“So why, in the very beginning, did you not attempt to contact Suya-Lan Hall? This fiend acts with such deliberate purpose. By all reason, their inspectors would have been of greater use… would they not?”
The carriage had become Lloyd’s temporary office. He and Joey sat facing one another within the narrow wooden confines, a folding table between them stacked high with dossiers of the dead.
“There were many reasons,” Joey replied slowly. “The Cleansing Mechanism maintains its own investigative corps. And this… this was our first encounter with a rational demon. As for why we refrained from involving Suya-Lan Hall—the crime scenes were steeped in residual corruption. Ordinary men would not withstand its influence.”
In every struggle against demons, the most insidious element was that creeping contamination—an erosion of the mind. It was as though foreign monks knelt at one’s shoulder, whispering endlessly in an alien tongue, their murmurs threading through thought and marrow until madness took root.
Those permitted to handle demonic incidents were trained to endure such strangeness, to hold fast to their reason in the face of it. Higher still were knights like Joey—specialized, consecrated—beings who could truly meet a demon’s gaze without flinching.
Absurd. Loathsome. Beyond mortal comprehension or measure.
Lloyd lifted a file. Through the seams of the carriage doors seeped the winter wind of Old Dunling, cold and thin as a blade. As he turned the pages idly, the identities and stations of the victims began to assemble into a fractured narrative within his mind.
The first deceased was Rowe, a man nearing forty, originally from a city beyond Old Dunling. Like so many who had come seeking fortune, he had once held respectable employment in a factory. But drink claimed him during working hours; he was dismissed. From there he drifted downward, into the Lower District, into the ranks of a gang. Not a leader. Not even a trusted hand. Merely one among many.
He was found dead in his own dwelling. Before death he had suffered greatly. The killer left blood-scrawled words of vengeance upon the walls. It was the Cleansing Mechanism’s first confirmation of demonic activity—residual corruption lingered so heavily that the Geiger readings within the house remained unnervingly high.
This was the beginning. The first name upon the demon’s ledger of revenge.
Lloyd fell into thought. From the first victim alone, much could be inferred. As in cases he himself had once pursued—whoever was taken first always knew something. Under torment, the demon must have extracted the whereabouts of the others.
The second victim was named Doren. Of similar age to Rowe. The file revealed they were countrymen—friends who had journeyed together to Old Dunling. Doren worked in a shop, and after Rowe lost his position, he had visited him several times.
The cause of death was nearly identical. Found brutally slain in his own home. The demon’s second act of retribution.
Just as Lloyd had suspected. At the outset, the demon likely knew only Rowe’s location. Under torture, it learned of the others, and then hunted them one by one. And since Rowe and Doren shared a homeland, it was highly probable the demon did as well.
“They’re from… Berhans.”
At the final page, Lloyd’s brows knit in surprise. Their hometown was Berhans—the greatest industrial city in Ingervig, home to the renowned Berhans Armaments Foundry.
Yet that realization birthed another question. Berhans was vast, brimming with industry and opportunity. Why, then, would these two travel so far to Old Dunling in search of work?
With that doubt lingering, Lloyd opened the next file.
The following victims were the Naide couple—the very case Lloyd had assisted with at the behest of Suya-Lan Hall.
Mrs. Naide was the woman discovered dead within that blood-soaked house. Mr. Naide was the body Lloyd himself found during pursuit. Though husband and wife, they had been living separately after a quarrel—yet not far apart. That explained why, after killing Mrs. Naide, the demon continued its slaughter.
And last of all—the most recent victim discovered today: Hughes, a gang leader of the Lower District.
A dull ache pressed against Lloyd’s temples. His task now was to weave these disparate lives into a single thread. Their statuses differed, their roles differed—but somewhere they intersected. And in that intersection lay the reason their names were inscribed upon the demon’s list of vengeance.
“Were there no witnesses?” Lloyd asked.
So many savage acts—he did not believe the demon could have executed them flawlessly each time. Someone must have seen something.
Joey shook his head, disappointment shadowing his face.
“That is precisely what makes demons so troublesome. We have several witnesses. They saw it directly. And—strangely—the demon did not kill them.”
He paused.
“The result is that each of them suffered severe psychological trauma. They are recovering in hospital. None are in a state to answer questions.”
That strange corruption—the creeping madness—remained the greatest obstacle in opposing such beings.
“What of indirect traces?” Lloyd pressed. “No one observed its departure? No lingering trail?”
“None. It’s… peculiar. After each act, no matter how we pursue it, there is nothing. Not even a viable suspect. It is as though the demon may manifest anywhere within Old Dunling at will.”
“Appear anywhere,” Lloyd murmured, “without drawing a single eye.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
An adversary like a phantom.
In Lloyd’s vision, the world itself seemed to fracture into layered afterimages. And within them walked a red specter—stepping silently, like some abyssal creature beneath a frozen sea. It could surface from any point, strike, and descend again before pursuit could begin.
For the first time, Lloyd felt the true weight of the case.
“One more thing,” he said after a moment’s silence. “Why leave writing?”
It was the question that troubled him most.
Why inscribe words in blood? Was it meant for someone? A declaration of vengeance—to warn the next name that the demon was coming?
“I think… I may have a lead.”
He looked to Joey.
“The Cleansing Mechanism has kept this case sealed, has it not?”
Joey nodded.
“All matters concerning demons fall under our embargo. If something cannot be concealed entirely, our public guidance division reshapes the narrative—misdirects it. A gas explosion. Structural failure. Anything plausible.”
“So at present,” Lloyd said quietly, “no one beyond your order knows of this string of killings?”
Joey inclined his head once more.
“We cannot find the next unfortunate soul. Of course, it is also possible that there is no next unfortunate soul at all—perhaps the fiend has already concluded its vengeance.”
“We could release word,” Lloyd suggested, a spark kindling in his eyes. “Perhaps we might draw out the one still marked for misfortune, and then lie in wait.”
“And we might even weave the entire affair together because of it.”
Joy’s expression hardened, his tone cool and measured. “The risk would be considerable.”
“Risk breeds reward,” Lloyd replied. “And who is to say that the next victim will not come seeking us before we even make a move?”
Joy’s gaze did not waver. “Then tell me, Lloyd—if the fiend’s vengeance is already complete, would we not merely be stirring the grass and startling the serpent?”
Lloyd shook his head. “My thoughts changed just now. I considered that possibility. But it does not hold. If its vengeance were finished, there would be no need to leave those words behind, would there?”
“There is only one conclusion. The vengeance is not yet over.”
He looked beyond the carriage window at the slaughtered ground outside, where cruel scarlet lay strewn without mercy.
“Of course,” he added after a pause, “we may have been wrong from the beginning. Perhaps the fiend left those words as nothing more than a grotesque piece of performance. Every inference we have made rests upon our own assumptions.”
Lloyd was no preternatural detective. He possessed no inhuman brilliance—only conjecture, and the stubborn will to sift through possibility after possibility until one clung closest to truth.
At that thought, he could not help but wish he belonged to the Shandafeng branch of hunters. Unlike himself—a lump of iron that refused to die no matter how fiercely struck—those hunters wielded powers that allowed them fleeting glimpses of the future. Such a gift would make unraveling a case almost laughably simple.
He had once seen a mysterious hunter of Shandafeng stand before a map of Fiorenze, murmuring to himself like a prophet in fever. With a careless finger, he had pointed—and marked the very place where a murder would soon unfold.
“Are you certain?” Joy asked again.
“Yes. And we need not reveal the cause of death. We tell the others upon that list of vengeance only this: their friend is dead. They will act as they see fit. Perhaps they will come to us. Whatever the outcome, it will disturb the fiend’s designs. That will suffice.”
Lloyd lifted the file once more. In the time he had carved out for himself, he would have to find the thread binding these names together. He knew well this stratagem was but a desperate measure. Perhaps those wretches did not even read the newspapers.
So the investigation returned to its origin—their connection.
“Joy, I must trouble you to step out for a while. What follows is not something you would wish to witness.”
From his coat he drew an exquisite iron case. Within lay rows of tightly rolled cigarettes.
Joy arched a brow. “I have heard of these. They say your cigarettes are like hallucinogens—that they grant you ‘inspiration.’”
Lloyd inclined his head. “One cannot imagine what one has never seen. We require… a little assistance.”
He drew a cigarette but did not light it at once. He hesitated.
“Though at times,” he continued softly, “what we cannot see is protection. There are things we were never meant to behold. Our minds cannot bear them. Consider a complex pattern—when the image strikes your sight all at once, the shock prevents you from discerning any single texture. Beneath each design lie countless engravings, and beneath those yet more. It recurses without end. One would go mad.”
A nameless chill crept along Joy’s spine. He did not understand why Lloyd spoke so suddenly of such things—yet some part of him did. He nodded, concern shadowing his eyes, and stepped down from the carriage.
“To peer into such matters,” Lloyd murmured to himself, “is to pay a price.”
He lit the cigarette.
Before him, Watson now sat where Joy had been, smiling faintly. As Lloyd inhaled the wind-nightshade, her features sharpened, growing ever clearer—until the light guttered out and all fell into darkness.
“Lloyd,” her voice echoed within the void, “you promised you would not touch wind-nightshade again. You swore you would not deepen your bond with the dark. And yet—you could not resist.”
He did not answer. The cigarette hung from his lips as he studied the file in silence.
Each time he smoked the wind-nightshade, he sank further into that abyss. But this was no hour for hesitation. The appearance of the inferior secret blood had stirred in him a killing intent too fierce to ignore.
He drew deeply, savoring the acrid sting in his throat. The woman’s mocking laughter rang about him, yet it could not shake his focus.
He had been given many chances to turn back. He could have ignored the fiends entirely. With his strength, Lloyd could have lived well anywhere. But he did not turn away. He believed in certain things—believed that perseverance bore meaning. And so he continued to grasp his nail-sword, to let the searing white Purging Flame burn bright.
He believed—and was willing to fight for that belief, even if it meant descending into the deepest dark.
The darkness shattered.
Watson’s pale hand reached through the fracture and tore free a fragment, offering it to him.
Rovi. Doren. Hughes. The Aide couple…
Their faces were cut into shards within the broken blackness, yet fine threads bound them mercilessly together. The words in the file seemed to stir, rising and whirling before Lloyd’s eyes, scattering and reassembling into new sequences.
The same words—yet reordered, they told a different story.
Between the gaps in the shifting text, he glimpsed a faint point of convergence. Only a single vital thread remained to bind them whole.
Doren and Rovi—countrymen. The file stated that they had first sought contact with a gang in the Lower District. For reasons unknown, Doren later withdrew, becoming a shop clerk, while Rovi entered a factory and ultimately joined the gang.
The gang they had contacted remained unidentified…
Lloyd’s gaze snapped to another shard of the broken veil. Not long ago, Hughes’ gang had been a minor circle. Only recently had it swelled in strength.
An invisible thread drew the three men together—and from them, it turned toward the Aide couple.
The darkness collapsed entirely.
Lloyd cast aside the cigarette butt and stared wearily at the carriage ceiling.
Doren and Rovi both had ties to Hughes. And Hughes’ business in the Lower District was smuggling. Likely akin to the Ender Town operation Lloyd had once encountered—these three unfortunates may have trafficked something ill-fated.
Suppose, then, that Rovi and Doren had first dealt with Hughes, smuggled some object, and afterward taken their share and severed ties. In that case—what place did the Aide couple occupy within this web?
He coughed violently; the aftermath of the smoke left his limbs heavy and dull.
Throwing open the carriage door, he called out to Joy.
“Has he arrived?”
If there was one reliable soul in the Lower District, it would be him.
“I have,” came the reply. “While you were gathering your… inspiration.”
Bailao stepped from beside the door and offered Lloyd a quiet smile.
