Gun of Ashes

When was I captured by Moriarty’s authority?

Authority - Raphael needs to be activated by making eye contact with a Demon Hunter. Lorenzo also learned this from 016, whose authority is Raphael. This elusive hallucination can drive people to madness or bring them to tranquility.

Eye contact marks the beginning of authority, and at that moment, the Demon Hunter can share the hallucination, seeing what the enemy sees, altering it all. But this is also extremely dangerous for them as they fall into the hallucination alongside their enemy.

Therefore, Demon Hunters of the Raphael faction need something to distinguish falsehood from reality, much like ”Venus.”

So, when did I make eye contact with Moriarty?

Lorenzo swiftly recalled all this. A Demon Hunter’s authority activation comes with a fiery gleam in the pupils, something he would never overlook. Yet he couldn’t remember when Moriarty captured him.

With the last demon falling, this encounter finally reached a pause.

Lorenzo held his folding blade, standing firm in the torrential rain. He was familiar with this, and soon, people from the Purification Mechanism would arrive, guided by the Geiger Counter, to clean up the mess.

He took a step forward but stopped. For a moment, all his muscles seemed paralyzed, unable to move, as he slowly turned his head to see a hellish scene.

Countless corpses piled up in the once spacious Iron Serpent carriage. Through the shattered windows, twisted and grotesque forms could be seen, like creatures formed of steel and flesh, now dead, with dark red blood oozing through the cracks.

Lorenzo nearly stopped breathing as his gaze slowly moved over the demon corpses soaking in the accumulated water on the battlefield, slowly retreating as untold emotions surged in his heart.

Corpses were everywhere, ordinary people and demons alike, all fallen by Lorenzo’s hands.

This was Moriarty’s deception. The best trickery always mixes truth with lies. Lorenzo felt bewildered, uncertain whether all this was reality or illusion, standing alone in the rain, at a loss.

Authority - Raphael.

It’s a madness-inducing power, with the Raphael faction Demon Hunters serving as spies within the Demon Hunting Order. With their perfect trickery, they could easily topple a strong regime, and in the endless hallucinations, no one could tell truth from lies. When those in power make wrong decisions, the results are irreparable.

”No... I don’t feel the corruption...”

Lorenzo forced himself to calm down. If the authority was affecting him, he would feel that nauseating corruption, something that Raphael’s authority could not alter. Moreover, being a Demon Hunter, he had a strong resistance to corruption, thus lessening the impact of such cognitive interference.

Suddenly, the violent rain slowly ceased, the veil of rain weakened, and the hellish scene was exposed to the city.

Before Lorenzo could react, sharp screams erupted around him. Some pedestrians dropped their umbrellas and ran wildly, while others collapsed to the ground, faces filled with terror.

”So that’s it...”

Lorenzo’s gaze was somber; he had been through much, unmoved by moral questioning. As he once told Arthur, he was the one determining the life and death of people on the tracks, willing to become a monster for the sake of human sanity.

This was Moriarty’s attack, aiming at him from the New Order’s start. However, his connections to the Purification Mechanism made it difficult for them to act. The best solution was to make the Purification Mechanism perceive him as a threat as well.

But that’s not enough; the Purification Mechanism itself is a crazy violent group, willing to take risks for power. The current ”risks” were insufficient for them to forsake him.

This was just a beginning; something else must be waiting for him.

Lorenzo ignored the terrified gazes of the pedestrians, preparing to leave, but the next second he turned violently, throwing the folding blade in his hand. The steel shone sharply as it pierced the Iron Serpent’s wreckage again, but it was as if it was all an illusion—those bodies inside the Iron Serpent vanished, or perhaps they never existed.

Or... from the moment Lorenzo boarded the Iron Serpent, had he been caught by Moriarty’s authority, entering the hallucination from then on?

Lorenzo couldn’t understand, but suddenly the rain stopped, everything vanished, leaving him alone on the empty street.

”Very interesting, right, this ability?”

An unsettling voice sounded; Moriarty sat on the wreckage of the Iron Serpent, smiling at him.

He took off his glasses, his amber eyes burning brightly.

Lorenzo remained silent and wary, keeping a fixed gaze on Moriarty. From a certain perspective, Raphael is the authority closest to the nature of ”corruption,” destroying the enemy’s mind, dragging them into a confused illusion, pushing them to insanity.

Indeed, viewed this way, except for not transforming people into demons, this ability was so similar to corruption, or rather, it was a controllable form of corruption.

Lorenzo felt he realized something, but it was as if an invisible barrier prevented him from thinking further.

”I suppose this is also an illusion, right?”

”Of course, after all, I’ve successfully ’provoked’ you, haven’t I? I’m just a trickster, not good at fighting, let alone facing an enraged Demon Hunter.”

Moriarty was quite self-aware of his abilities.

”Then you must still be nearby, for Raphael has a range limit. Like corruption, the closer one is to the emitter, the more real and intense the illusion becomes.”

”Impressive, analyzing so much so quickly?”

”Just having killed too many demons, merely speculation.”

To be precise, when the Secret Blood is activated, the Demon Hunter becomes a type of demon—not purely a demon, having rationality, and the release of such authorities inevitably causes corruption.

”So, what do you predict will happen next?” Moriarty asked, resting his chin on his hand.

”This is your authority, your Illusion Realm,” Lorenzo replied.

A trace of disappointment appeared on Moriarty’s face.

”Can’t you guess?”

The flames gradually weakened, Moriarty put his glasses back on, and the dazzling white light disappeared. Lorenzo sensed the clamoring gradually shattering the tranquility, and the illusion was dissipating, but... but he couldn’t understand it.

Moriarty maintained that damned upper-rank feel, as if all this was just a casual game.

A gunshot fired from behind, sparks flew, and the folding blade chopped through the bullet fiercely, as a gust of wind sounded again.

”The most perfect deception is to even fool yourself.”

Moriarty said this, then struck Lorenzo’s nape, yet his strength was too weak to affect Lorenzo.

This wasn’t an illusion; Moriarty had actually sat before him, deactivated his authority right in front of him.

Lorenzo couldn’t understand whether Moriarty was genuinely arrogant or if everything was already under his control. He didn’t know, but when he turned around, only his voice lingered in his ears, Moriarty had vanished.

”First round, you have lost, Mr. Lorenzo Holmes.”

The voice said so, followed by the rain falling again. Lorenzo stood on the blood-drenched street, the eerie chill creeping up his spine. Countless severed limbs were strewn across the street; no demons, no Moriarty, just a field of corpses brutally slaughtered by his own hand.