The two girls whom Earl Leonardus had toyed with all night were not unwilling to move. Their joints had gone stiff, leaving them unable to move at all.
This was another ability of a Wraith's Ice Control, which could make a target's entire body stiffen.
It was only moderately effective against targets of the same Sequence, but worked very well against those at Sequence 6 or below.
The two girls could only watch as the earl went from responding calmly to resisting in panic, then flailing his limbs wildly as his face turned purple.
As a Beyonder, however, he could not be suffocated so quickly. He struggled for a long time before slipping into a semiconscious state.
Then Earl Leonardus was thrown to the floor. A knife floating in the air slit open his trousers and cut away his genitals.
"Aah!" Earl Leonardus woke from the excruciating pain and rolled weakly across the floor twice.
The "floating knife" then slit the earl's neck, letting blood spurt out at a steady pace.
In the mirror, the two girls could see that the knife was held by a translucent figure.
The figure tore off a piece of the earl's clothing, dipped it in his blood, and began painting on the wall.
The painting depicted a devil carrying away a man surrounded by women.
Leonardus was still alive. When he saw the painting, he understood and mumbled indistinctly, "You-
"You're-"
Of course he "recognized" the figure. This was the killer behind the Seven Deadly Sins Serial Murder Case.
Unlike before, however, several names were written where the devil's message should have been.
These were all names he had just learned from Belon: the people backing the grain merchants.
The figure in the mirror looked at the weakened Leonardus, gave a sinister grin, and