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Soon, the piercing screams of a woman filled the house, reverberating off the frozen walls like a hymn of suffering.

Arion dragged her from the room, her nails raking against the floor in a desperate attempt to resist. It was useless.

He reached the balcony and, with effortless brutality, hurled her over the edge.

She plummeted. A sickening crunch echoed through the hall as her body collided with the spiked ice floor below.

The jagged shards punctured her flesh, embedding deep into muscle and bone, and a fresh bloom of crimson spread across the cold white ground.

Her once-opulent golden robe was nothing but torn rags now, clinging to her trembling frame.

I watched her closely, noting the sluggishness of her healing. A weak nocturnal. Pathetic.

Lucian emerged from another room, dragging a young girl by the wrist. Her cries were shrill, her tiny bare feet scraping helplessly across the marble, leaving faint trails of blood where the ice bit into her skin.

She clawed desperately at the frost that bound her hands, her small sobs lost beneath the howling of the wind seeping through the broken windows.

Below, the woman struggled to rise. Realization dawned in her tear-streaked eyes, her breath coming in wet gasps as she grasped what was impaling her.

With a grotesque, slurping sound, the ice spikes slid free of her body, leaving glistening, gaping wounds.

She wavered on unsteady legs, one side of her fat, bruised ass marred by a deep puncture wound.

The remnants of her robe slipped away, leaving her completely exposed, her sagging, bloodied flesh quivering as she shivered in pain and humiliation.

Lucian dragged the girl to the balcony’s edge. The child’s gaze dropped to the carnage below—to her mother, to the twisted, lifeless remains of her father. Recognition dawned, and her terror reached a fever pitch. She thrashed violently, her shrieks morphing into primal, ear-splitting wails.

Gunnar bellowed from below, his voice thick with fury.

"You cannot do this!"

Lucian ignored him and released the girl.

She fell. Her small, Unawakened, fragile body barely missed the spikes, but the impact alone was enough to shatter her breath from her lungs.

She lay sprawled on the icy ground, limbs twitching in agony, too weak to stand, her pain-racked sobs filling the room like the wails of a dying animal.

"I am an elder! Only the council shall decide my punishment!" Gunnar roared, his voice cracking with desperation.

I stepped forward, leaving him to his pathetic cries, my focus settling on the naked woman before me.

"What is your name?" I asked, my voice as cold as the ice beneath us.

"Ye... Yele," she stammered, choking on fear.

I sneered. "What does it matter?"

I reached out, trailing my fingers across her trembling body.

"You truly are gifted," I murmured, cupping her heavy, heaving breasts. She flinched violently at my touch, her breath hitching as my fingers closed around her thick, darkened nipples.

At first, my pull was almost gentle—teasing, deliberate. Then, without warning, I yanked. Hard.

She shrieked. A choked, gurgling sound of sheer agony ripped from her throat as the flesh stretched, stretched—until with a grotesque rip, one of her nipples tore clean from her breast. Blood spurted, warm and thick, painting her trembling torso in deep crimson.

She collapsed to her knees, clutching at the raw, gaping wound, her fingers slipping in the mess of torn flesh and slick red.

I held up the severed pink bud, studying it with mild interest before letting it drop with a wet plop onto the frozen floor.

"What a loss," I sighed, shaking my head. "You don’t excite me at all."

Silver chains, woven from pure essence, slithered down from the ceiling like living tendrils. They coiled around her wrists, binding her, lifting her—higher, higher—until she hung suspended in the center of the room, her body wracked with sobs.

Beside her, the young girl dangled in the same way, her tiny frame convulsing in terror.

Lucian and Arion worked efficiently, dragging more bodies into the open—the butler, the maids, the workers who had foolishly thought hiding would spare them. One by one, they were thrown below, their terrified cries blending into a cacophony of despair.

Soon, the living room resembled a slaughterhouse, bodies strung up like butchered swine, their screams and pleas harmonizing into a symphony of suffering.

I turned my gaze back to Gunnar, who still trembled in his futile defiance.

"What were you saying?" I asked, stepping forward.

"Elder. Council of Elders. This is the problem."

I grabbed his hair, yanking his head back, forcing his fear-streaked face to meet my eyes.

"You people have grown too comfortable with leniency." I whispered, savoring his despair.

I leaned in.

"This is House Aestherisin."

My voice sharpened, slicing through the air like a blade.

"I AM CAELAN AESTHERISIN."

My voice roared through the halls, drowning out the screams.

"WHO WILL STOP ME?"

For a moment—just a moment—there was silence.

Then the screams intensified, as if the very walls themselves wept with their suffering.

Gunnar’s breath hitched. His face twisted, his lips quivering. "Why are you doing this?" he rasped. "What do you want?"

I grinned. "There. That is where you’re mistaken."

I turned swiftly, my voice laced with cruel amusement.

"I don’t need anything from you." My gaze flicked to the trembling figures strung from the ceiling. "I could have ignored your corruption. I am no saint."

I raised a hand. One of the silver chains pulled taut—then snapped.

The maid hanging from it barely had time to register the reality before her body stretched grotesquely—limbs wrenching apart, tendons snapping, muscle splitting—until with a horrific tear, she was ripped in half, her screams turning to wet gurgles.

A thick, meaty thudechoed as her heart and entrails splattered onto the ice below

The others watched, wide-eyed, shrieking, sobbing, knowing this was their fate.

"I only need one thing from you," I whispered, leaning close to Gunnar’s ear.

Hope flickered in his eyes.

I crushed it.

"Be an example."

Another body split apart. The tearing of flesh. The sickening snap of bone. The rising crescendo of terror.

And at last, he broke.

"You forced my hand!" Gunnar sobbed, but it was not surrender in his voice—it was something else.

A golden flicker ignited in his eyes. His muscles bulged, grotesquely engorged, veins writhing beneath his skin, glowing like molten gold.

The chains binding him snapped.

"A Damned," Lucian murmured, appearing beside me, his tone laced with both intrigue and caution.

I tilted my head, a smirk playing on my lips.

"What a surprise."