The Door and the Latch

Hound Bar, basement.

The rough gray walls flowed like viscous liquid. Faint outlines of veins appeared across the ceiling, pulsing slowly as they stained the stone floor a pale flesh color. In the shadows at the corners, so dense they seemed almost solid, grotesque shapes flickered in and out of sight, writhing as if about to crawl out...

Even the heavy air reeked like a seafood market in midsummer. Horn's lungs prickled, and he couldn't help clutching his chest and coughing.

—So this was boundary transformation?

From the depths of a blood pool in a hellish realm, a shriveled, withered arm emerged from the nearly dried-up bottom. It stretched out, then reached for something.

Across a vast distance, a tiny hand seized the enormous body in the ruined upper warehouse, its three legs still twitching now and then. Defying the laws of biomechanics and leverage, it dragged the body down with irresistible force.

The ceiling, already partially transformed into organic matter, obligingly parted. Belloc's remains, no longer supported, went plop into the blood pool, without raising even the slightest ripple.

Eight twisted, mutated fingertips brushed over the corpse of the Blood-Thirsty Hound. The hand casually picked up a shard of bone blown apart by the explosion. At its center, the loose, wrinkled skin struggled to split open, revealing a mouth full of haphazardly arranged sharp teeth. It swallowed what remained of Belloc.

"Crunch, crunch."

The teeth-grinding sound made Horn's scalp crawl. Cold sweat trickled down his forehead, and though he was close to tears, he couldn't turn and run—not even cover his nose and mouth.

Because an eye was staring at his shadow.

A mat of fungus-like growth spread across the stone floor, tightly pinning down the edges of the shadow at Horn's feet. He couldn't move a muscle. A chill even began to seep into him.

On the screen before his eyes, a scarlet warning flashed, only to be covered by another. Eventually, they piled up into a single, enormous character: [DANGER].

After sampling a little of Belloc, the mouth in the palm smacked its lips and delivered a fair assessment in a hoarse, nauseating voice.

"Plenty of ruthlessness, not enough greed. His aptitude along the path of the Grail was mediocre at best, and his accumulation in the principles of Edge was nothing special."

"Given enough time and resources, he might've made something of himself, but he'd have gone no further than that. To carry out the Heavenly Mandate, solve the riddle, and reach the seat of Omniscience? Difficult. Far too difficult."

"But—"

"I came to see who'd disrupted my ritual site. I didn't expect to find an unexpected bonus."

Countless eyes turned in unison. The sight was oppressive enough to make anyone with a fear of clusters keel over on the spot. They reflected Horn's face, blinking with palpable delight.

They were already salivating.

Horn hadn't expected that the first time he saw the phrase "eyes dripping with desire" come to life would be on something that might or might not be human.

From the very beginning until now, every monster that came along had wanted to take a bite out of him and see how he tasted. He'd finally made it to the grand finale. In a movie, it'd be like the hero using the finest sword in the village, shouting about friendship and bonds and whatnot, finally defeating the Demon King and rescuing the princess.

Then he walked out of the palace, only to find Godzilla's enormous head waiting outside. Its mouth curled into a bashful smile as it breathed a blast of scorching air at the hero.

"Hey, buddy. I've been waiting forever. Glad you made it out. How about another round?"

Who wouldn't see black?

That alone would've been bad enough. The thing had shown up as the final boss, yet its second sentence had nearly made Horn lose it.

Good heavens. So you're a pervert too!

Look at Jim Belloc. He'd been a straightforward man in life and a straightforward dog in death. He killed when killing was needed and ate when eating was needed, without hesitation. He'd lived a miserable life, but died with glory.

So how had this thing ended up with a gaze so tender that its eyes practically dripped with desire?

Something was wrong with it!

A powerful sense of dread welled up inside Horn, making him clench his buttocks involuntarily. His face turned pale.

Other people wanted my body. Did you want my ass?

No! Anything but that!

"Pure Lancaster blood, the Path of Sunset—"

The mouth opened and closed, shaking the air as it let out a hideous cackle. The shriveled arm lunged at Horn with terrifying force!

In his desperation, Horn could only open the one part of his body he could still move: his mouth. He hurried to set the record straight.

"Big brother, don't! I really don't like old guys like you—"

And the outstretched, withered arm froze in midair.

Wait, you actually listened?

Horn stared ahead and blinked in confusion, only realizing what had happened a moment later.

No, it wasn't listening. Some kind of threshold had been opened—right here, right now...

Long before Horn noticed, and far more clearly, every eye in the blood pool had opened. Scarlet light flashed frantically from them, as if they were facing a great enemy.

The outstretched, sharp fingertip pointed at the space between Horn's brows. It was only a hair's breadth from touching him, from cracking open his skull like an egg and feasting on his brain and gray matter.

But that final step was like a heavenly chasm: close enough to touch, yet impossible to cross.

For God had said:

You may come only this far, and no farther.

The raging tide must break here!

At Horn's feet, the blurred edge of his shadow suddenly sharpened, cleanly severing its connection to the mat of fungus. The invisible restraints snapped open, and Horn's body felt wonderfully light—but he still didn't dare flee at once.

Sharp, pale-purple thorns sprouted along Horn's shadow. The scent of moth orchids inexplicably filled the air, and the sound of shattering glass rang out again and again.

"Clink, clink, clink, clink!"

In the lower warehouse, sealed off by boundary transformation, one door was violently smashed open, then another, and another!

The tremors surpassed even those caused by the earlier explosion, growing stronger with each wave. The people still in the Hound Bar screamed as they rushed outside, yet not one of them came within six feet of the girl. It was as if an invisible wall surrounded her, instinctively keeping everyone away.

Leaning against the doorframe beneath the Hound Bar sign—the same frame that had been damaged earlier—the golden-haired girl wore a mocking expression. Beneath her sunglasses, purple light rippled in her eyes, growing more and more intense.

"Finally getting desperate?"

Veronica raised her hand and instinctively reached toward her waist, but stopped at the last moment. Instead, she clenched her five fingers into a delicate fist and swung it down hard.

Then, through floor after floor and the Wall of Boundary, thorns grew and spread. They shot out like arrows, quivering as they split apart midair—one became two, two became four, four became eight...

Until they fell like a torrential rain of pale-purple spikes!

Boom!

Crossing the distance in an instant, the Rain of Thorns tore through the hasty scarlet defenses with ease, surging forward without pause!

It didn't target the arm, which could be discarded at any moment. It stabbed straight at the true source of power. The pale-purple downpour smashed countless blinking eyes to pieces, and even the emblem of the Cup of Insatiable split with crack after crack, on the verge of shattering.

A devastating blow!

Yet at the bottom of the blood pool, a newly emerged eye showed relief.

"Good thing not much power came through. I can still withdraw in time."

"Birmingham isn't even an important place. How did an Apostle show up out of nowhere? Has the Prevention and Suppression Bureau intervened?"

"Fortunately, preparations are nearly complete. As long as I find the catalyst, advance the ritual, and complete the final step..."

"Then Longevity will be within reach!"

The eye rolled around once, then contracted where it was, retreating along the channel laid through the bloodline. Back, back, back...

"What's going on?!"

The previously smooth channel was now like a tightly shut valve, keeping the power from returning no matter how hard it tried!

Trapped in place, the eyeball hung between escape and staying, unable to move.

The girl unclenched her fist as if she held an invisible key, then turned it gently.

Click.

A crisp lock-bolt snapped into place. In an instant, control of the boundary that had been constructed in haste changed hands. An intent seized the blood pool—the nexus of power—and held it fast, allowing not a shred of power to escape.

—He set its bounds, and made doors and bolts!