for the faithful of the Gospel Church, but as their numbers dwindled, the area had fallen into decline, and even its name had been forgotten. Hig knew of it only from books.
The entire cathedral was built of white stone, a purity of color that, even beneath the night sky, seemed untouched by any stain. Most people no longer remembered its true name. Instead, they called it by its most striking trait.
The White Church.
Love this scene — the atmosphere shift from cold iron to warm faith, then straight into political-occult tension? Chef's kiss. Here's the English version in a published-fantasy narrative tone:
Just as Higg was lost in thought, the iron door suddenly swung open.
A man who seemed to be a priest stood not far away, smiling at him. His hair was already white, his face lined with the deep creases of age. And yet, in the dead of a winter night, beneath that man's gentle gaze, Higg felt an unexpected trace of warmth—like sunlight brushing against frozen skin.
"Excuse me…"
"I imagine you must be feeling rather lost, aren't you? Would you like someone to listen?"
The priest spoke first, not giving Higg the chance to finish. Then he turned slightly to the side, as if inviting him in, and the doors of the White Chapel slowly opened.
Higg had intended to refuse. He did not believe in so-called gods. As a mechanic, he believed in absolute reason and tangible reality. Compared to some hollow deity, he trusted that machinery, pushed to its ultimate limits, could accomplish anything. And if something was truly omnipotent, what difference was there between that and a god?
That was what he thought.
Yet in that fleeting moment, the refusal never left his lips. It was as if some silent instruction had reached him. Almost against his own will, he found himself nodding—and then stepping into the white chapel.
…
"So where exactly are we going?"
Lloyd sat inside the carriage as the scenery outside the window blurred past. They were racing through the streets of Old Dunling, the wind of their speed stirring the fog so that it looked as though ghosts were sprinting alongside them.
"The headquarters of the Purge Agency, Mr. Holmes. If your speculation proves correct, Old Dunling is about to face a threat unlike anything in its history."
Unlike the ever-flippant Lloyd, Joey's expression was grim, sharpened to a hard edge. He looked like a weapon forged of ice, waiting only for an enemy to appear.
"But it's still just a guess."
"A guess," Joey replied, "is still a possibility. Within the Purge Agency, we've conducted multiple projections—scenarios in which cities fall and kingdoms fracture. For each, we devised different countermeasures. In the end, some of those projected disasters did come to pass. Thanks to our foresight, however, the situations were contained and resolved."
As he spoke, Joey glanced out the window to confirm their position. He was clearly in a hurry.
"So you're saying," Lloyd said, surprised, "that under the normal course of history, the Purge Agency—or even Ingilveg itself—has already faced destruction several times?"
What Joey described sounded eerily similar to the prophecies within the Witch-Hunting Order. The witch hunters of the Shandafon branch were always muttering about foreseen deaths and inevitable fates. In truth, the two weren't so different—yet what Joey spoke of felt far more real.
"More precisely," Joey said calmly, "we prevented those destructions. And once prevented, that history of ruin simply does not exist."
"Like branching paths?" Lloyd asked. Choosing one road after another—except these people already knew what lay ahead on each one, and prepared accordingly.
"Something like that."
The carriage thundered down the streets like a chariot of war. After an indeterminate stretch of wild speed, it finally came to a halt.
What appeared before Lloyd were countless soldiers.
They stood with weapons raised, all aimed directly at the carriage. From Lloyd's long "cooperation" with the Purge Agency, he recognized the equipment at once—uniform thermite rifles. A single volley would be enough to melt through almost anything.
"So this is your Purge Agency headquarters?"
There was no anger in Lloyd's voice, but his Secret Blood had already begun to stir. He did not trust these people.
"Please remain calm, Mr. Holmes."
The soldiers parted, and Red Falcon stepped forward. Lloyd hadn't expected it to be him.
"What makes you think I'm not calm?"
Lloyd prided himself on his emotional control; he was certain nothing had shown. But Red Falcon raised a hand, revealing a Geiger counter. Its needle was slowly climbing.
"Didn't expect that damn thing to be so sensitive," Lloyd muttered coldly. The reading was still rising. He had no intention of saving anyone's face.
"This is merely a security measure," Red Falcon said evenly. "As you know, we are only ordinary humans—yet we fight against demons. You're about to enter the Purge Agency's headquarters. To prevent our upper ranks from being corrupted, we've taken many precautions. These soldiers are only part of the security."
The Purge Agency was not like the Witch-Hunting Order. They had no apocalyptic black technology from the Revelation. Even their divine-armor technology had been obtained from Jiuxia in exchange for precious steam engineering.
Within the Order, the most important figures were guarded by witch hunters of the Medanzo branch—the heavenly praetorians. Lloyd's strength was undeniable, but even among those sacred guards, he was far from the strongest, ranking only somewhere in the middle.
There had once been an instance in the Order's history when demons successfully invaded the Seat of Seven Hills. Yet under the protection of the powerful Medanzo witch hunters, Saint Naro Cathedral withstood the demonic tide for an entire night. Blood flowed so heavily it soaked the whole of the Seven Hills—yet all the demons ultimately achieved was to stain the cathedral gates red.
When dawn came and the gates opened, the Pope knelt unharmed before the holy cross. Cardinals stood behind him, their whispered prayers resonant as tolling bells.
But feats like that would never happen again, Lloyd murmured silently to himself.
At last, Red Falcon took out a blindfold and handed it to Lloyd.
"That's it?"
"Yes. We cannot allow the location of the Purge Agency to be exposed. These soldiers only guard this perimeter. I'll take you the rest of the way."
Lloyd eyed him suspiciously, but accepted the blindfold in the end. If the Purge Agency truly intended to make a move against him, they would have done so long ago. There was no need to worry about this.
Of course, it was also possible that until now, they simply hadn't figured out how to deal with him—and only recently found a way.
Still, Lloyd gave no outward reaction. He obediently put on the blindfold.
After all, he was curious too—what the mysterious Purge Agency truly looked like.