Gun of Ashes

The Cleaners have arrived, clad in heavy isolation suits. The sound of heavy breathing comes from beneath their gas masks. They work tirelessly, swapping shifts every few minutes due to a lack of specialization. Occasionally, alarms sound, and others carry out the unconscious workers.

A faint mist fills the air; it is vaporized Neutralizing Liquid. Though powerless against the strange corrosion, it at least brings some peace of mind.

Ordinary humans are so powerless against the corrosion, yet despite this, humanity has still gained a slight advantage in the war against the Demons.

From time to time, the screams of monsters echo through the air. Some of the eggs have not fully hatched. The Cleaners brutally tear open the hard layers and drag out the mucus-covered Demons. They resemble undeveloped embryos, deformed and curled up together, with human-like features on their strange bodies, akin to incomplete evolutionary beings.

The Aluminothermic Rifle sparks, and soldiers stand warily on the side, locking the Demons one by one into iron cages. The Perpetual Motion Pump has never before seen such Demons from eggs; they require samples.

It’s like the saying, ”The higher-ups just talk while the lower-downs run their legs off.”

The white-coated Scholars dissect Demons in well-secured labs, while these poor souls have to plunge into the corrosion to capture Demons for them.

”There’s been a fire here?”

Lorenzo detected a hint of ash in the air.

”There’s a peculiar plant that looks like a Demon but in the form of a herb. We discovered it when we breached the Underground Palace previously, and we didn’t expect to find it here too.”

Arthur replied.

”It’s Stomach Chewing Grass. Lawrence the Dean must have had quite the unique nurturing technique.”

Lorenzo is able to imagine what Arthur described, and it’s fortunate they discovered it in time; otherwise, if the Stomach Chewing Grass spread, it would be more troublesome than typical Demons.

”Mr. Holmes, what we truly can’t comprehend is this.”

Arthur glanced at Lorenzo and pointed towards a location further ahead.

”According to the Geiger Counter’s detection, this is the pollution source of the whole breeding ground, the place where the corrosion is the most intense.”

Arthur looked at the shattered eggs; at their center, there was a furnace resembling an altar, laid atop it a bed of ashes. Though the furnace had cooled long ago, faint traces of metal remained.

”This is...”

Lorenzo could distinctly feel the intense corrosion emanating from the furnace, like the center of a vortex, pulling everyone around into its deep, dark abyss.

”I don’t know what that is, but you can see remnants of metal inside the furnace resembling Holy Silver... Lawrence the Dean might have used it for casting Holy Silver. But how could such a strong corrosion accompany the metal meant to destroy Demons?”

This puzzled Arthur. Logically, Holy Silver and Demons should be inherently incompatible, yet here it was, appearing eerily in the same spot, carrying a massive corrosion on the sacred metal.

Lorenzo said nothing; instead, he pressed on towards it. This furnace was fatal to all of them. The Cleaners even erected a caution barrier, warning other workers.

Arthur didn’t understand why, but Lorenzo understood it all. Inside him, too, lay a Silver Binding Bolt made of Holy Silver—the last insurance to seal the Secret Blood.

As Lorenzo approached, the hallucinations intensified. It was impossible to imagine what kind of being once lingered here. Even Demon Hunters struggled to resist; the entire world began warping and shattering, with hallucinating music soundtracking the chaos. But suddenly, all the sounds ceased. The world reverted back to its familiar appearance, and then Watson stood on the other side of the furnace.

”This thing is quite dangerous.”

Watson leaned against the furnace’s edge, peering inside. The Holy Silver solidified at the bottom, emitting a faint glow.

Lorenzo felt a strange sensation; either all the pressure vanished instantly, or the pressure had reached a level beyond Lorenzo’s perception.

”Lawrence the Dean indeed possesses the technique to forge Holy Silver...”

Lorenzo managed to stand by the furnace, staring at the solidified Holy Silver at the bottom.

”No... that’s not it, Lorenzo. Use that smart brain of yours and think critically.”

Watson directly refuted Lorenzo’s words, then moved over, gently placing her hand on Lorenzo’s chest.

”Link all the stories together, you don’t really think Holy Silver is that easy to forge, do you?”

Lorenzo gazed into those illusory eyes, momentarily distracted.

”Is this the devil’s gift?”

”I was once human, Lorenzo. Weren’t we such good friends? Do you need a reason to help a friend?”

”No, you’re dead, Watson. Now you’re just the husk of a Demon.”

Her grey-blue eyes mirrored Watson’s figure. She had long died, and Lorenzo’s reasoning was terrifyingly clear.

”How do you even define the form of life? I’m dead, but my spirit persists. Does that count as death? My body was incinerated, but I still live in your mind, your memory. Perhaps I’m merely a figment of your imagination.”

Watson smiled, with an evil undertone.

”Or am I part of your split personality?”

”Lorenzo, you cannot understand the form of my existence. If you could, you wouldn’t be so confused, and certainly, those old immortals of the Evangelical Church wouldn’t be so insane.”

Watson turned his head to look at the bottom of the furnace, his voice growing cold.

”Lorenzo, I am the Church’s mistake. It was you who opened Pandora’s box. You regard me as the so-called Holy Grail, but in reality, I’m merely a Pseudo Holy Grail, am I not?”

It seemed something was triggered, Lorenzo’s gaze becoming dangerous. He looked at the bottom of the furnace, then at Watson, his voice trembling.

”It’s it...”

”Yes, you guessed right.”

Watson looked at Lorenzo approvingly.

”Being a detective hasn’t been in vain, much smarter than before.”

”Ultimately, the ’Messiah’ class containment refers to those demons of extremely high erosive strength and extremely difficult to kill. Long ago, the Evangelical Church called them disasters.”

”But later the Evangelical Church found a way to kill the disasters, didn’t they?”

Watson whispered.

”Just like that frontal lobe excision surgery, as long as all possibilities of spreading are cut off, sealing them forever.”

”This is the last disaster, the last demon, the only Holy Grail, Mr. Lorenzo Holmes.”

”I am merely a fake, while they are about to crawl out from forgotten graves.”

The voice was like a resounding song, and in the next moment, everything visible vanished, after the remnants of fragmentation, a brand new scene appeared, Lorenzo stood behind Arthur’s wheelchair, the yellow police caution line separating him from the furnace.

Nameless cold sweat dripped from Lorenzo’s nose. He slowly released the chair’s grip, tightly clenched his fists.

Everything just now was an illusion, from the moment he saw the furnace, he was trapped in Watson’s illusion. Those words echoed in his ears like spells, disturbing Lorenzo’s mind.

”You seem very uncomfortable, Mr. Holmes.”

Arthur asked with concern, even a demon hunter feels uneasy in the face of this erosion.

”I think I understand the reason for all of this.”

Lorenzo suddenly answered slowly, his voice tinged with exhaustion, Watson said his guess was right, then with that reasoning everything would make sense, yet the outcome was spine-chilling.

”I think these Holy Silver were not created by Dean Lawrence, I should have thought of it first thing, after all, what he carried at the time was the accumulation of holy silver by the Evangelical Church over hundreds of years, even using it for disguise here wouldn’t require much.”

Lorenzo looked up at the vast breeding ground, Dean Lawrence had positioned the Holy Silver at key points in the terrain, like a protective shield, locking the effect of erosion within, minimizing contamination to the outside world, thereby evading the Purification Mechanism’s search.

”What do you mean?”

Arthur sensed a trace of unease.

”Arthur, remember the Holy Coffin? That thing is a ’Messiah’ class containment. Within the Church, those crowned with such a name are demons of extremely strong pollution, hard to kill but controllable and containable. Over hundreds of years, the Church contained many such dastardly things and then sealed them one by one.”

”You mean...”

An inexplicable cold devoured him, Arthur felt restless, as if a huge secret was just a step away from him.

”The Holy Coffin, entirely forged from Holy Silver, sealed the last demon within, the Church’s only ’Messiah’ class containment not properly dealt with. Internally, we codenamed it the Holy Grail; it was the one that triggered the Night of the Holy Arrival.”

Lorenzo walked slowly, looking at the bottom of the furnace seen in the hallucination, among the black and silver white, it seemed to be the deepest pit bottom, in the abyss countless hands stretched outwards, trying to escape, yet trying to pull more people down together.

Already could imagine that scene of hatred, flames boiling and burning, gradually melting the Holy Coffin within the furnace, those Holy Words and frescoes collapsing under the high heat, the pale white metal withering away, revealing that unspeakable body, twisted struggling, embracing this long-lost world.

”Dean Lawrence melted the Holy Spirit Coffin, he released that damn thing inside...”

Lorenzo’s voice seemed ethereal, sticky touching sounds echoing, in that fiery fantasy, that withered hand brought up a streak of metal liquid, then rested on the furnace wall, crawling out bit by bit, stretching its body freely in the flames.

So what exactly do you want to do, Dean Lawrence?

Once a demon hunter, now releasing the most hated demon.