Dazzling Entrance

"Eve! Move!"

Lorenzo roared as he moved toward the rear carriage, pulling the trigger. The shotgun was devastating in such a cramped space. Its buckshot tore through one Fiend after another as they surged toward him, spraying blood everywhere. But more Fiends immediately poured in to take their place, clawing at one another as if they were driven by an irresistible temptation.

Petals fluttered through the air. Lorenzo picked up his suitcase with one hand and tossed it to Eve. Its weight nearly made the girl stumble and fall, but she managed to regain her balance and hurried through the iron door toward the rear.

But soon, Eve turned around and came back, her little face deathly pale.

"What are you doing?"

Lorenzo scolded her loudly, and the girl quickly answered him.

"There are Fiends back there too!"

"What?"

Lorenzo blew apart a twisted head with one shot, then headed straight for Eve with his gun in hand. He dragged her out of the carriage and slammed the door shut behind them. Countless bloodstained hands pressed against the glass, pounding the door and leaving crack after crack in the windows.

Lorenzo grabbed the strap on his suitcase and slung it over his shoulder, then hung it at his side and drew out a Nail Sword that gleamed with a cold light.

"Are there Fiends up front too?"

Lorenzo was stunned. With an outbreak of Fiends this widespread, it seemed the train had been crawling with them from the very start. But that raised the question: why this train? Why was he involved?

Thinking of his Spirit Sight, which had broken through its limits, and Eve's own Spirit Sight phenomenon, Lorenzo formed a rough theory. Perhaps their connection to the dark was so deep that it had caused all this. The dark had discovered them, and the Fiends had come creeping out of the shadows.

But... why now?

The sharp Nail Sword pierced the thick iron door, impaling the Fiends behind it as well. The Fiend blood on the holy silver coating bubbled as if eaten away by strong acid.

"Climb up!"

Eve shouted along with him. The silver Death Knell in her hands boomed like a hand cannon, blasting hole after hole in the iron door. Blood poured from the black openings.

Those were only the lowest kind of Fiend, mindless corpses driven by blood alone. But Lorenzo wasn't about to let his guard down. There might be an elite like Sabo hidden among them.

They were at the coupling between two carriages. Lorenzo lifted Eve and boosted her onto the roof, then climbed up after her. The gale on top of the train nearly forced his eyes shut. He drove his sharp Nail Sword through the roof to steady himself.

"Keep moving, Eve! We need to find a way to reach the engine!"

That was Lorenzo's plan: fight their way to the engine, then cut the couplings and say goodbye to the damned Fiends.

"Why are there Fiends on the train?!"

The darkness that had fallen a moment ago had truly terrified her. The passengers' whispers had abruptly ceased, replaced by the bloodthirsty panting of the Fiends. They had been human not long ago, and then, in the blink of an eye, they had become Fiends.

"There are two possibilities. First, our connection to the dark is close enough to reach out and touch. But in my professional experience, if we'd really reached that deep into the dark, we wouldn't have these nobodies coming after us."

Lorenzo pulled Eve along, climbing as if they were scaling a snowy mountain. He repeatedly drove in and pulled out his Nail Sword. The commotion below was audible, and sometimes the blade dragged up a smear of scarlet when he pulled it free.

"So there's only one other explanation: the Fiends were hiding on this train from the start. But why this train? Is this damn connection the reason? People connected to the dark are drawn to it? That's just ridiculous!"

One thing about Lorenzo was that his mind wandered whenever it had nothing to do. Right now, he was thinking that in the East, this sort of mystical arrangement was apparently called fate.

What did that even have to do with anything?

Glass shattered and steel twisted as hideous arms thrust out from both sides of the carriage, packed together like wildly growing plants of flesh.

Their guns kept firing, carving a bloody path forward.

"And there's another problem!"

Lorenzo grabbed the panicking Eve. Her slender body was tucked under his arm like a piece of luggage. Then he leaped with all his might, soaring over the mass of Fiends and landing on the next carriage.

It was specialized training from the Demon Hunter Order. Even without awakening Secret Blood, demon hunters had physical abilities, senses, and even certain instincts that completely outclassed ordinary people. Even so, they were still human—humans who could die easily.

"Are these bastards really just here for us?"

This time, Lorenzo didn't put Eve down. He had no idea how many Fiends were in the carriage. They were like sardines crammed into a net, pressing against one another as they tried to escape and devour the warm flesh.

There was no end to them... Lorenzo might have been able to kill them all, but then he wouldn't have the strength left to protect Eve.

Secret Blood was a technique for fighting Fiends: turning yourself into one to kill them. The Secret Blood in Lorenzo's body was a perfected version, refined through countless experiments, and his own willpower kept the Fiends from corrupting him.

Eve was different. The silly girl didn't even know how she'd gotten her Secret Blood, let alone what it could do. And with her willpower... after awakening it, she'd probably last a minute or two before being completely corrupted into a Fiend.

"If we make it out alive, I'm going to have to give you some serious training. You're really holding me back!"

As he sprinted across the roof, Lorenzo shouted at Eve tucked beneath his arm. The girl's face was deathly pale and she couldn't say a word, but she kept firing behind them, killing the Fiends that climbed onto the roof.

Secret Blood was the Demon Hunter Order's core technology. It gave humans the power of Fiends, but also exposed them to Fiend corruption. Unlike ordinary corruption, this kind was controllable. As long as it stayed below the threshold, the Fiend within Secret Blood was like a caged beast, obeying the demon hunter's commands. But once it crossed the threshold, cracks would appear in the cage.

In that regard, Secret Blood was like the Original Sin Armor powered by the Perpetual Motion Pump. Both let their users fight on the edge of danger. The difference was that with Secret Blood, the demon hunter was the ultimate weapon.

"Lorenzo! We're almost there!"

Eve managed to turn her head. The steam-belching engine was just ahead, perhaps four or five carriages away.

"I know!"

Lorenzo leaped high once more and landed steadily on the next carriage. The Fiends behind them followed, clawing and rasping at the steel as they chased after the feathers drifting in the wind.

They were close now, only three carriages from the engine. But at that moment Lorenzo finally got a clear look at the first carriage. He'd never seen anything like it. Black steel encased it completely; it looked less like a carriage than a massive iron coffin, sealing away something ominous.

Maybe... that was the source of the Fiend outbreak?

With that thought in mind, Lorenzo sprinted forward with Eve tucked under his arm, until flames suddenly surged up between them and the carriage.

"What's going on?!"

At the gunshots from behind, Kestrel's nerves tightened.

Then a piercing alarm drowned out the cramped carriage. Red lights flashed on every soldier's chest. They were Geiger Counters, and now they were shrieking, their voices like knives slicing into everyone's nerves.

Fiends had appeared aboard the train.

No one needed to say more. Every soldier gripped their weapon. Two headed for the first carriage to protect the weapons from Berhans, while the rest stayed behind with Kestrel in the mobile command room. As long as they held this position, they had the advantage.

"Send a message to Shrike! Tell him to meet us at the station!"

Kestrel shouted to the soldiers. If they could hold out until they reached the abandoned station, they'd have reinforcements. But the soldiers quickly gave him their answer.

"We're being jammed!"

Their voices wavered with static. They'd been cut off. Some unknown force had enveloped the area, preventing all communication.

The night around them was so dark. Only the bright lights of the Radiance's engine remained, like the sole island in a sea of darkness. Now the tide was rising, threatening to swallow it whole.

Gunfire roared like thunder, flashes of light stretching several feet as metal bullets burst from the barrels and rained down.

The lights had already gone out. When Fiends descended, the lights always vanished for one reason or another. The sky would cloud over on a clear day; electric lights would suddenly short-circuit. In the end, darkness would endure forever.

The electric lamps on their domed helmets flickered on, complementing the gunfire. Their beams swept back and forth, probing the darkness.

"We have to cut the coupling!"

A soldier shouted. In this situation, they'd be worn down and killed. If they could sever the coupling, the Fiends wouldn't be able to keep up with the train at this speed.

Everyone understood the logic, but they also knew the job would be almost impossible.

The carriages were connected to each other. Anyone who tried to cut the coupling would be trapped between the gun muzzles and the Fiends in that narrow space. If they stopped firing, the Fiends would rush them. But if they fired, the person cutting the coupling would surely die.

Someone had to make a sacrifice.

"Hold this position! I'll cut the coupling!"

After a brief hesitation, Kestrel shouted. As the only high-ranking knight there with effective resistance to Fiend corruption, he was the only one who could take on the task.

"That's suicide!" a soldier tried to stop him.

"I have a plan!"

Kestrel looked confident, though it was hard to say whether he was putting on a show to steady the others.

The suppressive fire continued. Spent casings covered the floor in a thin layer, reflecting the flashes of light.

"Everyone, move!"

Kestrel walked into the darkness deeper in the carriage, then shouted as he fired the weapon in his hands.

This was the weapons carriage from Berhans. It was practically a mobile arsenal. Even without considering the secret weapon behind him, the guns and ammunition it carried were lethal enough.

The weapon launched with a streak of fire, leaving a burning trail in the air before striking the strange blackness. A moment later, a greater blaze erupted inside it, like a burning sun. The flames illuminated everything, and the Fiends' silhouettes writhed within, like sinners thrashing in the rivers of Hell.

It was a white phosphorus incendiary shell from the Berhans Arsenal. The hand holding the launcher trembled slightly. If Kestrel had aimed even a little off, the whole carriage would have become a hell of flames.

But now wasn't the time to stand there stunned. He growled and ran forward into the scorching air.

The burning blaze could temporarily restrict the Fiends' movements. He had to cut the coupling while he had the chance. But when Kestrel charged out of the carriage, he saw that the heavy coupling was already covered in flames. There was no way to pull it free.

Damn it! Damn it!

Kestrel cursed, but didn't hesitate for a moment. He plunged both hands into the flames. Whatever it took, he had to sever the connection. Just then, the sound of a rush of wind seemed to rise, and Kestrel couldn't help looking up. A streak of sword light was splitting through the sea of fire.

"Just my damn luck!"

The man cursed as he leaped out of the flames, with a bewildered girl tucked under his arm, a suitcase and a Winchester hanging at his waist, and a bloodstained blade in his hand.

He was a heart-stopping hunk, bursting through an entire carriage in a spectacular display, his entrance splitting the darkness with an unstoppable flourish.

Everyone froze at the unbelievable sight. A second-rate detective had made his dazzling entrance, accompanied by his beloved Winchester.