CHAPTER 271: RIDDLE OF SIN

The page reeked of rust and dried roses. The ink had bled through the parchment as if the writer couldn’t stop pressing harder.

I fed them honeyed wine until it burned their throats.

I laid silk blankets over brittle bones and whispered comfort into hollow ears, wishing them mercy.

When they cried, I kissed their tears... but I could not stop.

There was always one more mouth I wanted to show mercy to. One more soul I needed to shelter.

They told me I was beloved. They told me I gave too much.

But why, then, did they scream as they died from the amount of mercy I showered them with?

Why did their eyes beg for endings when I only offered more?

- Lord Alven the Merciful

For a long moment, no one said anything.

Then Luna exhaled.

"Merciful? That’s not mercy; this bloodsucker was a proper lunatic. A lunatic among lunatics..."

The others turned to her. The Storm Valkyrie explained.

"That’s a compulsion. A need to feed something into himself. He wasn’t helping those people; he was feeding off being needed. Every act of ’kindness’ made him hungrier."

She walked slowly, pacing.

"It’s like... he couldn’t bear not being seen as generous, so he kept pushing it further. Mercy doesn’t beg for recognition. This does."

Nyx was catching on. "He gave, but only to keep them close. And when they didn’t need him anymore..."

Aria nodded. "He made them need again. With silk and poison. With sweetness and blades. This is so wrong..."

Kaiden finished it: "Gluttony. A deeper version of it."

This was not the crude kind of gluttony. Not one where one hungered for meat or gold.

This was a hunger for worship. For dependence. For control through giving.

Aria felt conflicted. "But the writing said ’mercy’ a dozen times... How could one person be so twisted as to think this was being merciful?"

"They’re monsters of the night, Aria..." Luna deadpanned.

Bastet gave a thoughtful sound. "The sins in this place wear noble masks. That’s the point. A twisted mercy, a corrupted kindness... all leading back to a deeper rot."

Kaiden touched the journal again.

"Let’s get going. We need more pieces to know if our understanding is correct."

...

The group moved deeper into the wing, no longer trudging but hunting. Bastet’s nose twitched like a bloodhound tracking sin itself, and Aria’s eyes never left the corpses. One journal after another was torn free from twisted ribcages, slit from bellies, or dislodged from shattered skulls. The deeper they went, the clearer the pattern became:

Every noble had a mask. A virtue, a performance.

But beneath it, rot.

Kaiden skimmed each entry with his fingertips, sensing the weight behind every gilded word. It was as if his Paragon of Sin class, or perhaps the Demonic Pornstar System, was speaking to him. He gained insight into the journal entries that were on the brink of being logical fallacies based on a lack of information, but somehow, he felt he was right.

One journal from "Lady Seris of Honor" recounted the brutal executions of countless guests, justified as acts to preserve dignity. But Kaiden saw the truth in the venomous edge of her words. It wasn’t to preserve honor. It was out of nothing but poisonous pride. Pride that demanded blood to defend her name.

Another claimed to belong to "Brother Varn of Charity," who spoke of uplifting the poor by turning them into "eternal companions." Kaiden felt the oily smear behind each word. Lust, not charity. A hunger for beauty. A need to possess and preserve it, no matter their will.

They moved fast. Bastet would gag dramatically with each sniff, wincing as if she’d swallowed bile. Aria read quickly. Luna used some knowledge gained from playing many Fantasy RPGs. Nyx kept watch for any movement, but also began catching on, sometimes pointing out details the others had skimmed over.

By the time they reached the last of the journals, a slim one clutched in the hands of a shriveled vampire matron fused into the wall, Kaiden had identified three repeating patterns.

Gluttony, Pride, Lust.

Three sins disguised as mercy, honor, and charity.

As Kaiden tucked the last journal away into the bag on his back, something changed.

It was subtle at first. A change in pressure. A quiet hum beneath the floor, as though the dungeon itself had exhaled.

Then the corridor behind them, where they’d just come from, warped.

Stone and shadow twisted unnaturally, curving inward. The blood-touched bricks folded into themselves with a wet sound, and before anyone could speak, the passageway ahead began to do the same.

The walls shimmered, dissolved, and reformed.

When the haze lifted... they stood somewhere else entirely.

They all had an immense feeling of déjà vu.

Kaiden had to blink many times to ascertain his eyes weren’t deceiving him. For a moment, he thought he was back at the forked chamber because this was the exact same room.

The same grand, silent piano stood before them.

The seven ornate mirrors encircled it, casting no reflections, only distortions.

Except this time, they weren’t alone.

Each mirror now flickered faintly with images... half-formed reflections that stared back at them. Shadows wearing their faces. More defined than before. More... aware.

"This is..." Nyx began.

"The same room," Aria said softly. "The one where we split up."

Kaiden began moving, approaching the piano. His brow furrowed. "No... not exactly. This one’s newer. Or... more complete."

He examined the items for a bit before ascertaining his thoughts. "The other was just a placeholder. Maybe to give us hints."

"And now that we’ve named them," Bastet growled, "we’ve been brought to the real place to prove it."

Kaiden’s eyes narrowed at the piano.

There were no strings inside. No mechanisms.

Only pulsing crimson glyphs embedded along the edges, mirroring the same energy that bled off the journals they’d collected.

"Let’s finish this challenge."

He pressed a key.

Nothing.

"It was the same when Vaelira tried."

Luna was already crouched to the side, tapping her knuckles against the sides, scanning the structure. "There’s gotta be a trick to it. Maybe a pressure plate or a sequence? Hidden mechanism?"

Nyx leaned against a nearby pillar. "I doubt it’s mechanical. This place is way too magical for gears and traps to be the solution. Do you really think an ancient vampire and his stupid challenge would look for engineers as worthy successors?"

"..." Luna had to admit she had a point.

Then something changed.

A note was played.

The group all turned at once.

Kaiden had his eyes closed in utter concentration.

One hand hovered over the piano’s strange surface. And this time, as his palm drifted over the keys, the glyphs beneath his fingers shifted.

A ripple of red runes spiraled outward with each key touched. They didn’t stay the same. Each glyph morphed constantly, reforming into different vampiric sigils in pulsing rhythm. And yet...

He played, pressing note after note.

The melody was strange. Wounded. Sensual. Yearning. It rang with something ancient, part dirge, part desire, part triumph. The keys responded to him. Perhaps not to touch, but to intent.

Bastet was stunned. "What’s happening?"

Kaiden exhaled slowly, not stopping for a single second. "The journals were a pattern. Lust. Gluttony. Pride. Those were the sins hiding underneath the noble lies."

He pressed another key, one that now pulsed with a curved, spiraling glyph.