The men hauled her toward the upper floor, their rough hands digging into her skin. Elvira didn’t stop fighting; she twisted and clawed at the air, her gaze locked onto Mathias. If looks could draw blood, he would have been carved to pieces, but he remained untouched, standing there with a terrifying, blank indifference. To him, she wasn’t a woman anymore. She was a debt being settled.

​As they reached the base of the stairs, Mathias spoke. His voice didn’t carry anger—it carried a cold, administrative finality.

​"When you are finished... clothe her. I have no interest in seeing a creature like her naked."

​The leader let out a jagged, guttural laugh that made the air feel oily. "As you command, my Lord."

​They dragged her up, the sound of her heels dragging against the wood fading into the shadows of the hallway. Then, the silence hit. It wasn’t a peaceful quiet; it was the heavy, suffocating stillness of a tomb.

​Mathias didn’t move for a long moment. Then, with slow, deliberate precision, he pulled out a chair and sat. He placed himself directly across from Sylvester’s corpse, staring into those fixed, glassy eyes. Under his skin, the obsidian veins began to pulse—a dark throb that seemed to mock the heartbeat he was struggling to control.

​He leaned forward slightly, his expression softening into something far more disturbing than rage.

​"Would you like some tea, Silvie?" he asked. His tone was casual, the way one might speak to an old friend in a sunlit garden.

​He waited, tilting his head as if expecting the dead man to reach for a cup.

He stared into the lifeless, wide eyes of the corpse. A faint, vacant smile touched his lips—a look that belonged in a ballroom, not in this rot-filled hallway.

​"No tea? Fine, then," he whispered. He tilted his head to the side, lingering in the silence as if catching the tail end of a ghost’s reply.

​Then, the ceiling groaned.

​From the floor above, the first scream broke through. It was a jagged, desperate sound, quickly cut short by a heavy thud. Then came another, followed by the rhythmic, guttural laughter of the men—a sound that carried the weight of pure, unrefined filth.

​Elvira, who had spent a lifetime turning people into her personal playthings, was now being dismantled. Each muffled shriek that bled through the floorboards was a reminder of the darkness she had tried to orchestrate for Olivia. It was a symphony of collapse, and Mathias sat in the center of it, bathed in shadows, listening with the stillness of a man who had finally surrendered his soul to the dark.

​He leaned closer to Silver’s face, his voice dropping to a deathly, intimate murmur.

​"Do you hear that, Silvei? Listen closely." He gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. "It seems your woman is tasting the very dish she spent so much time preparing for mine. It’s only fair, don’t you think?"

​Silence followed. Silvester’s glassy eyes offered nothing—no apology, no resistance, no life. Just a hollow reflection of the monster Mathias was becoming.

Mathias’s brow twitching, a sudden spark of agitation fracturing his calm mask. The silence of the corpse was no longer a comfort; it was an insult.

​"Why don’t you answer me?" he hissed, his voice trembling. "Answer me!"

​The snap happened in an instant. Mathias lunged across the table, his fingers locking into the fabric of Silver’s shirt with a strength that made the seams groan. He hauled the limp, heavy body toward his face, his breath hot against the dead skin.

​"I am speaking to you!" he roared, the sound echoing off the narrow walls. "I command you to answer me! Say something!"

​His mind was no longer in that room. The obsidian magic within him flared, blurring the lines between the hallway and the nightmares he had tried to suppress. With a guttural snarl, he drove his fist into the corpse’s face. The blow was brutal, fueled by weeks of repressed agony, sending the taxidermied remains spinning off the chair to crash onto the floorboards.

​Thud.

​The sound of dead weight hitting the wood acted like a bucket of ice water. The delusion shattered.

​Mathias stood frozen over the fallen body, his chest heaving as if he had just run for miles. The silence that rushed back into the room was deafening, amplified by the trembling of his own hands. It wasn’t about the man on the floor. It was never about him. It was the poison he had kept bottled up—the raw, jagged grief he had buried deep so he could be the "anchor" Olivia needed.

​He gripped his head, his nails digging into his scalp as the images returned, unbidden and violent. Leon. The son he would never hold. The quiet moments he had imagined, the future that had been incinerated before its first breath.

​He had played the part of the stoic Duke, the immovable rock, but inside, he was a hollowed-out ruin. He had wanted that child with a desperation that terrified him, and Elvira hadn’t just killed a life—she had erased an entire universe.

Another muffled scream sliced through the floorboards, a jagged reminder of the reality occurring just feet above him.

​Mathias slowly raised his head. The grief that had just threatened to shatter him didn’t vanish; it condensed. It hardened into a diamond-sharp resolve that settled behind his eyes, turning the abyssal void into something far more dangerous: calculated malice.

​"I will make you pray for the mercy of death," he whispered to the empty air. The words weren’t a threat; they were a blood-oath, trembling with the weight of his loss. "I promise you... you robbed me of everything. Everything."

​He stood up, adjusting his cuffs with a terrifying, rhythmic calm, as if he were preparing for a mundane appointment. He waited in the shadows of the lower hall, a statue of dark intent, until the sound of heavy boots finally thudded against the stairs.

​The men descended, their faces flushed with a sickening, post-riot satisfaction. The air around them grew thick with the stench of sweat and cheap vice. The leader, emboldened by the Duke’s earlier indifference, had the audacity to stride right up to Mathias and clap a heavy, grimy hand on his shoulder.

​"Man, that was a real treat," the man chuckled, his voice wet and thick with filth. "Noble flesh is something else entirely. If you ever need a crew like us again, we’re at your service. And don’t worry—we followed your orders to the letter. We dressed her back up. She’s all yours now."

​He gave Mathias’s shoulder a familiar squeeze, a gesture of "comradeship" that felt like a plague-infested touch against the Duke’s pristine coat.

​"Let’s go, men! We’ve got gold to spend."

They turned toward the door, their minds already filled with thoughts of how to spend their promised pay. But Mathias’s voice anchored them to the floorboards, a sound so cold it felt like a blade pressed against their spines.

​"Leaving so soon?" he asked. His tone was deceptively light, almost pleasant. "Without your tip? I was truly impressed by your... dedication."

​The men halted, turning back with eyes that sparkled with greed. They rubbed their grimy palms together, already envisioning the weight of a heavy gold purse. They were utterly blind to the reality around them—blind to the way the shadows in the room were no longer just shadows, but a suffocating, lethal void. Obsidian energy began to hemorrhage from Mathias’s skin, coiling around his boots like a hungry predator sensing a kill.

​"Whoa... sir, what is this?" the leader stammered, his confident grin finally beginning to rot. "What’s with this strange mist?"

​Mathias’s lips curled into a jagged, demonic expression—a smile that promised no tomorrow.

​"Your tip is ready."

​The temperature in the hallway didn’t just drop; it plummeted into a supernatural frost that bit into their lungs. The air became a vacuum, stealing their ability to scream. The only sound that broke the sudden, terrifying silence was the sharp, metallic shing of a blade leaving its sheath.

​One second.

​The mist surged, blinding them as a silver arc of steel cut through the gloom.

​Two seconds.

​That was all the time the universe required.

In a blur of motion so fast the human eye couldn’t track it, the silver arc of his blade vanished back into the gloom. Seven heads rolled across the floor like discarded playthings, coming to a halt at Mathias’s feet in a grotesque, rhythmic sequence. Their bodies followed a heartbeat later, collapsing with a heavy, wet thud that seemed to vibrate through the very foundations of the house.

​The silence of the estate returned with a vengeance, thick and metallic.

​Mathias stared down at the carnage, his chest finally still. For the first time since entering this cursed place, a flicker of genuine relief washed over his features—a dark, hollow satisfaction. He produced a pristine cloth and wiped his blade with slow, methodical grace, as if cleaning a piece of fine silverware after a banquet.

​"I truly needed that," he whispered to the lingering shadows. "Did these fools really think I would leave a living witness behind? Idiots."

​He sheathed his sword, the final click echoing through the hallway like the strike of a judge’s gavel. The debt to the scavengers was paid in full.

​Slowly, he tilted his head upward. His gaze didn’t just look at the ceiling; it seemed to pierce through the wood and plaster, straight toward the room where Elvira lay broken. His eyes darkened, the last traces of humanity fading into a shade of absolute death.

​"And now..." he murmured, his voice a low, predatory rasp. "Let’s take a look at our main course."

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First of all, I want to say a huge thank you for the incredible support you showed yesterday. Seeing your Golden Tickets and comments truly fuels my soul, especially during these intense Chapters.

The Great Marathon is almost here! On May 14th, I will be releasing 10 ChapterS at once.

We are currently fighting for a spot in the Top 10 (Win-Win Classic), and every single Golden Ticket counts now more than ever. If you enjoyed the thrill of this Chapter, please consider supporting us to keep our rank rising!

​Thank you for being part of this journey. See you on the 14th! "