The endless radiance of the heavens poured down upon the battlefield, illuminating the devastation left behind.
The clash between two monstrous extremes had finally come to an end. The violence had faded, leaving behind only a landscape dreadful enough to chill the soul.
Blood mingled with shattered machinery, strewn across the ground like the remains of some grotesque slaughterhouse where steel and flesh had once become one. The stench of hot metal, oil, and fresh gore fused into something nauseating, assaulting every breath drawn by those who stood witness.
The writhing mass of intertwined flesh slowly fell dormant. As Lloyd severed the connection between the two, the berserk Divine Armor was stripped of every last trace of power. It remained frozen in a half-kneeling posture atop the twisted wreckage of steel, silent as a fallen titan.
Night Owl stared at Lloyd in disbelief.
The light behind him concealed every detail, leaving only a dark silhouette—as though he were a living shadow cast beneath the sun itself.
"Are you all right?"
Lloyd's voice broke the silence.
He had unleashed the power of the Black Angel... and remained conscious.
The corruption had still shaken him, however. Rage—alien, violent rage—had clawed at his mind. That brief disturbance had been enough to worsen Sword Dancer's fate. His original intention had merely been to cripple the armor, yet in the heat of that fury he had struck several more times, reducing the once-proud machine into nothing more than irreparable scrap.
"I... I'm fine..."
Night Owl answered blankly.
He had stood so close to death that, for a fleeting moment, he had already accepted it. Then the figure cloaked in darkness had extended a hand toward him.
...
"What... happened?"
Leaning over the edge of the elevator platform, Nikola looked down at the battlefield below.
He had already prepared himself for the worst—for another Divine Armor running completely out of control.
Yet just as everything seemed destined to descend into catastrophe...
Everything stopped.
The Geiger readings steadily declined.
The shrill alarms that had echoed through the facility gradually fell silent.
Every face bore the lingering terror of those who had narrowly escaped disaster.
Then Merlin laughed.
"I suppose... that's exactly what one should expect from a Demon Hunter."
His gaze remained fixed on Lloyd below, admiration undisguised.
"He didn't lose control?"
Only then did Nikola finally recover from his shock.
If the Black Angel had truly gone berserk, it never would have stopped. Night Owl would have been its first victim.
Nikola himself would have followed shortly after.
"Of course not."
Merlin answered calmly.
"He's a Demon Hunter—a Demon Hunter who carries Secret Blood."
"In many ways, awakening Secret Blood follows the same principle as piloting a Divine Armor. Both require a mortal will to awaken a forbidden power... and then remain conscious beneath unimaginable pressure."
He applauded softly.
Lloyd had proven more than the capability of the First Generation Divine Armor.
He had proven himself.
"We're different. When we pilot Divine Armor, all we need to do is resist its corruption."
"But Demon Hunters spend their entire lives beside forbidden power. Every waking moment, every battle, every breath—they endure that corruption. Years of constant resistance have forged their wills into something almost impossible to break."
He smiled faintly.
"So tell me... how could the corruption of a Divine Armor possibly shake someone like him?"
"But the restraints..."
Nikola hesitated.
Unlike Merlin, he understood almost nothing of these mysterious subjects.
He trusted equations.
Data.
Numbers that could be measured.
Merlin chuckled.
"It's simple."
"Do you think a swordsman can display his full strength while wielding nothing but a rusted blade?"
"The Black Angel is no different."
A restrained Black Angel could never unleash Lloyd's true potential.
Together, pilot and machine completed one another, becoming something worthy of nightmares.
"Such overwhelming individual combat ability..."
Merlin never looked away from the battlefield below, where Lloyd was prying apart twisted steel with brute force, trying to pull Night Owl from the ruined cockpit.
"And remember—this is Lloyd's first time piloting it."
"No external weapon systems."
"No support equipment."
"And yet he dismantled a fully armed Sword Dancer with ease."
Nikola remained silent for a long while before finally asking,
"Then... should we continue developing the First Generation Divine Armor?"
As Merlin's personally recommended protégé, Nikola represented Perpetual Pump's faith in rational science. Rumors had long circulated that he would usher in an entirely new era.
Now Lloyd had demonstrated the terrifying potential of the First Generation—a machine born from demonic technology.
Perhaps...
Reason itself would soon lose its place.
Yet Merlin slowly shook his head.
"No."
"Quite the opposite."
"We must devote everything we have to developing the Third Generation."
Nikola frowned.
"Why?"
Merlin stood there quietly for a moment.
Then something seemed to stir within the depths of his memory.
When he finally spoke again, his voice carried an almost childlike innocence.
"Because..."
"This is the future."
"Just like alchemy before it, the First Generation Divine Armor is immensely powerful and astonishingly efficient."
"But it can only serve the few."
"A very small handful of extraordinary people."
He glanced toward Nikola.
"Do you really believe ordinary men possess the resistance of Demon Hunters?"
Alchemy is dead.
The last alchemist had never abandoned that belief.
Not then.
Not even now.
"The Third Generation belongs to us."
"To the many."
"Even without undergoing the extreme enhancements of a Knight Commander, an ordinary knight like Night Owl can still stand against a First Generation Divine Armor once properly equipped."
"Perhaps one soldier cannot defeat it."
"But what about hundreds?"
"Thousands?"
"Hundreds upon thousands of fully armed machines forged by the industries of the Old Century."
"They will become a tide of steel."
"An unstoppable flood of death."
"The efficiency of modern industry is our greatest strength."
"And now we've discovered crude oil."
"A new source of energy."
"That is the future."
"The future of the many."
"The future of Divine Armor."
Nikola stared at Merlin in disbelief.
Only after a long silence did he quietly ask,
"So... when that day comes..."
"Alchemy will simply be forgotten."
"Won't it?"
"It is the progress of an age."
Merlin answered almost without emotion.
"The superior replacing the obsolete."
Nikola lowered his head.
"Then..."
"You'll never reach the Truth you've spent your entire life pursuing."
"Will you?"
Nikola was no alchemist.
Yet after so many years beside Merlin, he knew that beneath that terrifying rationality lay moments when even Merlin could falter.
Whenever Truth appeared before him...
His reason wavered.
Like a starving man before a feast.
Like obsession slipping quietly into madness.
And yet...
If Merlin truly chose this future...
Then perhaps he would never glimpse that Truth again.
For reasons unknown, ancient memories surfaced within Merlin's eyes.
"I don't know why..."
He murmured softly.
"But suddenly..."
"I remembered my teacher."
Nikola remained silent.
He had no idea how to respond.
Perhaps it was reverence.
Perhaps fear.
He had entered Perpetual Pump through extraordinary circumstances, and though Merlin had never once acknowledged it aloud...
Nikola had always regarded him as a teacher.
Merlin continued speaking, almost as though talking only to himself.
"When a person lives long enough..."
"Even the past becomes blurred."
"But every now and then..."
"A memory returns."
"And it feels..."
"As though an entire lifetime has already passed."
A tear slowly rolled down from those hollow eyes.
It looked utterly unnatural.
"Merlin..."
Nikola froze.
He had never imagined Merlin could cry.
In truth, he had never imagined someone like Merlin possessed tears at all.
The true leaders of the Purification Agency had always seemed less like people than cold statues carved from stone.
No matter how cruel a decision might be...
They carried it as lightly as a feather.
Most of the time...
They scarcely resembled human beings.
Nikola had often believed they were merely monsters wearing human skin.
Only monsters...
Could stand against monsters.
"Those were unforgettable days."
Merlin smiled faintly.
"I suppose everyone's happiest memories come from their years as students."
He spoke gently.
Classrooms.
Friends.
Laughter.
Even those awkward, innocent first loves.
"Perhaps yours are the same, Nikola."
"There is something enchanting about life on a campus."
"I was no exception."
"Even if I was an alchemist."
He laughed quietly before Nikola could answer.
Perhaps he had never expected one.
"If people are sculptures made from clay..."
"Then those years are when we're still soft enough to be shaped."
"Everything we encounter leaves its mark."
"The man I am today..."
"Was largely forged back then."
"My teacher changed me more than anyone."
"The first thing he ever taught me..."
"Was how to wield a sword."
"Then he took me from one alchemist's door to another..."
"...cutting them down."
"Well..."
"The cooperative ones we spared."
He suddenly turned toward Nikola.
"Do you think we were mad?"
Tears still streamed from those vacant eyes.
The sight was profoundly unsettling.
Yet all Nikola felt...
Was sorrow.
"The idea that 'alchemy is dead'..."
"It was my teacher who first spoke those words."
"But in the beginning..."
"He truly wanted to save it."
"He was an extraordinary alchemist."
"And a formidable swordsman."
"He believed alchemists had remained divided for far too long."
"Each clinging greedily to their own knowledge."
"Refusing to share."
"Refusing to unite."
"And so alchemy continued its decline."
"So I followed him across the world."
"We used our swords to persuade those stubborn old fools."
"We tried to unite every alchemist alive."
"To gather every fragment of knowledge..."
"And reconstruct the face of Truth itself..."
His voice suddenly stopped.
The tide of memory swallowed him whole.
Only after a long silence did he continue.
"But humanity..."
"...is both laughable and pitiful."
"Everything we did..."
"Was meaningless."
"My teacher..."
"The man once filled with boundless passion..."
"Eventually broke."
"'Alchemy is dead.'"
"It was destined to die."
"Or perhaps..."
"It had always been dead."
"It tempts humanity forward..."
"Only to leave us forever crippled."
"We can do nothing..."
"...except kneel before the gates of Truth..."
"...and beg."
Nikola stood speechless.
For the first time...
He felt that there were depths within Merlin no one had ever truly known.
Everyone knew Merlin carried countless secrets.
Few had ever wondered...
What secrets Merlin himself carried.
To hear this story—
of a man who had once fought with blood and steel to save alchemy...
Only to become the one who declared its death—
left behind nothing but desolation.
"To pursue Truth?"
Merlin said quietly.
"It is a beautiful ideal."
"But ideals..."
"Are always replaced..."
"By better ideals."
His expression returned to its familiar emptiness.
Emotionless.
Unreadable.
As though nothing had happened.
It had always been this way.
One could only guess what lived behind those vacant eyes.
"I've always believed one saying."
"We are travelers walking across fragile ice."
"We press onward through freezing winds toward a destination we are destined to reach."
"But the ice..."
"Cannot bear our weight."
"So as we walk..."
"We must keep abandoning pieces of ourselves."
"It is no different from reason, Nikola."
He looked at the young man whose pale face was marked by endless nights without sleep, dark circles hanging beneath weary eyes.
"We must preserve our reason."
"But humans are pathetic creatures."
"We possess desire."
"Emotion."
"And so..."
"At least within me..."
"There exists a cliff."
"A cliff?"
Nikola whispered.
"The Cliff of Reason."
"Lazy Merlin."
"Angry Merlin."
"Ridiculous Merlin."
"One after another..."
"They walk to the edge."
"And Reasoned Merlin..."
"Pushes them over."
"They fall..."
"Into the abyss."
The alchemist spoke with complete indifference.
Yet every word inspired terror.
Nikola could almost see them—
Countless Merlins stretching for miles.
Silently marching toward the cliff.
Stepping into empty air.
"Cowardly Merlin."
"Greedy Merlin."
"Weak Merlin."
"They're all dead."
"Their corpses fill the valley."
"They've piled into mountains."
"But even that..."
"Isn't enough."
"Our destination remains far away."
"So if we wish to keep walking..."
"We must preserve our reason."
"And that means..."
"Killing even more emotions."
His voice never rose.
Its calmness carried a coldness sharper than any blade.
This was self-destruction.
Yet somehow...
Within this underground world...
Everyone seemed to be doing the very same thing.
Nikola forgot to breathe.
Endless figures leapt from the heights of Reason.
Bodies smashed against the rocks below.
Fresh corpses buried older ones.
Again.
Again.
Without end.
"Sometimes..."
"The other Merlins don't want this."
"Comfortable Merlin wants to give up."
"He wants to run away."
"Suffering Merlin can no longer endure it."
"He screams."
"He begs."
"He tries to leave."
"But they die all the same."
"Killed by Reasoned Merlin."
"He is a cold-blooded murderer."
"He hunts everything..."
"...except reason."
Merlin laughed softly.
Sometimes...
Reason and madness were separated by only a single step.
Even the wisest physician could no longer distinguish between them.
"For the sake of that noble ideal..."
"Reason kills everything that might interfere."
"So Stubborn Merlin..."
"Yearning Merlin..."
"Selfish Merlin..."
"Even the Merlin who pursued Truth..."
"They were all pushed into the valley."
Upon the edge of the cliff stood Reasoned Merlin.
The storm howled around him.
His face was devoid of warmth.
A bloodstained sword rested firmly in his hand.
He believed himself righteous.
Yet that very sword carried out the cruelest slaughter imaginable—
like the weapon of a lunatic.
Again and again...
He whispered to himself.
"Remain rational..."
"Remain rational..."
Only through reason could he make the correct decisions.
Only through reason could he resist the corruption of demons.
Only through reason could this endless night finally witness the coming dawn.
Remain rational.
A gentle rain began to fall from the vaulted heavens above.
It washed over bloodstained walls of iron, cleansing the lingering corruption left behind by the taint.
The rain soaked Nikola.
It soaked Merlin as well.
Neither man spoke again.
They simply stood together in silence...
Waiting for it all to come to an end.