The heavy iron doors swung open one by one before Lloyd. After warning Red Kite that something felt wrong, he pressed forward without hesitation, heading toward the very front of the train—toward where Shrike was.
Lloyd's intuition had been sounding the alarm all along. Such things were elusive, difficult to define, yet he knew one truth with certainty: more times than he could count, that instinct had dragged him back from the edge of death.
His hand never left the sword hilt. He watched every soldier around him with vigilance.
From his days in the Demon Hunter Order, Lloyd knew the rule well. When dealing with fiends, the Order favored precision—elite force, minimal numbers. Too many hunters only increased the risk of corruption. Once things spiraled out of control, comrades could turn into enemies, one by one.
On every level, that was a blow too heavy to bear.
"Shrike! Do you read me?"
In the gap between two carriages, Lloyd vaulted up onto the roof. From here, he could see more.
"Lloyd? What's going on?"
Shrike's voice came through the channel tangled in harsh static, barely distinguishable.
"Something's wrong. The fiends are still close!"
Endless gale-force wind rushed toward him. Lloyd stood atop the carriage, staring into a profound darkness. Beyond the headlights at the very front, there was not a single point of light to be found.
Someone once said the world was an unknown sea, and humanity mere islands scattered upon its surface—surviving by chance alone. To step into that sea of madness was to invite annihilation.
"The Geiger counter shows nothing…"
"That thing isn't reliable."
Lloyd cut him off sharply.
"You know their traits as well as I do. When fiends descend, 'light' disappears— not just the light we think of. Sunlight, lamplight, starlight—every manifestation of the concept itself vanishes."
He sprinted along the roof, his boots hammering against steel, each step ringing like a funeral bell.
"So what about your Geiger counter? How far can it even detect? What if the fiends are outside its range?"
Inside the carriage, Shrike froze mid-adjustment of his weapon.
Yes—how far was the counter's range? And if the fiends were beyond it…
"What's wrong, Shrike?"
Blue Emerald noticed the pause, her voice edged with concern.
Shrike raised a hand, signaling her to stay quiet, and spoke again into the channel.
"Have you noticed anything specific?"
"Of course," Lloyd replied. "Don't you think this night has gone on far too long?"
Facing the roaring wind, Lloyd looked eastward—the direction where the sun should rise. Yet it remained shrouded in unbroken darkness.
His memory was sharp. As a demon hunter, he had undergone more specialized conditioning than the Purification Agency ever knew. Even now, Lady Vanloth's map was etched clearly into his mind.
"What time is it now?" Lloyd asked.
"Three a.m."
Hearing the reply, Lloyd fell silent for a moment. He slipped his pocket watch away. Its hands clearly read four a.m.
"Shrike," he said slowly, "you're certain the time is correct?"
The communicator answered only with crackling interference—Shrike was probably swearing under his breath. Lloyd didn't need the words. He already understood.
"Shrike," he said, his voice tinged with a strange nostalgia, "based on my experience as a demon hunter, I've got one piece of good news and one bad."
"The time scale has become abnormal. Reality—and even our senses—has been distorted, corroded to a degree. Which means we're approaching a massive contamination source. One large enough to cause all of this."
As if another thought had surfaced, he continued.
"Do a final check on those Geiger counters. I think they did work—only they hit the radiation threshold the instant we got close… and burned out."
It was the only explanation Lloyd could reason out.
But there was no reply. Only static flooded the channel, like countless亡魂 wailing within that cursed frequency.
Just as Shrike had said—the damned communicator was jammed. Lloyd's connection to them was severed.
It was the train. They were barreling toward the contamination source at extreme speed. There was no longer any chance to turn back.
Ahead lay pure darkness. An invisible, colossal force had already settled over the area. Everyone was being subjected to an assault upon their very will—only this time, the force behind it was cunning. It heated the water slowly, patiently, until the moment it boiled—by then, no one would realize what had happened.
A sudden chill brushed Lloyd's cheek. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on the sword. His free hand touched his face—cold droplets.
The next instant, torrential rain slammed into the blackened train, like icy steel needles piercing his skin.
And so, the scroll of hell unfurled before his eyes.
The scene was grotesque, unreal. The rain felt like a waterfall, and the train seemed to pass straight through it—plunging fully into the storm. Beyond it, another world revealed itself.
Without thinking, Lloyd drove his blade down into the carriage roof to anchor himself—but he was a moment too slow.
A massive tentacle surged up from the blackened ground, smashing violently into the carriage. There was no time to react. Twisted flesh swallowed him whole in an instant.
White-hot fire churned within his pupils. Lloyd had faced worse as a demon hunter. His blade carved savagely through the warped meat—but just as he was about to sever it completely, something beyond his expectations occurred.
The viscous flesh regenerated at terrifying speed. In a heartbeat, both Lloyd and the rapidly speeding Radiant were engulfed.
More tentacles rose from the ground, coiling around the train, forcing it to a halt. The soldiers never even had the chance to open fire—an even heavier corruption struck directly into their minds.
This was a premeditated assault.
Within a handful of breaths, the entire train fell silent.
Warm flesh bound the soldiers fast. Shrike and Blue Emerald collapsed amid the web-like tentacles. Lloyd himself sank into the deepest black.
The steam engine howled weakly, but it was pinned immovably to the earth. Only the cold rain continued to pour, as though the ocean itself had been overturned.
How long that unnatural silence lasted, no one could say.
Across all channels—dead.
From the far end of the darkness, a dim green glow slowly rose.
At the deepest point of this nightmare, a girl pushed open a carriage door. The violent impact that had stopped the train had nearly knocked her unconscious. When she finally regained her senses, the carriage was filled with pink, pulsating flesh. No matter how she shook him, Red Kite remained trapped in an unbroken sleep.
Eve gazed upon the warped world around her. Aside from the sound of rain, it seemed she was the only one left. The immobilized tentacles stood across the land like small mountains.
As if the world itself had abandoned her—
She alone remained awake.