The Divine Armor of the Old Century（Book 1）

Chapter 71

In this desolate world, an endless expanse of ice stretches beneath one's feet, offering no hope. Dark blue seawater churns beneath the thick ice, hinting at other things lurking in the depths, their futile efforts to breach the icy surface echoing as eerie sounds mingled with the cold wind.

The stars gather into a river of light, spanning the night sky from one horizon to the other, dominating the entire view.

Lloyd gazes at the figure silhouetted against the full moon, a whirlwind of emotions surging within him, yet he finds himself unable to speak. They simply look at each other from a distance until the man approaches and sits on the lonely bench beside him.

"Doesn't this place feel like an artist's absurd dream?" he remarks casually, settling in. His worn coat looks anything but warm, yet he seems unaffected by the cold, passing judgment on the world around them with ease.

This is a world in the gap, existing between life and death, a desolate place inhabited only by the two of them.

"Perhaps... I actually find it quite nice," Lloyd replies after a moment, taking his seat on the bench as well. They sit side by side, watching the full moon rise from the horizon as if they were casually observing dogs chasing squirrels in a park.

"So, what should I call you now? Lloyd, or something else? How's life in Old Dunlin?" the man asks with a slight smile.

"Lloyd, I suppose... though I don't particularly like it," Lloyd responds coolly, showing no sign of embarrassment or any other emotion.

"I understand. Who would have thought you'd name yourself after me to remember, only to discover the one you're commemorating isn't truly dead?" the man chuckles, clearly amused. "Ah, the shame of it!"

The man's laughter is infectious, but Lloyd remains unmoved. He takes a deep breath, seemingly enduring a deep, wrenching pain, and his determined eyes are suddenly filled with sorrow.

"I remember you died. I killed you myself," Lloyd breaks the long silence, not looking at the man, his gaze fixed ahead. The full moon looms large and bright, its craters visible as if it had risen from beneath the sea.

Lloyd recalls astronomers saying those craters were left by asteroid impacts, but to him, they seem like hollowed-out eye sockets, perhaps once containing enormous eyes that were gouged out by an unknown force.

"Oh, right, I almost forgot! You really went for it back then," the man says nonchalantly, opening his dark coat to reveal a gruesome sight: his chest is nothing but blood-soaked bones, devoid of flesh, as if a ghoul had feasted on him, devouring all his organs and even his heart.

"How did I taste? I always thought I'd be like vanilla cake," he jokes, as if asking a customer about the quality of his meat. Much of Lloyd's neurosis stems from this lunatic.

"You know, your eating habits were disgusting back then. You cried and gnawed, even smacked your lips," the man teases.

Lloyd glares at him, feeling an overwhelming sense of helplessness when a madman encounters someone even crazier. Usually, Lloyd torments others, but here, he's the one being tormented.

"So, you say this place is the 'gap'? What does that mean?" Lloyd inquires.

"Exactly what it sounds like: the gap between all things," the man answers, covering his ghastly wound and speaking slowly. "The Order has always studied the spiritual realm, which is... the soul. Alchemists divided matter into four elements, but above that, there's the soul tied to life."

The man turns, revealing a face somewhat similar to Lloyd's but different. He's an optimistic man, so cheerful that even death couldn't quell his spirit. If thrown in with demons, he might still crack jokes with them.

"Like our connection to the dark. Have you ever wondered what's at the deepest point of that connection?" he asks.

"The deepest point?" Lloyd shakes his head. He knows little about such things, assuming it's filled with endless demons and lethal corruption.

"Yes, that's what the Order studied. What's at the deepest point of the connection? All experiments begin with a hypothesis, assuming something exists there," the man explains.

Lloyd thinks for a moment and asks, "Is it here? You named this place the 'gap'?"

"That's right. You're my successor, after all. Good thinking," the man praises, clapping his hands.

"So, am I dead? You died six years ago, and as a dead man, you're joyfully telling me we're in the deepest connection, the 'gap'. I don't know how I got here, but it's not a place you can just come to, right?" Lloyd feels a sense of relief at the thought of being dead, leaning back on the bench and gazing at the star-filled sky, thinking the scenery in the afterlife isn't bad at all.

"No, you're not dead, my friend. No living person should reach the 'gap', but there are exceptions, like us," the man says, embracing Lloyd. In the cold air, Lloyd smells the faint scent of blood from the man's ghastly wound.

"I died back then. When I woke up, I was here. Sometimes I could sense you, but I couldn't see you. It's like our worlds are overlapping but unobservable to each other. Until today, when your connection to the dark reached its deepest point, I finally saw you and pulled you over," the man explains, mimicking a pulling motion with his hands.

"Did you know I was fighting a Michael Hunter before coming here? He surpassed his limit, and the burning holy flames could melt steel. I might have been burned to death while talking to you," Lloyd says coldly, the reunion's warmth having been worn away by the man's nonsense.

"Oh, sorry about that," the man apologizes, though his face shows no remorse.

"The 'gap' still holds many mysteries, but we've at least proven its existence," the man adds.

Lloyd's gaze grows cold as he asks icily, "What about you? You're supposed to be dead. Are you my hallucination or some sort of spirit?"

"This is a strange place with strange things," Lloyd muses.

The man points to the ice field below, saying, "I'm probably like it. Six years ago, we couldn't kill it but managed to trap it. You're the last person in the world who remembers its existence, so it's confined to your memory. As long as you don't spread its information, it'll remain trapped in your memory."

"Technically, I'm dead. What you see is a remnant of my memory, a wandering ghost not belonging anywhere," the man says solemnly.

The ice beneath them starts to tremble, the eerie sound growing louder. Lloyd instinctively prepares to attack but is held back by the man.

"Don't worry. It can't escape. It struggles every day, but it's futile," the man says, watching the ice crack and seawater surge up.

"This might be our last consolation. Though we're all dead, seeing it struggle daily is somewhat satisfying," he adds.

Lloyd listens to his words as the blue depths erupt, countless skeletal arms piercing the water, bound by chains, yearning for fresh air, and wailing mournfully.

The hands scratch the smooth ice, trying to climb up, but it's futile. They leave deep scratches before falling back into the sea.

How many are there? Hundreds, thousands, trying to escape the icy sea, but none succeed.

Heavy iron chains extend from the deep sea to the surface, the shapes gathering like a school of fish, finally forming a dark orca that breaks through the ice and leaps high, its many faces merging into a multi-faced demon under the full moon's eerie light.

The tide roars, the monstrous whale raising a torrent of white spray, but the cold quickly freezes everything. It remains trapped in the ice, standing like a sculpture in the desolation. Then, everything shatters, crumbling into fine snowflakes, swallowed by the chaotic wind.

The man remains calm, as if watching a performance he's seen countless times. Now that the show is over, he claps for this repeated death.