Ascension Of The Villain-Chapter 276: Justice or Pleasure?

The dungeon air was thick with the scent of rusted chains, of damp stone and dried suffering.

Iyana stood, cloaked in calm fury, her violet eyes gleaming like sharpened amethysts under the wavering torchlight. There was no trace of pity in her expression—only a detached, haunting kind of poise that made the air feel colder than it was.

Sienna sat shackled in a steel chair, chains groaning with every tremble of her limbs. Her face, once so smug in courtly halls and whispered schemes, was now twisted in sheer dread. The sight stirred something quiet and visceral in Iyana—satisfaction not born of vengeance, but of long-awaited justice.

"Please," Sienna rasped, voice cracking like old porcelain. "Don't kill me."

But mercy was not on offer.

This was the favor Vyan had asked of her—the one thing he himself couldn't bring himself to do. To eliminate the rot from the root. To remove the puppet master who'd tainted their lives for far too long. He couldn't stand the presence of Sienna anymore, his weakness having grown worse due to withstanding the dark magic for far too long during the Monster Hunt Festival. But Iyana could. And she would make every second count.

For once, she would indulge in cruelty.

From childhood, Sienna had slithered in the shadows of Iyana's light, always reaching, always resenting, trying to dim her brilliance with petty ploys and bitter schemes. But Iyana had never let her. She had built a wall of fear around herself—a fortress of strength and silence that Sienna never dared to breach.

Until she did.

Until she struck the one soul Iyana held above all—Vyan.

All of her actions were cowardly. First, a failed seduction. Second, torturing him through Lyon. Then, a more vile trick—framing him for a crime he never committed, setting a noose of lies around his neck and nearly sending him to his death.

But like always, Iyana protected him. She set him free from the cell, despite not believing in his innocence. Because she had no regard for it. Vyan could be the most wanted criminal in the empire, and Iyana would still always set him free.

However, the moment that Iyana learned that Vyan was innocent, that he was possessed by Sienna to commit the crime, that she painted Iyana as the villain in Vyan's eyes—that was the moment Iyana ceased to see her as a petty nonsense.

She became a disease.

And now, the cure was here.

Iyana stepped closer, the hem of her coat whispering against the stone floor. Her gaze never wavered. With each flicker of torchlight, memories came rushing in—of Vyan's bruised face, his bloodstained body, the fury in his wine-red eyes when he thought the world—especially Iyana—had turned on him.

Every humiliation. Every drop of blood. Every sleepless night he spent rebuilding himself.

Iyana would return them all to Sienna—tenfold. Not in rage. But in the silence of intent. With hands steady, eyes merciless, heart resolute.

She never cared for torture. Never found pleasure in prolonged pain.

But this wasn't about pleasure.

It was about balance.

And Sienna—

She deserved this.

The first scream pierced the dungeon like a blade through fog.

It echoed, rebounded, and fractured against the walls—raw, guttural, utterly human. Sienna thrashed in the steel restraints, her wrists bleeding against cuffs, her breath shallow and wet with sobs.

Iyana didn't flinch. She didn't blink.

Her violet eyes remained locked on her target, her lips set in a line of cold finality.

The tools had been laid out—nothing crude, nothing unnecessarily messy. She had learned from Vyan that control was power, and that pain, when delivered right, didn't need chaos to be terrifying. It only needed intention.

A branding iron hissed in a corner fire, glowing the color of molten revenge.

"Let's start the payback, alright?" Iyana had said softly, as if beginning a bedtime story.

She pressed the iron into flesh, and the second scream ripped free—shattering, primal. The scent of scorched skin curled into the air, acrid and alive. Veins bulged in her victim's temples, eyes rolling as her body convulsed in the chair. But Iyana continued, slow and methodical. She was not looking for answers. There were none she wanted.

This was about punishment.

Blades traced nerves with surgical delight. Salt ground into wounds. Bones cracked under focused pressure. Iyana's hands moved like a composer's—each instrument calibrated to provoke the perfect crescendo of agony.

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Sienna begged.

She howled.

She cursed Iyana's name and then screamed apologies when the pain returned.

But Iyana never spoke again—not after the first word. She only watched.

Even though she initially thought it was for Vyan, his reparation, a justice for him. A small—no, a big part of her wanted revenge for herself.

For stealing away her family. For turning her own brother and father against her. For making her the outsider in her own home. For every wrong against her.

As her mind delved deeper into all the loneliness she went through, all the times cried alone and mended her broken heart to become the current her—the torture got more visceral and ruthless.

Seeing the blood splatter and cover the floor more and more, her apathetic eyes shined with a psychotic satisfaction.

Maybe it was about pleasure, after all.

By the time her captive's body sagged forward, twitching and drenched in blood, the dungeon was soaked in the perfume of death. Iyana crouched down, brushing aside blood-matted hair to look into her fading eyes.

There was no final plea. No whisper of redemption. Only a rattling breath…

And then—stillness.

Iyana stood up, wiping her hands on a cloth already crimson. She stared at the corpse for a long time. A bitter sense of closure rising—and yet something felt… off.

Then, it happened.

A subtle shimmer beneath the bloodied surface of the face. A twitch. A flicker of magic. And then, like a curtain being pulled back, the features began to shift.

The cheekbones softened. The shape of the jaw morphed. The light brown hair darkened. The curve of the lips, the tilt of the eyes… they all rearranged.

This wasn't Sienna.

It never had been.

This was her clone. A random, unknown girl.

And before she could even react, something burned—a searing light ignited across the clone's forearm, as if carved by an invisible blade. Blood bubbled to the surface in a line of jagged script.

"Did you think it would be that easy to kill me off, dear Sister?"

Iyana staggered back, fury and disbelief crashing through her.