About a quarter of an hour later, black carriages choked the length of the street. The men who stepped down from them were armed to the teeth, their faces carved from the same cold stone. They looked like reapers who had traveled a long way, bringing with them a chill that bit to the bone—like winter in Old Dunling.
Many officers were driven to the far side of the road. They should have been inside the cordon, yet now they stood beyond it, craning their necks to watch the strangers.
Old Dunling had no shortage of urban legends, and these people were one of them.
For years, whispers had drifted through the city: black-clad police handling cases that were never spoken of. No one knew which department they belonged to. Even inquiries to the Suyaeran Office were met with silence.
And now they stood there in the flesh, heavy with ill omen. Chief Donas was outside the cordon as well, his face a mask of frost.
He knew a little about this mysterious department—only the broadest outline. He guessed they were some kind of classified intelligence branch of Ingilveg, yet Donas didn't even know their name, let alone what they truly were.
Moments earlier, they had arrived with authorization papers Donas couldn't make sense of and expelled his people without hesitation.
He had meant to protest further, but a young man stopped him.
The fellow wore a gentle smile, yet there was nothing reassuring about it. It was the smile of a cunning fox.
The sensation was hard to describe. Every instinct in Donas's body recoiled, trembling in quiet terror. By the time he came back to himself, he was already standing beyond the cordon, drenched in cold sweat. Then came the humiliation, sharp and burning. He wanted to settle the score with that man—yet he didn't dare cross the line again. Ridiculous.
As for Mr. Lloyd Holmes, Donas hadn't seen him either. It seemed he had been pushed out as well, which improved Donas's mood considerably.
…
"So you're the one assigned to assist me this time?"
Lloyd sat in a chair, studying the blood-written words with careful attention. The fox-like man stood at the doorway, politeness painted neatly across his face.
"Yes, Mr. Lloyd Holmes."
His voice was clear as glass.
When Lloyd turned, he saw a strikingly handsome man. His movements, his posture, even his smile—everything was measured to perfection. Hair and clothing were arranged with meticulous care, not a thread out of place. His cheeks were clean and smooth. He resembled an elegant wildcat raised among nobility.
For a fleeting instant, Lloyd felt as though several bold labels were stamped right across the man's face.
Obsessive-compulsive. Germaphobe. Trouble.
Everyone carried their own labels. In Lloyd's matches with Sabo, they were like the smokescreens he constantly threw onto the board.
A teacher represented education; the word conjured images of someone stern yet gentle. Tell a person you are a teacher, and they will picture the profession, then quietly press its assumed traits onto you.
With a single word, you gained an outline in their mind—even if it had little to do with who you truly were.
Such were the innate labels of humanity. They helped others understand you more easily, yet they also concealed the real you beneath the surface.
That was why, when Lloyd practiced his arts of deception, he liked to use labels as smoke bombs, clouding the sight of others.
But he had rarely seen someone like this.
This man might as well have pasted the labels on his own face. It left a powerful impression.
"Because our responsibilities differ, Shrike is very busy. During the upcoming negotiations with the Purge Agency, I will be your point of contact."
The man extended a hand. Lloyd nodded and shook it.
"Joey Joshua. We've met before—though the battlefield was chaotic. You probably didn't notice me."
"When?" Lloyd asked, surprised. Someone this distinctive shouldn't have been easy to forget.
"The Ender Town operation. I was using a codename then."
Joey coughed lightly. His already proper demeanor became even more formal.
"Senior Knight of the Purge Agency, Joey Joshua. Codename: Black Phoenix."
The moment he heard Black Phoenix, everything clicked. Near the end of the Ender Town operation, that call sign had descended onto the battlefield alongside Lancelot. Lloyd remembered it now.
"Now that introductions are done, would you like me to explain the situation?" Lloyd said, glancing again at the crimson writing.
"This is a… supernatural case. There's demonic contamination here—very faint, probably residue left during the murder."
He chose his words carefully. The killer was not human. Or perhaps he once had been. Now he was an abomination, a loathsome demon moving through the vast, crowded sprawl of Old Dunling.
"Mm. May we examine the scene first?" Joey nodded.
After Lloyd gave permission, several more people entered, carrying strange instruments. They began scanning the room.
"What are they doing?" Lloyd asked.
Joey smiled.
"Mr. Holmes, over the years the Purge Agency has handled many demonic incidents. We've developed certain investigative capabilities. After all, more than a decade ago, we didn't even have demon hunters."
That made sense to Lloyd. Even without demon hunters, the Purge Agency had still managed to defeat demons. Over the years, they must have built a mature and reliable operational system of their own.
"Those devices are high-precision Geiger counters—sensitive enough to distinguish the intensity of residual demonic radiation in different areas. From that, we can estimate how long it lingered."
The numbers on the instruments shifted constantly. Lloyd found it fascinating. He was beginning to see the difference between the Demon Hunter Order and the Purge Agency.
The Order leaned toward the mystical. Everything depended on the hunters' own power and those distant, intangible gods.
The Purge Agency, on the other hand, revered technology. They sought to uncover the essence of the supernatural, to analyze it—and then to use it.
"How far can you track it?" Lloyd asked.
"Not far. There are too many interfering factors, and the investigation requires time. By the time we finish, the demon could have swum to the other side of the ocean. But internally, we do have a certain… precognitive ability."
"Precognition? Like the demon hunters' secret blood?"
Lloyd had just praised these materialists, and now something mystical surfaced after all.
Within the Order, most demon hunters possessed a warning sense known as "intuition." Yet one branch pushed this gift to its extreme.
Through alchemical matrices, they redirected the power of secret blood toward the angelic branch of Shandafon. The authority they bore allowed them to glimpse fragments of the future. They were among the most mysterious of all demon hunters—rarely fighting on the front lines, instead offering guidance to others through the Still Sanctum based on their uncanny visions.
Joey gave a mysterious smile but did not elaborate.
"Mr. Lloyd, if you were willing to join the Purge Agency, all your questions would be answered."
Of course. That Arthur still hadn't given up on recruiting him.
"I'll have to decline," Lloyd said without hesitation.