[Hellsing Organization · Hellsing Bureau · Underground Interrogation Room]
Integra Van Hellsing—an iron maiden who, with a mortal body, commands the mightiest monster on earth—sat quietly in her chair, cigar smoke curling before her ever-cool, resolute face.
She showed none of the fury other-World heroes reserved for the Emperor's "tyranny" or "deceit."
Neither did she betray the slightest pity for his ultimate "fate."
In her eyes there was only the icy understanding one sovereign feels when looking upon another, a recognition that strides across time and space.
"Walter," she said slowly, her voice so calm it carried no ripple at all,
"what do you see?"
The old steward behind her—Death's own "God of Death"—answered deferentially: "Miss, I see a failed strategy, a war doomed from its first breath to cost us dearly."
"No," Integra—Integra—countered,
"you see only the surface."
She stubbed the cigar in the ashtray, rose, and stepped to the screen, staring at the skeletal husk seated upon the Golden Throne.
"What I see… is a king's duty."
Her voice rang ironclad, brooking no doubt.
"I, Integra Hellsing, to safeguard England, ordered my monster—Alucard—to slaughter thousands upon thousands of foes."
"My own hands are just as blood-soaked."
"So when this Emperor, to protect the trillions under his charge, used lies as a shield and himself as the seal against a darkness that could swallow the entire Universe,
"is that not the ultimate protection a monarch can offer?"
She looked at no one behind her; her gaze seemed locked with the millennia-old skeleton.
"He is not walking a tightrope."
"He is the tightrope itself. He did not imprison himself—he became the sole cage imprisoning the most terrifying monster of all: the so-called 'dark king.'"
"Ten thousand years… He traded his own eternal agony for the battered present his people have clung to for ten millennia."
"This is not strategy, Walter. This is the weight of a crown."
"And his crown is heavier than any of ours will ever be."
Integra's judgment held no mercy, only the coldest respect of one ruler for another of her kind.
From the shadows behind her, another voice arose.
A hoarse, low timbre, as though rising from a grave.
"No, my Master."
Alucard, the undead king of Vampires, stepped from the dark. The usual mockery was gone from his crimson eyes; in its place blazed an intense fascination, the thrill of encountering something entirely new.
"He is no monster."
A sick, savage grin split Alucard's face.
"Monsters give up. Over long centuries they erode, rot, are devoured by desire."
"And I am the finest example." He tapped his own chest. "I surrendered my human dignity—only then did I become a monster."
"But he…"
Alucard's gaze bored into the Golden Throne.
"He is different."
"He was on the verge of godhood, power enough to overturn the Universe—yet he refused it."
"For ten thousand years he has sat upon that throne, enduring agonies we cannot imagine, solely to guard the last rampart of his 'humanity.'"
"He never yielded. He never bowed to that power. He let himself rot and wither rather than surrender to the god he might become."
"A will that wields divine might yet fights to remain 'human'—or at least to persist as the wreckage of a human…"
Alucard's laughter turned joyous—the rapture of a chess-player who has met his ultimate opponent.
"This is no longer a monster. This is… a human in the truest sense."
"A being so mighty I must admire him—the ultimate embodiment of indomitable human will."
[Millennium Zeppelin]
Yet in stark contrast to the somber mood of the Hellsing Bureau, a scene of near-sacred revelry was underway here.
"Ah… ha… hahahahahahahahaha!!"
A wild, organ-like peal of laughter—impossible to suppress—shook the frigid bridge of the zeppelin.
The Major, an eternal war-lover whose body was half machine, stood before a giant viewing screen.
The naive smile he always wore now looked genuine for the first time: the purest ecstasy of a soul that had beheld ultimate art.
Arms spread wide like a conductor greeting the grandest symphony,
"War… this… is the war I have dreamed of!!"
His voice quavered with rapture, the simple, almost sick joy of a child seeing his perfect toy for the very first time.
Dr. and Captain both watched him in silence, bewildered by his elation.
"Do you not understand?"
The Major turned; his usually comical, bloated face now shone with a near-holy light, as if he had witnessed the perfect form of war he had pursued all his life.
"I once believed my war was the pinnacle—monsters slaughtering monsters above London, the Thames running red."
"But that… that was merely a play, a fleeting performance fated to end!"
He pointed at the screen like the most fanatic preacher proclaiming newly found gospel to his faithful.
"But here! This Universe! It has shown me… eternal war!"
The Major's breathing grew ragged, his eyes blazing with a madness that was somehow lucid.
"Just think! In this wondrous World, peace is impossible."
"Because once peace comes—once humanity stops struggling—the 'dark king,' humanity's very own god, will be born!"
"And His birth will herald the end of civilization! Hahaha!"
"Total victory is equally impossible! If the Emperor wins too completely, he will become that 'dark king'!"
"His own triumph shall be his own doom!"
"What a magnificent paradox!"
"And defeat? Utterly impossible! Should the Imperium fail completely, the four Chaos Gods will tear humanity apart and devour it as meaningless fodder!"
"Do you see?"
"In this Universe, to advance is hell, to retreat is hell, to stand still is also hell!"
"There is no option that is 'not war'!"
"The only way to survive is to fight eternally, relentlessly, on every front, against everything!"
"Against aliens! Against Chaos! Against the future! Against the past! Even… against ourselves!"
The Major closed his eyes in rapture, drew a deep breath as though savoring the finest wine.
"And that Emperor… that glittering Emperor… he is no king, no tyrant, not even a god…"
"He… is the perfect protagonist of this greatest war!"
"He wars against the four Chaos Gods!"
"And with His agony of ten thousand years He battles the mightiest fifth god—the one destined to be born from Himself!"
"He fights an external war to delay an internal one!"
"By His will alone He forces the entire Universe to remain in this perfect, dynamic, tension-filled state of 'war in progress'!"
He turned to the silent Captain beside him, eyes burning with a yearning fiercer than ever before.
"Captain, my dear war hound. Once I thought Alucard was the perfect monster."
"But now I understand—this Emperor is the perfect human!"
"Yes! A human!" The Major's laughter echoed across the bridge, radiant with the joy of one who has found his ultimate purpose.
"Monsters yield, abandon, wallow in power!"
"But this human possesses all that is needed to become a god—yet refuses godhood!"
"He holds the power to end all war, yet chooses to fuel an eternal one!"
"With His decaying flesh and unbreakable will He has prolonged this war for ten thousand years! Is there any grander hymn to human will?!"
The Major spread his arms and howled at the heavens, his laughter a heartfelt, fanatical paean to the dark Universe.
"And this Universe—its very existence—is a ten-thousand-year hymn composed of one man's flesh and soul, the perfect…"
"…ode to war."
Three-Body World:
Cheng Xin's face was paper-white; she clutched her collar as though she could no longer breathe.
On the screen, countless human souls—now thralls of the 'dark king,' stripped of will and twisted for Eternity—shattered her loving, saintly heart.
"This… this is too terrible."
Her voice trembled, tears brimming. "How can this be called salvation? It's crueler than Death!"
"Humans are human because we possess love, free will, morality!"
"If survival means turning into mindless monsters, slaves to evil gods, what meaning does such 'existence' hold?"
Cheng Xin turned to Thomas Wade, her eyes pleading for agreement.
"Wade, don't you see? That Emperor has stripped humanity of its very humanity."
"If the price of civilization is to become demons, I would rather die with dignity!"
"Foolish."
Thomas Wade—the man who would pay any price to advance—spat the word coldly.
No fear flickered in his gaze, only a fervent envy of a kindred spirit.
"Cheng Xin, you haven't changed. Still a child who thinks the Universe is a fairy-tale castle."
Wade spun around, eyes blazing with undying wildfire, voice sharp as an ice blade.
"You think it cruel? Devoid of dignity?"
"But compared to being swept away like trash, the humans of that Universe are insanely lucky!"
He pointed at the skeletal figure upon the Golden Throne, his tone trembling with reverence.
"Look at Him! Look at that Emperor!"
"To keep His species alive He turned Himself into a monster
"Even as a Chaos god He still 'protects' humanity in His twisted way!"
"In this dark forest, if a god is willing to fight the entire Universe for us bugs—even to die and fall for us…"
Wade's knuckles whitened as he gripped the rail.
"What fucking luxury! What fucking bliss!"
"In our World, humans can only hide like rats, praying the hunter never glances their way."
"But in that World, humanity has a god!"
"A god who, even dead, rotted, and mad, will drag the whole Universe down to avenge mankind!"
"Remember this, Cheng Xin: lose humanity, lose much; lose bestiality, lose everything."
"That Emperor is the apex of savagery, which is why his humanity survived—even if they live like ghosts."
"And you…" Thomas Wade gave a cold laugh.
"You're all humanity, so you'll only lead us straight to the grave."
Luo Ji wasn't as agitated as Wade.
Yet the envy in his eyes ran deeper.
"What an enviable 'tyrant'…"
Luo Ji sighed softly, as though speaking to an old friend who no longer existed.
"In our Universe, to survive I had to wager the destruction of two Worlds, turning myself into a Sword-holder who couldn't even blink, alone against a wall for fifty-four years."
"Even then, all I won was temporary peace—because in the face of cosmic law, no one truly protects anyone."
Luo Ji gazed at the Golden Throne, at the figure who had burned for mankind for ten thousand years.
"But they have him."
"It hurts, it's hopeless—they live in hell. Yet at least… that hell is their own."
"As long as that god remains, humanity will never be 'cleansed', never erased as meaningless dust."
"For insects, having a 'demon' willing to destroy Worlds to protect them… that's already the greatest mercy."
Luo Ji slowly closed his eyes, feeling a different chill—loneliness.
Next to the suffocating 'divine pampering' the Warhammer humans endure, the loneliness of the Three-Body humans left to fend for themselves in an indifferent Universe might be even more desperate.
Land of Light:
This is the Land of Light, the brightest place in the Universe.
Ultramen bathe in the radiance of the Plasma Spark Tower; they possess mighty power and, more importantly, noble hearts that protect the weak and uphold justice.
Yet at this moment, these giants of light are sunk in unprecedented silence and sorrow.
Father of Ultra's majestic frame trembled slightly as he watched the screen and the Emperor about to fall into the 'dark king', letting out a pained sigh.
"He has… done all he could."
Father of Ultra's voice was low, carrying a leader's cross-dimensional understanding and sympathy for another leader.
"He fell not to greed, nor was he driven mad by evil."
"He fell to protect."
"To shield the weak, he reached for the forbidden power that must never be touched."
"What a tragic choice of answers."
"Watch the children be torn by wolves, or become an even fiercer Wolf-King himself."
Zoffy stood nearby, the medals on his chest glinting. A veteran Captain, he saw through the surface to the deeper terror of that Universe's logic.
"Commander, I sense something far more terrible."
Zoffy's voice was unusually grave, even carrying a faint tremble.
"We've focused on the Warp's evil god, the birth of the 'dark king'."
"We believed that was the greatest malice of that Universe."
"But we ignored cause and effect."
Zoffy pointed to the screen, at the Imperium of Man that, even under threat from an evil god, still expands, slaughters, and shows no mercy to aliens or its own kind.
"The Warp is a mirror of reality. The 'dark king' is the embodiment of humanity's collective subconscious."
"If the collective subconscious of humanity has already twisted, darkened, and despaired to the point of birthing such a 'god of ruin'…"
Zoffy paused, then voiced the deduction that sent chills through every Ultra warrior:
"Then how cruel, how hellish must the physical reality of that Universe be?"
"In our Universe, light can defeat darkness, justice can overcome evil, because our laws allow 'hope' to exist. But there…"
Seven took over, his fists clenched tight.
"There, the environment is extreme to the limit."
"Without madness, without brutality, without exterminating every alien, without building that suffocating tyranny… life simply cannot go on."
"Because reality is more hellish than hell, their souls project such a terrifying evil god."
"That Emperor…"
Mother of Ultra stepped forward, tears of compassion in her eyes.
"He isn't battling an evil god; he's battling the Universe itself—the cruel cosmos that forces all life to become demons just to live."
"If even a Guardian must turn into a 'dark king' to protect…"
"Then what hardness, what madness must the common people forge in their hearts just to survive each coming day?"
The warriors of the Land of Light fell silent.
They're used to fighting monsters, used to saving civilizations in peril.
But faced with the Warhammer Universe, for the first time they felt a deep powerlessness.
For there, the 'evil' stems not from some monster or invader, but from survival itself.
If they went to that World only to spread light and love, they would likely hasten humanity's doom.
Unless, like the Emperor, they purged the entire cosmos and brought it under their Order.
In that dark forest, only iron and blood darker than the dark are the laws of survival.
"A Universe so sorrowful… even 'light' itself is swallowed."