"Where is this…?"
Lloyd frowned, his gaze sweeping across a world that was at once clear and mercilessly cold. Only moments ago, he had stood within that dim, suffocating underground. And now—he was here.
Before him stood a naked man, trembling violently, as though enduring some unspeakable agony.
"So cold… Why? Why didn't you take me with you…?"
Horner crossed his arms tightly over his chest, clutching himself as if to keep what little warmth remained from escaping.
There were too many things he had never understood. There always had been. He had lived his life as something insignificant—something easily forgotten.
Step by faltering step, he staggered toward Lloyd.
"If I just… if I just kill you… then I can leave, right…?"
He muttered to himself, voice hollow and fractured.
Lloyd tightened his grip on the nailed sword, his instincts sharpening. A realization began to take shape.
That uncanny Interstice.
This place was saturated with that same, familiar sensation. Though there were no benches, no falling moons like the ones he had glimpsed before, he was certain.
This was not his Interstice.
It belonged to the man before him.
To the demon.
"So demons… can possess something like this as well? Or… are there other conditions?"
Lloyd's eyes scanned the surroundings, his mind already weaving conclusions. The habits of a detective never truly left him.
But before he could press further—
Horner lunged.
The nailed sword flashed with a cold gleam as Lloyd struck, the blade cutting down with ruthless precision.
Here, within this mental realm, Horner was no longer that grotesque mass of twisted flesh.
He had returned to his most primal essence—
His human form.
Blood burst forth, staining the endless white of the snow.
Horner stared blankly at the metal buried in his chest.
At first, there was fear. Blood poured from him in great torrents. He screamed, wailed—
Then came confusion.
The pain was absolute. Bone-deep. Unforgiving.
Yet he did not die.
And then—
He laughed.
A broken, hysterical laughter.
"This… this is hell!"
Tears streamed down his face as he spoke, his expression that of a man long since shattered.
Endless cold. Endless hunger.
And no death to release him.
He was trapped here. Forever.
But suddenly, as if grasping at the final thread of hope, he lifted his head and stared at Lloyd.
That deranged gaze made even the demon hunter's spirit tremble.
"You can come in… so there must be a way out too, right?"
"What are you talking about?"
Lloyd couldn't understand him. His knowledge of this so-called Interstice was, at best, fragmentary.
"I have to rely on my own strength… my own strength…"
A whisper echoed.
Archbishop Lawrence's voice.
Faint at first—like insects breaking through soil, almost imperceptible. But it grew. Swelled. Twisted.
From murmurs into a cacophony of screams.
What little sanity remained was crushed beneath it.
Horner's face contorted grotesquely as he hurled himself forward in a frenzy, reason long since abandoned.
Lloyd swung his nailed sword on instinct. The blade carved wound after wound into Horner's body—
But none of it mattered.
This was his world.
A world of the mind.
How could metal kill a thing that was nothing but will?
And even Lloyd himself could no longer be certain—
Was the weapon in his hand truly forged of steel…
Or merely the fragile construct of his own imagination?
The world itself seemed to respond to Horner's madness.
A violent wind erupted.
Freezing air lashed against Lloyd, frost gathering with merciless intensity.
It mourned for Horner.
And raged because of him.
"A will… can be destroyed by a stronger will."
Or perhaps—
"Replaced."
A ghostly voice emerged.
Behind Lloyd, a裂痕 tore open in space itself.
Watson stood there, smiling faintly.
She raised her hand.
Power surged forth from the silent, frozen Interstice.
And in that moment—
Lloyd saw.
He saw the flow of it all.
Power traveling from one Interstice to another. Crossing, weaving, surging with violent force.
And then—
Memories shattered into him.
Fragments like blades, cutting into his mind.
Horner's life unfolded within him in chaotic flashes.
From beginning—
To death.
A forgotten survivor. Taken in, yet never accepted. A life of quiet mediocrity, steeped in disdain—
Until that crimson figure entered his world.
"Lawrence!"
Lloyd roared.
And everything—
Collapsed.
A new will descended.
Issuing a single command:
Death.
The frozen world shattered.
Cracks spread across the snow and ice, breaking apart piece by piece, collapsing into a void of endless darkness—
Like a dying life returning to nothingness.
Under Arthur's disbelieving gaze—
The nailed sword tore through twisted flesh.
The demon hunter, drenched in scorching crimson blood, dragged himself out from the corpse—
Like something that had crawled back from hell.
The cold froze the blood upon his divine armor, forming something akin to crimson blossoms blooming across its surface—
A grotesque, dreadful beauty.
Lloyd lowered his head, still struggling to believe.
Behind him, the demon lay utterly still.
He had not pierced its heart.
He had not severed its head.
And yet—
It was dead.
Completely.
A buried truth had revealed itself.
Before fear or pain could even take hold, his mind went blank.
This defied everything he knew.
It shattered centuries of doctrine held by the demon hunters.
Even without destroying vital organs—
A demon could die.
But then—
Pain surged.
Overwhelming.
Leaning on his nearly shattered sword, Lloyd gasped for air. Exhaustion seeped into him—through flesh, through bone, into the depths of his mind.
As if something had violently torn apart his thoughts—
And stitched them back together.
"L-Lloyd…"
Arthur stood at a distance, staring.
The divine armor began to fall away, revealing half of Lloyd's face—
Twisted.
Savage.
Almost inhuman.
As though beneath that armor…
Was something no longer entirely human.
…
"Horner is dead… the connection between us has been severed."
Archbishop Lawrence spoke quietly, gazing out the window.
"Dead? You knew through that Interstice?"
The Plague Doctor asked, curiosity tinged with unease.
Lawrence nodded.
"The Interstice… is, in essence, a kind of mental world. Humans can only contain themselves within it, and cannot break its boundaries. But a demon's Interstice… can expand."
"It can connect to others."
"For communication on a mental level…"
"And for corruption."
A cold smile spread across his face.
"Like bubbles of different sizes."
"The larger devours the smaller."
The Plague Doctor shivered.
"You tampered with Horner's Interstice?"
"No. I merely left behind my corruption… more precisely, a beacon."
"It was engraved into his Interstice."
"Like marking an island in a vast, dark ocean."
"I learned its coordinates… and built a bridge."
"So I could reach him."
He explained calmly.
Horner's descent into madness under the cold had never been accidental.
The inferior Secret Blood had served as the perfect beacon.
Through it—
Lawrence had crossed the Interstice.
"The Church hides too much."
"I only discovered this after seizing the Revelation."
"In truth… the Nexus Network of the Sanctum functions the same way."
He paused, thoughtful.
"A colossal Interstice… connecting all demon hunters through 'corruption.' Each is marked."
"And through that, they communicate."
"But in turn…"
"The Church can locate them."
He chuckled softly.
A sound that sent chills down the spine.
"Just as I controlled Horner through inferior Secret Blood…"
"The Church's method of marking demon hunters…"
"Is quite fascinating."
"Secret Blood?"
The Plague Doctor leaned forward.
As a scholar of demonic life, he had already begun to suspect the answer.
"The inferior kind was made from my own blood and the blood of the Chalice."
Lawrence's voice dropped, carrying the weight of something dreadful.
"So the blood that allows all demon hunters to be marked… to connect…"
"Tell me, Doctor—"
"What do you think that implies?"
The Plague Doctor regarded him with a trace of vigilance. Beneath the mask, his pupils dilated slightly, and he spoke in a slow, measured tone.
"Hunter's blood… shares the same origin?"
That grotesque Gap—it could use its own corruption as a tether, linking itself to other infected Gaps. If one wished to reach the hunters, then the beacon they forged must be born of the same source as the Gap within the Stagnant Sanctum—just as Archbishop Lawrence could reach Hona through himself.
Secret blood could continuously emit corruption, deepening the "beacon," while ordinary contamination would fade with time, erasing the connection.
"So that means… your Hunter Order—generation after generation, all of your secret blood originates from a single demon? And that demon's Gap… has persisted until now?"
A heavy breath escaped from beneath the mask—whether born of fear before the truth, or the exhilaration of discovering a new world, none could tell.
"No… that can't be right. You couldn't possibly achieve something like this. Even if such a demon existed, it would never be something you could subdue… This is not a power that belongs to hunters."
The Plague Doctor abruptly began refuting his own thoughts, like a madman unraveling, muttering to himself.
"More precisely… it is not a power that belongs to the Shandafeng hunters."
Archbishop Lawrence looked at him with quiet meaning.
The beaked mask turned toward Lawrence. Beneath the garments, the body began to twist and deform. Yet Lawrence remained calm—he knew this was merely the Plague Doctor's agitation. In such moments, he was always unable to restrain himself.
"So… it belongs to another lineage of hunters?"
His voice carried a manic laugh. Without waiting for confirmation, he continued.
"Of course… how else could you have contained the Holy Grail so easily? How could something as intangible as will ever allow you to touch it so lightly?"
"Yes… this must be it. My research was right!"
As his emotions surged, countless bulges rose beneath his clothes, as if the fragile human form he maintained would collapse at any moment.
"Be still, Plague Doctor."
Lawrence cut through his frenzy. He raised a finger to his lips, as though warning him not to awaken some slumbering monstrosity.
"The will of the Grail fled on the Night of Descent. What remains within the Sacred Coffin is nothing more than dying flesh… Yet even dying flesh carries such power…"
He gently touched his chest—beneath it writhed that twisted, hateful mass of blood and meat.
The Plague Doctor seemed to calm. In fact, he looked delighted.
"I'm beginning to like you, Archbishop Lawrence. We truly are of the same kind."
He continued, gazing at him.
"Then let us proceed with the surgery. We'll implant the remaining flesh into your body… To be honest, I thought you wouldn't survive the first operation. After all, that was the flesh of the Grail."
For a mad scholar, truth was the most irresistible temptation.
Lawrence shook his head.
"Not yet. I need time to adapt to it."
There was always a sense about him—as if every thread of fate rested within his grasp. No matter how dire or perilous the situation, he carried the composure of someone who could resolve it with ease.
For some reason, Hona's face flickered through his mind.
That mediocre child… had, against all expectation, left a deep impression on him.
But his purpose had already been fulfilled. Whether Hona lived or died no longer mattered.
Through Hona, Lawrence had successfully determined the location of the Perpetual Pump—and more than that, he had planted a new "beacon" within him.
Ovis… or rather, Lancelot. On the night he clashed with Lawrence, he had suffered immense corruption—and that corruption still lingered, serving as a beacon for Lawrence's Gap to traverse.
"Ah… how delightful."
The Plague Doctor seemed lost in his own joy.
"Archbishop Lawrence, I do hope you live a while longer. Don't die so easily—subjects as accommodating as you are… are rare."
"Rest assured. I know precisely when I will die. And that time has not yet come."
The Plague Doctor froze for a moment, then broke into even greater laughter.
"Indeed… until we achieve our purpose, we will not die. How does that saying go again?"
Suddenly, he grew solemn, as though reciting a creed.
"Idealists are beyond saving. If they are cast out of heaven, they will create a perfect hell of their own."
Lawrence listened quietly, his eyes distant, as if recalling something long buried.
They were both incurable idealists—fearless in pursuit of their imagined utopia.
"Do you remember asking me why I do not fear death?"
Lawrence spoke suddenly.
To implant the flesh of the Grail was an act of extreme peril. By all logic, the moment the Plague Doctor placed it within him, he should have been consumed—transformed into a demon. And yet, he had survived. A miracle beyond medicine.
"Plague Doctor… my authority is Shandafeng—the foresight of the future."
His voice grew low, weighty.
"I can glimpse the future. Only briefly… but even that is enough to render me undefeated."
The Plague Doctor listened in silence.
Lawrence looked at him, a gentle smile appearing on his aged face—a smile born from somewhere deep within.
"Perhaps… decades ago? Or a century… I have lived too long. My memories have begun to betray me… The secret blood has turned me into something no longer human."
He began recounting his past.
"At the time, I did not even have a name—only a designation. The Holy Evangelical Papal State still ruled the West, and the Radiant War had only just begun…"
It was a distant past—so distant that even memory itself had faded, like ink bleeding across water, words dissolving into obscurity.
"It was an accident that changed everything. My power was pushed to its limit… and I saw the future. A very distant future."
He looked at the Plague Doctor—the same fervor burning in his eyes.
"What… did you see?"
The Plague Doctor's curiosity was almost childlike.
"The future. The distant future. The future of the Hunter Order, of the Evangelical Church… the future of the world… and even my own."
As if realizing something, the Plague Doctor asked softly,
"You saw… your own death?"
Lawrence nodded with ease, as though such a weight carried no burden at all.
"Yes. My own death. From that moment on, I became fearless—because I know the exact day I will die. Until that day arrives, I cannot die… no matter what danger I face."
"And that gave you the courage to implant the Grail's flesh?"
Until that day, he would not die.
But when it came—no effort, no struggle, could alter it.
What a peculiar sensation.
Lawrence replied,
"Perhaps."
Silence fell.
A strange, heavy silence.
They exchanged glances from time to time, only to look away just as quickly. The carriage continued forward, its wheels unceasing, until at last the Plague Doctor spoke again.
"How… do you die?"
Realizing the bluntness of his question, he hurriedly corrected himself.
"Do you… die for your ideal?"
Lawrence seemed surprised. He had not expected such a question. After a moment's thought, he answered:
"Yes."
The Plague Doctor suddenly seized his hand. Beneath his clothes, his body convulsed slightly. He looked overjoyed.
"I envy you, Lawrence!"
The sudden fervor startled him. The figure before him was trembling with excitement.
"To die for one's ideal… how magnificent!"
The carriage came to a slow halt.
Outside the window lay the central station of Old Dunling. A train bound for the port of Rendona awaited them.
Lawrence gazed at the Plague Doctor, his eyes fixed—almost as though they sought to pierce through the beaked mask and behold the flesh beneath.
After a long moment, he smiled.
"Yes… it truly is."