"Found You."

Inside the secret chamber, screams rose and fell without end.

The elderly man possessed by a demon—or rather, the shell that had once belonged to him—slowly raised a twisted, deformed arm.

Ghostly blue flames flowed from its fingertips, winding around the bodies of the nearest nobles like living creatures.

The flames had no tangible heat, yet the victims let out heart-rending howls. Their skin shriveled and charred in the blue fire, eventually turning into ash-gray dust that drifted away.

The survivors untouched by the flames suffered another kind of extreme agony.

The temperature inside the chamber plummeted below freezing. Their breath condensed into frost, and a thin layer of ice rapidly covered their skin.

A fat noble watched in horror as his fingers turned blue and necrotic, his joints making faint cracking sounds as they froze.

"The... the window!"

A young noble who had long since been turned by the Investigation Department and abandoned the darkness for the light suddenly shouted.

His gaze fixed on the small stained-glass window high above the chamber. It seemed to be the only remaining exit from the room—and their only chance at survival.

Without hesitation, he grabbed a heavy statue nearby and hurled it at the window with all his strength.

With a crisp crash, shards of colored glass rained down.

Using the display shelves as precarious steps, the young noble scrambled toward the opening on all fours.

Glass shards sliced his palms bloody, but he felt no pain at all. His terror had pushed his body to the absolute limit of its survival instincts.

When he clumsily climbed out the window and rolled onto the manor lawn, the sight before him plunged him into an icy abyss.

The entire manor had become a living hell.

The servants' bodies twisted in grotesque poses. Some