The sky had dissolved into a chaotic expanse of ashen gray. Lightning illuminated the torrential rain, its silver flashes darting through the clouds like schools of fish, their gleaming silhouettes surging forward with the raging winds. Beneath the vast, unobstructed sky, only two airships remained, pressing onward through the roaring storm, one following the other.
Perhaps even they could no longer tell which direction they were heading. No matter where they looked, the scenery remained the same, a monotonous gray-white wasteland like the world beyond death. No matter how long they traveled, they could never reach the end of their journey. They could only wander this desolate realm like the living dead, aimlessly drifting until eternity.
"What... is that?"
Inside the Voyage to Dawn, Gareth rose to his feet, staring at the Riesenbach in utter astonishment.
Several minutes earlier, grotesque, abominable flesh had begun spreading across the entire airship. Now it was completely encased, transformed into a demonic nest crawling through the upper atmosphere, poised to unleash calamity upon the world below.
The terrifying corruption had already begun to spread toward them. Every face aboard the Voyage to Dawn had grown grim, every expression solemn. All the cannons stood ready. Gareth would never allow something like this to land safely on the ground. The consequences would be nothing less than another full-scale demonic tide.
But at that very moment, the Voyage to Dawn shuddered violently. Something shot past them, and Gareth caught sight of a black silhouette plunging into the nest of flesh, illuminated by intermittent flashes of lightning.
His pupils contracted.
If his eyes had not deceived him, that was an Old Era Divine Armor.
Codename: Black Angel.
What... had happened?
Inside the cabin, Merlin gripped the railing beside him and watched as the Black Angel tore open a gaping hole in the fleshy mass. Wind and torrential rain came pouring through the breach.
The calm expression on Merlin's face gradually vanished. Then, without warning, he threw back his head and laughed uproariously.
Just as he had suspected. It was exactly like Lloyd's final duel with Lawrence. Lloyd's return from death had not been a coincidence. Some unknown force was protecting him—or perhaps... cursing him. Lloyd Holmes was not allowed to die. At least, he was not supposed to die today.
Within the fleshy nest, Lloyd stared in astonishment at the Old Era Divine Armor beside him. Beneath its cold steel plating, scorching flames surged upward without restraint.
Countless thoughts raced through his mind. Then, all at once, he seemed to understand everything.
So that was it.
"So... you've been here all along."
The rising flames illuminated his battered face. Once his initial shock had passed, Lloyd began to laugh, a genuine laugh born in the very heart of this hell.
Lloyd had never been alone.
Dense plates of divine armor once again enveloped his body, identical white flames welling up through their seams. But this time, the flames began to spread. They burned with furious intensity, consuming the surrounding flesh. Even the raging inferno already devouring the airship was assimilated into their blaze. Pallid pillars of fire erupted through the iron hull of the Riesenbach.
The searing Purifying Flames incinerated the flesh coating the hull, burning through the underlying structure as well until nothing remained but a crimson skeleton. As the gasbags ruptured, their lighter-than-air gas began to escape. A white hell descended upon the Riesenbach, and at the same time, the airship began its plunge toward the earth.
Like a dead whale sinking into the unfathomable depths of the sea.
Perhaps everything he had just witnessed was an illusion. Or perhaps 047 really had returned. Either way, there was no need to concern himself with such questions anymore. Lloyd wrenched a battered nail sword from the viscous flesh, while the Black Angel behind him unfurled its iron feathers and raised its long sword. It stood at his back like a shadow cast by his own body.
No one was piloting the divine armor.
And yet, it moved all the same, its movements uncanny and inexplicable.
"Was it you? 016... 047?"
Lloyd whispered softly. But perhaps what he had seen really was nothing more than an illusion. No one answered. The only response was the metallic song of a sword being swung.
Crimson thorns surged toward him from every direction. Over the long course of time, the rogue Yanar demon hunters had become completely assimilated into the Riesenbach itself. If Lloyd's guess was correct, he was now standing inside the cardiac chamber of this colossal demon.
This was the creature's most vulnerable point, where its true body resided. It was also the position most fiercely defended. The corpses of the dead were dragged upright by the surrounding flesh, their bodies pulled back into motion.
Yet faced with such an enormous enemy, Lloyd looked utterly unconcerned.
Today was a good day.
He was in an excellent mood.
He could not die yet. Absolutely could not. He had not exterminated every last demon. He had not yet witnessed that beautiful Golden Age. And beyond all that, he still had to live for the people who remained alive within his memories.
Something called courage propped up his exhausted will. He tightened his grip on the nail sword once more, and it felt as though inexhaustible strength surged through him. He strode forward and roared at the top of his lungs.
"Beast at the end of your days! Ignorant of fear! Bereft of hope!"
Iron feathers and sword blades interwove in a deadly dance. Under their relentless assault, the countless thorns were shattered into fragments. Scalding blood rained down like crimson threads cascading from the heavens.
The Black Angel intercepted the overwhelming majority of the attacks. Under its protection, Lloyd's pace quickened. His strides lengthened until he was sprinting with all his might. Countless corpses rose to their feet before him, but he felt no fear whatsoever, as though an army of thousands marched at his back.
"Mortal nearing your final hour! Tremble in terror! Yet harbor hope!"
The battered, twisted nail sword came crashing down. Lloyd moved with the speed of lightning, appearing and vanishing in a single instant as he severed the heads of the dead. The corpses collapsed once more, flesh and bone disintegrating beneath the red-hot iron.
He was utterly exhausted.
He was consumed by fury.
"Dying again and again!"
This time, he drew the last weapon still in his possession. His shotgun roared, firing at the enemy blocking his path. It was Lloyd's final shell, its projectile forged entirely from holy silver.
"Only to be reborn again and again!"
Indeed, Lloyd had died more than once. And more than once, he had returned to life. He was like a wraith wandering between life and death, clinging stubbornly to the few things he had left.
With his roar, the holy silver projectile streaked forward like a long, gleaming spear. It pierced every obstacle in its path with effortless ease. The lethal silver corroded the flesh it struck, causing the wounds to fester and decay without end, as though they had been seared by an inferno. Shattered fragments of flesh crumbled into ash and drifted away.
The power furnace roared as it churned.
Beneath it sat the Yanar demon hunter, its body completely fused with the twisted thorns. Its head hung low, yet the flames smoldering beneath its eyes burned brighter and brighter.
A pitch-black silhouette swept over Lloyd's head. The Black Angel beat its wings with tremendous force, sending countless iron feathers hurtling downward like spears. They pierced the ground, impaling the serpent-like thorns and the corpses that had risen once again.
Lloyd leaped high into the air, landed on the edge of an iron feather, and raised his battered nail sword.
"Laugh aloud as the breath of life renews itself!"
He landed before the Yanar demon hunter. Perhaps some instinct had sensed the danger, for its twisted head slowly lifted, turning to stare directly at Lloyd.
"Death is nothing more than a man-made concept."
Just like miracles. They were born from the will of mortals, and so they should remain under mortal command.
Lloyd unleashed his final strike. The razor-sharp steel tore through flesh and pulverized bone, carving downward from above and destroying the creature's head, spine, and heart in a single, devastating blow.
The light burning in its eyes descended with the finality of a death sentence. After a brief pause, the flames went out, as though the creature had finally died.
The twisted flesh went dark with them. Its soft surface began to harden. At first, the mass continued to writhe and struggle, but gradually it stiffened, until it seemed to have turned to stone.
Cracks burst across its surface. Section by section, it shattered and disintegrated, dissolving into thick clouds of dust.
It was over.
The Riesenbach had died.
Its descent accelerated, and the entire airship shook violently.
The battle had ended. The hot blood slowly grew cold. Lloyd turned back, weary, as the Black Angel's shadow fell over him. Its iron feathers spread gradually, and it extended a hand toward him.
To his surprise, Lloyd did not reach out. Instead, he gazed deeply at the divine armor and spoke in a quiet voice.
"Wait for me a moment."
His gaze shifted toward the dying body beneath the ashes.
The entire body had been burned beyond recognition. Its head had shriveled, and no more blood flowed from its severed limbs. It was already a corpse, yet it stubbornly refused to accept death. Inside its withered wounds, tiny points of pale white flame continued to burn with tenacious persistence.
The great battle was over, but Lloyd's duel with Moriarty was not. Even as death approached, neither of them had managed to claim an undisputed victory.
Lloyd could not accept such an ending. So he walked toward the dying body.
Moriarty, too, could not accept it. Despite everything that had happened, that ruined body continued to draw stubborn, labored breaths.
"You were right. We're alike. We're both complete and utter lunatics."
Lloyd stopped beside the dying figure and gently touched its head, which had begun to carbonize.
He had remembered everything now. Everything he had deliberately forced himself to forget. The lost Authorities had returned to him, and once again, he held them firmly in his grasp.
Lloyd closed his eyes. Firelight flickered within the gaps.
Authority—Gabriel.
...
He slowly pushed open the heavy iron door. Beyond it lay a dimly lit hospital room. The cramped space contained nothing but a simple iron bed and a window sealed behind a mesh of iron wire. Beyond the window, the scenery was blurred beyond recognition, its features impossible to make out.
Lloyd rubbed his eyes. This was his first attempt at deliberately invading another person's [Gap], and he had not expected it to go so smoothly.
"So this is your [Gap]?" Lloyd asked.
"Your [Gap]? So that's what this damned place is called?"
A voice emerged from the darkness at the far end of the room. The man sat on the iron bed, his gaze fixed on the world beyond the wire mesh.
"I feel like I've been asleep for a very long time. So long that even my consciousness has begun to fade," he murmured.
"Yes. I don't know much about them myself, but it seems the form a [Gap] takes is determined by its owner. The scene most deeply etched into our memories becomes the place that houses us."
Just like Lloyd's own [Gap]. The frozen wasteland beneath the night sky was, in truth, the setting of his first resurrection. On that night, he had killed the people he loved most. On that same night, he had lost everything.
Thinking of that night, Lloyd suddenly found himself remembering Lawrence, the Prelate. He had once fought Lawrence within the latter's [Gap], on a wilderness engulfed in flames beneath the setting sun.
Lloyd could not help wondering what Lawrence had experienced there. What had made him so obsessively attached to everything he had pursued, to the point that this place had become his [Gap]?
He did not pursue the thought any further. Instead, he picked up a nearby chair and sat down in front of the bed.
"Then this must be the place you find hardest to forget?"
"More or less. This is my home. I spent decades living in this damned place. I can't say I remember much about anywhere else."
Moriarty sat up and emerged from the darkness. He was wearing a straitjacket, with chains fastened around his ankles.
"Lloyd Holmes. I remember us having quite an enjoyable fight. I seem to recall that we both managed to injure each other... So is this a draw? What a shame. I really wanted to settle things between us once and for all."
Moriarty sighed. He seemed to have mistaken this place for the world after death, believing that both he and Lloyd had died.
"No. I won, Moriarty. The [Gap] is a person's mental world. Your body is gradually dying, and I wanted to settle things between us just as much as you did. That's why I chose to enter your [Gap]."
"So... that's how it is? I'm dying, then?"
Moriarty froze for a moment before smiling. There was not the slightest trace of fear in his expression.
"So you did all this just to show me that you'd won?"
"Of course. We both paid a heavy price for everything that happened."
Lloyd answered without expression.
Moriarty was not surprised by his answer. If anything, he understood Lloyd perfectly well.
To finally defeat one's sworn enemy, only for that enemy to die before the victory could be truly savored... Moriarty would never have been able to accept such humiliation himself.
"How interesting..."
Moriarty smiled. He glanced at the window, then at Lloyd, before shifting toward the head of the bed and leaning against the wall.
"So this is how the great James Moriarty meets his end? Actually... I don't think it's so bad."
As he spoke, he stared directly into Lloyd's eyes, as though he had discovered something.
"You look happy. Is it because you defeated me? No... no, that's not right. That should be the satisfaction of revenge. But what I sense from you now is more like... something warm has happened to you."
Moriarty's expression abruptly changed. His composed smile vanished, and fear crept across his face. He had shown no such fear even upon learning that he was about to die, yet now it slowly took hold of him.
"Why? Why can you look like that? Lloyd Holmes, is there someone who understands you? Someone who accepts you?"
Moriarty suddenly roared in fury. His rage became savage, but the straitjacket and chains restrained him, leaving him to struggle helplessly.
He could not accept this. He had believed that Lloyd was the same kind of lonely monster as himself. But now it seemed that he alone had been condemned to such loneliness. He could not bear it, yet he was powerless to change anything.
Lloyd maintained his rigid expression, quietly observing Moriarty's outburst.
Gradually, Moriarty stopped struggling. He slumped against the wall, his voice sinking into despondency.
"What a shame, Lloyd Holmes."
"I'm in pain. I feel as though I don't belong in this world, as though I've contracted some kind of disease. No... it's this world that's diseased. I'm the only one who's truly normal.
"We all wear human faces, but beneath this skin, we're different..."
Faced with these words, Lloyd remained as cold and unyielding as steel. This time, however, he asked a question.
"Are you confessing your sins?"
"How could I be? How could that possibly be?"
Moriarty sneered, his expression twisting with anger once again. Lloyd had provoked him.
"I'm Moriarty. I'm a monster, a pure and unadulterated villain. I don't need to confess anything. I don't need forgiveness or mercy."
But in the next moment, his expression crumpled into despondency once more. As though someone had broken his spine, he slumped into the corner.
"I just... I'm just trapped inside this human body, Lloyd Holmes."
Moriarty was a lunatic through and through. No one could predict what he would do next, and even Lloyd could not anticipate the violent swings of his emotions.
"This world is too cruel. We all need something to deceive ourselves with... But I'm too clever. Those things can't deceive me. Nor can I lie to myself and pretend to be a normal person.
"I'm a monster by birth. A lunatic by birth.
"I thought we were the same kind, Lloyd Holmes. But what a shame. It turns out I'm the only one like this. I never imagined that even someone as brutal as you could have experienced a brief moment of happiness.
"How enviable."
A raging inferno erupted, swallowing the scenery beyond the window. Fine cracks spread across the hospital room, and faint tremors shook loose the dust accumulated over years.
"Am I dying, Lloyd Holmes?"
Moriarty lifted his head and stared at the disintegrating room.
"Yes. Your will is dying, little by little," Lloyd replied coldly.
"Not bad. At least we've finally determined a winner."
Moriarty's expression was full of grief. In the end, he had lost.
Lloyd rose silently and walked toward the iron door through which he had entered. He gripped the cold, rusted metal and began to wrench the heavy door open, inch by inch.
Then Moriarty's voice rang out again.
"Have you really won, Lloyd Holmes?"
Lloyd's movements stopped.
"You're the real monster! A monster even more terrifying than I am! I've never experienced that kind of happiness, so to me, it's nothing more than an empty word. But you're different, Lloyd Holmes!
"You experienced that happiness. And then fate cruelly tore it away from you! Are you really going to submit to its verdict?"
Lloyd turned around.
Moriarty wore a cunning smile, as though everything he had said and done until now had been nothing but an act. This utter lunatic had never surrendered. Only now was the outcome of his duel with Lloyd finally being revealed.
He tried to approach Lloyd. The chains scraped his skin raw, drawing blood, but he paid them no heed. Instead, he roared with all the strength left in his body.
"I won, Lloyd Holmes! Look at yourself! You've become a monster even more terrifying than me!"
The entire hospital room began to fracture as the will sustaining it died. Seething flames rose through the broken fissures. Amid the sea of fire, Moriarty maintained his maniacal expression and laughed wildly at Lloyd.
"You may have killed me, but in the end, I still won!"
Moriarty had won. Through this entire chain of events, Lloyd had recovered his lost past, but he had also become something unknown—a fiend capable of casually invading and devouring the wills of others.
He had still lost.
Lloyd felt nothing but a profound, penetrating cold. He watched Moriarty's dying madness and desperately wanted to refute his words, but when he tried to speak, nothing came out.
Yes. On that burning night, Lloyd's fate had already been sealed. He had embarked upon a road that led only to ruin.
"Lloyd Holmes! Monsters don't belong in this world! I understand you!"
Moriarty laughed with unrestrained mockery amid the flames.
"So I bless you, Lloyd Holmes!
"May you bear your hatred and never cease! May you burn with rage and never be extinguished! May the blood upon the sword you wield never run dry!"
Falling rubble and raging flames swallowed Moriarty's figure. Yet within the shattered darkness, the curse of his words continued to echo in Lloyd's ears.
The darkness broke apart. Amid the swirling ashes, the Black Angel seized Lloyd, who had yet to regain full consciousness, and fled through the breach they had shattered on their way in.
Ash and raging wind surrounded him. Lloyd struggled to open his eyes and saw that the ruined body had finally died. Yet the charred head still wore that sinister, maniacal grin.
In the next instant, the howling wind drowned out his hearing. After a brief moment of disorientation, his vision cleared once more.
Ten thousand meters above the earth, the Black Angel spread its wings and glided through the roaring storm.
The thunder of artillery overwhelmed the thunderclaps. A barrage of blazing meteors streaked past beneath the Voyage to Dawn, all of them slamming into the plummeting Riesenbach. The horrific, grotesque airship was utterly destroyed, its burning fragments raining down like falling stars.
Lloyd clung tightly to the steel in his hands, suspended in the heart of the storm. His expression remained stiff, as though he had yet to recover from Moriarty's final outburst.
Then a warm light fell upon his face, illuminating the darkness within him.
He raised his head. At the far edge of the leaden sky, a gentle radiance pierced the storm like a golden spear. Beyond that radiance stretched a sky of brilliant gold.
"How beautiful..."
For some reason, Lloyd sighed in sorrow.
The wind and rain gradually weakened. The swirling storm began to disperse, and the floodwaters that had spread through the streets slowly receded. Gentle sunlight fell upon the steel city, bringing warmth even to its cold iron structures.
The rainy season of Old Dunling had finally come to an end.