No one spoke or commented on what Ravian had said; Talia was the only one with any right to respond, yet she did nothing either, merely becoming lost in his words until she stopped paying attention to what was happening in the hall altogether, while her gaze continued moving from one person to another as though she were searching for something specific.
Ravian was pleased with how events had unfolded so far. If he could not search for the Mage directly without revealing that he was doing so, he simply had to make someone else search instead. And who could be better suited to that role than someone desperate to survive?
Aldric finally stepped away from Ravian, leaving him room to speak with Garrick, and Ravian took his place before Garrick as the two of them formed the final pair in the sequence.
"You find this entertaining, don’t you?" Ravian said.
"Yes," Garrick replied without hesitation, smiling. "Let the killer try to get to me—just let him try."
His tone brimmed with confidence.
Ravian simply nodded at his words before calmly walking away.
The sequence was over.
At that very moment, the first toll of the Black Bell rang out over the palace.
Everyone moved away from one another and headed to their rooms without another word. Garrick and Bran remained in the corridor until everyone else had entered their rooms, then separated and returned to their respective doors.
Ravian entered his room, closed the door, then looked at the seal on the copper pipe.
The black wax remained intact.
He did not approach it.
He sat on the edge of the bed and waited patiently, his eyes fixed on the floor as though awaiting something.
Then the second toll rang out.
Only then did Ravian’s eyes narrow as he noticed something about the bell’s sound.
’This...’ Ravian recalled the rules of the game once more.
His eyes widened in horror.
’What I’m thinking can’t possibly be true...’ Ravian told himself, trying to deny the terrifying thought that had occurred to him, but every time he closed his eyes, it returned.
Then his eyes gleamed with the distinctive crimson of his Pride.
’Wonderful, truly wonderful... but you should have worked just a little harder,’ Ravian thought as he waited for the third toll, his mind turning to something else entirely—something more dangerous than anything he had ever considered before, yet if his guess proved correct, winning this game would finally be possible.
Ravian then rose from the bed.
Elsewhere in the palace, the wooden cylinder inside Ravian’s correspondence office slowly turned.
The compartment bearing the symbol of the Black Bell’s third toll moved into alignment with its inner track, and a mirage hand drew the small slip of paper from within. The message traveled through the wall, then descended through a network that used no copper pipes, only separate channels reserved solely for paper.
It passed through the western corridor, rose behind the staircase, then reached Kaiden’s room moments before the third toll.
A narrow slot opened above his desk, and the paper dropped from it onto the wooden surface.
Kaiden stood near his window, silently watching the rooms across the courtyard.
However, when he suddenly heard a suspicious sound inside his room, he instinctively turned toward it.
He saw the paper on the desk and froze, remembering his earlier conversation with Ravian, but he quickly tore his gaze away from the message before his eyes could fall upon anything written on it that might be considered communication.
He knew whom the message had come from.
"That bastard! I trusted him and told him not to send me messages this late, only for him to turn out to be the killer and send me one this late?!" Kaiden cursed Rayan under his breath, and now he had evidence he could easily present to two witnesses before making an accusation.
A triumphant smile spread across Kaiden’s face, and the exhilaration of victory was already beginning to show in his expression.
"I swear I’ll make you regret this, Rayan! Hahahaha!" Kaiden vowed loudly as he laughed.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Then he heard a sudden knocking against the glass and instinctively turned toward the large window of his room that overlooked the courtyard.
There, on the other side of the window, stood a white-haired, red-eyed figure with a terrifying smile on his face, one finger pointing toward a particular spot on the glass.
Kaiden’s eyes widened in horror as he automatically followed the pointing finger and found it.
A red number seven had been written on the window and circled.
The signal they had agreed upon.
Communication.
Kaiden leaped backward in terror, realizing that he had made a mistake.
"No!" Kaiden whispered in horror, as though trapped in a real nightmare and unable to raise his voice.
Then he spun toward the door and ran, throwing it open as he tried to communicate with someone—anyone—before the third toll.
That was when he heard it.
The third toll.
The Black Bell’s third toll rang out before he could take his first step beyond his room.
Kaiden’s eyes widened and his pupils contracted in disbelief as he turned back to look at the cause of all this.
But Ravian was gone, so Kaiden looked toward the door of his room again.
There he was, standing directly before him, drenched by the rain outside and now staring at him from point-blank range, his lips curved into a malicious smile as cold as ice.
"Well done opening the door for me, Kaiden. I needed you to do that so I could retrieve my message, as you know," Ravian said, pointing a finger at Kaiden’s head like a gun.
"Now, goodbye."
Then—
"Boom," Ravian said calmly.
The white light went out.
The purple mirage spread throughout the palace.
The black cloud appeared before Ravian, spreading through both the corridor and Kaiden’s room.
{The second night has begun.}
{Targets that have fulfilled the communication condition: Aldric, Garrick, Kaiden.}
Ravian chose immediately.
{Kaiden.}
The other two names vanished, leaving only Kaiden’s name amid the fog.
{The victim has been locked in.}
The mirage cloud instantly swallowed Kaiden as he stood frozen in place like a statue.
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