CHAPTER 5

-

I

-

As soon as Valcua and Matthew returned to the castle, Kima rushed over to them.

“Lock this rascal up,” Valcua said, handing Matthew over to his subordinate. “Were you watching?”

“Yes, I saw it all.”

“Do you think he’s dead?”

Kima didn’t reply.

“Would you care to bet me that he still lives?”

“Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be much of a wager.”

Valcua recalled what the man who wore D’s face had left behind: a hole carved into the steel mountain range. It’d been less than ten feet deep, but that would be more than sufficient to weather a collision between the two mountains.

Giving orders that no effort was to be spared in the search for him, Valcua left, while Kima brought Matthew to a subterranean dungeon, threw him into a solitary cell, and left again. Although it was “solitary,” the cell was no smaller than the average room and was enclosed by invisible walls. The boy’s vital signs were monitored continuously. There was no sign of any guards.

Walking stealthily, Kima headed for the master monitoring center. Since he’d been there until Valcua’s return to the castle, it would be more accurate to say he went back to the center. There was almost no machinery in the spacious control room—the main computer controlled everything. Where the actual computer was located was a mystery, and it only recognized commands given by Valcua or Kima.

Filled with a misty fog, the room was reminiscent of the charnel houses of ancient times. In antiquated fashion, the room had towering stone posts in lieu of machinery, a vaulted ceiling, old-fashioned stone steps, and a bed that called to mind nothing save a gravestone—and on that bed, Callas lay on her back. She was no longer breathing.

Whisking the fog away from her, Kima stared at the dead woman’s lovely features.

“You only had a short time left, but you did well. It’s my turn next. I shall see you in the next world, if the fates allow.”

He looked straight ahead. Milky fog eddied, clouding his field of view. The master monitoring center lay in its depths.

The fog wasn’t really fog. It was the substance that filled the universe—the ether. It was said to be imprinted with records of the entire universe, spanning the past, present, and future. Even the science of the Nobility hadn’t been able to decipher those records, and history contained the names of only a few individuals who could read what was written there. They included Nostradamus, Abramelin, Paracelsus, and Swedenborg. The Sacred Ancestor was also on that list. One theory held that it was after reading the record one night that the Sacred Ancestor began his mysterious experiments. The “akashic record” was the general term given to the great ether that recorded all of creation.

After sacrificing the last of Callas’s life and now adding his own, what was Kima trying to read in the ether?

“Open the door to the vault,” he ordered.

Somewhere there was the creak of hinges that resembled a protracted scream. The milky whiteness crushed in around Kima. No matter how dense the super alloy used to contain it, the ether always seeped through it like some kind of ghostly matter.

“Was bringing him back to life the right thing to do? And what is he? I shall travel as far as my ability allows, Lord Valcua!” And then, after a pause, Kima added, “And Lord D!”

-

“Cold night, isn’t it?” the hoarse voice said.

Naturally the wind couldn’t find its way into this building, but the left hand seemed to know the weather anyway.

“They could change the temperature with one press of a button. I’ll never understand how the Nobility think.”

Being the living dead, vampires were generally unaffected by the surrounding climate, yet they seemed to prefer the same range of temperatures as ordinary people. In other words, they favored warmth over cold. That they nevertheless left outside temperatures the way they had always been could only be attributed to some odd complex involving the living.

“When that little girl wakes up, she’s gonna try and get to Valcua. She’s still under that brainwashing.” Catching a breath, the left hand continued, “That shock wave earlier—it was like one mountain banging into another. Leave it to a Noble medical facility to stand up to that.”

Though the massive shock wave of unknown origin had shattered the outer walls of the hospital and broken windows, everything had been repaired in five seconds’ time. The repair system was nearly flawless.

“That explosion of power could’ve come from Valcua, but the only ones who’d drive him to do something like that are Braujou and Miranda. Well, I guess there’s one other. Valcua was probably fighting you.”

“I wonder whether he won or lost,” D said as he peered into the darkness beyond the window.

“Oh, it’s not like you to get curious like that. Whichever it was, the smartest thing to do when Sue wakes up would be to get away from Valcua as fast as we can.”

After her treatment was finished, Sue had gone to sleep in one of the recovery rooms. Losing Seurat had come as a great shock to her.

Quickly stepping away from the window, D walked toward the door. He was in a large hall.

“Hey! Where are you—” the left hand started to ask, but then it suddenly said, “Is he here?”

D went into the center of the hall. Moonlight speared through the skylight, turning the darkness within as bright as day.

Opening the door from the front hall, the man in silver entered. Before the two faces of D, even the moonlight seemed to grow bashful.

The man slowly walked toward D. When he was fifteen feet away, his gait became unsteady. Falling forward hard, he made a thud that echoed through the hall.

“Don’t kill him! He might have information we—” the left hand blurted out. It had noticed that as D walked over to the fallen man, his right hand was going for his scabbard.

A cold and fierce will to kill crushed down on the figure on the floor. This young man wasn’t one to show mercy to a fallen foe.

The man suddenly lifted his face.

D halted.

It was neither Valcua’s nor D’s.

“D,” the man said, using both arms to lift his upper body from the floor.

“Well, I’ll be—” the left hand said before breaking off.

The world underwent a transformation. It was as if it had become a place for pious prayer.

“Do you remember me?” the man asked.

The unearthly air that gushed from every inch of D put his earlier will to kill to shame.

“You and I must—”

D kicked off the ground hard. Powerless to stop him, the man took a deadly blow from the Hunter.

“Remarkable,” the man said. “But that time still flows in a place beyond your reach. You should continue your journey, D.”

The casual manner in which the man got to his feet and walked away would’ve calmed the ire of rougher men.

“I’ve said it before, but you were my only success.”

As the figure strode past, D swung his sword at him once more, but the blade went right through his opponent as if he were made of water, and the man kept on walking without stopping.

“Knock it off,” the left hand told the Hunter.

The man staggered, but just the same he headed for the elevator in the hall.

“Enough with the attacks already,” the left hand said.

Sword still in hand, D followed the man as he walked away.

Once they’d boarded the elevator, the man commanded, “Down.”

About two seconds later the door opened. They were greeted by a space filled with objects reminiscent of purple crystals. The place was swimming in white light.

“This was my research facility,” the man said. “Not even Valcua knows this is here. We’re thirty miles underground—and not below the hospital.”

The purple objects did not take the shape of crystals. Like the boulders in the valley or the equipment in Valcua’s laboratory, they came in various geometric shapes.

Standing in the center of the room, the man raised his right hand.

The various shapes took on unstable forms and began spinning slowly. They produced no sound or even a breeze. However, D could sense that what might be described as an endless power blanketing the whole world had quietly been set in motion.

“A trillion—no, ten quadrillion joules . . . No, even more . . . With that much power, you could create a whole person!” the left hand exclaimed, seeming elated. “It stopped . . . More than a hundred quadrillion. But what’s he trying to do that he’d need to store up that much juice?”

It was impossible for any living creature to contain such an enormous amount of energy. In fact, it would be impossible to store it in any form in this world. All of it must’ve been kept in another dimension or some other place outside real space.

Something like a pedestal rose from the floor by the man’s feet. On top of it was what appeared to be a purple lever.

Taking a step back, the man looked at D and said, “Pull it. That will be enough to drain all the power from Valcua’s domain.”

“Can I ask why?” D said softly. Though his eerie aura had dissipated, it went without saying he could call upon swordplay that would leave gods and demons paralyzed if the situation warranted it.

In the light, the man said, “Don’t you see? This territory doesn’t belong to Valcua. It’s mine. It, and the rest of the world. Valcua has taken his lust for power too far. Dispose of him, D.”

“To suit your purpose?”

At D’s remark, his left hand made a stunned expression. It also sounded like it was laughing.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He needed to be reformed.”

“So you sent him out among the stars—but that wasn’t the end of it?”

“I knew from the start that was a pointless endeavor. He crafted a chip from scratch to guide his ship home and harnessed the energy of the universe. And though I did what I could to prevent it, I still knew it would happen.”

“None of that concerns me.”

“There’s nothing in this universe that doesn’t concern everything,” the man told him in a solemn tone. “From the moment of our conception—nay, from long before any of us are born, we are all bound together, be the bonds deep or shallow. When Valcua returned from space, D, you were fighting Braujou. Do you think that was mere coincidence?”

In the white light, the young man in black had a soft glow.

“All of that was in accordance with my will. That was how you and Valcua came to meet, D. That, too, was unavoidable. D, Valcua is your—”

-

II

-

Valcua is your—

Just as he was making that bizarre proclamation, an astonished voice exclaimed, “Oh!” The voice didn’t come from within the room. It was a cry from another world—one that only D and this man could perceive.

Turning his face to the ceiling, the man said, “Hmm, he read the akashic record.”

“Valcua?” D murmured.

“Forget about that, D, and prepare to head back,” the man said, looking at the door. “First, move the lever, and then get in the elevator. Part of the akashic record’s vault has been destroyed.”

A foglike substance began to fill the light. It glittered like the myriad stars of the Milky Way.

“If the record leaks out, it could warp the very fabric of the universe. I must prevent that. Hurry, D!”

D gazed at the lever. All around him flowed the dazzling Milky Way.

“D!” the man was heard to say, his voice calling out from the glittering depths. It flew as if in accompaniment to the action of the blade in D’s right hand.

“What’s this?”

This slight indication of surprise was swallowed by the light.

The lever had broken in half, and the pedestal in which it was set had fallen to the floor after being bisected at an angle.

“Why?” the voice asked, drifting even further away. “You won’t accept anyone’s help in destroying Valcua? Or are you worried that the Dyalhis children would come to harm if this land were utterly destroyed? Very well. The laws of the universe are immutable. When the two of you meet, you can reach your own destiny. That lever would have taken away all the power I’d provided to this domain. You shall have to deal with both Valcua and me, D!”

Deciding that it was too late to go after the source of that voice, D headed for the door, the hem of his coat whipping out around him.

What would the fundamental collapse of the universe entail?

Eddying hypnotically, the white fog swallowed up the young man in black and went on to lay claim to all of the now-empty room.

Emerging from the elevator and going to see Sue in her recovery room, D raised one slim eyebrow a bit.

Sue wasn’t there.

“Where’d she get off to?” the left hand asked in a wondering tone.

What had lured Sue away was Matthew’s voice. As long as she was in Valcua’s facility, her whereabouts would be all too clear. Realizing this, the Ultimate Noble had sent her brother’s voice and likeness into the recovery room. The computer that oversaw her room had originally belonged to Valcua, after all. The apparition had come after D had vanished underground. Hearing Matthew and having him there beckoning to her, there was no way Sue could resist. She still wasn’t free of his brainwashing.

Sue went outside. After she’d gone about a hundred yards, a number of red lights came toward her from across the plaza. It was one of Valcua’s patrols. He must’ve directed a group in the area to head there at the same time he sent her the illusion of Matthew. Their flexible tentacles reached for the girl. Once she went to Valcua, his revenge would be half accomplished.

The tentacled cylinders zipped along at 120 miles per hour. Exiting the valley two hours later, they began to pass through an area where other buildings towered. Fiery blasts flew from nowhere, causing one of the cylinders to explode as soon as it was hit. The dozen cylinders tried to get in formation to defend themselves from this unexpected attack and strike back, but it was too late.

The one that held Sue tilted wildly. Pale-blue sparks shot from a hole that had been blown through its head. Before the disabled machine could fall, Sue jumped down onto the road. The bottoms of her feet felt awfully cold. Out of the corner of her eye she saw flames well up, and then a red-hot piece of shrapnel whizzed past her cheek.

Sue ran like a woman possessed. Ahead, she saw a building, and she could make out a door. She leaped for it. The automatic door opened smoothly to admit her, then closed again.

This was no time to relax. She couldn’t be sure whoever was responsible for this ambush wouldn’t come after her. She knew their target wasn’t the android patrol unit.

Sue coughed violently in the thick dust that had been kicked up when she entered. Giving the place a better look, she found a seemingly endless hallway filled with that vague feeling unique to long-abandoned locales. Relying only on the light coming through the windows, Sue ran further inside.

The sprawling building that spread before her reminded her of the hospital she’d been in earlier.

The girl came to an intersection of two corridors. All of the electronic displays were drained of energy. As she vacillated, she heard footsteps behind her and knew someone was coming closer. She turned for a look.

Red points of light were headed toward her. Each was part of a pair, and they were also smaller than those of the cylinders. The shadowy figures to which they belonged were human in shape.

Could they be servants of Valcua? In that case, she’d be fine.

It was an instinctive fear that caused Sue to start running away—she didn’t know why she did so. And though she ran on and on in complete abandon, the footfalls were steadily closing on her. She began to get winded. Spying a door nearby, Sue practically threw herself against it to get it open.

The room was both spacious and cramped at the same time. Rows of transparent cases reminiscent of incubators were lined up in front of a dais that was several dozen yards wide. Sue ran between the cases. Although most of them remained intact, a number of the cases had been destroyed, their pieces scattered across the floor. Every time she felt the shards beneath the soles of her shoes, she wanted to thank Matthew for allowing her to put on footwear before they escaped from the hospital.

To her right, she saw a gargantuan glass cylinder. Filled with liquid, it had a humanoid figure floating in it. A faint blue light hung in the room—undoubtedly a power source remained functional somewhere in here. Though Sue was about to pass it by, a strange curiosity took hold of her, and she kept her gaze trained on the object. She halted. It was unbelievable. She stared so hard, her eyes seemed to bore into it. Several seconds later Sue’s terrific scream echoed through the room.

This was it. It was the same thing Matthew had showed her back in Count Braujou’s car. The thing he’d proudly described as part of Valcua’s plan. However, seeing it before her very eyes, she found it repulsive.

There was no mistaking that it was a combination of a human being and some other creature. Soaking in a liquid that was probably a nutrient solution, the figure’s upper body was human, while its lower half looked like a lump-covered arthropod, and though it was taller than a full-grown adult, the human portion resembled an enormous fetus. But that wasn’t what prompted Sue’s scream. The figure had suddenly twitched.

Her screams didn’t stop. Still crying out, Sue backed away. Something cold and clammy latched onto her wrist.

Could this thing be alive?

The fetus was roughly a foot and a half in length, its entire body covered with tumorlike bumps. It also had three eyes and six arms. Slowly, it was emerging from its cylinder.

Sue’s screams died away.

“Wh—what . . . are . . . you . . .” the girl murmured, but she made no attempt to extricate her wrist from its grip. There was no telling what it would do if she made a move. The teeth that protruded from those swollen lips were the fangs of a carnivore. Its lips moved slowly.

“Hungry . . . I’m . . . so hungry . . .”

“What?”

The tension swiftly drained from Sue’s body. The voice was that of a human child. There was no mistaking it. And it complained because its belly was empty.

“You . . . you can talk?”

“Yes . . . I can talk . . . But I’m . . . so hungry!”

“This is unbelievable—what are you doing in a place like this?”

“He said . . . it was an experiment . . . Talked about making . . . a new form of life . . .”

“An experiment? Whose experiment? Who made you like this?”

The infant shook its head weakly. Due to its disproportionate size, its head wobbled to one side and then the other.

Sue was on edge.

“I . . . don’t know . . . It was a . . . big person.”

Footsteps could be heard from the same direction Sue had come.

“Are you all alone?”

“Yes.”

Sue held the child to her chest.

The infant continued, mumbling, “All the others . . . died . . . All of them.”

As she ran, Sue shot glances to either side. The cases and cylinders held the products of bizarre experiments. Shriveled like mummies, melted into slime, rotted away to dust—each of them was a combination of a monster and a gigantic fetus.

Who on earth had done such a thing, and when? What had they hoped to ultimately produce with such experiments?

Dust rose around her feet—these were the remnants of demonic experiments undertaken many ages ago.

Suddenly, the infant’s arm wrapped around her neck.

“You’re warm. And soft.”

The second Sue heard that satisfied tone, tears welled in her eyes.

The infant pulled its face closer to the nape of her neck. Its arms were unexpectedly strong.

Just then, the little body jerked to the right without warning.

Sue’s eyes bulged in their sockets. She hadn’t seen one of her pursuers running right alongside her.

“What are you doing?”

As she tried to pull the infant close again, her left arm was jerked back. Was there another one of them? With both hands now pinned, the infant was wrested from her.

“Stop it!”

The one who’d taken it away halted, and then bit the tiny figure. A wail rose from it, but it soon became quiet again.

“Stop it!” the girl exclaimed, struggling madly, but a pair of cold hands on her shoulders pinned her in place.

“Give it up, already,” a man’s voice said. “There’s nothing else we can do. We’ll drive a stake through its heart right away.”

“You’ll what?”

“Put your hand to the right side of your neck,” another said.

That was where the infant had nuzzled against her. She had a hunch now. A cold and black foreboding.

When Sue didn’t move her arms, someone grabbed her right wrist and pressed her index finger to her neck. A slight pain shot through her, and she found minor protuberances there. Two of them.

“That child was modified by the Nobility,” the first voice said.

“Modified?”

“This lab was used for experiments in combining Nobles and human beings. So was the rest of this facility.”

“Combining them?” Sue said, the man’s blunt delivery leaving her mind in a state of turbulence. What kind of new life form had they created? She hoped whoever had conceived of this would be cursed for all eternity.

Off in the distance, where they’d taken the infant, there was a loud thud. Sue closed her eyes. Several seconds later, she opened them. Her head hurt terribly. She felt as if she’d awakened from a dream.

Sue said, “Weren’t you guys . . .”

“You remember us? We hated you because you were with a Noble, and now we’re in with them too.”

“We were with that survey party.”

As Sue turned in their direction, the keen fangs poking from their lips burned into the girl’s eyes.

-

III

-

“So, Lord Valcua . . . He made you guys into . . .” Sue began in a hoarse voice, as she indeed recognized the men.

The men exchanged glances.

“No, we serve the great Miranda.”

Damn! she thought, but she questioned the men no further, and it was decided that they would bring her back to Braujou and Miranda. That was a problem. Though Sue remained hesitant, the men considered Miranda’s instructions absolute. Before she could convince them otherwise, they brought her outside.

Without a sound, crimson streaks of light flowed toward them from all sides. One man’s head evaporated in a blast, and two others fell to the ground in rapid succession after the upper body of one and the right half of the other were destroyed.

“It’s a patrol!”

“Some of them were left?”

“No, these are reinforcements.”

As this tangle of shouts rang in Sue’s ears, powerful arms wrapped around her waist, and someone ran down the corridor carrying her. The rest remained behind. They intended to buy Sue some time.

Fiery blasts came after her. The edges of her field of view were tinged with crimson.

After following the corridor through several turns, the man’s body trembled a bit.

Sue felt herself sailing through the air. Landing on her shoulder but continuing to move forward, she felt an acute pain. She was knifing through the wind at an incredible speed on a moving sidewalk. It was rolling at sixty miles per hour.

Sue turned around.

The man had dropped just in front of the sidewalk. His head was missing.

Picking up speed, the sidewalk whisked the girl into the darkness.

-

A car raced by the light of the moon. The stench of blood filled the vehicle. It was as if each and every molecule of air was stained with gore, and just wringing your fist would cause blood to seep from between your fingers.

“It won’t stop, Braujou,” Miranda said in the blue darkness. She was naked. Tied around her face, her neck, her ample breasts, and her shapely waist were red scarves. On the floor where she sprawled there were piled dozens more scarves in the same hue.

From the huge bed beside her, the prone Braujou replied, “It would seem we underestimated him.”

Bandages wrapped around him from the neck to the waist. They were the same color as Miranda’s accouterments—because the Noblewoman’s scarves were actually white strips of cloth used to stop the bleeding. She’d redone them dozens of times, and each time she was powerless to keep the fresh blood from seeping in and dyeing them red.

Valcua’s blade had sliced Braujou apart from the right side of his neck down to his left hip, while Miranda had been bisected from the groin to the top of her head. Both of them were Nobles. As long as they weren’t stabbed through their one vital point, their cells’ impressive regenerative abilities normally would come into play, closing wounds in the blink of an eye and stanching the bleeding. But this time that wasn’t possible. If the wounds were kept covered, the internal organs would somehow continue to function, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. Though their Nobles’ bodies could withstand enough blood loss to kill scores of humans, if this situation continued, their bodies would fail.

“Soon we won’t be able to move. What do you say, Miranda?”

“They’re not grave wounds. Certainly not cause for complaint,” the seductress replied curtly, but her countenance appeared bloodless in the blue light. “Actually—I have a proposal.”

Braujou’s expression showed that he found Miranda’s remark quite unexpected.

“Is that so? And what might that be?”

“We must prepare to call on our last piece of insurance.”

“Insurance? No!” Braujou called out sharply.

“If we were to combine our energies, it might be possible.”

“We can’t do that!” Braujou exclaimed, his voice quaking with stern determination. “We swore to that human we would protect those children. And by my Noble soul, we shall not break that oath.”

“If we’re destroyed, there’s no sense speaking of how we’ll keep them safe. Given our situation, slaying Valcua is the only course to take.”

“The only course to take is that which will save the Dyalhis children.”

Saying nothing, the paraffin beauty smiled. Between the strips of cloth, a vermilion line ran from her face to her belly, and blood quickly bubbled out of it.

“What a splendid Noble you are. Very well. I shall execute my plan alone.”

“Won’t you reconsider this, Miranda?”

From beneath the bloody and discarded dress by her side, the duchess produced a bejeweled dagger and drew it from its sheath.

“Hey!”

Disregarding Braujou’s disgusted cries, Duchess Miranda put the golden blade over her heart and thrust it in deep . . . and then she slashed herself. Opening a crescent-shaped gash eight inches long, she shifted the dagger to her left hand and thrust her right one into the wound. Blood spilled out—not only from the wound, but from the vermilion lips the beauty kept pursed as well. Yet there was no change in her expression, her lovely features resplendent in the blue light as she watched her own crazed actions with detachment.

Giving a slight sigh, she pulled her right hand out. Her fingers clenched a bloody heart. There were rubbery snaps as her veins tore. Blood went flying. Nevertheless, her heart continued beating.

“My sentiments, my power—everything is in my heart of hearts. It’s up to you to draw the curtain of fate.”

As he watched the seductress talking with a gleam of madness in her eye, Count Braujou heaved a long sigh.

-

“We’ve got no transportation!” the left hand said, pointing out the brutal truth as they were about to leave the valley. “At this rate, if we don’t hook up with Braujou, it’ll take days to reach Valcua’s castle. Ah, how I wish that Kima guy was here!”

The Hunter’s cyborg horse had remained tethered to Braujou’s car when D and Kima made the trip to Valcua’s castle. D knew that as well, but true to form he made no complaint, but rather kept on walking in silence.

His face suddenly turned to the west. No sooner did he recognize the sound of hooves striking the earth than a white horse came galloping straight toward him. It halted right in front of D, who put a black-gloved hand on its neck and stroked it several times before noticing the silver card attached to the saddle.

“Braujou?”

When his index finger touched the edge of the card, the giant’s face suddenly appeared in midair.

“Here’s your horse. A lack of transportation might prove inconvenient. I only hope your steed likes you,” the Nobleman said gravely, and then he vanished.

“If there’s one thing this world needs more of, it’s thoughtful Nobles,” the left hand jeered.

Ignoring this comment, D got into the saddle. His destination was obvious: Valcua’s castle.

-

“He’s approaching,” Valcua heard a machine say.

“Kima,” he started to call out, but then he halted. He hadn’t seen a trace of the hooded figure since shortly after his return to the castle. Though he’d given orders to wait, distance meant nothing to Kima.

The screen in midair showed D riding a horse. Not only was the Hunter’s horsemanship exceptional, but every time the Ultimate Noble changed the angle, the wonder of that beautiful visage made him sigh in spite of himself.

“Valcua, get ahold of yourself,” he said, and a trickle of blood began to run from his lip. Only by biting down on it had he returned to his senses. D’s looks were that remarkable.

“As great as his beauty is, his skill is even more incredible. But our earlier encounter was just an exchange of pleasantries. To determine if he’s a fit opponent for me, I shall have to take his measure as a commander.”

As the same Ultimate Noble who’d moved mountains grinned, his eyes were full of pride and confidence. This confrontation could no longer be avoided. But where had Valcua’s interest in investigating D originated?

“How long until dawn?” the grand duke inquired.

“Two hours and twelve minutes, milord.”

“If he keeps going that way, he’ll run right into the dimensional battlefield. Have the homunculus army get two divisions ready,” Valcua ordered after facing the sky.

-

As D headed north, enormous battlements began to come into view far off in the distance. However, this wasn’t the reason D halted his steed. The grave sound of tires and footsteps was approaching from up ahead.

“There are a lot of ’em. From the sound of the footsteps, I’d say a full division—three thousand men. As for vehicles, well, a thousand or so. Seems like they’ve got a battalion with flight packs, too. Even knowing how powerful you are, this seems to be seriously overdoing it. Valcua must be a first-rate coward!”

The earthshaking thud of countless combat boots from the depths of the darkness became pale-faced men in uniform who stopped about thirty feet from D.

As D remained in place, a man who looked to be a general appeared riding a skeletal android horse. Giving a crisp salute, he said, “I am General Clemens, commander of Combat Division Z under Grand Duke Valcua. From this moment forward, I am at your command.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” D asked, but just then a gigantic image of Valcua’s face appeared high in the sky.

“Allow me to explain. D, I’m giving you these five thousand men—a division. If you wish to see me or rescue the human girl Sue, you must direct them in battle against my forces. I wish to see how you handle command.”

“He’s got some weird kinks, don’t he?” the left hand murmured, knowing its remarks wouldn’t reach the grand duke’s ears.

“Beyond the castle walls you see up ahead you will find Sue and myself. I have the same number of troops. Here’s a diagram of the inside of my castle, D. Draw on all your knowledge when considering where I might be lurking or what kind of formations will be lying in wait for you. I’ll have you know that although your soldiers are artificial life forms, they are most definitely alive. They feel pain when injured. D, I truly look forward to seeing how you view these men, and how you utilize them. An hour remains until dawn—and the game shall be decided in that time. If it goes longer than that, I shall retreat to a resting place you’ll never find no matter how you search. And the girl will go with me.”

When Valcua vanished, five thousand men were left on the plain, waiting for instructions from their new commander to fight Valcua. However, even D couldn’t imagine going into battle with five thousand soldiers and their assorted armaments. How would D carve his way through this great conflict when it was more than a solitary blade could handle?

MOONLIT BATTLEFIELD