Though he existed only as a phantom, every one of his senses flared to impossible clarity in a single instant. It was nothing like the artificial lucidity brought on by a Florund injection. This was no sharpened consciousness, but a genuine delirium—a state in which madness could be experienced in its fullest form.
The world itself seemed to have surrendered its light. Trapped within a realm devoid of radiance, Lloyd watched colossal silhouettes drifting through the endless gray. Seductive whispers and feverish mutterings echoed endlessly around him, first distant, then impossibly near, circling him from every direction as though countless unseen spirits were revealing the blasphemies hidden within the darkness.
Something viscous coiled itself around his body. A stabbing pain erupted across his back. The stale taste of rust filled his mouth.
Blood.
The lingering phantom that was Lloyd and the physical body buried beneath Old Dunling began to exchange sensations under an unknown force. The boundaries between them blurred, their perceptions entangling until both teetered on the edge of collapse.
Pressure mounted.
His body screamed warnings.
His heart hammered like a war drum.
Far beneath Old Dunling, the Black Angel pulsed with crimson light. Electrodes extended from its grotesque fusion of flesh and steel, each one long ago embedded within Lloyd's body. Through them, Merlin watched everything.
Every reading was climbing.
Once the Black Angel entered this bizarre state, the fluctuations of Corrosion became astonishingly faint—so weak they were almost impossible to detect. Such a level could never corrupt another person. Yet it was enough to stain a sheet of pure white with the faintest trace of gray, leaving behind a beacon for future passage.
But none of that mattered now.
Merlin knew such insignificant Corrosion could never produce what was happening. Lloyd was experiencing something else entirely.
The nightmare continued.
Everything unfolded with impossible speed, yet each moment stretched into eternity. Those burning eyes remained locked upon the phantom before them. Once the New Pope had fixed his gaze upon Lloyd, escape ceased to exist. Body and soul alike were dragged toward a hell beyond imagination.
There was, in truth, one misconception Lloyd had ignored for far too long.
He was a Demon Hunter—a slayer empowered by Secret Blood. The moment he first lifted a nail sword, his true enemy had always been demons, not his fellow hunters.
He understood the Authorities possessed by Demon Hunters...
Or rather, fragments of them.
Before the Night of Divine Descent, he had never truly fought another Demon Hunter to the death. Naturally, he had never witnessed the genuine terror hidden behind those miraculous gifts.
Knowledge written in books was one thing.
Reality was another.
Metatron's Authority granted Divine Armor, yet in a hunter's hands that proliferating shell could spread across weapons, shatter apart during combat, create decoys, and accomplish countless other applications.
An Authority was merely a tool.
Its true strength depended entirely upon the one wielding it.
Shang Dafeng could glimpse only a few seconds into the future, yet that alone allowed Lawrence to remain undefeated. Herkri's perfect memory had enabled him to command an empire built upon information itself.
And Seni Lothair—
A man who had ascended to become the new Pope of the Gospel Church while still a Demon Hunter.
His mastery over Authority far exceeded anything Lloyd had imagined.
Terrifying Corrosion poured from his body. As Secret Blood surged through his veins, even he began to resemble a demon.
As for the state of being a phantom—or more precisely, the mystery of the Gap—the New Pope clearly understood far more than Lloyd ever had. Judging from their brief exchange, this was far from his first encounter with enemies that existed as wandering spirits.
"I will never give up.
Never."
The New Pope spoke words Lloyd could not understand as he stepped forward once more.
Ordinary steel could not kill a phantom.
But the man knew far more than that.
Enough to know exactly how to fight one.
Trapped within overwhelming insanity, Lloyd found it nearly impossible to resist. Yet the fragment of consciousness he still retained raced desperately through every piece of knowledge he possessed.
Within the ancient whispers, an even colder truth revealed itself.
He felt as though he had returned to that desolate glacier.
Dry, withered hands clawed and pounded against the ice from below. One by one, translucent figures emerged from the dark sapphire depths beneath the frozen sea. They slowly rose to their feet, standing beside Lloyd as they silently gazed upon this world overflowing with mysteries.
He was not alone.
The New Pope's words had revealed enough.
Lloyd was not the only phantom.
There were others.
Others capable of manipulating the Gap.
And they...
Wanted the New Pope dead.
This world was wrapped in gray.
Humanity huddled together upon islands swallowed by endless fog, embracing one another to preserve the last remnants of warmth. No one looked beyond the shoreline. No one acknowledged the restless sea beyond, nor the living mist that drifted across its waters.
Better this way.
To live in ignorance.
To remain forever separated from forbidden knowledge.
To survive inside a world willingly blinded by its own fear.
Until, one day...
A madman raised a torch.
He unfurled his sails.
And steered toward the unknown sea.
That was when every story truly began.
Amid unbearable agony, Lloyd suddenly burst into laughter.
His indistinct form slowly lifted its head.
Even the New Pope seemed caught off guard that Lloyd had recovered himself. His expression twisted into something monstrous—though no living soul could witness it.
Closer.
Ever closer.
Lloyd had drawn nearer than ever before to the unknown...
To the truth of this world.
"Come!"
he roared.
"Try me!"
Within the distorted illusion, Lloyd drove a heavy punch forward.
He could no longer interfere with the physical world.
But he could invade the New Pope himself.
He could continue the battle within the realm of the mind.
He was almost there.
The phantom beast lunged at the New Pope without hesitation, ignoring every torment inflicted upon it. The final answer lay only moments away—
Then a hand seized Lloyd's shoulder.
"It's time for you to go back."
The man's voice was calm.
In an instant, Lloyd's fury vanished.
Even the New Pope froze.
Though unable to see the newcomer, his senses perceived the strange presence as clearly as a blazing torch in the deepest night.
Slowly, Lloyd turned his head.
Before he could see the man's face, the connection that had endured for so long was severed.
The invisible path stretching from Old Dunling to the Basilica of Stasis snapped apart.
His journey across thousands of miles was forcibly reversed.
His phantom body disintegrated in an instant, dissolving into empty air as though he had never existed.
Silence lingered only briefly.
The New Pope slowly raised his sword, staring warily into the empty space before him. Fire burned within his eyes like daylight imprisoned inside ivory.
"Seni Lothair...
So that's your new name."
The stranger's voice echoed directly inside his mind.
"You've chosen well."
His mastery over the Gap surpassed Lloyd's by an immeasurable margin.
"Who are you?"
The New Pope remained perfectly composed.
The man knew him.
Or rather...
He knew who he had once been.
The visitors today were unlike the countless things that constantly sought his death.
Those creatures had been predators.
These were more like rabbits that had wandered into the wrong cave.
Dangerous rabbits...
But rabbits nonetheless.
The stranger ignored the question.
"The impure gatekeepers are still watching."
His voice carried a gentle smile.
"Be careful.
As Pope, you're their foremost target."
The phantom dissolved as suddenly as Lloyd had.
Flower petals suspended in the air drifted back into stillness.
Everything returned to eternal sleep.
...
Darkness swallowed Lloyd's consciousness.
Somewhere beyond the unbearable pain, a distant voice called to him.
"Lloyd!
Lloyd!"
Someone was shouting his name.
The voice was faint, muffled by overwhelming exhaustion.
It reminded him of 121A Cork Street.
The tiny apartment where Lloyd could finally rest.
Sometimes he would sleep for an entire day while Madam Vanlud pounded relentlessly on the front door, shouting until her voice dragged him back to reality.
The sensation was strangely similar.
Like emerging from an impossibly deep sleep.
The voice grew louder.
The writhing flesh and viscous slime around him blurred apart.
Slowly...
Lloyd opened his eyes.
"Lloyd!"
Merlin bellowed.
He stood halfway up a ladder, gripping a massive iron hammer while repeatedly smashing it against the Black Angel's breastplate.
No one would have believed someone as gaunt as Merlin could swing such a weapon.
The old man looked utterly heartbroken—
As though mourning a beloved family member.
The others rushed to help, straining to lift the mechanical arms restraining the Black Angel while sparks showered through the chamber.
"M... Merlin..."
Lloyd's weak voice froze the descending hammer in midair.
Merlin stared at the grotesque Divine Armor before shouting toward its occupant.
"You're awake?"
The unconsciousness had lasted only a short while.
Yet during that brief period Merlin had argued with himself countless times.
His obsession with truth bordered on insanity, but Lloyd had collapsed before even reaching its threshold.
The thought alone had nearly driven him mad.
Fortunately...
He had awakened.
"I..."
A sharp pain exploded inside Lloyd's skull.
Again.
Just like every previous journey.
Apparently this was another aftereffect of traversing the Gap.
Just as Lawrence had warned, one's physical body became completely uncontrollable during the crossing.
Before he could gather another thought, harsh metallic grinding echoed throughout the chamber.
Threadlike strands of crimson flesh snapped apart one after another.
At the same time, the folded iron feathers slowly unfolded.
They were not wings at all.
They were blades.
Countless steel edges extended from the Black Angel's arms, spreading outward like vast metallic feathers. They grew densely across living flesh, stretching beneath the shoulders until the entire structure expanded into something magnificent and terrifying.
Their sharpened edges effortlessly sliced through the flesh and machinery that restrained them.
Merlin barely managed to leap from the ladder before the Black Angel broke free of every restraint and plunged toward the ground.
The old scientist's heart lurched once again.
Flailing wildly, he finally caught a dangling chain moments before impact and swung himself safely onto a nearby mechanical arm.
Though a researcher by trade, Merlin often insisted his agility was actually rather impressive.
Back in the old days, when alchemists fought one another over truth, it had usually been far quicker to behead a rival than to surpass him through research.
No one had time to question the sanity of ancient alchemists.
Weapons were drawn.
Researchers withdrew behind reinforced shelters.
Security squads surrounded the chamber, fully prepared to die if necessary.
Lloyd's crisis had only just ended.
Theirs was only beginning.
From their perspective, the Black Angel had entered an incomprehensible state. Its field of Corrosion had expanded beyond calculation. Moments later, Lloyd had awakened.
But...
Was he still Lloyd?
Or had something else risen in his place?
As the dust settled, the Black Angel knelt beneath its black iron feathers like a gravely wounded knight.
A pained voice echoed from within.
"It...
It hurts...
What did you people do to me?"
The agony inside his mind merged with the torment ravaging his flesh.
Lloyd was never one to complain about pain.
Yet now he hovered on the verge of blacking out once again.
"Emergency revival procedures."
Merlin answered from atop the mechanical arm, silhouetted against the floodlights.
"According to our data, once someone loses consciousness inside an Old Era Divine Armor, the demonic flesh gradually consumes the pilot. Wake up too late and you'll become neither man nor monster. Never wake up at all, and you might end up marching the Black Angel straight through the Perpetual Pump."
"We first activated the armor's internal emergency systems. They only survived a few seconds before the proliferating flesh destroyed them, but not before we injected a massive dose of Florund into your bloodstream."
"And then..."
He paused.
"We electrified the armor."
"Electrified...?"
Lloyd doubled over, coughing violently.
Every cough tasted of blood.
"Electricity suppresses muscular activity rather effectively. Primitive, perhaps, but reliable."
Merlin scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"Granted, it's also somewhat lethal... but since we were technically dealing with a demon, there wasn't much reason to be gentle."
"I was still inside it!"
Lloyd shouted.
Fresh waves of agony ripped through his body.
At this rate, he might have died from his allies long before the New Pope ever managed to kill him.
"This is an Old Era Divine Armor fused with flesh from the Holy Grail."
Merlin shrugged.
"No precaution is excessive. Besides, you're a Demon Hunter, aren't you? You're considerably sturdier than ordinary people like us."
He continued matter-of-factly.
"The pilot compartment is insulated. Under normal circumstances, the barrier activates the moment electricity is applied. I can't promise absolute safety... but statistically speaking, the odds are acceptable."
"I still got electrocuted!"
Lloyd roared.
"Quite right."
Merlin nodded without the slightest embarrassment.
"Because the insulation had already been swallowed by flesh before activation."
"The Black Angel is... unusual."
"Perhaps because of the Holy Grail tissue."
"Its biological activity is far greater than any other Old Era Divine Armor. It constantly engulfs its own machinery."
"Sometimes..."
He smiled to himself.
"I'm honestly no longer certain whether it's a suit of Divine Armor...
or simply a demon wearing a cockpit."
The severity from moments ago had vanished entirely.
Merlin chatted as casually as though they were discussing dinner.
"So then, Lloyd... think you can stand?"
Lloyd ignored him completely.
Instead he searched instinctively for light.
The steel seams inside the armor had not yet been entirely consumed by flesh.
Through those narrow gaps, he could still see the outside world.
Like a child learning to walk for the very first time, he obeyed instinct alone.
He simply thought about standing.
His body followed.
"Seeing how miserable you look," Merlin called cheerfully, "how about I buy you dinner afterward? Maybe..."
He paused thoughtfully.
"...Stargazy Pie?"
The cursed image of those grotesque fish heads instantly flashed through Lloyd's mind.
"Oh, shut up!"
"You think I'm the sort of man who enjoys idle chatter?"
Merlin replied.
Standing beneath the blinding lights, his silhouette remained entirely black.
"Lloyd Holmes."
"You regained consciousness while retaining reason."
"You communicate normally."
"Your thoughts remain coherent."
"You retain control of your body."
"And your Geiger readings have stabilized."
He never once looked directly at Lloyd.
Instead, he calmly scribbled observations into his notebook.
None of it had been idle conversation.
Every word had been part of the simplest possible test of Lloyd's sanity.
Slowly, Merlin raised his head.
Within those eyes that had remained empty for so many years, a faint glimmer finally returned.
He closed the notebook.
Then applauded.
"Congratulations, Lloyd Holmes."
"It appears..."
"You've succeeded."
Living flesh rose and fell with every breath.
The iron feathers brushed softly together.
A deep mechanical rumble echoed from within the Black Angel's chest as its steam engine continued to roar beneath crimson light.
Slowly...
Lloyd stood.
Bathed beneath the vaulting radiance overhead, the Black Angel rose to its full height, towering upon the earth like a dark god returned from forgotten ages.