The flesh and blood of the fiends fused steam and machinery into a single, obscene whole. Thus the God-Armor knights thundered forward along a road of fire carved by dragon's breath, while beyond that sea of flames, countless fiends gave chase—howling shrilly, like a pack of wolves pursuing wounded prey.
Burrow's vision was already blurring. His will was far weaker than he had ever believed. By sheer habit he removed the God-Armor firegun, then carved another path of dragonfire across the fiend-infested ground. The unbearable heat scorched the ancient armor itself; the metal glowed red, even beginning to soften and melt.
Molten iron fused intricate mechanical structures together. Burrow's legs felt frozen in place, each step harder than the last.
Perhaps the madmen who designed this God-Armor had never imagined anyone would march through a sea of fire for so long. Without the fiends' unnaturally vital flesh filling the gaps and binding the mechanisms together, Burrow would have fallen long ago.
But this was not the time to stop.
His arm reached back toward the weapon rack again—only to grasp at empty air. The firegun was spent. Through his dimming vision, the front of the Radiant was still some distance away.
It was a cruel distance.
The fiends had been watching the two of them all along, starving, patient. What awaited them would be the fiercest assault yet. In his current state, Burrow did not know if he could endure it.
"Blue Jade…"
His voice was weak. Almost at once, her face appeared within the narrow slit of his visor. She crouched on his shoulder, arms wrapped around his helmet as if embracing him.
"I know what you're going to say," she said calmly. "Keep moving. Don't stop."
She was astonishingly composed. The rising flames had ignited her cloak, leaving her in only tight leather and armor—dark and lithe, like an elf born of shadow.
There was no strength left for words. Even thinking was a struggle. Burrow fell silent again, gathered every last shred of force he had, and charged out of the fire.
In that instant, countless fiends leapt toward him. They surged like a tide, twisted arms clawing at his battered plate armor. Some used the protrusions of the God-Armor to climb, only to be cut down by Blue Jade's gunfire. Burning thermite rounds punched charred holes through their skulls, their bodies tumbling from the armor and vanishing beneath the advancing black flood.
Almost there.
Burrow swung his blade mechanically, mowing down fiends like grass. The God-Armor was unbearably heavy, yet when he charged, he was like a rhinoceros, crushing everything in his path.
The front of the Radiant was within reach—only then did Burrow realize the true problem.
To withstand fiend assaults, the entire train had been reinforced. By its original design, once an emergency stop was triggered, the doors would lock from the inside to protect those within. Because of this, the soldiers trapped in their dreamlike slumber still slept safely inside.
Now that very protection had become the final barrier.
How were they to open the door under such an onslaught? If either Burrow or Blue Jade stopped moving, they would be surrounded and torn apart.
The thought lasted only a heartbeat.
Without hesitation, Burrow grabbed Blue Jade from his shoulder. At first she panicked—then she understood what he intended. She tried to stop him, but he gave her no chance. His legs slammed to a halt, carving deep grooves into the ground, and with all his strength he hurled her upward.
She traced a single, graceful arc through the air, swaying briefly before landing firmly atop the carriage. At the same moment, Burrow seized his greatsword, twisted his entire body, and unleashed a massive sweeping arc, forcing open a gap through sheer brute strength drawn from the Old World God-Armor.
Like a dam between life and death, Burrow stood against the fiends.
He would buy Blue Jade time to open the door.
Not a single word was exchanged.
Every second was priceless. Burrow fought as he retreated, fiends pouring in from all sides. His movements slowed. Sharp hooked claws slipped into the seams of the armor. The fiends bit and tore greedily, ripping away plate after plate until the complex machinery beneath lay exposed and defenseless.
It was like the wars of centuries past. A knight clad in God-Armor once held absolute dominance on the battlefield—blades striking the armor would only shower sparks, never harming the knight within. So enemies learned to swarm the knight, restrain him, then slip daggers into the seams.
The fiends were as numerous as ants. They jammed Burrow's joints with their bodies. Once the joints locked, he could no longer raise his sword. They piled onto him layer upon layer. At last, Burrow could no longer hold. He dropped to his knees, and his vision was completely swallowed by fiends.
Only endless wailing remained in his ears—unceasing. Countless hands tore at the armor, scraping metal with shrill, agonizing sounds. The God-Armor was being stripped away piece by piece. Burrow could no longer lift his blade.
Like a dying man, the God-Armor had become his tomb.
He was already at the end of his strength. Raising his gaze slightly, he saw the fiends' grotesque faces through the slits of his visor. Blood mixed with viscous slime dripped through the gaps, carrying a nauseating stench.
Burrow was about to die.
At last, he could rest.
But just as he was about to close his exhausted eyes, he saw it again—through that narrow slit. Blue Jade was forcing the door open. She had pried a thin gap, yet behind her, countless fiends were rushing toward her.
Of course.
Burrow had fallen. No one remained to hold the fiends back.
She was going to die too.
As if recalling something long forgotten, Burrow heard another voice.
[You want to save her, don't you?]
[Accept me.]
[Become one with me…]
The eerie whisper brushed his ear, as though someone were murmuring softly to him. The fiends' faces twisted, then began to blur into the same shape. Something ancient was speaking to him…
No—not something.
This cursed God-Armor itself.
Burrow's corruption level had reached the brink. The Old World God-Armor was devouring him, asserting its dominion.
He should have refused. Even in death, he should never join the fiends. But then he thought of Blue Jade. What would become of her? Torn to pieces—or transformed into one of them?
For a fleeting instant, Burrow was tempted by the bargain. In the darkness, he reached out. Just as his hand was about to clasp the devil's palm and seal the pact—
Raging fire saved him.
The fiends screamed in agony. Boiling flames consumed everything in an instant. Oxygen was rapidly devoured, the suffocating pain snapping Burrow back to awareness. Then, a battered hand expanded rapidly in his vision.
"That's why I keep saying—men are completely unreliable!"
Amid the roaring flames, Blue Jade cast aside the spent forging spear in her hand. Her fine hair twisted and burned away in the heat. The blazing fire illuminated her resolute face. Like a valkyrie descending from the heavens, she fell upon the battlefield and saved Burrow, and countless fiends were reduced to ash.
"Get out!"
She cursed aloud. The deal had been moments from completion, yet Burrow obeyed her words without thinking. The emergency release of the Old World God-Armor activated. Endless steam burst from its seams, blasting apart the mechanisms that bound him.
Enduring the lethal heat, Blue Jade fought through the scalding steam and dragged Burrow from the shattered armor. She stepped across burning molten iron as if she felt no pain, threw him onto a fallen plate, then hauled him toward the open door at a dead run.
It was an escape forged of iron and fire.
There was no time to consider pain. Pure will alone drove their bodies forward. Countless fiends flowed past the now-dead God-Armor, chasing the two of them without end.
Berau felt the whole world lurch and reel, then it turned into pitch-black steel. Her ragged breathing tangled with the thunder of her heart, until a single metallic clang sealed the chaos away.
The fiends hammered at the carriage. The heavy metal shuddered. Berau tried to force herself up and looked toward the dim other side. Azure Jade was slumped against the door, as if all strength had been drained from her body.
No one could quite understand why she had turned back in the end to save Berau, nor grasp how much terror and pain she had endured. The arm that had dragged Berau out of the divine armor was badly burned—fabric fused to flesh, blisters of every size rising grotesquely across it.
After a long while, as if she had finally scraped together a little strength, Azure Jade spoke with forced optimism.
"Look. We bought ourselves a few more minutes."
She tried to laugh, but only a hoarse rasp came out—like a ruptured bellows.
"You shouldn't have done this. If you hadn't saved me, you might've made it out."
Berau lay weakly on the floor. If Azure Jade hadn't come back for her, she might still have had a chance to get the Radiance moving. Now neither of them could even be sure they could stand.
"Staying rational is hard," Azure Jade said casually. "Call it a moment of misplaced kindness."
In the dim space, Berau couldn't see her face—only an impenetrable mass of shadow.
"…Ah. I've been thinking about what one should do at the very end of life."
Berau stared at the black ceiling. The fiends' muffled noises filled her ears. She felt she'd found an answer, and it almost made her laugh.
"I think… doing nothing is fine. It's the last moment, after all. No need to tire yourself. Just zoning out isn't so bad."
Her pupils widened slightly. She really did seem to drift.
After a while, Berau mustered what little strength she had, rolled over, and pulled a crumpled letter from her chest. She slid it across the floor toward Azure Jade.
"What's this?"
Her voice was weak as well.
"My will. I need to ask you something—if you survive, please give it to Arthur. He knows where my family lives."
Inside the divine armor, Berau had already regretted not handing it over earlier. In the end, that wish was still fulfilled.
"Do you think you're going to die?" Azure Jade asked.
"Isn't that obvious?"
Silence stretched on. At last, Azure Jade spoke again.
"You owe someone another debt."
Berau smiled faintly. "Even the dead don't get a free pass, huh?"
It wasn't a funny joke. The silence returned. The fiends clawed at the carriage. Though reinforced, it clearly wouldn't hold forever—and with that strange corrosion spreading, death was inevitable. Or worse: becoming one of them.
"Maybe you'll be the one who lives, Berau," Azure Jade said suddenly.
"If I'd known, I would've written a will too. This job really is high-risk."
She chuckled. If she'd chosen prison instead, with her ruthlessness, she might've ended up running the place.
"Berau… I lied earlier."
That snapped Berau's attention back.
"About what?"
"My past. My will."
Her exquisite eyes held remembrance—nostalgia for what once was.
"Some stories have to be remembered. If no one remembers them, then the person truly dies."
"Who?"
"My father."
Berau froze. She remembered that Azure Jade's relationship with her father had been… poor. Much of where she stood now was because of him.
As if sensing Berau's confusion, she shook her head.
"I mean my biological father. Not the stepfather—the one bound by social ties."
It was a deeper past. One she had never spoken of.
"After the Radiant War ended, he and my mother had me. At first, it was a good story. But then he began drinking. He started beating my mother."
Her gaze grew distant. Everything seemed to quiet. Berau found herself holding her breath as this enigmatic woman revealed her true past for the first time.
"My mother believed time would make him better. It didn't. He stopped working. Our finances collapsed."
"Everything changed in one winter. The winter that changed everything."
Azure Jade spoke calmly. She slowly raised her hand—too much force. The burn blisters burst, pale yellow fluid dripping down with the pain.
"He was drunk again. Passed out in the snow. It was snowing hard, covering him in a thin layer. I saw him. Normally, I would've woken him and brought him home. But that day, a strange thought came to me."
She laughed softly.
"What if… I just pretended I didn't see him? If I went home like nothing happened, with snow like that, he'd freeze to death before morning. No one would ever hit my mother again. The money for alcohol could go to better things. Our family might finally turn around."
Perhaps because of her injuries, her voice was unbearably hoarse.
"Later that night, my mother realized he hadn't come home. She went out looking, frantic. She couldn't find him—of course she couldn't. With snow like that, even a giant bear would disappear. She came back. I said nothing. But she looked at me like she knew. She knew what I was thinking."
Azure Jade forced a crooked smile.
"Of course she knew. She was my mother. She sensed what I'd done. She begged me to take her to him. I stayed silent, pretending ignorance. Then she hit me. She screamed at me. In the end, she knelt before me and begged."
Something seemed to tear open, exposing what was fragile inside.
"That was the first time I saw her cry. I still stayed silent. I thought she was foolish—incurably foolish. As if everything wouldn't be better once he was dead."
"And then he really did die. In spring, when the snow melted, we found him. After that, my mother never spoke to me again. After a simple funeral, she married my stepfather."
"Life didn't get better. It got worse. I didn't understand why. No one was hitting her anymore. No one was stealing her money for drink…"
"I didn't do anything wrong. Right?"
She looked at Berau. For the first time, the kingfisher—this valkyrie—was utterly broken.
"On the last day before I fled that place, I went back home. Like one final look. In a dusty cabinet, I found many things—a medal from the Radiant War, a family photograph. I saw my father there… and people I had never met."
"Later, in Old Dunling, I learned the truth—what the Radiant War really was, what some soldiers went through. Everything finally made sense."
"Too late."
Azure Jade fell silent. In the uncanny stillness, only the fiends' howls remained—yet now, they sounded almost light.
"Someone has to remember," she said at last.
Berau paused, then nodded solemnly.
Some stories must be remembered. As long as they are remembered, they remain—like thorns of self-punishment lodged in the heart. This was Azure Jade's secret. Her final secret. Her only secret.
Why everything turned out this way—she no longer knew. The only person who could have given her an answer had fallen asleep in that winter. She would never have it.
"So that's my will. If you live… please remember this story."
The fragile little girl vanished. She hardened once more, forcing herself upright despite the pain.
"But nothing is truly reliable—least of all you. So if there's a chance to live… you should try."
Panting, Azure Jade braced herself against the carriage. Her feet were badly burned; every step was agony.
The Radiance's control console was just ahead. The unlucky driver was still sprawled nearby, blissfully unconscious. She pushed forward—then, like lightning tearing through her nerves, she snapped her gaze to Berau.
Berau looked back. They shared the same realization.
Something was gone.
The strange presence that had blanketed the entire area—it had vanished.
The twisted dream.
At the edge of despair, hope flickered. But in the next instant, the fiends' wails fell silent. In the dead quiet, heavy footsteps approached—thudding like a drum against the heart.
Azure Jade grit her teeth and drew the folding blade from her waist, her trembling hand pointing at the door. The footsteps stopped.
It was already there.
A black blade pierced through the seam of the door. It twisted. Metal screamed as the supposedly indestructible door was forced open. Beyond the gap, blazing white flames roared.
"Yo, Berau. Still not dead?"
Black divine armor tore the carriage open. The demon hunter smiled down at Berau sprawled on the floor—behind him, corpses lay shattered, blood flooding the ground.