The silence that followed the Faceless Man’s declaration, "Let their ritual be drenched in their own blood," was heavy, charged, and utterly unnatural—the moment before a tsunami hits the shore. It was a silence only Ego-Black frequency could achieve, suppressing not just communication but the very air's normal hum.

  Inside the Grand Ballroom, the atmosphere was a toxic mix of eager, anticipatory bloodlust among the mercenaries and rising professional dread among the covert operatives. The hundreds of armed personnel shifted, their specialized tactical gear whispering against the opulent silk and marble.

  Aaron, his face a mask of controlled fury, snapped into his comms. "Unit Seven, report, communications check! Status immediate!"

  Only a deafening, abrasive static answered. The high-pitched noise was almost painful.

  Hana’s voice, tight with disbelief, cut through the white noise. "Comm failure, Aaron. I am reading a massive, layered Ego-Black frequency jam. The entire internal network, every sensor, every defensive grid—it’s all been co-opted. We are blind, deaf, and trapped inside a system designed to kill us."

  Aaron cursed silently, the failure a bitter metallic taste in his mouth. The person who had taken Terry Adams's place was a tactical genius, a phantom who had prepared this prison for weeks.

  He looked across the room, focusing on the figure that had just vacated the viewing room. The Master of the plan—Mr. Craft, leader of the Unwoven. Mr. Craft possessed a deceptively slim build, his true form shrouded beneath a dark suit. He wore the Faceless Mask, an artifact that shimmered with chaotic, memory-altering energy, rendering his identity completely unreadable to anyone reliant on conventional perception.

  The Grand Ballroom doors burst open, releasing the horde. The Lesser Nobles, driven by a savage, annual tradition, sprinted toward the gardens to begin the slaughter of the Offerings (captives). They carried exotic, unnerving weapons—some controlling chaotic energy, others wielding mechanical gear reinforced with low-grade Ego. They were hunters, eager for the first taste of blood.

  The professional fighters—mercenaries, guild hunters, and personal Noble Guards—were focused solely on the Unwoven, viewing the task as a straightforward cleanup for immense profit.

  A massive mercenary, clad in reflective chrome armor, roared, "The Unwoven! Their heads are mine! I claim the bounty on the Skull Mask!" His voice was met by a chorus of competitive shouts and the grating sound of weapons activating. "The spoils go to the fastest!"

  "Get back, grunt! These trophies belong to our Lords!" shouted the Captain of a noble's personal guard, whose right arm was a pulsing, dark red mass of blood-Ego. "We will offer their essence to renew our benefactors!" The guard captain shoved the mercenary aside, his blood-Ego-enhanced arm knocking the professional fighter to the ground. The hunters' egos were inflated, fueled by the promise of eternal youth and lethal confidence.

  A few moments later, the rush turned to disbelief. As they reached the perimeter walls, they saw the source of the gate destruction: a single giant man in a skull mask and a small, gray-haired girl.

  "Only two of them?" a hunter scoffed, disbelief overriding caution. "And we were paid a fortune for this? Their heads are ours!" The arrogance was palpable, a guarantee of their imminent demise.

  The mercenaries charged, firing heavy, specialized weapons designed to penetrate Ego shields and vaporize flesh. The air filled with the deafening scream of ordnance and the immediate, shimmering activation of hundreds of personal defensive barriers.

  Gale: The Unseen Executioner

  High above, Gale drew a slow, deliberate breath, tasting the chaotic energies swirling below. Utilizing his Unwoven Breath, he compressed the atmosphere, channeling the dark, grinding Rend energy into devastating spheres of focused air.

  The spheres streaked down, hitting the dense formations of mercenaries. The sound was not an explosion, but a sudden, violent vacuum—a sound that stole the air, followed by the sickening hiss of metal and flesh being simultaneously ripped apart at the molecular level. The energy created a catastrophic tornado effect, shearing everything within its radius.

  The Ego-rated armor, which could withstand conventional artillery, offered no resistance to the Rend-powered air. One mercenary captain, mid-stride, simply ceased to exist from the waist up, his heavy helmet and upper torso disappearing in a red mist. His two lieutenants were found later, their bodies intact but their internal organs liquefied by the pressure differential, their eyes bulging. Bone and flesh were sliced as cleanly as laser-cut metal, leaving lower halves standing for a horrific moment, still balanced on their feet, before collapsing into a fountain of thick, dark arterial spray. The overwhelming smell of ionized air and freshly cut hemoglobin filled the night, a sensory attack on the survivors.

  Skull and Echo: The Avalanche of Ruin

  At the main gate, Skull Mask moved with terrifying, contradictory speed. His massive body, radiating a thick, angry red warrior aura, was an unstoppable, singular force.

  A squad of Noble Guards formed a tight phalanx, relying on their composite armor. The captain sneered, "Stand firm! Our armor is Ego-rated!"

  Skull didn't swing his sword. He simply rammed the formation. The combined weight of his body and his aura acted like a hydraulic press. There was a wet, thunderous thud followed by the sound of ceramic plating shattering and bones turning to dust. Armor buckled inward, and the guards instantly became formless heaps of crimson jelly and twisted metal. Their final screams were muffled into wet gurgles.

  Echo, the short gray-haired girl, moved through the remnants like a phantom. She dispatched the wounded with surgical, unseen kinetic strikes. The bodies she left behind never twitched; they simply collapsed, their faces wide-eyed in silent disbelief from massive internal trauma.

  The Offerings streamed toward the perimeter, terrified but seeing no other escape. With every death—mercenary, noble, or Offering—the sacrificial energy swelled, thick and chaotic, feeding the Chateau.

  In the security hub, Mr. Craft watched the swelling CDE. "Ah, it's almost time for my harvest," he murmured, the anticipation palpable in the shift of his posture.

  The security room door was violently destroyed by Joan's entrance. Her eyes burned with focused red fury.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "You!" Joan snarled. "You shut down the comms! Are you Smithsen? The Exorcist? The Faceless Man? Are you all the same person?"

  Mr. Craft turned. "And yes, the Exorcist boy, Smithsen? That was me."

  He reached up and gently touched the Faceless Mask. The surface shimmered, and the mask shifted, cycling through familiar, comforting faces from her memory. This was the Mask's power.

  "You were there... all this time?" Joan whispered, realizing the depth of the deception.

  "I've been around everywhere," Mr. Craft said dismissively, his attention shifting to the screens where the nobles were twitching. The CDE transformation was accelerating—skin turning a cracked, dark red, veins pulsing visibly beneath the epidermis. The low growls from the sound system confirmed the shift from human to monster.

  Joan pointed a claw at the screen. "Those deaths! Are these all your doing?"

  "I don't want to take the credit for those deaths. But if you mean this ritual... Are you that dumb or just blind? Which are you?"

  Joan's monstrous claw expanded. She faltered for a moment, but the Empire's doctrine provided a steel casing for her hesitation: "We are told that sacrifices are paramount for others to strive and live a good life! This, above all else, ensures the Empire's peace!"

  "So you chose to be on those who offer the sacrifice. What about those who were made as sacrifice?"

  Joan rushed him, convinced her Black Serum strength guaranteed victory.

  The blow landed, but what she slashed through was an after-image.

  Mr. Craft’s voice materialized behind her. "I'm unsure why you're so intent on attacking me, but I am not known to hold back when threatened."

  Joan spun to attack, but her body moved forward while both of her Black Serum-transformed arms were left motionless on the floor. She hadn't felt the cut, only a sudden, profound, dizzying void where her limbs had been.

  Mr. Craft appeared in front of her, delivering a devastating palm strike powered by his Unwoven Bone. The force of the Unwoven Trait sent her flying through the shattered wall, where she slammed hard into a column, coughing up dark, frothy blood.

  She struggled to stand, the Black Serum trying to heal the impossible. Mr. Craft was instantly before her, grabbing her neck and tossing her high into the air. While airborne, Joan saw her two legs fall to the floor. It was a clean slice, revealing bone and muscle beneath the torn uniform.

  Before she could fall, a mass of dark, organic tentacles whipped out, coiling around her head, mouth, and torso. She was violently yanked toward a central structural column, where the tentacles bound her tightly. Her mouth was gagged, and she was fixed, forced to stare at the central Mirror-Plates.

  "Have a look at those nobles," Mr. Craft said. "They are unaware, now becoming monsters. You are already aware how this Empire works."

  He sighed. "I’m not here to judge. I’m just here to harvest. Don't overthink it. Just enjoy the view." Mr. Craft slowly faded from the room.

  Joan was a tortured torso, bound and broken. The physical agony was immense, a throbbing scream where her limbs should be, but her mind was consumed by the forced vision. The Black Serum in her veins kept her painfully conscious and lucid. She watched the nobles complete their transformation, their mutated bodies shambling, roaring with primal hunger.

  I should have died. Why did he leave me here? Her furious mind cycled through the images. She was meant to witness the monstrous nature of the very people she protected. The shame was a bitter bile in her throat.

  In the secondary viewing room, Locks was finished. The room was no longer a place of social gathering, but a gallery of horror.

  Locks stepped toward the central figure: Henreich Frank.

  "Thanks for inviting us to this party," Locks said softly.

  Henreich screamed and scrambled toward his private exit.

  Locks caught him with a whip of white hair, swinging him high and hard. She slammed his back against his own massive self-portrait oil painting. Then, multiple razor-sharp strands of her hair stabbed him repeatedly, twisting inside his organs. With a final, sickening pull, Locks anchored his impaled, bleeding body to the topmost part of the wall, precisely above the frame of his self-portrait. His blood instantly flowed down the wall and across the painted canvas, staining the white mask in the painting and transforming the portrait into a grotesque, mutilated image.

  Joan watched the screens. Mr. Craft reappeared in a room with a newly-formed noble-demon. He engaged it, killed it brutally, and the demonic energy crystallized—the harvest. She watched him repeat the process, his mask silent, killing the corrupted Empire leaders.

  The monstrous face of Skull Mask and the relentless speed of Echo were burned into her memory. Monsters. You’re the real monsters. The pain, the betrayal, and the sight of her lost limbs fueled a terrifying, psychotic clarity.

  "This isn't over. I will hunt you all down. Every Unwoven, every creature you call an ally—I swear you will be slain! I will be the monster that drags you into the darkness! Hahaha... you'll see!" She laughed, a silent, hysterical, terrifying sound into the gag. Her loyalty remained—not to the people, but to the idea of the Empire, now a dark, singular obsession.

  Then, the Mirror-Plates went blank. All power was shut down. The slaughter was over.

  Hours later, as dawn broke, the first wave of Empire soldiers and forensic investigators swarmed the Chateau Vercingetorix. The air was thick with the chemical stench of death, a metallic, lingering reek of Ego-black discharge and arterial blood.

  The security teams moved slowly, their expressions grim. This was not war; it was an execution.

  The exterior grounds were a horrific mess. An investigator stepped over the mangled remains of a mercenary captain whose torso had been sliced so cleanly in half by Gale's Unwoven Breath that the internal structures were laid bare. Another mercenary lay flattened, compressed into the marble like a grotesque, fleshy relief, a warning etched into the stone. The ground was littered with broken, advanced weaponry, confirming the overwhelming superiority of the attackers.

  Inside the halls, the chaos was absolute.

  A young maid, who had survived by hiding, emerged and was met by the sight of the Grand Ballroom. She didn't scream; her vocal cords seemed to have locked up from shock. She stood motionless, paralyzed, staring at a cluster of high-ranking diplomats who lay stacked in a horrific pile, their faces frozen in silent, final terror.

  In the gardens, the initial stages of the Offering Hunt had also left its mark. Investigators found dozens of bodies of the "sacrifices"—many had been shot or butchered by the lesser nobles before the Unwoven arrived, confirming the Empire's casual cruelty. The red mud was thick with the blood of the innocent and the guilty alike.

  In the service corridors, a grizzled soldier—a veteran of border skirmishes—tripped over a body that had been crushed flat by Skull's power. Farther down, they found a survivor—a bodyguard whose lower body was cleanly absent, still trying to crawl with his remaining arms toward a medic station. His movement was a slow, agonizing drag, leaving a glistening, continuous trail of dark red on the marble. He stopped moving halfway, his eyes fixing on the incoming soldier before glazing over in final surrender, his last act a useless struggle.

  The investigators entered the main viewing room and were paralyzed. The sight of Henreich Frank, the Host, impaled high above his self-portrait, his blood covering his painted face, was a chilling monument to the violence. The message was clear: this was a reckoning.

  Joan was nowhere to be found. The Offerings were gone, spirited away by an unknown third party. The bloody night was over.

  (Back to Joan, just before the investigation arrives)

  A figure materialized directly in front of the column where Joan was tethered. He moved without haste, completely at ease in the abattoir.

  Joan's vision was blurry, her body wracked by shock. The man was emitting a low, private, unsettling giggle, like he was enjoying the most delicious joke. Not him. Not the Unwoven Master.

  The figure leaned in close, his blurred face only registering a wide, predatory smile. His eyes, though indistinct, held a terrible, calculating glee.

  "My name is Leto," he said, his voice soft and intimate in the ruined room. "You're still burning with the conviction of the Empire, aren't you, Agent? Even now, seeing the truth of the sacrifice."

  He leaned in closer, studying her ruined form. "The Black Serum is doing its best, but you are politically, physically, and emotionally finished. You are useless to your masters. But not to me."

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Do you want to have some fun?"