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"Oh, then how did I give myself away?"

On the shadowy dock, the final game began. The blow should have been fatal, yet Lorenzo dodged it all the same. The man was surprised; he hadn't expected Lorenzo to still be on guard against him.

"Because I only just figured it all out myself."

As he spoke, Lorenzo slowly turned to face the twisted figure.

"This Underground Palace was designed to be a Thermopylae. It's the perfect place to hide a secret, and you don't even need to station troops here. The Fiends alone are enough to hold off anyone."

He pressed a hand to his wound. No blood poured out, but the pain was all too real.

"But you left yourself a way out. Like you said, 'No one survives.' You said that included you, but this underground river gave you away. You don't want to die. So what happened earlier was just a fake death, wasn't it?"

Looking at Sabo, now transformed into a Fiend, Lorenzo couldn't suppress his astonishment as he spoke. It was obvious that Sabo had been corrupted, but he hadn't become a mindless, walking corpse. He'd retained his reason, even in a monster's body.

His former short stature was gone. His limbs had grown strangely long and slender, while his fingers had thickened so he could grip his blade more firmly. Flesh resembling sinew had grown across his mottled rapier, and with the aid of that uncanny madness, it seemed to have come alive.

"That's right. I can't die... No one can make me die."

Sabo's voice carried a hoarse echo. He was nearly inhuman, yet he'd still held on to the last of his sanity.

"I was a deformed Viking. From the moment I was born, the god Odin had forsaken me. My mother left me in the wilderness. She probably thought I'd die, but I survived."

His wild growths had forced his eyeballs together. Beneath dark red veins, his faint gaze rested on Lorenzo.

"Mr. Holmes, I was born forsaken by the gods, but I was also born to fight back. The northern wind couldn't kill me, and my wretched life couldn't break me. I traded three fingers for a ticket to Inverwig.

"Plenty of people have tried to kill me, but none of them succeeded. I'll keep living, longer than anyone else."

It was like a speech from a horror story. As he spoke, viscous fluid dripped from between his sharp teeth, and madness filled his whole body. Sabo had been born to fight for survival. Life was the only thing he had. How could he throw it away just because the Plague Doctor had said so?

"Come to think of it, I was a believer in the Gospel Church..."

Remembering the past, Sabo let out a hoarse laugh.

"You used to be a priest, didn't you, Mr. Holmes? Were you abandoned by your god, too?"

His murky gaze was sorrowful, almost disbelieving. To Lorenzo's surprise, he saw compassion in the Fiend's eyes.

"I never believed in any god. I was born in Florence. There were only two kinds of people there: believers and priests."

His gaze turned cold as he answered.

"Believers have to make offerings to their faith and pay the church, but priests have it different. We only work on Sundays, and when we run out of money, we just take some from the donation box. It's a pretty comfortable life."

Lorenzo had once been a priest, even a Temple Knight, yet he had not the slightest reverence for that so-called god.

"Then why did you leave?"

Sabo asked.

"For a madman, you sure talk a lot."

Lorenzo coldly brushed him off. Then his body moved with a force that had nothing to do with his injuries.

He abruptly raised his Shotgun and fired. After the dazzling muzzle flash, several pellets, trailing deadly blood, shot toward Sabo. But this time they missed. Sabo's slender body moved faster than ever before—a speed his malformed frame shouldn't have been capable of. He easily dodged the deadly blast, then brought down his sharp rapier.

"I just think the two of us are a lot alike."

Sabo watched Lorenzo slowly lower his Cane Sword. Even a strike that swift had failed to kill him.

The rapier smashed through the planks supporting the dock. Beneath the splintered wood, the space left for them to stand grew narrower and narrower.

"I told you, you made me who I am. So I've always wondered where you came from. I tried every way I could think of, but all I found out was that you arrived in Inverwig six years ago."

Watching the figure standing at the edge of the dock, Sabo spoke with fervor.

"A stranger covered in blood. Back then, no one thought you'd survive those wounds, but you did. You're just like me. We both fight to survive. We came to Inverwig to survive, and then to Old Dunling!"

The only response to this fanatic was a gunshot. The nimble figure easily dodged it, then hooked himself onto the damp cliff face with uncanny claws.

"I'm not like you, Sabo."

Lorenzo looked up at the Fiend hanging upside down, his expression unmoved.

"How are we different? When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you. We're the same kind!"

Sabo roared hoarsely. With a grating sound, white sacs bulged at the ends of his arms and limbs. They burst, and new arms unfurled beneath them.

"You have the same scent as me, Mr. Holmes. Secret Blood flows through your veins, too!"

He shrieked, then plunged one of his new arms into his own abdomen. Amid the crack of breaking bones, he pulled out a pair of sharp ribs, like swords being drawn from their sheaths.

The monstrous figure plunged down the next second, three blades falling from above. The fragile planks couldn't withstand the force and shattered one after another.

Lorenzo dodged the attack with ease. Though his chest had been pierced, he moved as if nothing were wrong, swiftly crossing the exposed piles above the water. Every so often, he looked back and returned fire.

"We're alike, Mr. Holmes! We're the same kind of person. We'd do anything to live, even swallow Secret Blood!"

The Fiend charged forward, and by the time they clashed, the dock had nearly been destroyed. Only row upon row of wooden piles remained for them to stand on.

A bone blade struck the Cane Sword. Then another bone blade and a rapier came at Lorenzo from opposite directions. He tried to dodge, but Sabo's free arm seized him. The bone blade and rapier pierced his mortal body.

"The truth is, I'm already old. I'm almost fifty, but people have a hard time realizing it because I have a dwarf's body.

"I've spent my whole life fighting to survive, but in the end, I was going to die trapped in this deformed body. My organs are failing. My breathing is getting heavier. I can't even raise a sail again."

Sabo confided as he fought. Just as he'd said, he believed he and Lorenzo were alike—two starving wolves facing each other in a narrow pass. Only Lorenzo could understand how he felt.

"So that's why you swallowed Secret Blood?"

Lorenzo showed no sign of pain. Though a blade had pierced him, he still questioned Sabo.

A hint of sorrow crossed the twisted face as he answered.

"That's right. It was the only way I could survive."

Even though he'd become something inhuman, Sabo was still alive. For him, that was enough.

"Of course, I still have one last thing to do. Once I kill you and that girl who ran away, no one will know I survived. I can go somewhere new, just like when I came to Old Dunling, and start a new life."

Sabo spoke, then laughed madly. The Secret Blood had deeply corrupted him. He hadn't merely turned into a Fiend in body—his mind, too, was gradually descending into madness.

"You can't do it. Starting a new life means completely abandoning your past. Can you do that, Sabo?"

His words sounded like a taunt. At such close range, the Shotgun thundered. Shattered pellets pierced the Fiend's body, followed by a burning pain that spread through every part of him.

The flame was ghastly white. It poured through the gaps in the bone blades that had pierced him. Like a heretic burned at the stake, Lorenzo embraced Sabo, bathing with him in the holy fire.

With a terrible howl, Sabo tore himself away from Lorenzo. A sharp blade cut off the burning flesh, and blisters from the fire covered his crimson skin.

"Sabo, maybe we're alike, but we were different from the very beginning."

The flames died out at the other end of the darkness. Lorenzo's voice drifted over slowly. He stepped from one wooden pile to the next, Cane Sword and gun in hand.

It was a feeling he couldn't describe. From that moment on, it seemed the detective named Lorenzo Holmes had died, and a demon that had long lurked in the depths of the darkness had taken over his will.

"You became a monster to survive. I've survived all this time so I could fight monsters!"

The roar struck at the soul. His wounded body began to heal in an uncanny fashion. The tattoo spreading across his entire back seemed to come alive, writhing across his deathly pale skin as if it had a life of its own.

[Secret Blood awakening: 7%, outside stable range. Silver-Binding Bolt beginning to melt.]

A blazing white radiance rose in his gray-blue eyes. Sabo could only see the sword's gleam stretch into a white line as the man's powerful stomp shattered the wooden piles one by one, sending water spraying everywhere.

It happened in the blink of an eye. By the time Sabo realized what was happening, the demon-like man had already driven his Cane Sword into Sabo's chest, its blade burning with blazing white fire.