With the death of the Ironclad Demon, the long battle finally seemed to be drawing to an end. Most of the demons had been slaughtered in that suffocating struggle, while only a handful still lingered in the corners, gasping for breath. At their current numbers, however, they could no longer turn the tide of battle.
The Cleanse Bureau had won.
It was a victory, but a painfully costly one.
Percival's Divine Armor had become completely immobile. Sparks flickered between the seams of its steel plating. Once he was certain the area was secure, Kestrel, who had taken command, leapt forward and began prying at the deformed armor with his folding blade.
"Give me a hand!"
Kestrel's face reddened from the effort, but no matter how hard he pulled, the steel refused to budge.
"Let me."
A low voice came from behind him.
Lancelot slowly stood once more. He and Percival had both been at the center of the explosion, and his slender Divine Armor was now covered in sharp fragments of metal that looked like steel spikes. They were scales shed from the Ironclad Demon, and during the explosion they had struck him like bullets fired at close range.
Fortunately, the First-Generation Old Era Divine Armor was powerful enough to withstand it. Though it offered less conventional armor coverage, the demonic flesh incorporated into its structure gave it considerable flexibility. Most of those metal fragments had simply embedded themselves in the flesh.
The entire Divine Armor looked as though it had been beaten half to death, shattered and mangled, with the stench of burnt flesh hanging around it.
Kestrel stepped aside. Lancelot, swaying precariously, drove his battered longsword into the gap and pushed.
The Old Era Divine Armor slowly exerted its strength, forcing the twisted plating apart until the cockpit finally began to open.
"Careful."
Kestrel stood nearby, watching nervously.
If Lancelot made even the slightest mistake, he could easily run his sword straight through Percival.
Of course, Percival might already have been dead. She had lost consciousness immediately after the explosion, and the Old Era Divine Armor had ceased responding.
A pilot losing consciousness was an extremely dangerous sign.
The technology behind the Divine Armor had originated in the Far East, in the nation of Jiuxia. At its core, the technology fused demons with mechanical steel, treating demonic flesh itself as an engineering material and incorporating it into the Divine Armor. To achieve an extraordinarily high degree of responsiveness, most of the demon's neural pathways were preserved. The original brain, however, was replaced by the pilot.
Human will commanded the body of a demon.
But while the pilot controlled the Divine Armor, the power of the demon was simultaneously eroding the pilot. The two influenced one another.
Once the pilot lost consciousness and the corruption gained sufficient control, the outcome was exactly what everyone feared. The pilot would be corrupted into a demon. Worse still, she might fuse completely with the Old Era Divine Armor itself, becoming an even more terrifying creature.
In that sense, they were trying to save Percival.
But it could just as easily be said that they were trying to prevent the birth of another demon.
The Divine Armor strained.
Lancelot's battered armor forced the twisted plating apart. Rank blood and waves of heat poured from within. Kestrel immediately climbed inside, only to nearly vomit the moment he saw what awaited him.
The entire interior of the Divine Armor had been swallowed by crimson flesh. It grew wildly across the steel like vines, spreading in every direction. Beneath that mass, the vague outline of a human figure could still be seen.
Kestrel forced himself to endure the stench. He drew his folding blade and began cutting through the weed-like flesh, slowly dragging Percival free.
Her condition was terrible.
She was unconscious, her body covered in wounds. Large portions of her flesh had become fused with the demonic tissue, and Kestrel had no choice but to hack through the connections with his blade. He had no idea whether the blood covering him belonged to the demon or to Percival. Half his body was drenched in red.
"She's breathing!"
Swallowtail quickly examined Percival's injuries. As a High Knight stationed at Black Mountain Hospital, her medical knowledge was far superior to that of the others.
"What's her corruption level?" Kestrel asked anxiously.
"I don't know. We don't have the equipment to properly examine her right now… The Geiger counter. Give me the Geiger counter!"
At Swallowtail's shout, Robin came over and handed it to her.
After that hellish battle, the demons in the elevator sector had essentially been wiped out. At the same time, the burning rain had finally stopped. Reinforcements would probably arrive before long. Until then, Robin and the others kept watch over the surrounding area.
Swallowtail pressed the Geiger counter close to Percival, judging her condition from the rapid clicking.
"What a brutal victory…"
The heavy rain continued to pour over the land. Beneath the shelter, Eve looked at the devastation around her and sighed without emotion.
After everything she had endured, the girl's mind was almost incapable of producing any further emotional response. In her own perception, she had already died at the moment the demonic assault had reached its peak.
What she possessed now was a second life stolen back from the hands of death.
Her tightly wound thoughts finally loosened. Eve felt her strength leave her body. She leaned against the wall and slowly slid down, settling into the dark-red water pooled across the ground.
She had no strength left to think about anything else.
She slowly raised her hand. Her palm was deathly pale, marked by a deep red indentation left by the grip of her weapon.
How was Arthur?
How many people were still alive?
What would happen next?
Eve tried her best not to think about any of it. She was like an utterly exhausted shell, her gaze becoming dull and vacant, until someone came walking through the pooled water toward her.
"Well done, Eve. Much better than I was back then."
Blue Jade spoke to her.
Eve could not even make a sound. The battle had drained every last bit of strength from her. Even now, when she thought back on it, she could hardly believe what she had done.
Who would have thought she could cut down that many demons?
She had practically become an Inglevik Valkyrie.
Blue Jade was not surprised by Eve's condition. She helped her to her feet and injected her with Florend.
With the machinery roaring to life, the enormous elevator platform slowly began to rise. Water poured over the edges, washing away corpses and fragments of metal alike.
People leaned against one another for support as they looked toward the ceiling above them. For the first time, everyone had the feeling of having survived a catastrophe.
After the fiery rain had swept across the surface, there probably weren't many demons left above ground. Even if there were, the survivors had enough strength to deal with them. From here, the rest would be much like any other cleanup operation: find a safe location, wait for reinforcements, hunt down the remaining demons, and clear the battlefield.
Many people lowered their heads, or simply stared blankly in one direction.
Kestrel was one of them.
His eyes remained fixed on the swirling chaos in the sky above, never daring to look away.
There were not many survivors. A quick glance was enough to count most of them.
But Joey was not among them.
Kestrel desperately hoped he had simply missed him. Perhaps that bastard had been separated from the group and was hiding somewhere right now, trembling in fear.
He wanted to believe that.
But he had personally endured the nightmare that had just unfolded. Faced with such brutal reality, the thought was almost laughable.
Everyone remained silent as the massive elevator platform continued its slow ascent.
Lancelot slowly raised his head.
He was now the only Old Era Divine Armor still capable of fighting. Though his Divine Armor was battered almost beyond recognition, in a situation like this, something was still better than nothing.
For Lancelot, the feeling was actually wonderful.
He had killed countless demons.
He had saved countless people.
That was something he could never have done from a wheelchair.
His thoughts suddenly grew heavy, but Lancelot still forced himself to stay awake. He drew in great mouthfuls of air, like a drowning man desperately filling his lungs with the cold atmosphere.
Yet even then, that terrible feeling continued to creep over him.
He knew exactly why.
Lancelot had been corrupted during his very first confrontation with Lawrence. It had been his first defeat, and the intense corruption he suffered that day had made it impossible for him to safely operate the Old Era Divine Armor ever again.
Until today.
Today, he had put on this forbidden armor once more.
The corruption was eating away at his mind. And because of the King's Curse, blood continued pouring endlessly from his wounds.
Lancelot was like a leaking bucket.
He did not even need to wait for the corruption to kill him. Before long, he would simply bleed to death.
Death was coming.
Yet he was not afraid.
Lancelot did not want to remove the Divine Armor.
There was no medical treatment available here anyway. And even if there had been, he did not want it.
If he accepted treatment, he would survive.
He would spend the rest of his life bidding farewell to the glorious title he had once carried, confined to an exquisite baby carriage until the day he died.
The faces of those people appeared in his mind once more.
They looked like fleshy tumors growing inside baby carriages, grotesquely swollen and deformed, their mouths hanging open like a brood of strange hatchlings.
Living like that.
Surviving like that.
No…
No, no, no…
Lancelot could not accept such an ending.
The very thought terrified him.
He did not want that.
For him, dying inside the Divine Armor he loved was the best ending he could ask for.
"What an interesting specimen… But it seems you're going to die. What a shame."
A low voice sounded beside him.
An unbearable chill swept through Lancelot's entire body.
He abruptly turned his head.
Behind the faceplate, another crimson eye was staring at him through the narrow gap.
"Are you… Lancelot? Or was it Orvis? I remember you. We managed to come this far today thanks to you, didn't we?"
The Plague Doctor pulled his half-open mask back into place and leaned against the edge of the Divine Armor. Then he knocked lightly against the steel.
"Can you hear me? You're going to die soon anyway. Why don't we make a little deal?"
Lancelot did not answer.
Instead, he twisted his body violently, attempting to shake the Plague Doctor off his armor.
When had he gotten this close?
Lancelot had not sensed his approach at all.
The Plague Doctor was like a ghost.
Then came a wave of profound terror.
Lancelot had overlooked something.
He had thought they had eliminated every threat in the area, but he had forgotten the one who had started all of this.
The Plague Doctor.
The Cleanse Bureau still did not know his name. They did not know what kind of face lay beneath that beaked mask.
The only thing they knew for certain was that he was a doctor.
A doctor of demons.
He seemed to be researching something, conducting several forbidden experiments involving both demons and humans. It was because of the grotesque products of those experiments that the Cleanse Bureau had discovered him and begun hunting him.
Everything that had happened today had clearly originated from his hands.
They did not know how he had controlled the demons, but one thing was certain.
The Plague Doctor was a far more dangerous threat than the demons themselves.
And they had ignored him.
They had ignored the man who had not lifted a finger from beginning to end.
The survivors had not yet escaped death.
There was still another enemy on this battlefield.
An enemy far more terrifying.
"Are you listening to me, child?"
Lancelot's movements did nothing to disturb the Plague Doctor. The Old Era Divine Armor was simply too large, and at such close range, Lancelot could not find an angle from which to strike him.
The Plague Doctor clung tightly to the edge of the faceplate, his gaze behind the lenses constantly studying the man hidden behind the steel.
"There's another enemy!"
Lancelot roared.
The others had already noticed the Plague Doctor as well, but there was nothing they could do to help.
Their ammunition had long since been exhausted. Most of the weapons still in the survivors' hands were close-combat folding blades. And no one knew what other mysterious abilities the Plague Doctor possessed.
Worse, he was clinging directly to the Old Era Divine Armor.
No one could safely attack him.
"Don't be so impatient, child. Can't we just have a nice little talk?"
The Plague Doctor was smiling.
He seemed to have forgotten the purpose of his visit entirely, becoming fascinated by Lancelot instead.
"You smell like you're dying… There's something wrong with your blood?"
The Plague Doctor muttered to himself.
Without waiting for Lancelot's answer, he moved.
So did Lancelot.
Though Lancelot was already struggling on the very edge of death, he still made the most precise decision possible.
The enormous elevator platform still had some distance to go before reaching the surface.
Lancelot charged straight out with the Plague Doctor.
There had been wounded people all around him just moments ago. Given the sheer size of the Old Era Divine Armor, fighting freely could easily have injured them. And the Plague Doctor was right in front of him. He might also have continued turning the others into demons.
To prevent that, Lancelot drove forward with the Plague Doctor and reached the edge of the platform.
He leapt onto the surface.
At the same moment, his massive fist slammed toward the Plague Doctor.
Faced with the incoming punch, the Plague Doctor did not even try to dodge.
He looked almost as though he had been frightened senseless.
And perhaps he had.
The Plague Doctor had always regarded himself as a researcher, a scholar, a great seeker of knowledge. That hellish battlefield had been nothing more than an experiment to him.
In his eyes, there had never been a battle.
Therefore, he did not know how to fight.
For a man devoted to the pursuit of truth, everything he did was merely research.
Steel crashed into flesh.
Under Lancelot's devastating punch, the Plague Doctor's body twisted violently. His entire spine visibly deformed, and blood spilled from beneath the edge of his mask.
Yet the Plague Doctor was not thrown away.
His hand remained firmly hooked around the edge of the faceplate.
His twisted body suddenly tightened.
It was as though his shattered bones had reassembled themselves in an instant.
The bloodstained mask snapped upward.
Behind the broken lens, a pair of crimson eyes met Lancelot's gaze.
"So violent…"
The Plague Doctor whispered.
The next moment, terrifying strength erupted from within him.
The faceplate, already covered in cracks from the earlier battle, shattered under his grip. As he continued forcing it apart, the breach widened until half of Lancelot's face was exposed.
"So where exactly does your uniqueness lie?"
Beneath the gray-black clothing, countless bulges writhed.
The Plague Doctor pulled his mask farther apart.
Half of the face beneath it was covered in crimson, slowly writhing tentacles.
He reached out.
His hand passed through the steel and into the Divine Armor. With unnatural gentleness, he touched the wounds on Lancelot's face, collecting the blood infused with the King's Curse and bringing it beneath the beaked mask.
He tasted it slowly.
Lancelot froze.
He did not even resist.
He had never truly considered what the Plague Doctor might be.
But now he understood.
Beneath those heavy clothes was a creature beyond the boundaries of the unknown.
Something that was not human.
He had seen only a fraction of the Plague Doctor's face, but even that glimpse was enough to leave him paralyzed by terror.
Then the Plague Doctor spoke again, breaking through the oppressive silence.
"Your blood is fascinating. I've never seen anything like it."
"What a shame that you're going to die. Otherwise, I would have loved to study you properly…"
"But I suppose having your corpse won't make much difference."
He muttered to himself, sounding almost troubled.
Blood infused with the King's Curse.
It was a power the Plague Doctor had never encountered before.
An unknown power.
Perhaps because of his excitement, his entire body began to writhe strangely, rising and falling beneath his clothes.
For a man like the Plague Doctor, the unknown was simply too seductive.
It was a deformed obsession.
A ravenous hunger for knowledge.
"But for an experiment, a living subject would be preferable…"
The Plague Doctor seemed to have thought of something.
His gaze shifted toward Lancelot behind the shattered faceplate, and he extended an invitation.
"Do you want to live?"
"What did you say?"
"Live."
"You're going to die, child. But I can save you. I might even be able to solve the problem with your blood. After all, this thing has made me very curious."
As he spoke, the Plague Doctor produced a syringe.
Inside it, crimson blood churned.
"The blood of the Great Holy Grail. Far more powerful than the medical treatments of your Cleanse Bureau. In fact, it was blood like this that gave birth to the Witch Hunters."
Lancelot stopped attacking.
He stared at the Plague Doctor, disbelief and fury burning in his eyes.
"You don't believe me? This is the blood of the Holy Grail. The key to ascension. A miracle made liquid…"
"You must have seen Lloyd, haven't you? The Witch Hunter's terrifying vitality. I can turn you into one just like him…"
"A Witch Hunter?"
"Yes. That's right. A Witch Hunter."
"No matter what disease or injury you suffer, before this magnificent blood, all of it can be healed."
The Old Era Divine Armor moved once more.
The sharp longsword swept through the rain, forcing the Plague Doctor back.
Lancelot gasped for breath. Wind and rain poured through the breach in his faceplate, while his vision was swallowed by a chaotic curtain of rain.
"No…"
"This is betrayal."
Lancelot knew exactly what accepting such a gift would cost him.
"So what if it is?"
The Plague Doctor stared at him.
"You're dying, child. But inject this into your veins, and you'll have a chance to survive."
"Of course, there is a price."
The Plague Doctor watched the dying boy before him.
And the devil smiled.
"Life or death?"
"It's time to choose, child."