This was a terrible reunion, almost a heartbreaking one. In Arthur's mind, the old friend standing before him had died more than a decade ago—the moment he was taken into Black Mountain Hospital. His body had remained, along with a mind that had retained something almost childlike, but Arthur had known the truth even then.
Cole was dead. Mordred was dead. What remained inside that body was nothing more than a mind more than half consumed and corroded by the corruption, a muddled soul wandering in the dark. The doctors had simply never put him down, perhaps out of some lingering sense of medical ethics. After all, the value of his research had long since been exhausted.
Arthur could never have imagined that, after all these years, Cole would still be capable of speaking to him rationally. It was almost impossible to believe.
"It feels good to be able to think again."
Cole rubbed his head. With his reason restored, memories from all those years came flooding back into his mind. Every miserable moment, even the mad shouting from just moments ago, flashed before his eyes. A faint smile would occasionally appear on his face, only to be replaced by sorrow a heartbeat later.
"No. How is this possible? Your mind had already…"
Arthur could not believe it. According to the examinations conducted back then, Cole had already reached the final stage of the second phase of corruption. Although he would not continue into full demonic mutation, his reason had been completely shattered by the corruption. Yet now Cole was speaking to him as calmly as any ordinary man.
"Perhaps it has something to do with the Ranger modifications I underwent. But everything related to demons is shrouded in mystery. Who can really say?"
Cole muttered to himself.
"You probably won't believe me, Arthur, but during all those years when I had lost my mind, I think I was trapped inside an incredibly long dream. It was a good dream…"
As he spoke, Cole lowered his head in confusion and stared at his reflection in a puddle. His pupils contracted slightly. The young face preserved in his memories overlapped with the weathered, aged face he saw now, creating a sight that was almost frightening.
The last thing he remembered, he had still been a relatively young man. Yet when he opened his eyes again, he had become a rough old man, as though someone had stolen away the precious years of his life while he slept.
But the confusion and sorrow did not last long. In Cole's own perception, he was still a young man. It was only his consciousness that had been imprisoned inside this aged body.
Everything felt horribly fractured, leaving his thoughts in utter turmoil.
"The Old Era Divine Armor… Looks like you succeeded."
Cole raised his head and stared at the ghostly blue figures locked in battle with the demons. More than a decade ago, such things had existed only on blueprints. Back then, the Cleanse Bureau's main fighting force had still been the Rangers—men like them.
"Yes. And not only that. Our understanding of the demons has grown much deeper. We've even begun to see a possibility of eradicating them completely. It's still a faint hope, but compared to our era, we've come a very long way."
Arthur answered, hoping the news might make Cole feel a little better.
Fire continued to rain from the heavens. No one knew how much longer the Sweepers intended to scour this land with their baptism of flame. The corpses of demons, wrapped in blazing fire, fell from the sky while the soldiers crowded as tightly as possible into the shadows of the shelters. In truth, none of those shelters could withstand a direct strike from the fiery rain. All they could do was pray that the flames of divine punishment would not land on them.
Cole's heart churned. He needed no explanation to understand what was happening. His emotions became painfully complicated, and in the end, he could only let out a weary sigh.
It had been a demon attack that had corrupted him all those years ago. The last thing he remembered was lying on an operating table, listening to doctors whispering among themselves. And when he finally regained his reason and awoke again, he found himself on another battlefield crawling with demons.
It was as though two nightmares had been stitched together across the gulf of time.
After that brief moment of sorrow, Cole's gaze hardened. His body might have aged, but his heart was still young. He was still on the battlefield.
"What about Merlin? I remember he was sent to Black Mountain Hospital with me. Is he still alive?"
"Merlin? He left… No, wait. He's still in the hospital. But he isn't Merlin anymore. William has a successor."
So many years had passed. The people Cole had once known had either died or been sealed away in the archives after leaving the Cleanse Bureau. For a moment, Arthur thought Cole was referring to the current Merlin, but then he realized what he meant.
"He's still alive?" Cole became visibly anxious.
"Yes. But like you, he was corrupted. Now he eats anything he sees."
The statement was almost absurd, but remembering what William had once been, Arthur could not help feeling a pang of sorrow.
"Where is he?"
"What are you planning to do?" Arthur asked.
"Information. Back then, we were assisting William with an experiment. I don't know exactly what happened, but halfway through the experiment, the demons erupted inside the Perpetual Motion Pump. I don't know why, but William said he had found the [Truth]. You know what happened after that. The Perpetual Motion Pump was severely damaged, but fortunately, the contamination never spread beyond it."
As Cole spoke, he began to move. Even though his body had already begun to deform, there was still a duty within him that had never completely died.
More than a decade ago, the Perpetual Motion Pump had suffered a catastrophic incident. The previous Merlin—William—had been conducting some kind of experiment when demons invaded. All the records were destroyed during the incident, and the people involved, just like Cole and William, had been deeply corrupted and reduced to madness.
And so, during the subsequent investigation, it was as though an invisible hand had deliberately twisted every thread of the incident. The Cleanse Bureau found nothing. In the end, they could only seal the entire case away.
"I didn't know what was happening. The disaster simply erupted without warning. Our defensive forces outside never encountered a single enemy… It was as though those demons had appeared inside the Perpetual Motion Pump out of nowhere. William knew what had happened. If I was able to regain consciousness, then perhaps he can too."
Hearing Cole's words, Arthur's eyes swept rapidly across the charred battlefield.
William. William, where are you?
In the midst of such a brutal battle, they had no strength to spare for protecting these patients. Arthur could no longer contain himself and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Has anyone seen William?"
The answer came in the form of a collection of bewildered faces. None of them even knew who William was. And even if they did, who would care about some madman who bit anything he could get his teeth on in a situation like this?
Arthur felt a sudden emptiness inside. There had been many reasons why the Ranger Program had been halted back then. The severe damage to the Perpetual Motion Pump and the fact that the current Merlin had been reduced to madness were among them. But because the mystery surrounding the incident was so complicated, the Cleanse Bureau had concealed the truth.
The feeling was terrible. Absolutely terrible.
Arthur felt as though he were finally reaching toward the truth of the past, only for it to slip through his fingers at the very last moment.
"He's in Safe House Two!"
Someone shouted from the darkness.
Eve was crouched beneath a barricade formed from piles of Third-Generation Divine Armor, hacking down demons that drew near. Hearing Arthur's shout, she called toward the other side of the curtain of rain.
"That guy doesn't know how to play Ghost Hunt! All he does is bite things, so I locked him in the safe house… Maybe… maybe that's how he survived?"
Eve shouted.
Unlike Robin, who had already come to understand the cruelty of the world, Eve still struggled to accept it. That was why she had ultimately turned back to save Arthur, then organized the patients into a game of Ghost Hunt. She simply wanted as many people as possible to survive.
Arthur listened to Eve's words and gave her a deep look. Then, without another word, he charged into the research district, shouting as he went.
"Kestrel, command is yours now!"
"Wait, what? Me?"
Kestrel cleaved a demon in two. The explosions and howling wind had merged into one deafening roar, but Arthur's words still reached him clearly.
Who could have imagined that promotion and fortune would arrive on this godforsaken day?
Kestrel felt both joy and sorrow.
But there was no time for anyone to question Arthur's decision. By the time they looked toward him, Arthur had already disappeared behind the curtain of rain with the patients who had regained their reason.
...
There were demons inside the research district as well, but because the area had been sealed off, they had been unable to spread.
At first, after realizing that the elevator sector could no longer be evacuated, Arthur had planned to lead the group back into the research district. But then he realized they could easily be trapped inside and attacked from both sides, so he abandoned the idea. As long as they remained in the elevator sector, they at least had sufficient visibility to fight alongside the Old Era Divine Armor.
A group of figures raced through the darkness.
There were not many patients who had regained their reason after being corrupted, but one thing could be confirmed about all of them: they had once been Rangers.
Demons. They were everywhere.
After emptying the last rounds from his thermite rifle, all Arthur had left was the folding blade in his hand. Yet despite the years that had passed, his coordination with Cole remained remarkably sharp.
There was no room to dodge in these narrow corridors, and no retreat left to them. They were like a spear forged from iron, driving forward and attempting to pierce through everything in their path. Nothing could stop them.
And when they finally stopped, it would mean the spear had broken.
"How has the Cleanse Bureau developed?"
Even as they fought their way forward, Cole asked questions from time to time. He was deeply curious about this "future" world.
"Not bad. The Old Era Divine Armor has already reached the third generation. Most of it is supported by machinery rather than demonic flesh. Give us enough time, and we'll be able to create a steel tide. The demons will be driven back inch by inch beneath our artillery fire. A better age is almost here."
Arthur shouted over the chaos.
"The Rangers are relics of the old age now. Maybe we'll shine again someday… but we're no longer the protagonists. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?"
This was the inheritance of humanity. The turning of history. The old generation would eventually lie down and sleep, while the young stepped onto the stage.
His vision was obscured by filthy blood. Arthur wiped his face hard, clearing away the mixture of blood and rain. He could not tell whether it belonged to the demons or to himself.
His swings had grown slower. Before, a single strike had been enough to sever a demon's head. Now he had to hack at it again and again.
Arthur was tired.
In fact, not long ago, he had already thought he was going to die. Then Eve had arrived and saved him. There had been something strangely surreal about it. The child he had spent so long trying to protect had somehow grown up without him noticing. She could not only protect herself now—she could protect Arthur as well.
"She's grown so much," Cole said. "So that's her child. I never imagined she'd become this big."
"Yeah. I never thought she'd grow up safely, either. Though 'safely' isn't exactly the right word. At least she's still alive. And full of energy."
Remembering that crimson figure, Arthur smiled helplessly. Cole soon began laughing with him.
Screams and roars echoed without end. Their spur-of-the-moment expedition was practically suicide. The dim corridor trembled continuously, and no one knew how many demons were lurking in the shadows of the research district, watching them.
As they pushed deeper, the group began to suffer casualties. Some were killed by demons. Others simply fell behind.
They were patients—people who had been corrupted. Many years ago, doctors had helped suppress the spread of their corruption. But now, after all these years, they had encountered demons once again.
The corruption that had remained dormant for so long began to worsen once more. No one said it aloud, but everyone could feel it to some degree. The cold corruption was like invisible vines, slowly winding themselves around their bodies.
Some seemed able to sense its arrival.
Before they could completely transform into demons, they silently stopped walking. Then they turned around and charged toward the demons surging from behind, choosing to die as human beings.
One after another, the stragglers disappeared.
"We're almost there… Safe House Two is just ahead. Let's hope the door is still shut. Otherwise, William may already have been eaten clean."
Arthur spoke lightly. He rarely did that.
After running for a while longer, Arthur slowly came to a stop. He leaned against the wall, supporting himself with his folding blade as he gasped for breath.
"You all right?" Cole asked.
His voice echoed through the long, empty space.
When Arthur turned around, he realized that at some point, they had become the only two people left in the dark corridor.
"Safe House Two is just ahead. Make sure William is alive, then close the door. The people outside can draw the demons away. Maybe he can survive that way."
Arthur spoke weakly. He was exhausted.
At the same time, hurried footsteps sounded from behind them once more, accompanied by the thick surge of bloodlust.
"I need to rest for a moment."
He coughed violently.
Ever since the demonic tide had erupted, Arthur had been fighting at an unrelenting intensity. The Rangers' strength always came at a price, and he was no longer young. After everything he had endured, his body was covered in wounds, while his will had been battered by wave after wave of corruption.
Cole fell silent.
Of course he did not believe Arthur's bullshit. Resting in a place like this could only end one way: the demons would catch up and tear him apart.
But Cole also understood.
Arthur did not want to surrender.
He did not want to say that he could no longer run, because saying those words would mean admitting defeat. He did not want to lose to creatures like the demons.
That was why he had continued this far.
"Ah… I've only been awake for a short while, but this feeling is truly awful, Arthur."
Cole hoisted Arthur's arm over his shoulder and began dragging him forward.
"You wake up and discover you've been insane for years, that the best years of your life were spent lying in a hospital bed… It feels like waking from a single night's sleep only to discover that the entire world has changed. Fear, confusion… and then, the moment you finally regain consciousness, you discover that your corruption is getting worse."
Cole looked at Arthur's face, smeared with filthy blood, and smiled.
"I just woke up, and I'm already dying again. That's pretty damn awful."
"Of course, what's even worse is waking up to discover that the friend you remember has turned into an old wreck."
"That really is unfortunate…" Arthur murmured. "Now let me go, Cole. Go make sure William is alive or dead, then come back for me."
"But I'm happy about something, too. I woke up to find that the Cleanse Bureau still exists. The demons didn't destroy it. Instead, our understanding of them has grown far deeper. That's a wonderful thing. And you haven't lost your drive just because you've grown old."
Cole ignored Arthur completely and continued speaking to himself.
"To be honest, I was scared back there. William is already insane, and no one even knows whether he's still alive. Going after him under these circumstances, risking our lives for information we might never obtain… I was afraid you'd refuse."
"But you moved anyway. You came with me to find him without even thinking about whether you might die."
"Isn't that wonderful, Arthur? Time didn't make you timid. It made you braver."
"Are you giving me your last words?"
Arthur forced a little more strength into his voice as he asked the question.
It was a perfect scene for last words, almost like something out of a tragic hero's tale.
Arthur stumbled forward, his consciousness beginning to blur. The corridor beneath his feet seemed impossibly long, stretching endlessly into the darkness. The Safe House Two they were trying to reach felt like some distant, unreachable sanctuary.
"Something like that. I've already been corrupted. It's only a matter of time before I become a demon."
Perhaps because the corruption had begun transforming him, Cole was filled with tremendous strength. Arthur was dragged along like cargo, while Cole's other hand, already horribly mutated, gripped the folding blade and casually hacked down every demon that came rushing toward them.
"Arthur, listen to me. During all those years when I was corrupted, when I was living like a walking corpse, drifting through existence without understanding anything… I don't know how to describe it…"
Cole shouted, unsure how much Arthur could hear. He could only raise his voice as much as possible.
"I… I think I was trapped somewhere."
Humanity knew far too little about demons. And because of the effects of corruption, much of what they learned could not be passed down through generations.
Everyone could die.
But before they died, they had to pass on the precious knowledge they had uncovered.
This was an unknowable world, and they were seekers who refused to fear death.
"What did you say?"
Arthur slowly turned his head. Hearing Cole's words, he gritted his teeth and forced himself back toward consciousness.
As he watched Cole suddenly become agitated, Arthur felt an indescribable force surge through his own body. The ashes that had been burned cold for so many years suddenly gave birth to a flickering flame once more.
"Do you remember what William said? The alchemists believed that at the end of darkness, at the very edge of human consciousness, there was a place called the [Gap]."
"During all those years when I was lost in that fog, I think I was trapped in that place. The place called the [Gap]. I couldn't feel hunger or exhaustion. I couldn't die, and I couldn't be injured. I was trapped inside a scene I had seen before in my memories, and no matter which direction I walked, I could never reach the end."
"It was like…"
"The Boundary of Hell."
Arthur spoke the words slowly.
Hearing Cole's description, his thoughts became strangely still, as though fear itself had ceased to exist.
The Gospel had once spoken of such a place—a transitional land between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It was called the Boundary of Hell.
Whether it was coincidence or something else, when Cole looked back upon those years of madness, he felt that he had been wandering through a place much like the Boundary of Hell.
Or perhaps the place was simply called the [Gap].
"That's about all I can say. I don't know what any of it means. But according to the Cleanse Bureau's regulations, anything suspicious has to be reported, doesn't it?"
Cole's voice began to blur.
Arthur looked at his face. Blue veins bulged beneath the skin, twisting across it in a grotesque pattern.
"You need to survive, Arthur. You're the only one who knows these things now. You need to pass this precious information on. Even if you want to die, wait until you've told the people who come after us. Then you can die."
"As for me…"
"I think this is where I fall behind."
Cole released Arthur.
Arthur crashed onto the cold, solid floor. Before he could say anything, Cole was already leaving. Arthur struggled to stand, leaning heavily on his folding blade, but there was nothing around him except the fading sound of footsteps.
Arthur wanted to curse Cole.
He had no strength left to fight, and Cole had abandoned him here. Arthur had no idea whether he could even make it to Safe House Two.
He tried to take a step.
His exhausted body refused to move.
Despair descended upon him like a crushing weight.
But then Arthur seemed to notice something.
He raised his head.
The enormous iron door was right in front of him.