"I thought you still had a few months before you'd return. So—what does the edge of the world feel like?"
"Not good. If there's a next time, I hope it's your turn to go."
The vast dome was unchanged. Beneath the pitch-black night, the stars burned with ruthless clarity. At the ancient round table, Arthur sat at one end, eyes lowered to the documents before him, while the man at the opposite side spoke to him.
"Sky and earth stretch into endless white. There is nothing there—nothing but yourself. It's a place of profound loneliness. Even the most optimistic soul would find despair waiting for them."
The man spoke slowly, his voice carrying the fatigue of a long journey.
"What happened while I was gone? Our knight-commanders are all grievously wounded, and even the Dawnward is missing from the docks."
"A great deal," Arthur replied. "I thought you would already know the rough outline."
"A blurred outline at best. I'd rather hear it from you than from anyone else. And I heard that communication earlier—so you agreed. That Lloyd Holmes is no harmless man. Aren't you afraid something might go wrong?"
The man clearly knew Lloyd's background, and the concern in his voice was genuine.
"Honestly," Arthur said, "hasn't everything been a chain of accidents from the very beginning?"
He slowly raised his head and looked across the table. The man opposite him was wrapped in a grey robe that concealed his entire body. Even his face was hidden beneath the hood—nothing visible but a vague mass of shadow.
"Several months after you left, we came into information about the Witch-Hunter Order. A Gospel Church cargo ship sank near the waters of Norbid, in the Viking Kingdom. On board was a mysterious relic known as the Sacred Coffin."
"You know how hard it has been for the Purification Agency to survive to this day," Arthur continued. "At the end of the War of Radiance, steam engines gave us dominance—but in the darkness, demons remain a lethal threat. The Gospel Church used that threat to coerce us, demanding our steam technology in exchange for the Witch-Hunters' protection."
Arthur lit a cigarette. The corners of his eyes were etched with the marks of time.
"We won a war that lasted a hundred years. We will not submit to anyone—least of all fanatics. That's why we made a deal with the distant land of Jiuxia. General Zuo Zhen arrived with the Kui-Dragon Fleet."
"The Gospel Church believed we had no means to fight demons. They never knew that, in deeper darkness, the Purification Agency had already been born."
"It sounds… important," the grey-robed man rasped.
His voice was hoarse, like that of someone unimaginably old—yet when his sleeve shifted, the hand beneath was pale and young.
Arthur nodded.
"The Purification Agency was founded in secret. With Jiuxia's technical support, we gained the rudimentary ability to confront demons—but it wasn't enough. Compared to Jiuxia's Divine Armor, the Witch-Hunters' Secret Blood was far more advanced. And the Sacred Coffin is the core of that technology."
"The core?"
The grey-robed man was visibly intrigued. He hadn't expected the legendary Secret Blood to be so close.
"From what we know, the Sacred Coffin holds immense religious significance. Beyond that, details are scarce—the Witch-Hunter Order was dissolved six years ago."
"Dissolved? Impossible."
For the first time, the grey-robed man lost his composure. His voice rose.
"Yes. The six-year lockdown of Seven Hills has finally ended. Our intelligence piled up there like unopened letters in an overfilled mailbox—most of it obsolete by now. The Sacred Coffin is one of the few pieces still worth anything. It seems the Gospel Church intended to dispose of it, but the ship sank along the way."
A long silence followed. Beneath the dome, neither man spoke—until the grey-robed figure finally broke it.
"What happened inside the Gospel Church?"
"I don't know. What matters now is the Coffin. After you left, Lancelot took charge of the mission. We searched the northern seas for the wreck, but someone got there first. We don't know who they are—but they're connected to demons. They are unquestionably hostile."
Arthur continued, recounting events that had unfolded in the man's absence.
"From that moment on, we began pursuing the Sacred Coffin. The enemy was far larger than we expected. Countless demons poured forth. Across all of Inglvig's territory, demons appear daily. The knight-commanders are stretched beyond exhaustion—Galahad has even fallen."
"So now it's Shrike pursuing the Coffin?"
"Delaying, more accurately. The true pursuit is Lancelot's task. He carries an Old-World Divine Armor. In the face of pure terror, he is the only one who can remain rational."
The grey-robed man fell silent, deep in thought. After a long while, he asked,
"How many people do we have left?"
"None," Arthur answered quietly. "Anyone else would simply die to corruption. That's why I agreed to let Shrike take that damned Lloyd along."
He spoke slowly, heavily. With the Witch-Hunter Order gone, the Purification Agency was the only remaining torch in the demonic tide.
"And there are other reasons. According to Shrike, Lloyd appears to be a Witch-Hunter."
"A Witch-Hunter?"
"Perhaps we can extract more information from him. Since Seven Hills sealed itself six years ago, Lloyd is the first living Witch-Hunter we've encountered. Too many mysteries surround him. And then there's Eve."
At the mention of her name, the iron resolve on Arthur's face finally cracked. He rubbed his weary eyes and went on.
"I failed to protect her. Her connection to the Rift reawakened in the end. The demons found her. Without that mysterious Witch-Hunter, no one could have kept the situation under control."
"That was all of our failure," the grey-robed man said gently. "You don't have to bear it alone."
Footsteps echoed as he approached, barefoot like an ascetic. Symbols and incantations were carved into the exposed skin of his body.
Standing beside Arthur, he offered comfort to his old friend. Arthur turned to him and said,
"I've been waiting for your return. We need you to oversee the development of the Old-World Divine Armor. A technological leap can only let us resist them. To hunt powerful demons, it's still not enough."
"What we need isn't vast armies—but demons just as monstrous as the ones we face."
Arthur met the dim gaze beneath the grey hood.
"Now that the Witch-Hunter Order is gone, the Secret Blood technology is likely lost forever. Even if we recover key data, it can't be replicated in time. The Old-World Divine Armor is our only path forward."
To open Pandora's box—to unleash endless calamity for the sake of a single thread of hope.
"…I understand."
The grey-robed man nodded, letting out a long sigh, as though he had finally made a grave decision. He tilted his head up toward the boundless night sky.
"Sometimes I think we're pitiful creatures… like rats hiding in the shadows. Unknown horrors lurk everywhere in the dark, and at night we hear the desperate wails of our own kind."
"At times I even feel that everything we've done is meaningless. Like a law of nature—tigers hunt deer. We are destined to be prey, and all our sacrifices amount to nothing more than futile resistance."
"But at least we resisted," Arthur said, his voice low with defiance and fury.
"We are not the same as them. Compared to those who never even considered resistance, we acted. If being hunted is an iron law, then we have already broken it—taken the first step."
Looking down at Arthur's furious expression, the grey-robed man couldn't help but sigh.
"You're still full of drive. That's good."
"I have to be," Arthur replied. "Just as I was when I founded the Purification Agency. We cannot go on living in fear."
Within his aged, clouded eyes burned steel and fire.
"Never again."