By the end, the so-called demons had been reduced to mere spectators. Wailing, they fled the field, only to be swallowed all the same by sword edge and roaring flame. Pitch black and searing white intertwined, collapsing into a dense gray storm that swept across the battlefield.
Ed was finally released. When that cold voice faded away, a fragile calm at last descended upon him. Then, wreathed in fire and wielding a silver-bright blade, he threw himself into battle with Lloyd.
Neither of them was in good shape. They were like machines driven far beyond their limits, trembling on the verge of total collapse.
Secret Blood was born of demons. Even after centuries of effort by the Order to make it controllable, that never meant the thing had been truly tamed. It still lay coiled within the demon hunters' bodies, restless and sharpening its claws, waiting for the moment to strike back.
Just as the Purification Agency had established precise parameters for relic armors of the Old Century, Secret Blood possessed its own critical threshold. That threshold varied by bloodline, but one truth was absolute: so long as a demon hunter remained sane, their strength could not exceed it. Once the threshold was breached, demonization would begin from within.
Every demon hunter was a terrifying single-unit weapon. The price of demonization was loss of control. In their normal state, they were monsters who hunted demons; once unbound, they became ferocious dragons themselves. For this reason, the Gospel Church imposed layers of safeguards upon the Demon Hunter Order—among them the Templar Knights who handled incidents involving demon hunters, and the Silver Binding implanted at every hunter's throat.
Ed's body was breaking down. Molten holy silver surged through his flesh, burning away his life. Yet the constantly awakening Secret Blood was also repairing him, mending wounds even as it multiplied in madness. As the Silver Binding melted down, its restraints weakened, until at last nothing remained to prevent Ed's body from being fully demonized.
What emerged was a demon of pure white, cloaked in radiance and sanctified flame, baptizing the earth and all living things. Yet even so, resistance arose. Several thorned vines burst through the wall of fire and wrapped tightly around Ed, binding him in place.
Lloyd strode forward, black sword in hand. To him, there was no demon hunter left—only a pitiful soul devoured by Secret Blood, a demon waiting to be put down.
"Attack!"
Ed growled. The demons that had cowered at the edges of the battlefield stirred at once. Their instincts screamed of Lloyd's danger, yet Ed's command forced obedience.
"Kill him!"
Another order. Boiling flame severed every thorn. Like a beast unleashed, Ed charged at Lloyd—and with that second command, the wavering demons surged forward as well, following him with hoarse howls, like sorrowful wandering spirits.
Behind the visor, Lloyd's gaze grew heavier. Ed had done it again.
According to all the knowledge Lloyd possessed from the Demon Hunter Order, no mortal could control demons. Even rudimentary domination required vast sacrifices, often at the cost of one's own life. And yet Ed had achieved it effortlessly.
Time was a terrifying thing. Lloyd had once believed it was all over. But in only six years, things beyond his imagination had risen into the world—demons long thought dead, and Ed's grotesque power.
Steel met steel. Another thunderous clash.
"What did you do?"
"Why can you command demons?"
Lloyd's voice emerged from beneath the black relic armor—dull, heavy, ringing with metal.
"If you want to know," Ed laughed wildly, "we can trade answers."
All his life as a demon hunter, Ed had fought in darkness. Even with the power to command demons, the pride of his calling had kept him from ever using it. But now he had—and for the first time, he held a bargaining chip worthy of Lloyd.
Each carried secrets the other desired. And so pure flame surged, black armor roared.
The battle had long surpassed anything an ordinary mind could conceive. The black night boiled into brilliance. The air scorched and warped. Endless demons rushed in like moths to a flame, only to die without meaning. Their ashes drifted down like snow, adorning this duel to the death.
Lloyd fought in silence. The warnings from his own Silver Binding still echoed in his mind. Unlike Ed, he would not easily cross the threshold. Beyond the surge of power lay loosened bars of a cage—for he had already seen, within the Gap, that the thing inside him yearned desperately to break free.
"Say it!"
Ed roared. His blazing blade came down in a brutal arc, white fire exploding in his eyes. This time, the solid black armor finally gave way, shattering like cracked ice. Dark plates flew apart—but beneath them was no bloodied wound, only roaring flame.
Lloyd did not bother to evade. At the threshold state, evasion had lost its meaning. The rampant Secret Blood was his strongest bulwark. His black sword fell in answer, cleaving through the fire—only to be halted at last by metal.
Under Lloyd's strike, the rampant flames were checked for the first time. Stripped of their blinding brilliance, they revealed Ed's face once more.
It was a suffocating sight. The demon hunter before him could scarcely be called human anymore. Scalding metal poured from Ed's eyes, nose, and mouth, like molten pig iron—melting, hardening, flowing along his body, finally merging with grotesquely overgrown flesh.
Even Lloyd's sword strike told the same story. It tore open fragile skin, only to meet solidified holy silver beneath—a second line of defense that blocked the blow. At the same time, that demon-lethal substance sealed away the Secret Blood within Ed's body.
"You… your Silver Binding has completely melted down," Lloyd said coldly. "Ed, you're going to die."
He wanted to speak with emotion—with hatred for a fallen demon hunter, with sorrow for a dying man. But when the words left his mouth, they were nothing but detached calm.
The Silver Binding was the Gospel Church's most perfect creation—a construct of holy silver and intricate machinery, shaped like a metallic skeleton mirroring the human form.
It was a weapon forged specifically for demon hunters. After a hunter successfully absorbed Secret Blood, the Binding would be implanted. The surgery was inhumane beyond measure, survivable only because the awakened blood granted physical capacities far beyond those of ordinary humans.
In normal conditions, the Silver Binding protected the internal organs; even bullets would be stopped by the metal buried deep within flesh. But when Secret Blood awakened, it became the final shackle restraining the hunter.
Neural electrodes spread outward from the spine, housing delicate mechanical systems. The Binding adjusted its functions through electrical signals, activating when the blood stirred, issuing warnings based on neural state and blood activity. When irreversible demonization began, it initiated self-meltdown.
Holy silver spilled outward as it liquefied, spreading along the skeleton, eventually burning the organs completely away. And that was not the end. During the melting process, it formed a seal, locking the Secret Blood within the holy silver, awaiting retrieval by the Templar Knights for reuse.
That was Ed's state now. The Silver Binding had fully melted. Holy silver coursed through his entire body. By all logic, it should have solidified, killing him like a statue frozen in place.
But this hunter of Michael possessed a will far beyond imagination. The surging Purifying Flame generated relentless heat, preventing the silver from hardening. As long as the fire continued to burn, Ed could continue to fight.
The demon of silver and white flame raised his blade once more.
Pain no longer had any meaning for him—there was only fury left in his heart. And so the fiends raged with him in kind. The demons rushing in did not strike to kill; instead, they clamped their jaws onto Lloyd's body, not to wound him, but to bind him in place.
They were as countless as grains in a sea of sand, piling upon him layer by layer, until there was no room left even to swing the pitch-black blade. Then Ed leapt high into the air, bearing flame and holy silver alike. Like a falling meteor, he descended, erupting into the most blinding light of all.
The inferno swallowed everything. Even the black god-armor melted beneath that final radiance. As for the demons, in the span of a single heartbeat, they scattered like dust upon the wind.
The sword had fused and broken. The black armor beneath it was gone as well. Ed seemed to have won. Lloyd beneath the divine armor was nowhere to be seen—vanished, as though he too had dispersed with the demons.
At last, he had won.
And yet, there was an emptiness to it.
In the instant he let his guard fall, metal tore through the air, dragging behind it a roar like rolling thunder.
Lloyd burst upward through the air, a nail-sword blazing with purifying flame clenched in his hand.
At the final moment, the witch hunter had abandoned the god-armor, narrowly evading the killing blow. He had staged his own death, baiting Ed into complacency—and in that single instant, he unleashed his most lethal strike.
His body spun through the air, grip locked tight as he forced a full rotation, driving the blade's speed to its absolute limit. It was an attack of immense risk. Had Ed noticed even a fraction too soon, Lloyd would have been struck down like a target on a range. But it was also an attack of immense reward—one strike enough to end everything.
This was a sword art that carried the meaning of self-sacrifice:
to abandon oneself, and be reborn by walking into death.
Like a falling guillotine, it brought this madness to an end.
A vast wound exploded open across Ed's chest. Uncongealed holy silver spilled forth together with grotesquely overgrown flesh. All resentment, all sorrow—everything found its peace in that moment.
As though the curtain had fallen on a hero's tragedy, Ed stood frozen. The arm he had raised to strike faltered, then fell limply at his side. At last, his entire body toppled into the pool of molten holy silver.
"So… this is the end?"
"How sad."
Submerged in liquid silver, Ed spoke unwillingly through a face half-coated in it. The rising flames stilled, then slowly faded, leaving only embers smoldering faintly—achingly mournful.
"Want one?"
Lloyd spoke without waiting for an answer. He placed a cigarette directly into the embers, lit it, and set it between Ed's withered lips.
"What is this?"
Even at death's door, the witch hunter's senses caught the cigarette's strangeness. Ed asked weakly.
"A toxin," Lloyd replied calmly. "It numbs your nerves. In the end, it lets you kill yourself."
He lit another cigarette for himself, then lowered his gaze to look at Ed.
"The secret blood will keep you alive for a while longer. Holy silver will torture you beyond endurance. Better to die like this, isn't it?"
"Euthanasia?"
"Something like that."
They spoke casually. Only moments ago, they had been enemies locked in mortal combat. Now, they sounded almost like friends.
"Actually…" Lloyd said after a long pause, as if he had finally made up his mind. He glanced at the demons lingering at a distance, too afraid to approach.
"The Night of the Sacred Descent was tied to a Messiah-class containment object. You know what that means, don't you?"
Ed's dim eyes brightened, just a little.
"So that's why you refused to give me an answer?"
Lloyd nodded stiffly.
"Yes. That thing carries memetic contamination that's nearly impossible to block. Even talking about it now risks spreading it."
"Then why speak now?" Ed rasped with a hoarse laugh. "Because I'm dying, and it doesn't matter if I know? Or because I can control the demons?"
His twisted face trembled as he laughed, terrifying in a way words could not quite describe.
Lloyd said nothing—only nodded.
"So this is pity?" Ed laughed louder, shaking his head violently. Metal scraped against metal, producing a chilling sound.
"That's not enough, witch hunter. Not nearly enough."
The answer did not satisfy him. He was about to die, and so many things no longer mattered. Whether that cursed thing broke containment, whether humanity lived or fell—before a dying man, such matters were worth less than dust.
As if he had expected this, Lloyd lowered his head in quiet sorrow, recalling his earlier dreams.
To him, the entire incident was fractured and incomplete. He had lived through the Night of the Sacred Descent, but not the Day of Divine Birth. Only that being who existed in the Interstice knew the whole truth—and the real him was already dead.
Even so, Lloyd could guess at parts of it. After all, he had been a detective in Old Dunling for six years.
He slowly sat down atop the solidified holy silver and looked at the head trapped within it.
"Ed… have you ever thought about how we witch hunters end?"
"A peaceful retirement? Standing openly as papal guards, living in the Seven Hills without fear?"
It sounded as though he were speaking to Ed—and at the same time, to himself. His voice carried venom and hatred as he shouted.
"None of that! None of it, Ed! Yes, the demons are dead—but there are still humans in this world!"
Recalling Archbishop Lawrence's words, everything became painfully clear.
"Engelwig has advanced steam technology. The Far East's Jiuxia is vast beyond measure—so vast that even with weapons a generation behind, they could drown a kingdom in sheer numbers. Even the war-torn Viking realms have begun to unite.
"The era has changed! Once, the Holy Papal State stood at the center of the world—but no longer. More and more powers are rising in this new age!"
Lloyd looked at Ed, grief written plainly across his face.
"So what do you think our end will be? We possess individual combat power far beyond ordinary men. Our order holds the most complete knowledge of demons. But having lost every advantage, how do you think we can keep pace with the new world?"
Lloyd let out a bitter laugh.
"We fight demons. We kill demons. And in the end—
we enslave demons."
He exhaled sharply, flicked away the burned-out cigarette, and looked at Ed's vacant expression. The absurdity of it all was overwhelming.
"So tell me—this world really isn't very interesting, is it?"
His roar faded. When Lloyd looked back at Ed, the man was already silent. Ash from the cigarette rested on that grotesque face. He was dead.
Lloyd didn't know when it had happened. He didn't even know whether Ed had heard his final outburst.
Slowly, he rose to his feet. His expression grew cold. He tightened his grip on the nail-sword and faced the demons creeping closer.
"With things like this," he muttered bitterly,
"what else can you call it… but helpless?"